1846 - Marjoribanks, A. Travels in New Zealand - CHAPTER IV

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CHAPTER IV.

The tragical event which happened at Wairoa, on the 17th of June, 1843, by which twenty-two of our countrymen were killed, will form a memorable epoch in the annals of that country; though, from the conflicting statements regarding the cause of that calamity, it is difficult to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion regarding it.

By the settlers in that country, it has been imputed to the combination of a variety of causes. Among these the chief seem to be, first, the delay in the settlement of the land claims on both sides of Cook's Straits; second, the distance of these, (by far the most important in the colony,) from Auckland, the capital and seat of government, situated 350 miles from Port Nicholson, at a remote corner of the North Island, and containing, in conjunction with the Bay of Islands, only one-fourth of the European population now settled in that country; third, the breaking of the treaty concluded between the natives and the New Zealand Company, in 1839; fourth, the circumstance of the natives having been allowed, in some former cases, to attack the settlers with impunity, which gave

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them fresh courage for further resistance; fifth, the conduct of the protectors of the aborigines, who are represented as totally unfit for their office; and lastly, the conduct of the missionaries

The Church of England missionaries are accused of having been all along, from motives of self-interest, hostile to the New Zealand Company. Indeed, one of the most active members of that body, the Rev. W. Williams, went from the Bay of Islands to Port Nicholson, about the latter end of 1839, just two months after Colonel Wakefield, as agent for the Company, had made an arrangement with the natives there, for the cession of their rights on obtaining certain equivalents. To be sure this eminent divine did not succeed in preventing the natives from concluding the treaty, or in obtaining the land which he wished, not indeed for the Church, but for himself; but it is alleged that he was too successful in his attempts at disparaging the Company, and the settlers there, in the eyes of the natives. Mr. Williams, it would appear, paid a visit on that occasion to his amiable friend Rauperaha, who, it will presently be seen, acted a most conspicuous part in the late tragedy. As a further proof of his zeal in the cause of the Gospel, he and ten other missionaries of that enterprizing church, presented, in 1841, to the commissioners appointed by government, claims to no less than 96,219 acres of land, in the districts which they had long occupied in the vicinity of the Bay of islands; and four others subsequently gave in claims to nearly the one-half of the above amount. One of the Church of England missionary catechists, Mr. Fairburn, laid claim to a tract of country near Auckland, extending to about thirty square miles, not a bad estate for a missionary,

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though the commissioners have only awarded him 5000 acres.

The Wesleyan missionaries are accused, on the other hand, of having urged the natives to get more payment (utu) for their land, and of having furnished them with a considerable quantity of gunpowder. All their interests moreover, are said to be identified with those of the natives, having none in common with the settlers; and, whilst the sincere members of that body are represented as dreading the approach of civilization, lest it should be accompanied by the views of old societies, the insincere, on the contrary, are said to tremble for the existence of their spiritual dominion or temporal advantages.

Whatever truth there may be in these allegations, it cannot be denied, that little more than two years before the late fatal catastrophe, a single missionary of that society, the Rev. Samuel Ironsides, passed over the straits to Cloudy Bay, and gathered around him 500 natives; and it is recorded in the 62d No. of the Wesleyan Missionary Notices for February, 1844, (page 454,) "that none of these Christian natives engaged in the fight at Wairoa; but Raurri Kingi Puaha, the principal chief of the station, went up to the excited English magistrate, when pointing in a threatening attitude to his armed attendants, and with his New Testament open, said to him, 'Don't fight, don't fight, this book says it is wrong to fight; the land has become good through the missionaries, don't make it bad again.'" Colonel Wakefield also states, in one of his despatches to the Secretary of the Company in London, "that when the conflict terminated, this same christian chief Puaha exerted himself to save the lives of the white prisoners, but unhappily

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ill vain." A more striking testimony than this cannot well be paid to the effects of Christianity, though, unfortunately, it is but too rare.

An accurate account of this horrible massacre, originally drawn up by Mr. Domett, a member of the English bar, settled at Nelson, appears in the Supplement to the New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator, published at Port Nicholson, on 2d September, 1843, of which I procured a copy.

The two chiefs who took the most prominent part in the massacre about to be related, were Rauperaha and Rangihaiata; the former one of the most influential, the latter one of the most ferocious of the chiefs of New Zealand, and called by Colonel Wakefield, Rauperaha's fighting general. Rauperaha is about sixty-five years of age, with Jewish features, an aquiline nose, and a cunning physiognomy; and both he and Rangihaiata are said to be addicted to drink. They both signed the treaty of Waitangi, by which their sovereign rights were surrendered to the Queen of Great Britain. Their tribe has resided latterly at Porirua and the neighbourhood, about fourteen miles north-west of Wellington. There they had, till of late, resisted all attempts of the settlers to occupy the land professed to have been purchased of the natives by the New Zealand Company, and had occasionally made aggressions upon the settlers on the Hutt, and driven them from their clearings.

The history of Rauperaha, who occasionally styles himself King of New Zealand, is perhaps the most eventful of any of the existing New Zealand chiefs. Driven, along with his numerous and powerful tribe, from his native district, Kafia, by the Waikato and Bay of Islands hosts, he seized, in his turn, upon all

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the land on both sides of Cook's Straits, having come from Kafia as the fighting general of Tu-pahi; who having been killed at Otago by Tairoa, and the southern tribes, Rauperaha became chief of the tribe after this event. Tu-pahi was killed in a very cruel way, his enemies having tied him up by the heels to a tree, cut his throat, and then sucked his blood.

In order to revenge his death, Rauperaha engaged with the master of an English vessel, named Stewart, to carry him and 300 of his tribe, from Entry Island, Cook's Straits, to Otago, (though Mr. Montefiore says, in his evidence before the House of Lords, that it was to Bank's Peninsula,) under pretence of a trading voyage. When they anchored, the captain put all the men below, so as to make it appear that there were no men on board at all, on which a number of the natives from the shore came off in their canoes, who were mostly all seized; and at midnight, Rauperaha and his men landed, commenced battle, killed about fifty, and seized the great chief Mara Nui, who had killed Ecou's father twenty years before. Rauperaha and his tribe, after laying waste the settlement, and killing every man, woman, and child that came in their way, returned to Entry Island, carrying along with them the old chief, whom they made fast in the cabin by means of irons fastened round his legs, which, when removed, his legs were found to be in a state of mortification. He was despatched on landing at Entry Island, and his heart was cut into several pieces, to be sent as presents to the different tribes in alliance with Rauperaha. The Captain was tried at Sydney for murder, but was acquitted, and was soon afterwards washed overboard, near the Cape of Good Hope. It is said that one of the ship's cop-

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pers was made use of for cooking the bodies of those they had killed at Otago, so that Rauperaha and his tribe, on the the voyage back, had always a supply of fresh provisions, a thing much prized at sea.

