1859 - Thomson, A. S. The Story of New Zealand [Vol.II] - Part II. (Contd.) History of the Discovery of New Zealand by Europeans - CHAPTER VII. MR. SHORTLAND'S RULE, SEPTEMBER 1842 TO OCTOBER 1843.

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CHAP. VII.

MR. SHORTLAND'S RULE, SEPTEMBER 1842 TO OCTOBER 1843.

ON Governor Hobson's death Mr. Willoughby Shortland, the colonial secretary, assumed the administration. This gentleman was formerly first lieutenant on board Captain Hobson's ship in the West Indies; an occupation but little conducive to a knowledge of constitutional law. He differed from Taraia concerning the legality of interfering in purely native disputes, and soon found an excuse for carrying out his patron's policy by taking the field against cannibals.

In October 1842, Tangaroa, a Maketu chief, had his vessel captured by the Tauranga natives, and a near connection slain, for violating a tapu; in other words, for eating potatoes growing near the graves of Taraia's victims. The crew of the captured Maketu vessel escaped into the woods around Tauranga, where they hid for several days, and ultimately got away in Mr. Farrow's schooner, which they stole from her anchorage in the Tauranga harbour. Tohi, a high-born warrior of Maketu, assisted Tangaroa in taking his revenge; to accomplish which they embarked their followers in Farrow's schooner, and proceeded to the Mayor Island,

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a possession of the Tauranga people in the Bay of Plenty. After anchoring the vessel, Tohi and Tangaroa dressed themselves like sailors and promenaded about the deck. As this European custom of walking the deck is never adopted by the New Zealanders, the natives on the island, unsuspicious of evil from what they conceived to be a white man's vessel, paddled on board, and were massacred. Their bodies were cooked and eaten, and several baskets of flesh were sent for distribution among the Rotorua chiefs.

Just when the Tauranga people were preparing to attack Tohi for this murder, Mr. Shortland arrived in the government brig on his passage to Wellington. As the Maketu natives had forcibly seized a European vessel, the officer administering the government made up his mind to assist the Tauranga Christians in attacking the Maketu cannibals. The brig was despatched to Auckland for troops, and returned with forty soldiers, three guns, and a protest from Mr. Attorney-General Swainson against the Governor's intended proceedings.

The Maketu pa was eighteen miles from the English camp at Tauranga, and as the beach road between the combatants was good when the tide was out, Mr. Shortland stated that he had no doubt of success. Just at this stage of the campaign Bishop Selwyn and Chief-Justice Martin arrived in the English camp, and, having passed unmolested through the enemies' ranks at Maketu, they strongly recommended Mr. Shortland to practise forbearance, which advice he wisely adopted. The troops were ordered back to Auckland, the Maketu natives restored Mr. Farrow's boat, and a war was prevented which would have cost both races many lives and the Government much money.

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The question raised by Taraia, and now taken up by the attorney-general, regarding the right of Government to interfere in purely native disputes, is one of grave importance. It was urged that the Mayor Island was not in the colony; that only those New Zealanders were British subjects who signed the Waitangi treaty; that few of the inland tribes had given in their allegiance; that neither Tohi nor Tangaroa had ceded their sovereign rights to the Queen; and that it would be illegal to arrest them for murders committed out of her Majesty's dominions. Several constitutional lawyers thought this opinion correct. 1 The Secretary of State, Lord Stanley, totally differed from it, and informed Mr. Swainson that no gentleman holding opinions so directly at variance with her Majesty's royal instructions for the government of New Zealand could be permitted to act as a public officer. 2

The case was this. A majority of the principal chiefs signed the treaty of Waitangi, in virtue of which her Majesty's authority was proclaimed over all. A larger proportional number of the inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland were against the Hanoverian succession than there were of New Zealanders against the treaty of Waitangi, and consequently the New Zealanders only experienced what the minority of the English people frequently suffer from the majority. The attorney-general was not removed from his office; and although his law may have been law, it was, in a common-sense view of the question, a legal quibble. Nevertheless, it did great good by preventing the acting governor from embroiling the colony in a war.

