Travels in New Zealand

Alexander Marjoribanks

First published by Smith, Elder and Co. in 1846

Digitised and made available online by the University of Auckland Libraries and Learning Services.

Epub © 2013 Early New Zealand Books Collection

ISBN 978-1-927279-63-2

[MAP]

MAP of NEW ZEALAND

[TITLE PAGE]

TRAVELS
IN
NEW ZEALAND,

WITH A MAP OF THE COUNTRY;

BY ALEXANDER MARJORIBANKS, OF MARJORIBANKS.

"In scenery, climate, and productiveness, New Zealand is a perfect Paradise." – Evidence of Mr. Montefiore before the Bouse of Lords.

LONDON:
SMITH, ELDER, AND CO., CORNHILL;
OLIVER. AND BOYD, EDINBURGH; JAMES TEGG, SYDNEY.
MDCCCXLVI.

[TITLE VERSO]

EDINBURGH: JAMES CLARKE & CO., 221, HIGH STREET.

[PREFACE]

THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

THE great success that has attended my former Publications, joined to the anxious wish expressed by some of my friends, that I should give a short narrative of my Travels in those distant parts of the world which I had lately visited, have induced me to come once more before the public.

Though numerous works have of late been issued from the press in regard to New Zealand, most of which I have perused, yet some of them are too expensive to come within the reach of the general reader, while others are too much confined to a description of particular localities, and it may be, too much tinged, occasionally, with motives of self-interest, to exhibit a faithful and correct picture of that romantic country in all its different bearings. I trust that none of these objections will be found to apply to the present work.

I was sorry to observe from the Sydney Morning Herald of 3d August, 1844, which reached me on the 11th of January, 1845, that a vessel had arrived there the day before, chartered by the Governor of New Zealand, for the express

purpose of sending to the Governor of New South Wales for a supply of additional troops, in consequence of alarming symptoms of rebellion having broken out among the native tribes in the vicinity of the Bay of Islands, headed by a powerful chief of the name of Hackey of Waimatte. One hundred and fifty soldiers of the 58th Regiment, were accordingly instantly despatched from Sydney to the Bay of Islands.

One of the speakers at a meeting they held at Kororarika, in July 1844, previous to the vessel sailing, said – "Rauperaha had killed white people, and why could not they?"

Since the fatal affray at Wairoa, which has impressed the whole native population in that country with but too well founded notions of English cowardice, I am inclined to think that the Governor will never be able to get on without having a large disposable force, and an armed steamer of war constantly at his command; and that he will be under the necessity of converting his "Reign of Peace," which, in other circumstances would have been so desirable, into a "Reign of Terror."

In conclusion, I have to return to the New Zealand Company, and to their polite Secretary, Mr. Harington, my best thanks, for the kind assistance which they have at all times afforded me in the prosecution of this work.

A. M.

[DEDICATION]

TO

WILLIAM LOCKHART, Esq.

OF MlLTON-LOCKHART;

Member of Parliament for the County of Lanark.

MY DEAR SIR,

The long period of time during which you and I have been acquainted, commencing with the days of our folly and of our youth, and the many disinterested marks of friendship which, in journeying through life, I have experienced at your hands, have impressed me with the desire of dedicating to you the following pages, wherein you will find some little account of the wanderings of my riper years, amidst scenes far far removed from the land which gave me birth.

Allow me only to add, that it gave me the most heartfelt satisfaction, when sojourning in

some of the more remote parts of the habitable globe, to hear that the enlightened freeholders of the most important county in Scotland, had deemed you worthy of being elected as their Representative in Parliament; and, though differing somewhat from you on one or two political questions, yet upon the whole I would take this opportunity of congratulating them on the admirable choice which they have made.

Believe me, ever,
With sincere respect and esteem,
Yours very faithfully,
ALEX. MARJORIBANKS.
BALBARDIE HOUSE,
BATHGATE.

[CONTENTS]

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

The Voyage – Funeral at Sea – Cause of the dread of Death – Quarrels at Sea – Early history of New Zealand – Captain Cook – Anecdotes during residence there – Church of England Missionaries – Wesleyan Missionaries..........9

CHAPTER II.

Description of New Zealand – Bay of Islands – Hokianga – Auckland – Grand dinner to the late Governor – Port-Nicholson and Wellington – Wanganui and Petre – Taranaki and New Plymouth – Nelson in Tasman's Gulf New Edinburgh – Flax – Oil – Timber – Coal.....35

CHAPTER III.

Manners and Customs of the Natives – Tattooing and Cutting their Flesh – Tapuing – Cannibalism – Massacre of the Crew of the Boyd – Feasting on American Sailors – Horrible Treachery and Murder of Captain Marion and his Crew.........83

CHAPTER IV.

The Wairoa Massacre.......102

CHAPTER V.

Law compared to a Country Dance – Cause of the Love ofLife – Infanticide in New Zealand and the other South Sea Islands – Wonderful Effects of Christianity in checking it – Evils of Surplus Population – Different remedies for this Evil........144

CHAPTER VI.

Singular description of New Zealand, as contained in the Land claims given in – Compared by Mr. Montefiore to a Paradise – Views of it as a Field for Emigration – Murder of Mrs. Roberton and her whole family, at the Bay of Islands, by a young Chief – His Execution......162

CHAPTER I

NEW ZEALAND.

CHAPTER I.

The Voyage – Funeral at Sea – Cause of the dread of Death – Quarrels at Sea – Early history of New Zealand – Captain Cook – Anecdotes during residence there – Church of England Missionaries – Wesleyan Missionaries.

ON the 28th of October, 1839, I accompanied my esteemed friend, Mr. Dunlop of Craigton, then Lord Provost of Glasgow, and a large party, in a steamboat hired for the occasion, attended by some of the officers, and the band of the 1st Royals, from Glasgow, to the barque called the Bengal Merchant, lying off Greenock, and chartered in London, for the purpose of conveying the first Scotch colony to New Zealand. Dinner was served up on board of the steamer, at which champagne flowed in abundance.

On reaching the vessel his Lordship delivered an appropriate address to the emigrants. He told them, that though going to a beautiful country, and to enjoy a salubrious climate, they must lay their account with enduring many hardships, and must labour hard before getting fairly established in their adopted country. That even greater difficulties than they would probably have to encounter, had been overcome

by the first settlers in other parts of the world. He exhorted them to cherish kindly feelings towards each other, and reminded them, that as their tenure of life was short and uncertain, they would derive great consolation when traversing the stormy deep, and when tossed about by its mighty waters, from the hopes which the Christian religion afforded, of more enduring felicity hereafter. That they were about to lay the foundation of a colony, which in time might become a great nation – a second Britain, – and that numbers would no doubt follow, when, as he trusted the accounts of their successful enterprise, and happy settlement, had again arrived on those shores which they were about to leave.

On the 31st of October, having weighed anchor, I bade adieu to my native land.

"Adieu! Adieu! my native shore
Fades o'er the waters blue;
The night winds sigh, the breakers roar,
And shrieks the wild sea-mew.

"For pleasures past I do not grieve,
Nor perils gath'ring near;
My greatest grief is that I leave
The friends I hold so dear.

"Yon sun that sets upon the sea,
I follow in his flight;
Farewell awhile to him and thee,
My native land good night.

"A few short hours and he will rise
To give the morrow birth;
And I shall hail the main and skies,
But not my mother earth.