Though, however, Rauperaha has been celebrated through life for his unscrupulous treachery, he possesses some points of character worthy of a chief amongst savages, being full of resources in cases of emergency, hardy in his enterprizes, and indefatigable in the execution of them.

In addition to the lands claimed by them and their tribes in the Northern Island, they laid claim also to a portion of the Southern Island, extending inward from Cloudy Bay, and including the Wairoa Plains, so called from a large river of that name which runs through them, admitting the passage of good sized vessels, sixty or seventy miles up its stream. This river disembogues into that bay, about eighty miles from Nelson coastwise. The two chiefs had all along threatened to prevent the occupation of these plains, and Mr. Spain, one of the Land Commissioners of claims, agreed, in order to pacify them, when they attended a court which he held at Porirua, to meet them at Wairoa, as soon after the adjournment of his court, on the 18th of June, 1843, as possible.

Rauperaha laid claim to those plains by right of conquest, he and his tribe having conquered the Rhangatani and Nga-haituo tribes, about fifteen years ago. From the number of deserted pahs in that district, these tribes must, at one time, have been very numerous, so that great slaughter must have been committed. Indeed they were nearly extirpated, the few who escaped having fled to the bush, where they have since remained. The Wairoa Plains or Valley com-

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prise about 100,000 acres of level land, five or six hundred of which are covered with wood, and the remainder with fern, grass, or bulrush, though there are few traces of cultivation in any part of them.

In the meantime, the surveying party of the New Zealand Company had been employed during the whole month of May surveying these disputed grounds at Wairoa, meeting occasionally with some little interruption from a number of natives who had collected at the spot from different parts of Cook's Straits. Rauperaha and Rangihaiata, having heard of these surveys, resolved to put a stop to them; and an Englishman of the name of Thoms, undertook to convey them from Porirua and Mana, a small island in Cook's Straits, three miles in circumference, where they were residing, and land them in his schooner at Port Underwood, in Cloudy Bay, in the vicinity of the Wairoa plains. Thoms appears to have taken the part of the natives on this occasion from selfish motives, as he laid claim to some land at the Wairoa, and elsewhere, in right of a native woman with whom he had formerly cohabited, the daughter of Nohoroa, the brother of Rauperaha, by whom he has several children; and he was heard to say, when conveying the natives to the scene of action, "That his land was all right; that he should get it now." Thoms, after the death of his Maori wife, married a white woman belonging to Sydney. After Thoms had landed the chiefs with their tribes in his schooner, on 1st June, at Port Underwood; having the previous evening entertained them at a feast on board of his vessel, at which they all got drunk; they immediately embarked in eight canoes, and sailed a short distance up the Wairoa river, where they landed. They visited Mr. Cave, and other set-

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tiers, some of whom had resided in that place many-years, and declared their determination to burn down the surveyors' houses, and drive them off the land. Mr Cave himself had resided there for six or seven years, and had been always on friendly terms with Rauperaha and Rangihaiata; a knife and fork being always placed at his table for them when they visited Cloudy Bay. They began to put their threats into effect by burning down the house of Mr. Cotterell, having first removed his goods, which they restored to him; they then, in a similar manner, destroyed Mr. Parkinson's house, and compelled all the surveyors to remove to the mouth of the river. Mr. Cotterell was then dispatched by Mr Tuckett to Nelson, to inform Captain Wakefield. An information was then laid before the Police Magistrate, Mr. Thompson, who granted a warrant against Rauperaha and Rangihaiata on a charge of arson. Having been informed that the natives were armed, and in great numbers, the magistrate determined to attend the execution of the warrant himself, accompanied by an armed force, and expressed his opinion that such a demonstration would prevent bloodshed, and impress the natives with the authority of the law. Accordingly, accompanied by Captains Wakefield and England, and several other gentlemen who had volunteered their services, and about forty constables and working men, chiefly belonging to the surveying department, the whole number amounting to forty-nine, (thirty-five of whom were armed with muskets, or fowling-pieces, and the rest with pocket pistols,) he landed in a government brig, on the 16th of June, at the mouth of the Wairoa. On the following morning they came up to the natives, who had moved four miles up the river, and consisted of

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eighty or ninety men, forty of whom were armed with muskets, and the rest with tomahawks, besides women and children. They were encamped on a small open space of cleared ground, backed by a dense wood, and on the right bank of a deep unfordable rivulet, about thirty feet wide, which flows into the Wairoa on its left bank. The white men halted on the left bank, with a hill behind them covered with fern, and sloping upwards with several brows or terraces. Mr. Thompson, Captain Wakefield, Mr. Richardson, Mr. Howard, Mr. Brooks, the interpreter, and three constables, having crossed the creek by means of a canoe, which had been laid across it with consent of the natives, Mr. Thompson explained through the interpreter the object of his visit, and called on Rauperaha to go with him on board the brig, which the latter positively refused to do; though he declared he did not wish to fight, but expected the arrival of Mr. Spain and Mr. Clarke, and would have a talk when they came. Rauperaha added that though he did not wish to fight, yet, if the white people fought, he would fight too. He also requested to have the matter decided on the spot, and professed his readiness to make the compensation to Mr. Cotterell required by the magistrates, provided their decision pleased him. Mr. Thompson replied that the case must be heard on board of the government brig, and insisted on Rauperaha accompanying him; who, on still refusing to go, Mr. Thompson, in a state of great excitement, declared he would compel him; and pointing to bis armed men, threatened that he and his party should be fired upon. Sixteen natives immediately sprang to their feet and presented fire-arms. The English party on the other side of the rivulet were then ordered to advance, and in cross-

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ing the stream one of them stumbled, and his piece having accidentally gone off, in a moment afterwards a volley from both parties ensued. The first few shots from the Europeans killed two natives, and wounded three. Then the natives fired and killed three. Then the British fired and killed a woman. The rest wavered, and were on the point of falling back, when Captain Wakefield having called upon his men to retire up the hill and form on the brow, Rauperaha, seeing the retreat, excited his men, who, raising a war-cry, darted across the stream. The party of armed workmen, totally unacquainted with the use of firearms and discipline, dispersed at the yells which the natives made, as they darted across the creek, and heedless of the orders of their superiors, fled round the hill and escaped.