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Another appeal to arms did not terminate so happily as the Tauranga campaign. The bold and illegal conduct of the company's settlers, already related, received an awful check in June 1843; and the severity of the blow was aggravated by a chief named Rangihaeata, then highly incensed against the Government, in consequence of the acquittal by the Supreme Court of a white man, who murdered a woman, a blood connection of his own. It occurred thus:--

There is a large valley in the province of Nelson, called the Wairau. This tract of land Colonel Wakefield claimed as the company's property, but the natives denied having sold it. Captain Wakefield, the company's agent, feeling confident in the justice of his brother's bargain, sent men to survey the valley. Rauparaha and Rangihaeata, the proprietors, considering this the act of taking possession, burned down the surveyor's huts, but before applying the match they carefully removed and preserved for their owners' use all the surveyor's property within the huts. Captain Wakefield, remembering the success which had followed the arrest of the Massacre Bay chief, considered this a good opportunity for giving the natives what was called another lesson in English law. A warrant to arrest Rauparaha for robbery and arson was obtained from a Nelson bench of justices of the peace, and Mr. Thompson, the police magistrate, eight gentlemen, and forty armed labourers volunteered to execute it.

The expedition sailed in the colonial brig to the mouth of the Wairau river in Cloudy Bay; and on landing, Puaha, a Christian native, entreated the police magistrate not to go up against Rauparaha armed, but his warning passed unheeded. After marching six miles

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up the valley, the party suddenly came on Rauparaha surrounded by a hundred followers, in a camp chosen with much skill for defence and retreat; an unfordable brook flowed past its front, and a dense scrub sheltered its rear. For half an hour an irritating conversation was kept up between the two parties. The police magistrate explained that he had come to seize Rauparaha, and displayed the justices' warrant as his authority. Rauparaha distinctly refused, unless by force, to go a prisoner to Nelson; and said the burned huts were his own property, that he was averse from fighting, and that the dispute should be referred to the land commissioner.

During this discussion Puaha read aloud extracts from the New Testament, and exhorted both parties to keep the peace. A demonstration to seize Rauparaha led to a rush; a musket was fired from the colonists' side; the natives returned it, and a running fight ensued. When the settlers saw several of their party fall, they retreated, scattered, and escaped panic-stricken to the brig or overland to Nelson. Five gentlemen and four labourers, who refused to run, surrendered themselves to Rauparaha; but Rangihaeata having lost his wife in the conflict cried aloud, "This is the second time the settlers have wounded me by slaying my relatives," and red-handed tomahawked all the prisoners.

Twenty-two settlers were killed and five were wounded; thirteen of these fell in the conflict, and nine were massacred. Five natives were killed and eight were wounded. Among the European dead were H. A. Thompson, Esq., police magistrate; Captain Wakefield; G. Richardson, Esq., Crown-Prosecutor, Nelson; and Captain England, late of the 12th Regiment.

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When the affair was over Rauparaha crossed Cook's Strait in his canoes, and dreading the vengeance of the settlers, took up a position at Otaki. As he proceeded along the coast he excited the natives by exhibiting a pair of felon's iron handcuffs taken from the police magistrate, and which he stated were intended for his wrists.

The Wairau valley was visited a few days after the conflict by a Wesleyan clergyman, who interred seventeen dead bodies. All had their skulls cleft, but none of the dead had been eaten or mutilated. The Nelson settlement mourned for the loss of her pioneers. Captain Arthur Wakefield was deeply deplored by the colonists, and by those who had served with him in the royal navy, as none of the party undertook the Wairau expedition in a more firm belief that it was lawful and desirable to arrest Rauparaha than he did. Travellers look in vain for a tablet at Nelson commemorating the names of those who fell, although a sum of money was collected for the purpose; but Mount Arthur, a black-pointed hill in the snowy range behind the Waimea valley, is no bad monument for Captain Wakefield. In 1848, Bishop Selwyn visited the Wairau graves; those who fell in the battle are interred on the banks of the Tua Marina, and those who were massacred lie on a knoll in full sight of the valley for which they lost their lives in vain. The spot, now tapued by the natives, has been set apart by Bishop Selwyn for a Church and burial ground. 3

This successful stand against the settlers had a wonderful influence on the native mind; the news spread

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like fire among flax from hamlet to hamlet all over the country, and being magnified in their usual manner, gave confidence to the restless and dissatisfied. Rauparaha, dreading vengeance, declared he would massacre every settler in the colony should one of his kindred suffer injury for his deeds. The native who murdered Mr. Milne, and who was rescued from Wellington jail, where he was confined on a charge of theft, was subsequently given up through entreaty rather than force; and on his trial day, numbers of armed men congregated in the hills around Wellington to prevent his execution, in case that sentence should be awarded him.

Rauparaha and Rangihaeata carried with them the sympathy of their country. "Is Rauparaha," said a turbulent northern chief, "to have all the honour of killing the white men?" 4 What was called the retreat of the troops from Tauranga and the Wairau conflict were never-failing subjects of interest; and Rauparaha proclaimed that the colonists were a widely different race from the bold whalers. The prestige of the English for valour was destroyed, the natives said the settlers were unable to defend themselves, and several ambitious chiefs were anxious to try their strength with the soldiers. Meanwhile omens of victory were drawn from the appearance of the great comet in 1843, and the simultaneous concurrence of a severe earthquake at Wanganui.