When nearly opposite to Largs, in Ayrshire, we received the parting cheers of Mr. Crawford, the New

Zealand Company's zealous agent in Glasgow, and those other friends who had accompanied us down the river in a steam-boat, who took that method of testifying their good wishes for our success. It may easily be supposed that we were not slow in returning these congratulations. We were all full of hope and anxiety to see what had been represented to us as a sort of earthly paradise – a smiling land, the very sight of which was at once to have banished away all our cares and all our sorrows. But man seeth only as through a glass darkly. Within a few short months I was doomed to witness those very beings who were cheering and shouting as they left the land of their nativity, cast, as it were, upon a barren, dreary, and inhospitable shore. I saw them turned out into a flat-bottomed boat every morning, for three weeks, nearly up to their knees in water, in order that they might erect for themselves their future habitations in the wilderness. I saw them at last, when that period, that short period of only three weeks had elapsed, driven out of the ship like oxen upon a Saturday night, in the midst of a storm of wind and of rain, of which you can hardly form any conception, many of them having no place to which they could fly to for shelter, until the fury of the storm was overpast. I heard their sighs; I witnessed the feelings which overpowered them, when they thought on those peaceful shores which they had so lately left, and on those happy days which had then for ever vanished from their view; and were those amongst them, who still survive in that distant region, now standing by my side, I am confident that many of them would be ready to exclaim with the prophet Jeremiah, "Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him, but weep sore for him that goeth away, for he shall return no

more, nor see his native country; but he shall die in the place whether they have led him captive, and shall see this land no more."

And long, poor wanderers, o'er the ecliptic deep
The song that names hut home will hid you weep;
Oft shall ye fold your flocks by some strange stars above,
In that far world, and miss the stars ye love.

After giving you this brief outline of the hardships to which the first settlers in every new colony are so apt to be subjected, but from which subsequent adventurers are in a great measure relieved, I must bring you back to where you had left us, namely, receiving the parting cheers of our friends, nearly opposite to Largs, and the wind being both strong and favourable, most of us had soon to take our last look of this happy land.

We left our homes, around whose humble hearth,
Our parents, kindred, all we valued smil'd;
Friends who had known and lov'd us from our birth,
And who still lov'd us as a fav'rite child.

We left the scenes by youthful hopes endear'd,
The woods, the streams, that sooth'd the infant ear;
The plants, the trees, that we ourselves had rear'd,
And every charm to love, to fancy dear.

We left our native land, and far away
Across the waters, sought a world unknown;
But did not know that we in vain might stray,
In search of one so lovely as our own.

We kept to the north of Ireland, passed near to the Giant's Causeway early on the following morning, and, after a splendid run of nearly five hundred miles, during the first two days, got into the Atlantic ocean,

clear of all land, a circumstance to which sailors attach great importance.

With the exception of one gale of wind when off the Bay of Biscay, we had scarcely occasion for even double reefed top-sails during the whole voyage, so that it was more like a pleasure sail than anything else. Lieutenant Breton says, in like manner, of the voyage to Australia, which is the same as to New Zealand, with the exception of the last thousand miles, after passing Van Diemen's Land, – "I have been twice to New Holland, and a friend of mine four times, without having experienced aught resembling a gale of wind." Mr. Waugh, of Edinburgh, says, "It is as pleasant a life on board as one can desire; there is so much to be seen every day, between flying fish, porpoises, sharks, whales, albatroses, &c. that one can hardly settle to any thing."

Nothing appeared to me so grand as to see the ship dashing through the waves, particularly on a fine moon-light night, and oft have I remained on the poop for hours, admiring the scene, and reflecting on Lord Byron's beautiful description of the sensations which it produces: –

"Oh! who can tell save he whose soul hath tried,
And danc'd in triumph o'er the waters wide,
Th'exulting sense, the pulse's madd'ning play,
That thrills the wand'rer on that stormy way."

Lord Byron, though accused of having been an infidel, has left upon record the following striking testimonial, if not to the truth, at least to the advantages of Christianity: – "Indisputably, the firm believers in the Gospel have a great advantage over all others, for this simple reason, that if true, they will have

their reward hereafter; and if there be no hereafter, they can be but with the infidel in his eternal sleep; having had the assistance of an exalted hope through life, without subsequent disappointment."

Including cabin, intermediate, and steerage passengers, there were about one hundred and fifty emigrants on board, including children. We had dancing occasionally during the early part of the voyage, and the Rev. Mr. M'Farlane gave prayers every night in the cabin, while the steerage passengers gave prayers among themselves. We, who were in the cabin, or cuddy, as it is generally called at sea, consisting of nineteen individuals, 1 fared sumptuously everyday; a circumstance highly creditable not only to the New Zealand Company, but to the liberal captain of the ship, In fact, it may be said that we did little else but eat, drink, and sleep, during the whole voyage. We had four meals per day, and at dinner had always five or six dishes of fresh meat, with a carte blanche of claret and other wines, besides a dessert of fruit. The supply of fresh provisions necessary for the cabin passengers daily, and the intermediate passengers twice a-week, you may believe was very great. In addition to preserved meats, now so universally used at sea, we had on board sixty sheep, twenty-one pigs, and nine hundred head of poultry. Pigs thrive best at sea, as they make it a rule to be quite at home in every climate, from the equator to the pole; whether

under the torrid or frigid zone, provided they get plenty to eat, but woe be to those who impose any restraint upon their appetites, as the noise of a hundred pigs is almost equal to that of a clap of thunder.

Talking of pigs, Mr. Dickens, in his late work on America, gives an amusing anecdote of one he met with in the streets of Washington. This pig had only one ear, having parted with the other to vagrant dogs, in the course of his city rambles, though he gets on very well without it. He had lost his tail in the same cause, but notwithstanding these severe losses, he leads a roving, gentlemanly kind of life. He leaves his lodgings at an early hour every morning, throws himself upon the town, gets through the day in a manner highly satisfactory to himself; and appears regularly at the door of his own house again at night. He is a free and easy, careless, indifferent kind of pig, having an extensive acquaintance among other pigs of the same character, whom he knows rather by sight than conversation, as he seldom troubles himself to stop and exchange civilities.

During the voyage, we had one marriage, one baptism, one birth, and one death. Those born at sea, whether of English, Scotch, or Irish parents, belong all by law to the parish of Stepney, in London, where their births ought to be registered, otherwise they have no parish to which they can legally apply for relief, should they come to require it; and no place where their names could be found, in the event of any succession opening up to them, a more agreeable event no doubt.

The death that occurred was that of a boy about ten years of age, the son of one of the emigrants. A

funeral at sea is a very striking event. To consign a body to corruption, without pomp or ceremony, amidst the roaring of the waves, with nothing but the ocean for a grave, and nothing but a sheet for a coffin, is well calculated to excite a deep and solemn emotion. The pageantry that attends the funerals of the great in civilized countries, produces a very different effect. The splendid hearse drawn by six stately horses, richly caparisoned, and the lengthened train of carriages which follow in its rear, has more the appearance of a coronation procession than any thing else; and the gazing, the giddy, and the thoughtless multitude, are infinitely more taken up counting the number of the carriages, than in thinking of the lifeless body that is dragged along, now confined to its narrow house; which, having escaped from the turmoils and the vanities of the world, is about to find repose at last in the silence and in the solitude of the tomb; for

"How still and peaceful is the grave,
When life's vain tumult's past;
Th' appointed house by heaven's decree,
Receives us all at last."

The fear of death, which pervades all mankind, arises from an illusion of the imagination, from changing places as it were with the dead body, and thinking and reasoning with our own living bodies. The same occurs every day in the common transactions of life. When a healthy young beggar, for instance, meets an elderly gentleman reclining in his carriage, he is apt to think how happy he must be riding about in this manner, with the additional advantage of having always plenty to eat. But the inmate of the carriage is perhaps suffering from disease, and having

little or no appetite, is taking an airing in order to procure one; the chief difference betwixt the rich man and the beggar consisting, it is said, in the one being obliged to take exercise for an appetite for his food, and the other food for his appetite. But the sturdy beggar never thinks of this, transferring at once, in his imagination, his own healthy body into this gentleman's diseased frame. Envy is the great bane of human enjoyment, and those who like this sturdy young beggar, are of an envious disposition, are always unhappy, as the happiness of others torments them nearly as much as their own misery.