The most strenuous efforts were made by Captain Wakefield, Captain England, and Mr. Howard, to induce their party to act in concert, but altogether without effect. Captain Wakefield therefore, in order to prevent a further sacrifice of life, ordered the firing to cease, and Captain England and Mr. Howard advanced towards the Maories with a white handkerchief, in token of peace. Those in advance of the retreating party, however, kept up a running fire, which was returned by the Natives on the whole party indiscriminately. Captain Wakefield and the gentlemen about him were therefore compelled to proceed further up the hill, in order, if possible, to put an end to the conflict. Mr. Cotterell, after accompanying them a short distance, stopped, and, in the hope of assuring the natives of the sincerity of his party, waited their coming up and surrendered himself; and his example was followed, on the next eminence, by Captain

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Wakefield, Captain England, Mr. Thompson, Mr. Richardson, Mr. Howard, Brooks, Cropper, and M'Gregor. Puaha again endeavoured to become a peace-maker, and urged on his countrymen that enough blood had been shed. This was acceded to by Rauperaha, and the two parties shook hands. They were soon joined by Rhangihaiata, who, having already killed the wounded on his way, demanded the lives of the nine who had surrendered. To this Rauperaha at first objected, but, on being informed that his daughter (Rangihaiata's wife) was killed, he offered no further opposition. As no resistance appears to have been made by our unfortunate friends, it is probable that they were, through their ignorance of the native language, quite unconscious of the horrible fate that awaited them. Standing in the midst of a large number of Maories, they were easily separated, and whilst in this defenceless situation, perhaps without even a thought of treachery, the monster Rangihaiata silently glided round, getting behind each singly, and, with his tomahawk, brained them all in succession, in spite of the intercession of some of the women, who cried to him to "save some of the rangatiras, (gentlemen,) if only to say they had saved some." They seem to have met their fate with wonderful magnanimity, as George Bampton, who lay concealed in a fern bush not many yards off, deponed, "that he heard neither cries nor screamings, but merely the sound of a beating or chopping, which he supposed at the time to be the natives tomahawking the white people."

Rauperaha, in the speech which he delivered before Governor Fitzroy, on 12th February, 1844, says that Thompson asked him to save their lives, to which he replied, "Did I not warn you how it would be? and

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yet you now ask me to save you." He then adds that, "it was according to their custom, after a fight, to kill the chief men of their enemies."

The bodies, when discovered a few days afterwards by a party who went from Port Nicholson to the field of battle, were found, in general, but little mutilated; but the skulls of all had been cleft with tomahawks, and generally disfigured with repeated blows, struck with such ferocity that every one must have been more than sufficient to have produced instant death. Brooks, the interpreter, in particular, was dreadfully mangled.

Such is the account given by the British settlers in that country of this horrible catastrophe. The natives' tale is as follows: "That they had never sold the lands, --it is their own land; and that when they saw the flags erected, supposed that their land was taken from them; they therefore pulled them down, in order that the Europeans might understand thereby they had not sold their lands, or promised to do so. In their estimation it was presumption on the part of the surveyors to erect houses, to cut lines on lands that did not belong to them, and they considered they had a perfect right to do as they pleased with what was growing or standing on their own lands. The surveyors would not listen to their remonstrances, and therefore they burnt the hut. They had no intention to fight, nor had they a thought that way; -- it was the sight of the guns, the firing of the Europeans, and the falling of their friends that aroused them; and call every body to witness that it was the Europeans who commenced, by killing three natives, and they returned the fire, and the struggle began."

The above document is said to have been drawn up

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in the native language, by the chief protector of the aborigines, and the statement contained in it is considered by the settlers erroneous in one or two particulars, though it appears to me substantially correct. The acting Governor issued the following proclamation on the 12th day of July, 1843: --

"Whereas, it is essential to the well-being of this colony, that confidence and good feeling should continue to exist between the two races of its inhabitants, and that the native owners of the soil should have no reason to doubt the good faith of her Majesty's solemn assurance, that their territorial rights would be recognized and respected. Now, therefore, I, the officer administering the government, do hereby publicly warn all persons claiming land in this colony, in all cases where the claim is denied or disputed by the original native owners, from exercising acts of ownership thereon, or otherwise prejudicing the question of title to the same, until the question of ownership shall have been heard and determined by one of her Majesty's Commissioners appointed to investigate claims to land in New Zealand."

This proclamation, gave great offence to the settlers, who in their leading journal, publicly avowed, "that if it had been the desire of its framer to hound a troop of excited savages upon a peaceable and scattered agricultural population, to destroy the remains of friendly feeling existing between the two races, to imbue in blood the hands of both, and lead to the extermination of one or the other; such a proclamation might have served his purpose." The proclamation, however, does not appear to me to warrant so harsh a censure.

Such are the leading facts of this case, on which

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the enlightened inhabitants of Great Britain are called upon to form a deliberate and unprejudiced opinion. In doing so, they have the advantage of being far removed from the scene of action, and from all those exciting emotions, which it is easy to suppose must have been felt by those on the spot, who having wandered far from their native country, found themselves so unexpectedly exposed to all the difficulties and dangers of a distant and a savage land.

And although, in taking a calm and impartial view of this most distressing scene, we must ever hold up to public execration the conduct of Rangihaiata, in murdering so many of our countrymen in cold blood, yet, apart from this act, the conduct of the natives, does not appear altogether such as to call forth so severe denunciations as have been so lavishly poured forth upon them by nearly the whole of the settlers in that remote country, with the exception of the government authorities, the missionaries, and the protectors of the aborigines.

The latter, in particular, seem to have been exposed rather to unmerited obloquy. Called upon by the nature of their office to protect the aborigines, it is quite natural to suppose, that their feelings would soon come to be identified with those of their proteges, and that they would look upon them as a lawyer looks upon his client, namely, as one whom he was bound to protect whether right or wrong, and at all hazards. Were they to act otherwise, it would be considered a dereliction of duty on their part, a duty moreover, which they have not only undertaken, but for which they are paid, and England expects every man to do his duty. If blame rests any where, therefore, it must

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be imputed not to them, but to those who appointed them.

The inhabitants at Port Nicholson seem, however, to take a different view of the subject, and state, in their petition to the Queen, forwarded shortly after the late fatal catastrophe, "That the annual expense of the protectorship of the aborigines is about £3000 a-year, while not one penny is expended in protecting the settlers against the natives. That your petitioners believe that not one instance can be adduced of any aggression committed by settlers in Cook's Straits upon a native. That the Protector and Sub-protectors are persons totally unfit for the offices they fill, and that instead of having contributed to the mutual harmony of the two races, they have exercised an influence over the natives, which, we believe, to have led in a great degree to the hostile state of feeling now existing, and the late unhappy event."

Protectors indeed, in general seem to be a most unpopular set of men with the settlers in every country where they have been appointed. Mr. Westgarth, commission merchant at Melbourne, Port Philip, in the able pamphlet which he published in 1844, on the Australian colonies, which was politely handed to me by Messrs. Thomson & Forman of Leith, says, in alluding to the protectors in that country, "the system of the protectorate is perhaps on the whole worse than useless. The protectors of the blacks have always been an annoyance to the settlers, and a serious expense to the colony."

Mr. Hodkinson also, in his late work on Australia, says, (page 241,) "the districts near Port Philip, where the blacks have committed the most serious outrages,

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are the very ones in which the salaried protectors of aborigines have resided. I do not know in what the duties of the protectors consist; but no good has been derived from their appointment, as the natives in that part of Australia have been more audacious in their attacks on distant sheep stations than in any other districts."