The conduct of the colonists did not tend to lessen the boastfulness of the natives, for a panic perfectly familiar to Rauparaha spread among them in Cook's

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Strait when the Wairau conflict became known. Memorials were addressed to the Governors of New South Wales and Tasmania for troops, and a deputation of magistrates from Wellington and Nelson informed the officer administering the government that the English could not maintain themselves much longer in the country without a settlement of the land question. Seven hundred settlers petitioned the Queen to inquire into the condition of the colony, and they stated that the non-settlement of the land claims, and the want of an independent government for Cook's Strait, were the primary causes of the late massacre.

They saw they were sitting on a volcano, and from being over rash, they fell into an opposite extreme, and imagined danger where none existed. The acting governor took the Wairau conflict as a warning, and endeavoured to congregate the out-settlers around Auckland. He now doubted whether victory would have attended his Maketu expedition had a shot been fired; he declared that an inquiry should be made into the Wairau affair, and the guilty punished; he appointed Major Richmond of the 96th Regiment chief magistrate of the southern districts, and ordered fifty-three soldiers of the 96th Regiment from Auckland to Wellington. In the meantime her Majesty's ship North Star, having on board a company of the 80th Regiment, arrived at Wellington from Tasmania; and it was remarked that there was not a defensible position in the country in the hands of the Government.

This force raised the depressed spirits of the Cook's Strait settlers, and they called upon the Governor to revenge the blood of their countrymen by hanging

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Rauparaha and Rangihaeata; but the police magistrates of Nelson and Wellington refused to issue warrants for their arrest, and Chief-Justice Martin also objected to give a bench-warrant for this purpose, because it involved questions as to the legal liabilities of a large portion of the native population. In this difficulty several unpaid Nelson magistrates signed warrants for the seizure of Rauparaha and Rangihaeata, and they requested Captain Sir Everard Home, R.N., of her Majesty's ship North Star, to execute them, but that officer declined to act without the Governor's sanction. Thus foiled in their desire for blood, the settlers began to hate the whole native race, and Colonel Wakefield declared they must for the present be subservient to circumstances, and that the time was not far distant when the rising generation of Anglo-Saxons would take ample vengeance for the opposition their fathers had encountered. 5

The Wairau conflict attracted the attention of Europe, and created interest in the minds of men who never thought about colonies. It completely stopped emigration to New Zealand, called forth the sympathy of people in different parts of Great Rritain, and at Paris a proposition was made to commence a subscription to enable the unfortunate settlers to return home. 6 The secretary of state, to promote the ends of justice, appointed Mr. Chapman a judge of the Supreme Court for the southern settlements of the colony.

A financial crisis aggravated the depression. The revenue was small and decreasing, the expenditure large,

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the treasury empty, and the Government 20,000l. in debt. An attempt to borrow 15,000l. at 15 per cent. interest in Sydney proved unsuccessful, and bills on the Lords of the Treasury were dishonoured. Only 1600l. were realised in 1843, from the sale of crown lands, and no land was purchased from the natives. The European population of 1843 exceeded that of 1842 by 1000 persons; the customs revenue had fallen 5OOOl. The exports of flax, timber, and oil, the three great commodities from which wealth was expected to flow, were decreasing. There was no coin in circulation, a circumstance which disheartened the labourers, and caused discontent among the natives because they could not get money for their pigs and potatoes. Men in the middle ranks of life offered to work for hire; most of the settlers were poor, and none were growing rich. The financial difficulties of the Government were said to have produced the financial distress of the people. At Nelson, the company's labourers, irritated at the low rate of wages given to them, threatened the lives of their superintendents. In the midst of these complicated difficulties a new ruler arrived.

Mr. Shortland's fifteen months' administration was an eventful one in the colony. He did not assemble the Legislative Council, but ruled by proclamations. As colonial secretary he was distinguished for vanity; and when he became His Excellency, a fascinating title given to officers administering governments, he grew arrogant. He bore, however, the disgrace Governor Fitzroy heaped upon him with an equanimity not to be expected from his elation in prosperity. After the Tauranga expedition he ceased to create difficulties,

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and exerted himself to keep the machinery of Government together until his successor's arrival, and this he did well, although offensively. Her Majesty's ministers directed that Mr, Shortland's dishonoured bills should become a debt on the colony, and as a balm to his wounded feelings, appointed him Governor of the Island of Nevis in the West Indies.