1859 - Thomson, A. S. The Story of New Zealand [Vol.II] - Part II. (Contd.) History of the Discovery of New Zealand by Europeans - CHAPTER VI. NEW ZEALAND IN 1842.

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CHAP. VI.

NEW ZEALAND IN 1842.

WE must now pause in our narrative, in order to give some account of the social and commercial condition of the inhabitants in 1842; and this chapter may prove interesting when the children of the present landed proprietors have become New Zealand squires.

The population first demands attention. In 1842, there were 10,992 white persons in the colony; Wellington, the largest settlement, had 3701 inhabitants; Auckland, 2895; Nelson, 2500; New Plymouth, 895; Russell, 380; Hokianga, 263; Wanganui, 200; and Akaroa, 198.

The northern settlers were chiefly derived from Australia; those in the south from Great Britain. The former were distinguished for colonial wisdom; the latter for education and good home connections. The Company's settlers, having come direct from a country where the people rule themselves, felt more keenly than the northern immigrants the irritation arising from living under irresponsible government. The male population exceeded the female in all the settlements, and this inequality was greater in Auckland than in

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Wellington. Few of the settlers were above fifty years of age. Crime was almost unknown. At the Bay of Islands the inhabitants gained their bread by trading with the whale ships; at Hokianga, in felling the giant Kauri trees for the Australian and English markets. At Auckland the people were living on the government expenditure, and awaited the arrival of immigrants to occupy the houses they had built, and re-purchase the town lots they had bought. The French at Akaroa were cultivating vines; and were settling down into idleness and happiness amidst their beautiful gardens and vineyards. At Wellington, Wanganui, New Plymouth, and Nelson, the settlers were living on their own resources, from not having got possession of their lands; some were frittering away their lives in idle pastimes, while torpor and drinking had taken possession of a few. There was little land under cultivation, farming implements were rusting for want of use, and money was spent in purchasing what labour should have supplied. Several children and cattle had died from eating Tutu berries.

The dark prospects of the Company's emigrants, contrasted with their brightest expectations, partly justified their loud demands to be put by force into possession of what they considered their own lands. At all the settlements save Auckland the natives were discontented; but although the Virginian colonies failed twice from famine and native hostility, yet the New Zealand settlers had no dread of either of these misfortunes. The military force in the colony consisted of 150 soldiers of the 80th Regiment, which fine body of men, before sailing for India to mingle in the conflicts of Moodkee, Ferozeshah, and Sobraon, erected at Auckland a loopholed barrack, the first scoria-building in the colony.

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Many settlers' houses were constructed of reeds, a material so liable to ignition that the Legislative Council passed an act against their erection in towns. Fencing and ditching cost little, as labourers were numerous in comparison to the demand for labour; but skilled work was expensive. The Company's labourers were paid fourteen shillings a week with rations, carpenters and bricklayers 4l.

Pork and potatoes formed the staple food, and at Wellington the settlers caused a dearth of these articles among the neighbouring natives. Jews ate pork, and called it mutton. Potatoes were 10l. a ton; beef 1s. 4d. a pound, and scarce; pork 3 1/2d a pound. An ox was killed at Auckland in 1842, by special request, to furnish a few Englishmen with roast beef on Christmas-day. Mutton was 1s. a pound, fowls 12s. a couple, eggs 6s. a dozen. For several weeks the Auckland Gazette repeats there was no tea in the town. Gin, rum, and brandy were the usual drinks. Two Australian customs had already taken root in the colony; one a beverage composed of brandy and ginger-beer, which was denominated a stone fence; the other a halloo used by settlers in shouting to people at a distance; the cry was coooe, the halloo or shriek of the Australian aborigines under similar circumstances.

There were no hospitals for the sick or insane; and as disease was rare, several medical emigrants, finding their professional talents useless, turned store-keepers. From the nature of the country many men were drowned; and the frequency of these accidents compared with death from disease made colonists describe death by drowning as a natural one in New Zealand. Sporting settlers were disappointed: quails were found in the

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Middle Island; and in the North Island sportsmen sallied out to shoot dottrel, ducks, pigeons, and pukekos; but none furnished sport equal to the bringing down of partridge and blackcock in old England. There was no fresh-water fishing; and sea-fishing, even the hauling out of a hundred-pound hapuka, was poor sport compared with the landing of lively trouts. Spearing bush boars on horseback occasionally equalled the same gallant sport in the Deccan. Race meetings were held at several settlements, and the winner of the Auckland town plate in 1842 was to be sold for 150l.; but a traveller present on the course asked, "Who in his senses would give as many pence for a race-horse in the wilderness?" 1