Notwithstanding, however, the unfortunate unpopularity of these protectors, and the doubts so universally entertained of their utility, it must be admitted, by all candid persons, that it was from the most laudable and benevolent motives that protectors to the aborigines of New Zealand were appointed by Lord John Russell, when colonial secretary. In the lengthened and important instructions transmitted by his Lordship to Governor Hobson, dated 9th December, 1840, and published in the documents appended to the 12th Report of the Directors of the New Zealand Company, he says, "to rescue the natives of New Zealand from the calamities of which the approach of civilized man to barbarous tribes has hitherto been the almost universal herald, is a duty too sacred and important to be neglected, whatever may be the discouragements under which it may be undertaken."

Though Mr. Clarke, the chief protector, and the sub-protectors of the aborigines, are held in no great repute by the settlers in that country, yet they seem to have had the approbation both of the late and the present governor. Governor Hobson, in his despatch to Lord Stanley, dated 15th December, 1841, after stating that Mr. Clarke acts most conscientiously, both towards the government and the natives, says, in reference to an increase to his salary, then £400 per annum, "I know his duties are most severe, and his assiduity is most

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persevering, often undertaking a journey of 200 miles, every foot of which he is obliged to walk. If, under these circumstances, your lordship will raise his salary to that of the protector at New South Wales, I think your beneficence will be deservedly applied." It would appear, from this, that chief protector Clarke had studied his profession very carefully in all its branches, as, amidst all the protection which he affords to the natives, he seems not to have lost sight of that more important duty, namely, protecting himself. And at a meeting of the Legislative Council at Auckland, on 18th May, 1844, Governor Fitzroy said, "that without the valuable aid given him by the protectors of the aborigines, he would not undertake to carry on the government of the colony." Among the various acts of service which they had rendered, he mentioned a case of robbery committed by a number of the natives of the Matta Matta tribe, on some of the settlers, and that with the assistance of the protectors he had been enabled to make arrangements with the chiefs that all the property should be restored. Governor Fitzroy seems to employ Mr. Clarke chiefly as a negotiator betwixt him and the native tribes, and he must be very useful in that capacity, as from his long residence in that country he speaks the language like a native. It is fortunate for him that his salary does not depend on the votes of the settlers, as, instead of giving him £400 a-year, they would consider his services amply rewarded with 400 pence.

Neither am I altogether disposed to join the settlers in the loud complaints which they have made against those exercising the functions of government in that country, though I am inclined to think, that the government, (no doubt with the most praiseworthy mo-

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tives,) had been perhaps too lenient in allowing some previous acts of aggression on the part of the natives to go unpunished, and to this has been attributed one of the causes of the late calamity. The government must, no doubt, have thought, that greater allowance should be made for men so lately removed from savage barbarism, than for those accustomed from their very infancy to the laws and restraints of a civilized community; and that some consideration was due to the feelings of the old and original inhabitants of a country, when excited by the encroachments of those whom they naturally considered interlopers upon their soil.

The feelings of the local government of that country, in regard to the late catastrophe, may be gathered from the following extracts taken from the reply of the officer administering the government, (previous to the arrival of Captain Fitzroy, the present governor,) to the deputation sent from Nelson to Auckland, and dated 9th August, 1843.

"For the recent bloodshed, I am to observe, an awful responsibility has been incurred; what is the degree of criminality of those concerned in the fatal conflict, and on whom that criminality chiefly rests, are questions on which no opinion can be expressed, as the transaction may become the subject of judicial enquiry; but whatever may be the crime, and who may be the criminals, it is but too clear that the event, we must all deplore, has arisen from several parties of surveyors, without the knowledge or concurrence of the local government, proceeding to take possession of, and to survey a tract of land, in opposition to the original native owners, who have uniformly denied the sale of it.

"For the information of the settlers at Nelson, I

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am desired to state, that one of Her Majesty's Commissioners had appointed the end of June last to investigate claims to land in the valley of the Wairoa, and, but for the recent fatal collision, all claims in that district would in all probability at this moment have been disposed of.

"His Excellency deems it proper now to inform you, that the New Zealand Company has not selected any block of land in the valley of the Wairoa, nor has the local government yet received any intimation that it is the intention of the Company to select a block in that district."

The settlers, in stating that the primary cause which led to this disaster, was the delay in settling the land claims, seem to have lost sight of a most important fact, namely, that this was not the fault of the natives. If blame attached to any quarter, it must have been to the government, or rather, perhaps, to the commissioners appointed by government to settle these claims. But it is by no means clear, that even they were to blame, as it must be recollected that these commissioners had to settle upwards of a thousand claims to the whole land of a country larger than Great Britain, and these claims too, in almost every instance, more or less disputed, and with few or no records to assist them. Indeed, the exertions of these commissioners, and of Mr. Spain in particular, were so indefatigable, that more than a year previous to this occurrence, they had within a short period settled upwards of 500 of the claims given in, comprising nearly one-fourth part of the whole land in that country; and their decisions, upon the whole, had given great satisfaction.

Although the New Zealand Company seem to have

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made an application respecting certain blocks of land which they had wished to acquire in the Nelson district, yet it does not appear that they had actually by name claimed the Wairoa valley, though they assert that they had. They were aware, at all events, that that valley had not only not been assigned to them at that time by the government commissioners, but that their taking possession of it in any shape whatever would be disputed by the natives who laid claim to it, and who were determined to keep possession of it until an arrangement had been made betwixt them and these commissioners. Mr. Spain, the commissioner, could not overtake every thing at once, but he had promised to the natives that he would attend at Wairoa as soon after the 18th of June as he possibly could. But, unfortunately, before the time appointed, the surveyors had been going on with their survey, regardless altogether of this intimation. When the natives accordingly found them erecting huts, &c, on ground which they still considered their own, and for which they seem to have received no equivalent, (though the Company state that they were paid a sum for abandoning all claim to land in Cook's Straits,) it is not to be wondered at, that like most other men in a similar predicament, apart altogether from their being savages, and unacquainted with any other law but the law of force, they should order the surveying party off their ground, and pull down, or set fire to the temporary huts which they had erected, on their refusing so to do.

Possession is said to be nine-tenths of the law, even in civilized countries, but among savages it is the whole law, and nothing but the law. To have allowed the surveyors to carry on their operations without

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molestation, would no doubt have been considered by them as tantamount to an abandonment, not only of the land itself, but of all claim for any future remuneration or compensation for giving it up, a claim, moreover, which (perhaps erroneously) had been sanctioned by the local government of that country, though called in question in the report of the committee of the House of Commons. And had they been like many other savages in the world, they would not only have set fire to the huts, but have put an end to the surveying party altogether, which, from their numbers, they could easily have done. So far, however, from doing so, they seem to have acted with great forbearance. They, no doubt, ordered them off the ground, and when they refused to go, set fire to one or two of their temporary huts, erected probably in the course of a couple of days; but, it will be remarked, that before doing so, they removed carefully all the implements and goods of the surveyors from the inside of them, and delivered them up to them. Mr. Tuckett depones, "that Barnicoat, one of the surveyors, informed him that the natives had removed his effects, but that the chiefs had used their influence in restraining their people from appropriating any of his effects, or committing any violence."