Some, in like manner, envy those in fashionable life, who are constant attendants at court, mixing daily with kings and queens, princes and princesses, serene highnesses and royal highnesses, honourables and right honourables, and are apt to think how happy they must be moving in such a circle. But they don't consider for a moment what little satisfaction all this imparts to the great, from their being accustomed to it. An eminent author has remarked, that few have such a contempt for courts as courtiers, for while the world thinks that it is something, they know it to be nothing. The justice of this remark is borne out by the aspect of the actors on that elevated platform of human life. I have witnessed hundreds going to court both here and in other countries, and their countenances were so beset with care, with thought, and with melancholy, that had I not observed that they were decked out with rubies and with diamonds; covered with gold and with silver; and clothed in purple and in fine raiment; I would actually have supposed that they had been going to a funeral, instead of a levee. Nothing in

short, is so unsatisfactory to a well regulated mind, as an incessant round of gaiety and frivolity; and few are so unhappy in their solitary moments, as the votaries of an idle and fashionable life, notwithstanding all the splendour of their outward condition.

We sympathise with the dead, in like manner as we picture in our imagination how dreadful their situation must be, shut up in the bowels of the earth; no longer able to see the place where they dwelt when in the body, and to which they were so much attached, nor to visit those friends by whom they were so much beloved. Surely, we are apt to think, we cannot feel too much for those who have suffered so great a calamity. And the sad, the dismal reflection, that all we can do, and that all our love, and all the tears we pour forth, can yield no comfort unto them, tends only to aggravate our sense of their misery. But, most assuredly, the happiness of the dead is affected by none of these circumstances, nor is their profound repose disturbed by the thoughts of them. That solitude and misery which the fancy ascribes to their condition, arises from our consciousness of the change produced upon them by placing ourselves in their situation; transferring, as it were, our own living souls into their lifeless bodies, and then conceiving how dreadful our emotions would be. It is from this very illusion, no doubt, that the prospect of our own dissolution becomes so terrible, and that the very idea of those circumstances, which can undoubtedly give us no pain when dead, is so apt to make us unhappy when alive. Hence arises one of the most important principles of human nature – the dread of death, which, while it tends to poison the happiness of the individual, proves, at the same time, a powerful check to the injustice, the rapa-

city, and the wickedness of mankind. But to return to the voyage.

On the 16th of November we came in sight of Madeira, and entered the tropics on the 21st. The heat increased after this every day, till we passed the equator, or the line, as it is generally called at sea. For two or three weeks at that period, the thermometer ranged from 75 to 82 in the shade, and the nights, in particular, were very oppressive.

The commanding officer of our ship, Captain John Hemery, from the Island of Jersey, was a handsome young man of good address, and though said to be opulent, preferring a sea life to any other, – a singular choice I must admit. He had some faults, and who has not; but he was an excellent seaman; very sober and attentive to the duties of the ship, and a strict disciplinarian. He was disposed to be somewhat haughty in his deportment, – keeping very much aloof from us all; but this, I am inclined to think, arose, in a great measure, from the situation in which he found himself placed; and really, when we consider his youth, and the difficult part which he had to act, amidst the jarrings and quarrels that invariably occur in emigrant ships, I cannot help thinking that this feeling was highly commendable, Every Sunday when the weather permitted, we had divine service performed upon deck to the whole passengers and crew, by the Rev. Mr. M'Farlane. After service on the first Sunday, he distributed amongst us copies of a Pastoral Address by the Presbytery of Paisley, of which he had been a member, to the First Scottish Settlers of New Zealand, which concludes thus: –

"And now, dear countrymen, we sympathise with

you in your feelings, which are no doubt tender, on leaving the land of your fathers, it may be for ever, and are persuaded that, as Scotsmen, you are not likely soon to forget your last view of its rocky shores, as these fade and disappear in the distant horizon. Other lands, rich and sunny though they be, will, to those of you who have reached maturity, still want the tender associations of early life, and the hallowed recollections of a Scottish Sabbath, with its simple but affecting accompaniments. We have no need to be ashamed of our common country, comparatively barren though it be, and however ungenial our climate. Scotland has proved the nurse of many adventurous sons, whose conduct in other parts of the world reflects honour on the land of their birth; and you will not forget that you, also, are now to be enrolled among her expatriated children, and that she expects you will be distinguished amongst the natives of other lands for your high moral bearing, your honest and persevering industry, and your habitual reverence for God, and the things of God.

"And now, brethren, we must bid you adieu! Our first meeting will probably be around the judgment seat of Christ; but then we will not be as now, in the attitude of addressing, and of being addressed; the world itself will then have passed away. – time will have ceased to be counted by the revolutions of seasons and of centuries – eternity will have begun – the sentence will then have gone forth:" "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still."

On the 10th of February, 1840, we came in sight of the middle island of New Zealand; and when coasting along its shores for nearly a hundred miles, were wonderfully struck with the enormous height of the ridge of snow-clad mountains, which, being near to the west coast, we had almost constantly in view. Matthew, in his work entitled "Emigration Fields," in alluding to these, says, "the mountains themselves, the sublime southern Alps, more elevated than the highest of the Alps in Switzerland, upheaved from the depths of the great South Sea, in some places to more than three miles of altitude, and from their volcanic character, of the boldest and most abrupt outline, are perhaps unequalled in the world."

The first place at which we landed was at D'Urville's Island, on the west entry of Cook's Straits; but not finding, as we had reason to expect, any of the Company's officers to give us directions in regard to our future operations, we remained there only two hours. During that time, a family of natives paid us a visit in their canoes, the first we had seen, but a worse specimen of them cannot well be imagined. It was when off this Island that I composed the following poem, under these circumstances. Mr. M'Farlane offered a prize for the best poem, and though I believe that mine, upon the whole, was considered the best, yet our reverend friend contrived to keep the money in his own pocket in a very ingenious way; asserting that it did not come up to what, according to his views, a prize poem ought to be. But though rejected by this eminent divine, who must have been a bad judge of poetry, it does not follow that it must also be rejected by you –

SCENE – On board of the Bengal Merchant, at Ten o'Clock at night, off D'Urville's Island, Cook's Straits, New Zealand, on 11th February, 1840.

The bell tolls four, the knell of parting day,
The night watch sings "let lights extinguish'd be;"
Save where the cuddy darts its glimm'ring ray –
The only light that now remains at sea.

No more the fiddlers play their wonted airs,
No more the dancers trip the highland fling;
No more the Doctor 2 banishes our cares,
With stories told amidst th' accustom'd ring.

Oh sleep, thou harbinger of peace below,
Thou only refuge from the children's scream;
Thou only leveller of friend and foe,
And emblem of thyself without a dream. 3

The cry of water dealt with wine-like care,
Awakens those still lull'd in "Murphy's"arms;
And chance of finding breakfast boards laid bare,
Soon rouses those quite dead to other charms.

Once more the hubbub on the deck is heard,
Once more the sextant fills the Captain's hand;
Once more the gallant Lawyer 4 mounts his guard,
Prepar'd for fight in yonder savage land.

And now the Butcher takes his wonted stroll,
'Midst pigs and fowls that know full well his tread;
Or stopping, listens to some story droll,
Tho' not before his num'rous flocks are fed.

And now the Doctor goes his daily round,
And feels the pulses of his children dear;
And tells them that the best relief is found
In soups and salts, and sicklike good old cheer.

At night we offer up our prayers sincere,
To him who doth the mighty deep command;
That he would bless the friends we've left so dear,
And guard us still through our adopted land.

And when the cry of " Land" was heard at last,
How eager all that land were to explore;
Though some shed tears on scenes for ever past,
Fair far away on Caledonia's shore.