There were few carts and no gigs, dinner parties were unknown, balls were common, and the natives called waltzing and galloping harlot's dances. Saddle horses were let to hire for 15s. a day; but few settlers ventured far from their settlements. There were no roads; the native path between Wellington and Porirua had been widened, and the road from Wellington to the Hutt was making. Port Nicholson was covered with large trees to the water's edge. There was little communication between the different settlements, and news from Wellington and Nelson reached Auckland through Sydney; New Plymouth was as isolated as Norfolk Island. It was not known that both sides of Cook's Straits were subject to severe earthquakes. Few settlers ventured out at night without lanterns. The quantity of land in the hands of the Government was small. At Wellington an aristocracy was found within the walls of the Wakefield Club, and

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here cards were occasionally played until the sun rose. The government officers at Auckland chose their allotments in one place, called it Official Bay, and tried to form an exclusive set.

An easy style in everything was the fashion; blue shirts were generally worn, and customers were served by shopkeepers with pipes in their mouth. Curious scenes frequently occurred from this freedom of manners. A settler unaccustomed to the colony arrived at Wellington in December 1841; on going to bed in the best hotel he found the sheets were dirty table-cloths, and when remonstrating with the landlord, was told not to address a collegian in such terms. In the middle of this controversy a commissioner fresh from England complained to the landlord that his bed was occupied by an immense hairy man; then the fastidious settler, forgetting his own misfortunes in his friend's greater evil, went and urged the illegal occupant of the bed to give it up to the legitimate proprietor, which request being refused, he dashed a bucket of cold water between the sheets, and decamped pursued by the wet enraged man as far as he could safely follow him naked. The excitement of the early days of the Colony had been followed by depression.

An idea of the relative importance of the settlements may be drawn from the customs' duties collected at each. In 1842, at Wellington they amounted to 8967l., at Auckland to 5496l., at Russell to 2585l., at Nelson to 1350l.; and at New Plymouth to 170l. 2

The New Zealanders, erroneously reckoned ten times more numerous than the settlers, were, with a few ex-

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ceptions, living at peace with each other. Human flesh was eaten in 1842, but it was universally admitted that the natives were making rapid strides in industry and civilisation, although what Englishmen understood by comfort was unknown among them. Even by their friends they were said to be perfectly able to protect themselves against the settlers. Christian natives were less given to hospitality than the heathens, and the maxim of the Psalmist, that prosperous men are observant of ceremonial piety was peculiarly applicable to the natives. Religion amongst them consisted more in words than deeds, but in all countries the Spirit of Christianity is followed by a few, and the outward form is the lot of the many. Travellers have been frequently warned of their approach to human habitations by hearing the chanting of hymns through the silence and solitude of the forest. During the early days of the settlements, pigs and potatoes were sold for pipes and other articles, but now silver and gold coin was invariably demanded; away from the English, figs of tobacco and pipes were still the circulating medium. The highest-born chief thought it an honour to be a shrewd pig-merchant. Fire-arms and ammunition were held in high estimation, and the natives resorted to the settlements armed. Few natives spoke English, and few settlers Maori: trade was conducted between the two races by means of a half-caste dialect and the interpretation of pakeha Maoris. The infatuation of the white population for agricultural land had given place to an anxiety for mineral lands; this the natives soon detected; specimens of minerals were brought to town by natives, and islands entirely composed of clay were purchased by sensible men under the idea they were full of copper.

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Horses were unknown in the interior. A newspaper written in Maori was circulated by Government among the natives.

One of the reasons assigned by Governor Hobson for not purchasing land from the natives for the settlers was, that as the natives were rapidly decreasing, their lands would soon become the Crown's property for nothing. 3

Education was at a low ebb in 1842. Settlers taught their children the arts of reading, writing, and arithmetic, and the natives were instructed by the three missionary bodies settled in the country. Among the colonists there were men of all religions, but the members of the English Church were most numerous. A society had been formed in England in 1840 to endow a bishopric, and in 1842 George Augustus Selwyn, the first Bishop of New Zealand, landed in the country. 4 His activity soon made him known among the natives, and as he surpassed them in walking and fording dangerous rivers, they believed these qualities were the gifts of God for his special work.

The Legislative Council had already passed twenty-six acts for the peace, order, and government of the country, and the Supreme Court of Justice, created by one of these ordinances, was opened on March 1842. When the secretary of state appointed a judge and an attorney-general for New Zealand, he sent out one hundred Parkhurst boys as emigrants; and these reformed prisoners, in one year after their arrival, doubled the felony cases in the colony, and gave the Supreme Court some occupation.