In all savage countries nothing excites the hostility of the aboriginal inhabitants so much as the sight of a surveying party of white men; as they know well, from sad experience, that it is invariably the forerunner to their being driven from the land of their forefathers. In New South Wales, the engineer of a surveying party (Mr. Stapleton) was killed during the time of my residence in that country, by a tribe of the natives at Moreton Bay, for which two of the ring-

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leaders were executed; and surveying parties in that country are frequently exposed to their attacks. Among the Red Indians of North America, the surveyors are also occasionally exposed to the attacks of the natives, though the summary manner in which they are treated by the government of the United States fills them with a sort of awe, and generally disarms their hostility.

Had Mr. Thompson, the acting magistrate at Nelson, not been a rash, hot-headed (though no doubt a well meaning) man, he would undoubtedly have said to the person sent by the surveying party to obtain a warrant for these aggressions, that he could not possibly grant it, as the lands were disputed, and would be settled in the course of a week or two by Commissioner Spain. Instead of that, he at once issued his warrant against the two chiefs, on the charge of arson. What savage ever heard of a charge of arson? And even when he went himself to execute the warrant with his armed force, the native chiefs, though they would not, of course, allow themselves to be seized, (and it was unreasonable to suppose it,) behaved as well under the circumstances of the case as could have been expected. They declared they did not wish to fight, nor use violence of any kind, but were quite willing to abide by the decision of Commissioner Spain, who was so soon to arrive amongst them; and Rauperaha even went further, and said he would pay the utu (damage) done, on the spot, if a fair statement were made out. Mr. Thompson should have readily acceded to so reasonable a proposition, instead of persisting in taking them up, and exciting their anger by pointing to his armed men on the other side of the stream. Indeed, when he saw

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so numerous a party arrayed against him, he should at once have sounded a retreat, --whereas, though the natives, at first, were peaceably inclined, yet his conduct seems to have roused them up to the highest pitch of indignation, and their numbers gave them confidence. This will appear evident from the following extract from the evidence of Mr. Tuckett, one of the chief surveyors of the New Zealand Company, who was present, but escaped by flight. Being one of those who first crossed the stream by the canoe, along with Mr. Thompson and others, Mr. Tuckett, after giving a detailed account of the earlier history of their proceedings, depones thus: --

"At first we found only Rauperaha, to whom the warrant was shown and its purport explained by the police magistrate, who requested him to go on board the government brig, where the charge which had been brought against him by Mr. Cotterell would be investigated. Rauperaha said he was willing to go into the matter there, but he would not go on board the brig, and that if he was satisfied with the decision on the spot, he would pay the utu there. The police magistrate then informed him that he must go on board the brig, and that he might have any of his people to go along with him, but he refused to go. The police magistrate then demanded whether he would go or not, to which he replied that he would not. The police magistrate then said, "You will not? There are our armed men, they shall fire on you all." On this, sixteen natives sprang to their feet and presented fire-arms. A native of the Bay of Islands, who was present, interpreted to them, and told them every word that was said. Rauperaha was again called on to surrender, accompanied with the same

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threat. Rangihaiata then stepped forward and defied the power of the magistrates; he was very vehement, and said that they (the natives) did not go to England to interfere with the white people, and more to the same effect, and why should they interfere with him? Puaha then came forward with a bible in his hand, and prayed them to refrain from strife. The dialogue between Rauperaha, Rangihaiata, and the police magistrate, then became so hurried and vehement that it was impossible to follow what was said. Feeling convinced that a conflict would speedily ensue, I then recommended to Captain Wakefield that we should return to the other side of the stream, where our force was. We accordingly, having obtained the consent of the natives, laid one of their canoes across the stream, and were in the act of passing over, when Captain Wakefield (probably observing a movement on the part of the armed natives to interrupt Mr. Thompson) sprung up, and called out in a loud tone, "Men, forward! Englishmen, forward!" Four or five men then advanced upon the canoe, and at that moment I heard the discharge of a musket, but from what party I cannot say; and instantly a volley was fired by the natives, which was answered from our side. I then got to the opposite side, and remained in the bush for some time, whilst a brisk fire was kept up on both sides Some one then called out to me that our party were retreating up the hill, in which direction I followed, and observed Captains Wakefield and England, and Mr. Howard, endeavouring to form the men on the first eminence, but they continued to press on."

Great stress has been laid by the settlers, on the circumstance of the natives having gone, as they say,

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with the intention of fighting. But so far as I can judge, on examining the evidence carefully, though it is quite clear they went with the determination of putting a stop to the white people taking, or keeping possession of what they considered their own land; yet it does not appear that they had any intention of becoming the aggressors, or fighting except they were resisted. Indeed, until that most unfortunate shot was fired (accidentally, no doubt,) by one of our party, their conduct does not warrant us to infer that they would have been the aggressors. But after that shot was fired, and excited as they had now become by the violent conduct of Mr. Thompson, we cannot altogether wonder at their firing upon us, as they no doubt considered that we had first begun to fire upon them, and could not possibly have known that it was purely accidental. This last circumstance does not seem to have been sufficiently adverted to, but it goes far with me in thus vindicating the conduct of the natives on this melancholy occasion; and that not certainly from any great regard I bear to them, but for the sacred cause of truth, and of justice.

As for the conduct of Rangihaiata, he seems merely to have followed the barbarous custom which had existed in that country from time immemorial, namely, destroying the prisoners taken in battle, particularly if they were the chiefs; and the introduction of civilized society amongst them, during the short space of three years, could hardly be expected to overcome, all at once, those feelings which they had imbibed from their earlier years, or put an end to a practice sanctioned by the tradition of ages. It is evident, however, that the prisoners taken would have been spared, through the influence of Rauperaha, had it not

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been for the unfortunate circumstance of his daughter having been accidentally killed during the skirmish; and savages do not make any distinction betwixt a thing being done accidentally or designedly. They look merely to the result.

I cannot help thinking, however, that the fate of all those who were killed, must be attributed nearly as much to the cowardice and flight of so many of the British party, as to the momentary feelings of revenge which actuated the conduct of an excited, and most ferocious savage. The natives were proved to have been in the act of retreating when some of our party were observed by them to have taken flight. This, followed up as it was by the sound of the "war-cry" inspired them with fresh courage, and the few who remained at their posts, being some of them without arms, had no alternative left but to surrender. Those, on the contrary, who so basely left their countrymen in the hands of a parcel of excited savages, had not only all muskets in their hands, but were provided with bayonets also, as John Miller expressly depones, "that Mr. Howard called out to the men to fix their bayonets and come to the charge, but the men kept retreating up the hill." A charge given by thirty men, acting in a body, with bayonets in their hands, would at once have put the Maories to flight, and the lives of those wounded, and taken prisoners, would thus have been preserved. The British committed a great mistake in distributing arms amongst a set of ferocious savages. In New South Wales there is a penalty of £20 inflicted on every person furnishing the blacks in that country, with fire-arms, --an exceedingly proper regulation.