And now that we have plough'd the stormy deep,
And anchor'd safely on a foreign strand,
Let's sing the praises of the gallant ship,
That's wafted us unto this smiling land.

There is one thing connected with a sea life which I have seen noticed only by one author, and that is, the effect produced upon the temper, – those with good tempers on shore, becoming often irritable at sea. This author asserts, that too close a conjunction of human beings without relaxation, tends to beget selfishness; and states his conviction, that if twenty philosophers were shut up in one cabin during a six month's voyage, they would all come to hate one another by the end of it.

On board of our ship we had one or two quarrels, but nothing compared to those that occurred in some of the others. On board of the Adelaide, in particular, they were so numerous, and of so deadly a character, that the ship actually put in at the Cape of Good Hope for no other purpose but to fight duels, – the captain himself being one of the number. One of the combatants, however, became so much alarmed for his personal

safety, that, instead of appearing on the field of battle, he appeared in the courts of law; having applied to the authorities there to have the warriors apprehended, and bound over to keep the peace. This request having been granted, they were seized at an unexpected moment, namely, when attending a ball given at the Cape; being anxious, no doubt, to have a little more of the dance of life, before engaging in the dance of death. Captain Cole, an English gentleman, one of the trustees I appointed on leaving New Zealand, who was in that ship, informed me that some of the passengers actually carried loaded pistols in their pockets during part of the voyage, to be ready in case of an assault; a melancholy picture of the frailty of human nature.

We arrived at Port Nicholson in 113 days from Greenock; and though, after landing, we were exposed for a time to the hardships almost inseparable from a new country, and to which I formerly alluded; yet, when I reflected on the exemplary order and propriety I had witnessed on board of the ship which had conducted us in safety to the promised land, and on the devotional exercises in which we had been daily engaged, when crossing the mighty deep, I could not help considering this a favourable omen of our future prosperity, and offering up a prayer to the almighty disposer of all events, that he would bless us in this the land wherein we had come to dwell, as it is written in the 26th chapter of Genesis, he blessed Isaac of old, "And the Lord appeared unto Isaac and said, go not down into Egypt; dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of. Sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee and will bless thee."

On first landing, I observed that I was rather more an object of attraction amongst the natives than most

of my friends; and this, I afterwards discovered, arose from my size, as I then weighed fifteen stone, though the hot suns of Australia reduced me to thirteen within a twelvemonth afterwards. It was amusing to see the delight with which they gazed on me; and, when I walked along the beach, two of them, a young man and a young woman, insisted on accompanying me, and taking hold of my arm. Had I been twenty stone instead of fifteen, I actually believe they would have worshipped me as a deity. Previous to this I used sometimes to regret being so stout as I then was, but my New Zealand friends have thrown quite a new light upon the subject, and I readily bow to their authority, as they are well known to be people of taste in all matters of that sort. The Chinese, in like manner, consider those amongst the male sex the most handsome who are the most bulky, though they are no great admirers of fat women.

When searching for lodgings after leaving the vessel, I fortunately procured them in the hut or hotel of a countryman of my own, of the name of George Rose, from the county of Banff, in Scotland; who, in personal appearance, was a sort of giant, being six feet six in height.

George was living quietly in Sydney, when he got notice of the grand project of the colonization of New Zealand; and like a true Scotchman, never for one moment losing sight of the main chance, when he heard of lord's sons, and of baronet's sons, flocking there, he naturally considered that it would be a good field for his own operations, and that it was his duty to hasten to that land of promise, in order to do justice to himself by relieving the first settlers of every sixpence he could legitimately appropriate to his own

use, – a praiseworthy act, no doubt, on his part. He had accordingly been there some months before us, in order that he might have a proper start.

When I waited on him, he received me very kindly, and told me that he would share with me what he had, and give me the best accommodation which his hotel afforded; though he confessed it was somewhat open, having neither door nor window, and admitting both wind and rain, and native dogs. He promised, however, to give me a whole bale of blankets to cover me at night, if I required them, as he had them for sale in his store, and they would be nothing the worse of it; and I daresay you will think that I was pretty well baled up, when I mention that I had no less than eight pair upon me, so that though the rain occasionally came through one or two of them, it never penetrated through the whole. George had neither a table nor a chair in his hotel; but as he kept a store, we converted an old tea-chest into a table, and an old soap-box into a chair; and one knife and fork served us both, as we used them alternately, or time about, as they say in Scotland. We contrived, however, to fare more sumptuously than most of our neighbours, and it arose from this, that in addition to mine host's numerous other callings of store-keeper, publican, auctioneer, boat-builder, boat-hirer, hotel-keeper, commission-agent, &c. he added what, in a new colony, is more important than them all, namely, a butcher. To be sure there were nothing but pigs then to be had in the "earthly paradise" of the far famed Mr. Montefiore; but by putting two or three pigs' heads into the pot at once, we had excellent Scotch broth every day, and George always treated me to a glass of brandy or hollands after dinner, in case the

strong pork of New Zealand should disagree with my delicate stomach; so that, upon the whole, I rather got fat under my worthy landlord's care. The only evil attending the butchering department of his extensive business, was that it attracted the native dogs during the night; as he brought whatever meat was unsold into the house, and the dogs crept through some of the holes in the hotel, in order to have a share of what was going. Instead, however, of blocking up the openings through which they entered, which he could have done in an hour, he had a loaded gun all night by his bed side, and kept up a sort of running fire upon them, which disturbed my sleep very much. I think he must have been a very bad marksman, as amidst all the platoons which he fired, I am not aware that a single individual amongst his uninvited guests suffered in the cause.

George had a young native, or Maori girl, for his housekeeper, whom he had engaged in some measure from necessity, and the necessity was this. When he first arrived, there were only five or six English at Port Nicholson, and one of the tribes politely waited upon him, and recommended him, for his own comfort as well as safety, to take one of their young women to live with him; and George, having a great dislike to the extremely ungentlemanly habit they had fallen into of eating people up, at once agreed to do so. This girl made the broth for us every day, and did all the work about the house; and a more quiet, inoffensive, hardworking, and obliging creature, I never saw. When any of her tribe happened to pass, they generally called to pay their respects to her, and George got potatoes from them at a cheap rate, which he generally contrived to sell to his more wealthy

customers at the extremely moderate profit of cent. per cent.

The honour of having discovered New Zealand belongs to Tasman, a celebrated Dutch navigator, who after discovering Van Diemen's Land, called also Tasmania after him, proceeded northward in search of wood and water; and on the 18th of December, 1642, stood in to a bay at the south west entry of Cook's Straits, now called Tasman's Gulf, where the settlement of Nelson has been lately placed. Instead however, of getting a supply of these useful and necessary articles, which, had he been allowed to land, he would have got in abundance, these being, in my opinion, the two staple commodities of that country, the boats he sent on shore were attacked by the natives, and four of his seamen killed, so that they were unable to land at all. He called the bay "Massacre Bay," in memory of his four unfortunate seamen, and the country Staaten Land, which was afterwards changed to Nova Zealandia, or New Zealand, Zealand being one of the provinces of Holland.

Captain Cook, accompanied by the celebrated Sir Joseph Banks, and Dr. Solander, landed at Poverty Bay, in New Zealand, on the 8th of October, 1769, and is said to have been the first European who ever set foot on these much dreaded shores. He afterwards circumnavigated and surveyed the whole of it, and took possession of it, with the usual formalities, on behalf of the king of Great Britain, as he considered it well adapted for a British colony, and recommended it for that purpose, though his recommendation led to no practical result. In the Parliamentary debates that took place about the year 1785, which led to the selection of Botany Bay for a penal

settlement, as Captain Cook had also recommended, the attention of the House of Commons was called to New Zealand, as a country adapted for that purpose, but the dread in which it was then held for its cannibalism, overpowered every argument that could be adduced in its favour.