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In 1771 New Zealand was represented to be almost destitute of resources useful to civilised men; but Dr. Franklin pointed out that this was no reason to despair of the country, as England was once thought only to produce sloes. 5 The justice of Dr. Franklin's remark was now admitted. In 1842 the settlers knew there were veins of copper, manganese, coal, and lime, near Auckland and Nelson; that a dark dye was expressed from the wood of the hinau; that there were several tanning barks, that the sea sand at Wanganui and New Plymouth was full of iron; that clay for making bricks was easy of access; that an island of sulphur stood in the Bay of Plenty; that the New Zealand flax was famous for mats and fishing-lines; that the soil and climate were good for health and corn; that there were excellent furniture and ship-building woods; that kauri gum clear as amber could be dug out of the earth; that the forests swarmed with pigs and the sea with edible fish; that an acre of land laid down in grass fattened five sheep or one bullock; and that fern-root fed pigs often weighed five hundred pounds.

As yet the whale and timber trades were the only remunerative pursuits. Several tons of the greenstone found in the Middle Island were sent to Hong Kong by a Manilla merchant, but the black grains in the mineral rendered it worthless for Chinese ornaments. 6

It is a curious circumstance that the English settlers in New Zealand in 1842, like the Romans in England in 287, celebrated the importance of their respective abodes with remarkable similarity. Both described the fertility of the soil, the temperate nature of the climate,

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the safety of the harbours, the absence of venomous serpents, and the abundance of animals in the forests suitable for food. 7 In England these animals were horned cattle, in New Zealand pigs.

The revenue of the colony was derived from the English Parliament, the customs dues, and the sale of Crown lands, and these produced in 1842 upwards of 50,000l.: 8 50,000l. were expected to be derived in 1842 from the sale of land, whereas only 11,000l. were realised from this source. As much of the customs revenue was derived from taxes on blankets and tobacco, the natives were large contributors to the support of the colony. Governor Hobson received 60,000l. from Parliament and 40,000l. from the sale of lands, and left the country at his death on the verge of bankruptcy, after ruling it thirty-five months. In 1842 the exports were valued at 18,000l. and the imports at 166,OOOl. 9 The former were chiefly whale-oil and sawn timber; the latter sheep, cattle, horses, and almost every article required by civilised men.

There were nine newspapers published in the colony in 1842. 1. The New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator; 2. The New Zealand Colonist; 3. The Nelson Examiner; 4. The Bay of Islands Observer; 5. The New Zealand Herald and Auckland Gazette; 6. The Auckland Times; 7. The Auckland Chronicle; 8. The New Zealand Government Gazette; 9. The Native Newspaper.

Two of these papers were published at Wellington, two at the Bay of Islands, four at Auckland, and one at Nelson. Each paper cost sixpence, although not larger

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than four pages of the Penny Magazine; few circulated beyond the limits of the settlements in which they were printed, and each paper issued about two hundred copies. About one half of the papers were published weekly, the others twice a week. The Nelson Examiner and the Wellington Spectator are the only survivors in 1859. The Auckland Times was "printed in a mangle.' All the papers were in the habit of using strong language; indeed, savage scurrility supplied the place of wit, and harshness of expression the want of keenness. Many articles were actuated by personal feelings, but, as some excuse for this state of things, it is to be remembered that the press was the only check the people had on their rulers. The Government Gazette was published at the Bay of Islands until July 1841. It was partly official and partly not, although there was often difficulty in detecting which was which, and some of the articles are curious compositions for a paper "published by authority."

Most emigrants embarking for New Zealand before 1842 thought the natives devoured each other like carnivorous beasts, and stale cannibal jokes passed between friends on bidding each other farewell. The Rev. Sydney Smith amused his London friends by saying, "There is a New Zealand attorney arrived in London with 6s. 8d tattooed all over his face;" and, finding the joke took, he recommended Bishop Selwyn, on his departure from New Zealand, to receive the cannibal chiefs of that country with the following speech: "'I deeply regret, sirs, to have nothing on my table suited to your tastes, but you will find plenty of cold curate and roasted clergyman on the sideboard.' And if, in spite of this prudent provision, his visitors should end their repast

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by eating him likewise, 'Why,' said the witty canon, 'I could only add, I sincerely hoped he would disagree with them.'" 10

Even the Government Gazette of the colony was tainted with this vile habit; and the June number of that official organ, in 1841, contains Governor Hobson's speech on the opening of the Legislative Council, and among other articles a poetical description of a cannibal feast witnessed by a traveller in 1836. The poem is too long for insertion, but an idea of its spirit may be drawn from the following extract. Our traveller arrived at a village in the interior of the North Island, where

This invitation he accepted, and returning from bathing

Our traveller was given an honourable place in the circle of villagers round the food, and then

After dinner the chief produced the head of the boy eaten, and the horrible expression of the dead lad's features hurt our traveller:--

The readers of the Government Gazette are then informed in poetical measure that horror and sickness

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seized the traveller; that during his future abode in New Zealand he lived on cabbages and shell-fish; and that ever since, although resident in Australia, he has so execrated pork,