The following excerpt from a letter dated Nelson,

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New Zealand, and published in the second number of that excellent new work, Simmond's Colonial Magazine for February, 1844, will shew, that the feelings promulgated by the majority of the settlers in that country, on this melancholy event, are by no means universal. At page 236, the writer says, "I believe I mentioned in my last the awful murder of a native woman and her child by a European here. Well, he has been acquitted, on the ground that there was not sufficient evidence to convict him. Now, there was not a doubt on the minds of the majority of the persons in the court that he was the guilty party--and the natives are, of course, not subtle enough to comprehend the niceties of the English law, and could not understand why he was suffered to go scot free. Hence they were much prejudiced against the jury's decision. This exercised a depressing influence over them, and it was felt at this station. Well then, while their minds were thus prejudiced against the whites, a party of surveyors came into this neighbourhood for the purpose of surveying a large valley called the Waisard, with a view to the settlement of Europeans. Now, this valley has not been bought by them, hence they had no right to come and take it in this manner over the heads of the natives, its proprietors. The natives resisted the survey, and pulled down the huts of the surveyors, though without injuring their property in the least. The surveyors lodged a complaint against the natives because of these huts, which were little better than break-winds, and a magistrate came with forty or fifty armed men to take the chiefs into custody. They resisted, and the magistrate ordered them to be fired upon. The natives rose in self defence, and thus about twenty-two white

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men, seven of whom were very respectable, were killed. The natives got the better of the whites and drove them from the field; though they have now all left the place and gone to the North Island, about thirty miles north of Kapita, and intend building there a large fortification, and having their vengeance on the Europeans."

This last statement is not altogether correct, as Seth Howland, in his deposition before the magistrates of Nelson says, towards the conclusion of his evidence, --"I then asked their reason for killing Captain Wakefield, and they told me it was because he had shot Rangihaiata's woman. I asked why he did so, and where she was shot, to which they replied that she was shot whilst sitting by the side of Rangihaiata. I asked Rangihaiata where he and his party were going, and he told me that they were going across to the opposite shore, from thence to Wanganui, and then into the bush to live quietly and to die there; they wanted no more fighting." And Alexander MacLune, the mate of the "Three Brothers," bears his testimony to the same effect, as he depones to "having heard the natives say that they did not intend to fight any more, and that the white people might now take the Wairoa."

Upon the whole merits of the case, the conclusion which I have come to, after much deliberation, is generally, that though there may, no doubt, be some truth in the several reasons assigned by the settlers as the cause of the late disaster, yet that none of them can, properly speaking, be said to apply to the natives; and that it must be looked upon as having been the result of a variety of unforeseen and unfortunate circumstances combined; and attributable more to the

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inconsiderate and cowardly conduct of the settlers, and the rash conduct of the magistrate who directed their movements, than to any premeditated design on the part of the aborigines.

But although I have arrived at this conclusion, yet I must admit that I sympathize most sincerely with the settlers, in the great delay that has so unfortunately, though it may be so unavoidably, taken place in the settlement of their claims. Owing to this delay, they state in their petition to the Queen, and they state most justly, "that they have been prevented from cultivating the lands they purchased before leaving England, and have been obliged to live on the produce of foreign countries, while their capital has been wasted, and themselves nearly ruined."

Though now far removed from that scene of strife and of bloodshed, I can never forget that I myself was once, like them, a settler in that savage land, and that my claim, like theirs, is still unsettled. And I shall ever retain a vivid recollection of the surpassing beauty and sublimity of the valleys and mountains which adorn that romantic country, and cherish in my memory an attachment to those friends who cheered and supported me during these the days of my wanderings and of my exile, and who are still sojourners in that distant and unhappy land.

I had written the preceding observations regarding the Wairoa massacre, as they had occurred to myself on perusing carefully the whole statements on both sides, when, by the arrival of New Zealand journals in this country, in July 1844, I found that the views which I had been led to entertain on this disastrous affair, were identically the same as those of the new governor, Captain Fitzroy. In his address

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to the inhabitants of Wellington, Port Nicholson, on the 24th of January, 1844, immediately on landing there, he says, "difficult indeed would it be to induce the intelligent, active, and daring chiefs of New Zealand, supported as they are by their thousands of armed warriors, to submit tamely to laws administered with such evident injustice, as that which, to the disgrace of our nation, indelibly characterised the fatal proceedings at Wairoa. The majority of the native population of New Zealand are, as yet, ignorant of our legislation. How unjust, oppressive, and unchristian would it be, to exact a rigorous obedience to unknown laws. You have dwelt so much on the fatal catastrophe at Wairoa, that I feel it imperative on me to remind you, painful as it is to my feelings, that our countrymen were there the aggressors; that the principal magistrate was acting illegally; that at least thirteen of our countrymen fell during the heat of a conflict brought on by the misconduct of those in authority; and, that the other nine, though mercilessly slaughtered after they had surrendered, fell victims to those ferocious passions they had roused to the utmost extent, and which were still wild with savage fury." And, in his address to the inhabitants of Nelson, on the 1st of February, 1844, he expressed his disgust with the conduct of those who, after the conflict began, had so basely deserted their leaders. And on landing on 12th February, 1844, at Waikanai, a little to the north-west of Porirua, where he found Rauperaha with 500 followers, and Rangihaiata with fifty; he addressed them in reference to the part they had taken in the massacre at Wairoa, and told them, that though the white man was wrong, yet that the natives, in killing their prisoners, were

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guilty of a great crime, and that white men never killed their prisoners. Rauperaha said that it was according to their custom, after a fight, to kill the chief men of their enemies, and they did not consider their victory complete unless this were done.

The very able and impartial report of the committee of the House of Commons, appointed in 1844 to examine into the affairs of New Zealand, having reference in particular to the disputes that had arisen betwixt the Company and the Government, which was given into the House in July 1844, (and will be found printed in the Fourteenth Report of the Directors of the New Zealand Company,) censures the conduct of the Government in one or two particulars, and vindicates in a great measure the conduct of the Company. The nineteenth resolution adopted by the committee is as follows: --"That the committee, upon a review of the documentary evidence relative to the loss of life at Wairoa, without offering any opinion on the law of the case, deem it an act of justice to the memory of those who fell there, to state that it appears that the expedition in question was undertaken for a purpose believed by the parties to be lawful and desirable, and which also, example in analogous cases had unfortunately led them to expect might be effected without resistance from the natives."