In the year 1814, that benevolent individual, the late Rev. Samuel Marsden, senior chaplain of Australia, though suffering from age and infirmity, forsook the comforts of his home, and sailed from Sydney to New Zealand, with a few followers or missionaries, and laid the foundation of the Church of England Mission at the Bay of Islands, and they thus became the first European settlers in that country, with the exception of two convicts who had fled from New South Wales, and were found in a wretched state, as the captain having told the New Zealanders that they were thieves, they declared that if they did not work neither should they eat. The object of this first mission however, was evidently not so much for the purpose of instructing the cannibals in the sublime doctrines of Christianity, as of introducing amongst them the useful arts, and, in time, if they succeeded, and were not devoured, of relieving them perhaps of some of their land, a very laudable object no doubt. These missionaries accordingly, and those who afterwards joined them, consisted chiefly of carpenters, boat-builders, blacksmiths, &c. who, in fact, seem to have had no other object in view but to make as much money, in their different callings, as they possibly could; and so indefatigable were they in this their favourite pursuit, that they contrived in a short time to monopolize almost all the land in that part of New Zealand that was worth having; so that

their earthly mission, at all events, was a very successful one.

When the Rev. Dr. Lang of Sydney, landed at the Bay of Islands in 1839, on his way to this country, he was so much struck with the rapacity of these missionaries, that during his short stay there of only eight days, he contrived to collect so much information, both in regard to them, and the country in general, that he was enabled to publish a work on New Zealand shortly after his arrival in England; wherein he records the melancholy fact, that in their zeal for worldly aggrandizement, they had absolutely lost sight of their heavenly mission altogether. I should be sorry, however, to reflect so harshly on their conduct as he has done, as great allowance ought to be made for them, considering the difficulties and dangers they had to encounter; and, during the first years of the mission, their time was most successfully occupied in preventing the murderous conflicts among the different tribes – then of almost daily occurrence. While enriching themselves, moreover, they did good to the country in general; so that, while I feel disposed to give them credit for their usefulness, our reverend friend looks only to their rapacity. Captain Fitzroy of the Royal Navy, the present Governor of New Zealand, in his evidence before the House of Lords, says, "that they had the respect not only of the chiefs, but of all the settlers whose respect was worth having."

Their settlement of Paihia, near Kororarika, at the Bay of Islands, presents the aspect of a beautiful English village; their houses being elegant and substantial, and the church large and well built, with a fine toned organ. They have another establishment at the "Waimate" or sick water, about thirteen

miles in the interior, between the Bay of Islands and the great river Hokianga; where their numbers, including an unusual number of children, now amount to a 1000, including natives. The country all round that quarter is in their hands; their fields of corn and potatoes are very extensive, though chiefly cultivated for their own consumption; their rich pasture lands are covered with sheep and cattle, and a neat church, with a spire, adorns that favoured spot. At the head of the river Kerikeri, which empties itself into the Bay of Islands, they have a third station, where their principal storehouse is built – a strong mansion of two stories, with iron bars, in which all their merchandise is safely deposited.

The contrast betwixt the Church of England and the Wesleyan Missionaries is very striking, as the latter have neither land nor cattle, but devote themselves exclusively to the duties of their office. The first of the Wesleyan Mission stations was erected on the river Hokianga, on the west coast of New Zealand, and may be considered one of the most successful that perhaps ever emanated from that Christian and patriotic body. In a work, published in Sydney by an Englishman who had resided fourteen years in Hokianga, entitled "Important Information Relative to New Zealand," the author says, "in this district may be traced the progress of man from his savage to his civilized state. It is a common sight to see, on the Saturday evening, thirty or forty canoes approaching the mission station, each manned with from ten to thirty natives, nearly all clad in European costume, and quietly encamping on the beach to await the approaching Sabbath; and their numbers frequently amount to 500, attending the ordinances

of religion, and conducting themselves with the utmost decorum. The change in their habits is not the less surprising; for whilst those who have not embraced Christianity, are found in their native costumes – the mat or the blanket, with their provision grounds cultivated in the most slovenly manner, and their overruling passion war; the native christians, on the contrary, are seen betaking themselves to those useful and profitable employments which the wants of civilized life create; so that you may every day see the Christian native chief of the highest rank, on a saw-pit with one of his people, working at this laborious employment." Some of our Highland chieftains, with whom these New Zealand chieftains are sometimes compared, would perhaps be surprised at finding their distinguished allies working in a saw-pit; but a chieftain who can saw a good log of Kauri pine must be considered a most useful member of society; and though no great adepts, like some of our chieftains, in that elegant accomplishment fox-hunting, yet that sensible cunning animal the fox, would probably rather meet them at the saw-pit than on the turf.

These Wesleyan missionaries are fully as zealous in their heavenly mission as the Church of England missionaries are in their earthly mission, and a greater compliment than that it is impossible to pay them. The late Rev. Mr. Waterhouse, Superintendent-General of the Wesleyan Missionary Church in Australia and Polynesia, made an excursion in 1841, through the greater part of his territories, which lasted eleven months. After visiting Sydney and Parramatta, he sailed to New Zealand; and from thence to the Friendly Islands, lying about a thousand miles to the north,

so called by Captain Cook, in consequence of the friendship he found subsisting among themselves, as well as their hospitality to strangers. He next proceeded to the Sandwich Islands, in one of which, viz. Owyhee, that illustrious navigator was killed by the natives in 1779, – and in these islands the greater part of the inhabitants have now embraced Christianity. But the greatest change of all he found had taken place in a cluster of islands called the Feejee or Fijee Islands, the natives of which were the greatest cannibals in the known world, infinitely worse than the New Zealanders, but are gradually becoming changed by the force of religious instruction. In one of them Mr. Waterhouse met a king, who was also a giant, standing seven feet and a half in height, and well proportioned. Amongst his various other qualifications he seems to have been an ardent admirer of female charms, having a seraglio of no less than thirty women, an establishment which, even in that remote part of the world, must be considered no contemptible rival of that of the Grand Sultan at Constantinople. In some of these islands, and particularly in the celebrated island of Otaheite, the black queen of which has taken a great fancy to be placed under the protection of her cousin the white queen of England, long nails on the fingers are reckoned a mark of distinction, as they imply that none but those who have no occasion to work could allow them to grow to that length. In some of them also, the unmarried women have the privilege of paying their addresses to the men, – an admirable custom, well worthy of being introduced here.

When it was found that the Church of England missionaries were permitted to live in perfect security, and were not devoured, other Europeans soon began

to settle there, and it gradually became a place of so much resort, that a desire to emigrate to it became prevalent, which led ultimately to the formation of the New Zealand Company in 1839, and shortly thereafter to its public recognition by the Queen of England as another colony to be added to her vast dominions, on which it is said the sun never sets, as when setting on one part he is rising on another.

1 Their names were Dr. and Mrs. Logan; Mr. Mrs, and Miss Strang; Mr. and Mrs. D'Orsey; Mr. and Mrs. Hay; Rev. Mr. M'Farlane; two brothers named Carruth; Dr Graham Tod, and his brother; Mr. Anderson; Mr. Buchanan; Mr. Wallace; Mr. Yule, and the Author. These with our hospitable Captain, and Mr. Bradley, the second mate, a gentlemanly young man, formed our daily circle at the dinner-table.

2 Dr. Graham Tod, of Glasgow, an emigrant, who died at New Zealand a few months after his arrival.

3 The Emperor Napoleon compared death to sleep without a dream.

4 R. Strang Esq. late Solicitor in Glasgow, who used to drill the passengers, to be ready for battle, in case of being attacked by the New Zealanders.

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER II.

Description of New Zealand – Bay of Islands – Hokianga – Auckland – Grand Dinner to the late Governor – Port-Nicholson and Wellington – Wanganui and Petre – Taranaki and New-Plymouth – Nelson in Tasman's Gulf – New Edinburgh – Flax – Oil – Timber – Coal.

New Zealand consists of three islands, the North, the Middle, and Stewart's Island; the North being separated from the Middle by Cook's Straits, and the Middle being separated from Stewart's Island by Foveaux's Straits. It is 13,340 miles from Great Britain, 1200 from New South Wales, and Van Diemen's Land, and about 5000 from Peru and Chili, on the west coast of South America. It is nearly 900 miles in length, and about 100 in its average breadth. At one part of the North Island it is upwards of 200 miles broad, but towards the extreme north it becomes very narrow, and at one spot in particular, about 200 miles from the North Cape, there is an isthmus extending in width not more than three miles across, and the natives occasionally draw their canoes over a short portage at one part of that isthmus extending about 9000 yards, from sea to sea, that is, from near Hobson's Bay on the east coast, not far from Auckland, to Manukau harbour on the west;

and at night, when the winds are lulled, the ocean is sometimes heard dashing against both shores. These three islands are now called New Leinster, New Munster, and New Ulster, but it would have been infinitely better to have named them New Mustard, New Pepper, and New Salt, as these are names that people would at least recollect. The area of the North Island is computed to contain 40,000 English square miles, and that of the South or Middle Island, of which Stewart's Island may be considered an appendage, 55,000, making in all 95,000 square miles, or about 62,000,000 square acres, so that it is somewhat larger than Great Britain.

The climate is remarkably healthy, the temperature throughout the year being singularly equable, the greatest heat never exceeding 80 degrees, nor the greatest cold 40; and the difference of the mean temperature throughout the winter and summer is only 20 degrees. The seasons are just the reverse of ours, their summer months being December, January, and February, when the thermometer generally ranges from 65 to 75, – and their winter, June, July, and August, when the thermometer ranges from 45 to 55. Ice or snow are seldom seen in the valleys, and when they do appear they as quickly disappear; so that they are enabled to obtain two crops of potatoes yearly, (or a crop of wheat and potatoes,) one of which they raise from the ground in January, and the other in June, and they only take fourteen weeks to come to maturity. In some parts of Scotland they occasionally find it difficult to get even one crop of grain within the year, and a story is told of a farmer, whose crop one year never happened to ripen at all on his high land, so that he thought he would let it stand over

the winter, and as it fortunately became yellow in June, the following year, he cut it down, and made a grand puff in the newspapers about his early harvest, carefully, of course, concealing the singular circumstance of its being a two year's crop.

The high winds that prevail in that country are certainly a great drawback, and Cook's Straits in particular are very much exposed to them during nearly one half of the year. This inconvenience however, is more than compensated in the opinion of most of the settlers, by the extraordinary salubrity which it produces; which is so far disadvantageous to the medical profession, that my talented friend Mr. D'Orsey, one of the surgeons in the Bengal Merchant, was obliged to leave it, as, with all his ingenuity, and all his zeal, and all his penetration, he could scarcely discover either man, woman, or child, with any disease about them in that tempestuous country. It is fortunate, therefore, that these high winds have some advantage, as they are undoubtedly very disagreeable; and Captain Cook, who was at anchor forty-two days in Dusky Bay, on the southern extremity, mentions that he had only seven fine or calm days during the whole of that time. In reference to the climate, Colonel Wakefield, the Company's active agent at Port Nicholson, says, in one of his despatches to the secretary in London, "All that has been said or written of the extraordinary healthiness of this place has been borne out by experience; I believe that every temperate and well conducted person in the colony is free from disease of every description."

I shall now proceed to give a brief description of the different localities in New Zealand to which emigration has already taken place, and shall commence

with the Bay of Islands, from its having been the spot which was first colonized.

The Bay of Islands, situated about eighty miles from the north-east extremity of the Northern Island, is a noble harbour, studded throughout with high rocky-islets, and affording shelter and anchorage at all seasons to any number of vessels. Kororarika, the principal settlement there, now called Russell, after Lord John Russell, is a fine village, with 1000 European and native inhabitants, romantically placed upon an open beach, sheltered by hills on all sides. The houses are many of them elegant; and land fronting the water, and suitable for the erection of stores, rose to £1000 per acre, when the late Captain Hobson fixed upon it for the capital of the country. There are, also, several extensive stores, which, being interspersed with native huts and inclosures, give a singular character to the scene. Mr. Busby also laid out a splendid town at the bay, which he called Victoria, and sold some of it at the rate of £300 an acre, but by far the best view of that town is to be found among the plans suspended in his own library, there being comparatively little trace of it on the surface of the earth. Victoria, however, has one advantage over Kororarika, namely, that it is backed by an extensive district of gently undulating land, free from trees, which could thus be easily brought under cultivation. The settlement of Paihia, three miles from Kororarika, belonging to the Church of England missionaries, which I formerly described, completes what may be called the Bay of Islands.

For twenty years preceding 1840, this bay was much frequented by vessels of every description, but particularly by South Sea whalers, which received

there whatever supplies they required of hogs and potatoes. Of the latter valuable esculent the natives made it their business to have such a quantity provided as was sufficient to supply all the ships that visited the bay; the quantity which, on an average, each vessel received being five tons. One hundred and fifty one vessels visited the Bay of Islands during the year 1836, ninety eight being American vessels.

From the number of foreign sailors of all nations who used at one time to frequent the Bay of Islands, the state of society became so depraved, that the missionaries at last had to give them up as a hopeless case; and Mr. Watkins mentions, in his examination before the House of Lords, that one Englishman in particular, was in the habit of supplying the captains of ships with potatoes, pigs, and women, in one lot, selling the pigs and potatoes, and the use of the women for the time being.

The Bay of Islands, however, has much declined within the last, few years, provisions having become dear, and whales scarce; and the opening up of other parts of that country, has also had the effect of diminishing its former importance. The land near to it, is moreover, very mountainous, and north from it extremely barren; so that, with these drawbacks, the idea of placing the capital of the country at nearly the extreme point in that direction, was no great proof of naval wisdom.

The whaling ships that used to frequent it, now resort to Tahiti, the Fejees, the Navigators, and the other numerous islands of the Polynesian group near the equator, where they obtain fresh provisions and wood cheaper than they can now do in New Zealand. In the neighbourhood of the Bay of Islands there are

no forests, and very few large trees. The natives at the Bay of Islands are computed at 8000.

After Governor Hobson had made up his mind to abandon Russell, which filled the inhabitants of that quarter with dismay, he pitched his tent a hundred and twenty miles farther to the south, at a place to which he gave the name of Auckland; and thither his private secretaries, colonial secretaries, aides-de-camps, custom house officers, town-officers, bailiffs, land-surveyors, attorney-generals, solicitor-generals, land-commissioners, and his whole retinue of favourites and expectants flocked like sheep after their shepherd; leaving Russell almost deserted, and the greater part of the splendid town of Victoria confined within the walls of a room. There is no doubt that the Bay of Islands owed much of its fame to its good harbour, and to its being the seat of that zealous body, the Church of England missionaries; but the want of available land in its neighbourhood, and its position at nearby the extreme point of the three islands, rendered it totally unfit to be the capital of that country.