The committee also report that the New Zealand Company were entitled to be put in possession, by the Government, of the quantity of land awarded them by Mr. Pennington. This will amount to nearly a million of acres.

At a time when emigration is increasing, and new colonies are springing up, when adventurers from the old continents are rapidly pressing onwards amongst

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the inhabitants of the new, it would naturally be desirable to define the origin of the right of property in uncivilized countries; and the late sad event in New Zealand has given an additional impetus to the subject, as, had this question been settled, the late massacre, in all human probability, would not have occurred.

Even admitting, as we are disposed to do, that in the event alluded to, the natives showed considerable forbearance, and that the main body of our countrymen exhibited, first, an overbearing forwardness, and then an un-English cowardice, and that to these the unfortunate result muse in a great degree be attributed, --this relates nothing to the real matter in hand. The state of things was such as necessarily to lead to collision at some time or other, and had we escaped it on this occasion, it would but have been to encounter it elsewhere.

Much has been written on that important question, "Whether the inhabitants of a civilized country are entitled to go to a barbarous country and drive the natives like sheep to a distance, or, if necessary, extirpate them altogether;" and the general opinion is that they are. Mr. Matthew, in his "Emigration Fields," says, in reference to this subject, "A nation which by the establishment of social order, and the advanced arts in life, increases in population beyond the means of a full subsistence within its own territory, has a right to extend itself over the uncultivated regions of the earth, and if necessary, displace the miserable hordes of wandering savages, who can neither bring out the powers of productiveness of the country they roam over, nor submit to the social order amongst civilized men." And in the Report of the Committee of the House of Com-

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mons, in 1844, they state, "When it was first proposed to establish New Zealand as a British colony, dependent upon New South Wales, Sir George Gipps, the Governor of the latter, in a very able address, laid down the following principles as those on which he had framed the bill, which it was his duty to submit to his legislative council for the regulation of the infant colony of New Zealand: --'The bill is founded,' he said, 'upon two or three general principles, which, until I heard them here controverted, I thought were fully admitted, and indeed received as political axioms. The first is, that the uncivilized inhabitants of any country have but a qualified dominion over it, or a right of occupancy only; and that, until they establish amongst themselves a settled form of government, and subjugate the ground to their own uses, by the cultivation of it, they cannot grant to individuals, not of their own tribe, any portion of it, for the simple reason, that they have not themselves any individual property in it. Secondly, that if a settlement be made in any such country by a civilized power, the right of pre-emption of the soil, or in other words, the right of extinguishing the native title is exclusively in the government of that power, and cannot be enjoyed by individuals without the consent of their government. The third principle is, that neither individuals, nor bodies of men belonging to any nation, can form colonies, except with the consent, and under the direction and control of their own government; and that from any settlement which they may form without the consent of their government they may be ousted. This is simply to say, as far as Englishmen are concerned, that colonies cannot be formed without the consent of the crown.'"

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The Times views the matter in the same light, as Sir George Gipps, as, in an article in that journal of 18th December, 1844, regarding New Zealand, they say, "It is an established principle of colonial settlement, that the right of occupancy, which is the right relied on by the aborigines, is co-extensive only with the land actually occupied. All other lands are open to the establishment of any settled system of occupation; but that occupation to be good against the nomade native tribes, must be the act, not of wanderers, or desultory and independent adventurers like themselves, but of a supreme political power; it must be the act of a government. All unoccupied land in a British settlement, must be acquired by, and transmitted through the crown. The crown alone can treat with the natives; through the crown alone, a valid settlement can be acquired by the individual settler."

Talking of the report by the committee of the House of Commons, at the conclusion of their article the Times says, "we are glad to see that the committee have duly marked their sense of the conduct of the Company, in setting on foot a system of colonization subversive of every principle of prudence and justice in the very first resolution of their report,"That the conduct of the New Zealand Company, in sending out settlers to New Zealand, not only without the sanction, but in direct defiance of the authority of the crown, was highly irregular and improper."

What, then, is the origin of the individual right of property in land? How was it first acquired? We mention the 'individual right,' because the right of the human race to the earth and its produce appears to us to arise simply from the gift of the great Creator, recorded in Genesis, where God gave to man 'dominion over

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all the earth, and over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.' Upon the point above-mentioned, viz. the individual right, it is extraordinary how little difference exists among the best writers on the subject. Grotius, Puffendorf, Locke, Blackstone, and Paley, all agree upon the main point, and conclude that occupancy or appropriation by labour is the only foundation of the right to landed property. Nor could we conceive it otherwise. All the earth was given to all mankind by its maker, and it is left for them individually to reduce this gift into possession.

This has already been done by law in all countries having laws, and where natural and individual labour has so far been restrained, for, as Paley well observes, in society we give up a part of our liberty in order to secure the remainder. The question, therefore, has so far been settled, and such countries are beyond the argument. In England, for instance, the right to all land is determined by law, and as to commons and wastes, which apparently belong to nobody, the right to them is declared to be in the lord and freeholders of the manor or otherwise. By law, therefore, no real property here is without an owner. The same general law obtains in France, and in all other countries where laws have been enacted. But in uncivilized nations the question is still seemingly not altogether settled, and to them only, and to New Zealand in particular, our observations must be taken to apply.

Occupancy by labour, then, is, as we have before stated, held by almost every writer to be the only primary foundation of the right of an individual to possess land. We do not know one single writer of authority who holds a contrary opinion. Nor is this sin-

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gular; for where else could we look for its foundation? The mere accident of birth will not suffice. Because a woman, enceinte, is unfortunately shipwrecked on a desert isle, this is no reason why her child when born should, eo instanti, become the owner and possessor of every spot and inch of ground upon it, whether it be one acre or one million! And yet, to support this palpable absurdity, our opponents are driven for their argument, if sifted, amounts to this, that the New Zealanders have an absolute right to New Zealand, because it is their country, or, in other words, because they were born there. Putting aside, therefore, the right by mere birth as untenable, what other conceivable foundation remains? We believe none capable of the least degree of rational support, so that we must, of necessity, fall back upon occupancy by labour as an only resource.

An important question, however, here arises, of what nature must this labour be? Should it be actual labour--the real sweat of the brow, or the merest bodily exertion, such, for instance, as simply walking across a piece of ground. In other words, must the occupancy be permanent, or will it suffice if it be only transient? Transient possession certainly will not suffice, as the doctrine would inevitably lead to the utmost confusion and absurdity. A man walks across a territory, leaving no trace behind; others do the same; and who is to decide between them, when, after a lapse of years, they assert their rights? A transient possession lacks that animus which is essential to the appropriation of any part of nature's general stock, so that the occupancy necessary to create a primary right to land, must be of a permanent nature, and the act done with the deliberate intention of taking bona fide possession.