Hokianga – This settlement, distant betwixt thirty and forty miles by land from the Bay of Islands, was the second colony founded by Europeans, and is situated on the west coast of the North Island. It is the chief seat of the Wesleyan missionaries; and the native population settled on that river, and tributary streams, is very great. Both they and the Europeans are employed almost exclusively in cutting down, sawing, and shipping off the Kauri pine, of which it may be called the head quarters. The river Hokianga is one of the finest in New Zealand, though not above thirty miles long, commencing near the residence of the ce-

lebrated Baron de Thierry; and Mr. Russel, Mr. White, Mr. Munro, and some others, have large establishments there connected with the shipment of wood to England, the Australian colonies, and occasionally to the East Indies. Mr. Webster, from Glasgow, a passenger in the same ship with me, has also a large sawmill, propelled by water, on one of its tributary streams. The chief drawback to that river is the bar harbour at its mouth, which renders the access to it both difficult and dangerous There are about 200 Europeans, including the Wesleyan missionaries now located there, but the settlement, upon the whole, is not very flourishing. Baron de Thierry claimed, at one time, almost all the land in that part of New Zealand; but Tarcha, a great chief at the Bay of Islands, and a noted savage, threatened if he did not remain quiet, that he would kill him, and eat him up, which cooled the noble Baron's ardour in the cause very much.

Auckland, the new metropolis adjoining the Thames, lies on an open slope, with little fresh water, and no wood for either fuel or building within several miles; and ships are obliged to anchor a long way off, as they cannot approach the shore at low water. Town allotments have been sold there at £1600 per acre, which is more than land was worth in Sydney, an unrivalled seaport, thirty years after its foundation. The plan of the town is designed apparently for a magnificent metropolis, one-fourth of it being covered with what appears at first to be a spider's web, consisting of circular streets, circuses, crescents, and an infinite number of radiations. The people of Auckland have built some very decent weather-boarded cottages at an enormous cost, and are now only waiting for emigrants to restore

their exchequer. A similar game was played at Adelaide, but latterly few pigeons have alighted in that land of promise.

The situation of Auckland, from being placed so near to Manukau on the west coast, must, however, be considered judicious, so far as that goes, as it has thus the singular advantage of securing part of the trade of both coasts; and a cargo of cattle from Port-Philip was landed at Manukau lately, and driven across the isthmus to Auckland, thus saving several hundred miles of water carriage. There is, however, but a small quantity of the land in its vicinity available, from the island there being so extremely narrow. The valley of the Thames certainly presents an extensive field for colonization, but the lower part is swampy, the best land being thirty miles from its embouchure. This, however, is in general covered with thick fern, ten or twelve feet high, so that it costs several pounds an acre to cut it down, and extirpate its immense roots, without which it would be of no avail. Firewood too is very dear, as it has to be brought by water carriage by the natives, from a considerable distance. Provisions, at one time, were high, as, in the Auckland Gazette of 24th July, 1841, I observed that potatoes were £6. 10s. the ton, beef 1s. 4d. per pound, mutton 1s., fowls 12s. the couple, eggs 6s. the dozen, and that they had no tea at all. Now, in the Gazette of 1st December, 1841, opposite to the word "Tea"there is still marked "none," so that from the want of that article during so many months, the Aucklanders had it not in their power to become tea-totallers, even though they had been inclined. They became, however, almost all rum-totallers during that time, and to that society they continue so much attached, that I fear they are

not likely to change it for any other. House rents were also at one time very high, the rent of a house suitable for a labourer or mechanic being, in 1841, 16s. per week, so that though labourers were receiving at that time £2, 2s. a-week, and bricklayers, carpenters, &c, £4, I doubt much whether, all things considered, they were better off than well employed operatives here, and probably found it nearly as difficult to obey the memorable injunction of the poet –

"Spare in thy youth, lest age should find thee poor;
When time is past, and thou cans't spare no more."

The sum of £1 Sterling, per week, for rent and fuel, makes a serious hole in a labourer's pay, leaving only £1, 2s. to provide clothing and food for himself, his wife, and family. Were he to have used, for instance, eight pounds weight of potatoes for his own share, his wife seven, and his three children, (the average number of a young family,) other seven, which Mr. Hawley, one of the Irish Poor-Law Commissioners, states in the sixth annual Report, as the average quantity of potatoes consumed daily by the families of the labouring classes in Ireland; the price of these twenty-two pounds of potatoes daily at Auckland, would, at that time, have almost exhausted bis wages for the whole week, leaving little or nothing for rent, fuel, clothing, or any thing else. At Adelaide, in South Australia, potatoes were sixpence a pound, in the year 1838, so that it would have cost this Irish labourer nearly £4 a-week, at that rate, to have kept his family there, in potatoes alone. It certainly would not have been a very profitable speculation to have boarded an Irish family, at that time, in Adelaide. Mr. Hawley mentions, that in some parts of Ireland

they eat so many potatoes at breakfast and dinner, that they can't afford to eat any supper at all, so that they fast about twenty hours every day, and have thus no occasion to set aside any particular days for that purpose. Provisions of all kinds are now, however, less than the one half of what they were in 1841, in Auckland, and wages and house rent have fallen in the same proportion.

Auckland, though now slowly recovering, was in a deplorable state in 1844. A friend of mine, Mr. Sanderson, writes thus to one of my brothers in Sydney on 22d January, 1844: – "There are, at this moment, not half a-dozen houses standing in Auckland, and these half-dozen could not raise together £300. Sales of bankrupts are taking place every day at ruinous prices, and at one which I attended lately, sugar was sold at a penny a pound, Indian silk handkerchiefs eightpence each, and rice one farthing a pound." Mr. Sanderson mentions in the same letter, that, at the sale of the property of Mr. Cooper, the colonial treasurer, who had fallen behind, an allotment of ground, with a splendid house, which had cost in all £1550, brought only £340, and that his cattle, horses, furniture, &c. brought only one seventh of their cost two years before.

It has often appeared to me strange, how seldom the working classes here, compare the rate of living in other countries, with the nominal rate of wages; and this neglect often creates disappointment when they emigrate to these countries. Indeed, I believe that the average rate of wages throughout the world, keeping in view, of course, the expense of living, is more equal than at first sight we should be apt to imagine. When an Irish labourer, for instance, who, in his own country,

is receiving only tenpence a-day, hears of a labourer in Auckland receiving seven shillings, as he did at one time, he probably thinks that this must almost have enabled him to keep his carriage. He does not consider of how little consequence it is whether the nominal quantity of money received be great or small, and that the amount of the necessaries of life which that money can procure, is the only test whereby he can judge accurately of the rate of wages. Humboldt, the great traveller, mentions, that the miners who work in the gold and silver mines of Peru, and Chili, in South America, receive four times as much wages in money as the miners in Saxony, but are no better off, as the price of every thing is dear in proportion. During the reign of Edward the III. a common labourer received threepence a day, but a fat sheep was only one shilling and threepence, and a fat goose threepence, so that he could buy a fat sheep with five days pay, and a fat goose with one. But at the present day, when a fat sheep costs twenty-four shillings, he must give twelve days pay for it, at two shillings a-day.

It is curious that the English cannot settle down quietly, even in a new country, without wasting their time and money on these two most absurd of all absurdities, namely horse races, and public dinners. When beef was one shilling and fourpence a pound, one would suppose that the Aucklanders might have been better employed in sowing a little clover or turnip seed for their cattle, than in drinking a long list of absurd toasts, or setting a parcel of dumb animals to run against each other, particularly in a country like that, where, from their being scarcely any roads, it is of no earthly consequence whether a horse can gallop

twenty miles an hour, or only twenty yards; indeed a couple of working bullocks are intrinsically more valuable, in a new colony, than all the race horses in the world. These races were advertised in the Auckland Gazette of 1st December, 1841, as the Epsom races, and to those amongst the Aucklanders who had really seen the Epsom races in England, the contrast must have appeared singularly striking. The winner of the Auckland town plate was to be sold for £150, "if demanded," but who in their senses would give above as many pence for a race horse in a wilderness.