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Now to apply this doctrine to New Zealand. Of what nature is the occupancy of the New Zealanders? Mr Terry, a man of character, and a strong friend of the natives, and the only competent person who has yet written on the subject, says, in his work on New Zealand, page 165, speaking of the difference of the New Zealander and Red Indian--"Far different is the New Zealander. He is no hunter. He dwells where he was born, in the land of his fathers, cultivates his ground for kumeras and potatoes, which, with fishing, furnish his subsistence, and this restrains him from being a wanderer." The New Zealander thus appears to be domestic; his acts of possession are local and direct, and where he has once settled he continues to live. He is no hunter and wants no hunting grounds, and it would seem that under these circumstances, and on the doctrine we have above maintained, there should be no difficulty in deciding between him and the stranger. There would appear to be ample room for both, and while he remains in the village and cultivated grounds of his ancestors, the stranger has an equal right with him to appropriate any of the uncultivated waste around; and the committee of the House of Commons state in their report, that not above one-thousandth part of the available land in New Zealand was made use of by the aborigines, so that the unoccupied land, previous to European settlement, was of no value to them. The New Zealander can sell his acquired property if he pleases, and the stranger may buy it, but as to the unappropriated waste, he has never occupied it, lias therefore no right to it, and can therefore demand no price for it.

It should be borne in mind, however, that the New-Zealand Company have all along maintained, that it

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is colonization alone which gives the real value to land; and that by reserving for the natives a tenth part of the land in every settlement, they have given them what must be considered far more valuable than either goods or money, as this tenth will shortly produce as much as the whole would formerly have done; and its management is attended to by an officer specially appointed, and its revenues distributed by him in forwarding their comfort, and carrying on their education and general improvement. This tenth, too, it must be remembered, is a free gift for the benefit of those who had no property or benefit in it previously; and we are justified in saying, that its parallel in enlightened generosity towards native inhabitants cannot be found in the history of the world.

Though the Wairoa plains are at present almost uninhabited, and of course uncultivated, and would probably have remained so; yet, it appears, that Rauperaha was in the habit of visiting them occasionally, and by thus keeping up a sort of possession, he was entitled to some compensation for giving them up, more particularly when we take into view the vast amount of labour and of blood which he and his tribe must have expended before they acquired them. His possession of them was no doubt that of an usurper, having driven the original tribes like sheep before him, but he had merely followed the practice adopted by all savage nations, where the law of force supersedes all other laws; and a great part of the colonial possessions of Great Britain is held under the same title, -- and not a bad title it is.

Governor Fitzroy has been much blamed for not bringing Rauperaha and Rangihaiata to trial; and I observe, that the editors of the Sydney Morning

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Herald, who are in general very guarded in their remarks, are amongst those who censure him for not doing so. It is impossible for me, of course, to know what his motives were in acting as he has done; but I may mention two or three circumstances that have occurred to myself on the subject, and these have led me to the conclusion, that perhaps, upon the whole, it was the most prudent plan to allow the matter to rest where it was.

In the first place, he would make great allowance, no doubt, for a people so lately removed from barbarism, and for the feelings which must have actuated them when they came in contact with those whom they must have considered as interlopers upon their soil. In the second place, he did not arrive till six months after the event had taken place, and when the excitement was in some measure dying away. In the third place, he could not have selected a jury of twelve impartial men to try them in the whole colony--the feelings of the settlers, almost to a man, being against them, so that they would either have got scrimp justice, or, more likely, no justice at all--and Captain Fitzroy is a great lover of justice. In the fourth place, he could not have got them apprehended without an immense sacrifice of life, requiring a much greater force too than he had at his command, besides running the risk, had he made the attempt, of rousing the whole natives throughout the country, who though at war amongst themselves, would probably have united against the whites, whom they now consider the common enemy; and had this been the result, the whole European population in that country would have been annihilated in one moment. Colonel Wakefield, in his despatch to the secretary of the Company in London,

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dated 24th July, 1843, says, "That Rauperaha was resolved to resist any attempt made to apprehend him, and that the force at his command might easily be increased to a thousand men." And lastly, because it must be admitted by every candid impartial person that the British were the aggressors, and that Rauperaha, whatever other faults he may have had, acted on this occasion, at least, not only with wonderful forbearance, considering the school in which lie had been brought up, but also with great fairness, and even liberality, declaring as he did, before the conflict began, that he did not wish to fight, but was willing to abide by the decision of Mr. Spain, who was so soon to arrive amongst them, and expressing his readiness, at the same time, to pay the damage done, on the spot, if a fair statement were made out. I acquit Governor Fitzroy on these grounds.

It is satisfactory to know that the chiefs and tribes at Port Nicholson have all along remained faithful to the settlers. Indeed Dr. Dieffenbach asserts, "that the hatred of the New Zealanders is never directed against the white man, who may travel where he likes, and is never molested, unless his own misconduct give rise to a quarrel."

A monument is about to be erected to the memory of Captain Wakefield, and those who fell at this sad catastrophe. Captain Wakefield seems to have been universally beloved. Mr. Jollie, a Nelson settler, says of him, "this man who had seen near thirty years of almost incessant service as a naval officer, --this man so practical and sagacious, and moreover so respected and beloved, has been hurried away to an ignominious end, --brutally butchered by a parcel of miscreant savages, ten thousand of whose useless lives

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would have all too cheaply purchased his survival, let the cant of ultra-philanthropists say what it will."

Rauperaha and Rangihaiata resisted for along time, all the efforts of Commissioner Spain, Chief Protector Clarke, and Colonel Wakefield, the Company's agent at Wellington, to induce them to withdraw their allies and slaves from the upper valley of the Hutt, but they have at last accepted of the money offered, and withdrawn them accordingly.

These warriors have now established their head quarters at Porirua, where they have lately erected an extensive pah on the cleared land, near their beloved ally Mr. Thoms' place. The Porirua valley is now becoming an important place. The whaling station and pah, or native village, is sixteen miles from Wellington, by the road, and at present there are sixty or seventy English settled there, besides the whaling party, which may consist of nearly as many more. The number of acres surveyed and given out in this district is 10,800, and most of the land, though covered with timber, is very fertile, and when cleared, will become extremely valuable.

The most unfortunate circumstance attending the late catastrophe, is the marked change which has taken place in the feelings of the natives of almost the whole of that country towards the British, and more particularly with Rauperaha and Rangihaiata, and their tribes. Exulting at the victory which they have obtained, mainly owing to the cowardice of the English party, and overjoyed to find that the British authorities have allowed them to escape with impunity, --a result which they attribute more to fear than any thing else; they and their tribes are becoming greater braggadocios than ever, --treating the

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British with great contempt, calling them cowards, practising their war-dance and songs, eating more pork to make them strong, buying gunpowder and lead, making tomahawks, saying that the Queen is but a girl, and that they are ready to fight the people at Port Nicholson; and Rauperaha, in particular, now declares that he can cut up the whites like cabbages.

Let us cherish the hope, however, that this massacre may be the prelude to a new era in the history of that country, and that with the Psalmist, we may be enabled to say, --