The dinner was given to Captain Hobson, the late governor, and took place on the 21st of July, 1841, when, as the newspaper states, "his Excellency fulfilled his promise of honouring the inhabitants of Auckland with his company to dinner, at Wood's Royal Hotel." This dinner, like most other public dinners, though given ostensibly in honour of the Governor, was no doubt got up by the fifty gentlemen who attended it, chiefly with the view of affording them an opportunity of sounding each other's praises. When his Excellency's health was proposed, he made an eloquent reply, worthy in every respect of a jolly British tar converted into a governor. The toast of "the Church," gave the Rev. Mr. Churton an opportunity of displaying his usual eloquence. The "Army and Navy" followed next, when Lieutenant Dawson, of the Navy, and Captain Richmond of the Army, both returned thanks. Lieutenant Dawson, in his speech, seemed to think that Governor Hobson was as eminent an individual as Captain Cook, which no doubt secured for him a knife and fork at his Excellency's table the following day. The next toast was "the blessings of peace and civilization to the abo-

rigines," to which Mr. Halswell responded, declaring that though he had been appointed one of their protectors, he found them perfectly able and willing to protect themselves; admitted by all present to have been the most sensible remark that was made during the whole evening. The next toast, "Mrs. Hobson, and the Ladies of New Zealand," was proposed by the Attorney-General, and responded to by the Governor, who afterwards retired. Now as the dinner was given in honour of him, they ought all to have retired at the same time, but that would not have answered their purpose at all, as, with the laudable object which they had in view, it was of no consequence whatever to them whether they entertained at dinner his Excellency or a chimney-sweep; and but for that, his Excellency, in all probability, would have had the distinguished honour of dining by himself. After his departure, accordingly, they set to work with more energy than ever. The vice-chairman gave the "Colonial Secretary," who made a neat reply; Mr. Mason gave "the commissioners of claims to grants of land," when Colonel Godfrey, one of the commissioners, displayed his usual eloquence; Mr. Coates gave "Captain Symonds and the Magistrates of New Zealand," when the captain returned thanks in an appropriate manner. In short, they continued pouring forth the most extravagant eulogies on each other for several hours, till the healths of almost the whole company had been proposed, and they had made their speeches, when the revelry, of course, came to an end. They were all, in short, so delighted with each other, that they were reluctant to separate, thereby resembling two lovers courting, who, it is well known, never tire of each other's company, for the best of all possible reasons, because they are always talking of themselves.

PORT NICHOLSON – This was the first of the Company's settlements, and is still the principal one. It is possessed of a good harbour, surrounded by hills on all sides, beautifully covered with trees to the top. The bay or port, is about eight miles long, and three broad, entering from Cook's Straits. The want of available land in its immediate vicinity has been somewhat complained of, but this objection can no longer be urged against it, as 7000 acres of the richest land have now been rendered available in the valley of the Hutt, seven miles distant, and it has received a still further addition to its agricultural importance by the discovery of the Ruamahunga Plains, about twenty miles distant, containing upwards of 100,000 acres of good pasture land. But by far the most important addition to it, is the splendid valley or plains of Wairarapa, thirty miles from Wellington, up the valley of the Hutt, beyond the Ruamahunga Plains, comprising nearly half a million of acres, of which the New Zealand Company acquired right, in 1844, to 150,000 acres of available land, without regard to figure or continuity of blocks. Mr. Heaphy, the draftsman of the Company, gives a very good account of Port Nicholson, in his work, published in 1842, though he shews too great partiality to the Company's settlements, taking little notice, in fact, of any other. Accordingly, the Morning Chronicle of 1st October, 1842, in reviewing his work, says, "we believe he has not coloured the capabilities of the colonies too highly, but he is evidently the advocate of the Company, rather than an impartial judge, by whose judgment we should feel disposed to let ourselves be guided." It is amusing to contrast Mr. Thorp's description of Port Nicholson, with that of Mr. Heaphy. Mr. Thorp, writes thus in 1842: –

"At present New Zealand is in high favour at home, and but middling at Sydney. In England, New Zealand signifies Port Nicholson, and the Company's land adjacent, where there are now located some five or six thousand souls. To the north of the island, on an arm of the frith of the Thames, is Auckland, where the governor has fixed his head quarters, with a population of 1000. The situation of Auckland is certainly far before Port Nicholson, though an indifferent seaport. Port Nic, as the natives call it, is surrounded by abrupt hills, perhaps five or ten acres of level land being scattered in petty parcels round the coast.

"The passage to this port, or open sea, is flanked by reefs, and the wind is often so violent as to render three anchors necessary to hold a ship. The coast adjoining the cities called Britannia, Thorndon, or Wellington, is shoally, and vessels lay off half-a-mile. In some publication the place has been likened to the Bay of Naples, and it is so, according to the adage, "as chalk is to cheese." I think it was the same veracious work which said a cargo of soap and blacking found ready sale with the natives, though they wear no shoes. Ships continue to be taken up and sent from England to this place with emigrants of various sorts, some refugees, of parishes, which are for the most part an idle set; a few rural labourers; an undue proportion of petty shopkeepers; some settlers of enterprise and talent, and a sprinkling of your gentlemen adventurers who gamble in billiards and land.

"A road is now forming about fourteen miles long to get at some available country, there being hitherto but one solitary piece of cultivation to supply 5 or 6000 mouths. A number of people have left, some to Cloudy Bay, on the south side of Cook's Straits,

and others to different parts of New Zealand or to Sydney. More recently another Company have located an extensive tract of level land near Mount Egmont, called Taranaki, where there is some progress made in cultivation. From the glimpse I had of it, the scenery is attractive, the lofty peak of Mount Egmont rising at once from the plain, like the Alps from the vale of Lombardy. The port, if it can be called one, is only a roadstead; and indeed there is no port on the west coast without a dangerous bar at the entrance."

Lieutenant John Wood, in his late work, entitled "Twelve months in Wellington, Port Nicholson," published by Richardson, Cornhill, London, agrees with Mr. Thorp in thinking Auckland preferable for the capital to Wellington, which I do think he disparages too much. The following is his remark on this subject "Auckland, in the course of years, must become the chief colony, for here nature has done what neither capital nor puffing can do for Wellington." There is some truth, however, in Mr. Wood's observation, that vessels from Sydney to England, invariably avoid Cook's Straits, their course homewards being directed either to the north or to the south of New Zealand. Indeed, straits in general are always avoided if possible by captains of ships. Notwithstanding however these remarks of Messrs. Thorp & Wood, I am still of opinion, that Port Nicholson was perhaps the place best adapted for the capital, from its fine harbour, and being in the very centre of the country, as the Middle Island lies contiguous to it on the other side of Cook's Straits. It is, moreover, on the high road to Valparaiso, in South America, where steam ships have already commenced plying to England by

way of the isthmus of Panama, and by the English royal mail steam ships from Chagres, on the Atlantic side, to Jamaica and England; and within three hundred miles of the Chatham Islands, lying in the direction of Valparaiso, which contain nearly a million of acres, one fourth being excellent land, and peopled almost entirely by New Zealand natives, five hundred of whom sailed from Port Nicholson to these islands in 1832. It is, moreover, in the very centre of the two great staple productions of that country, flax and oil, the greater part of the whale fishings in New Zealand, being in Cook's Straits. Indeed, Governor Hobson himself is reported to have said, that he had been deceived in regard to the fertility of the Middle Island, and that in the event of its being colonized to a respectable extent, there must either be two Governors for New Zealand, or the seat of Government must be transferred to Port Nicholson.

I am not singular in considering Auckland inconveniently situated for the metropolis of the Great Britain of the south, as Mr. Heaphy says of it, "I cannot think that, it is a proper place for the seat of government, nor do I believe that it will, for any length of time, remain the capital." The Hon. Mr. Petre, son of Lord Petre, in his excellent history of the Company's settlements, after alluding to the large British population at Port Nicholson, Wanganui, New Plymouth, and Nelson, all of which may be said to be in Cook's Straits, makes the following remark, "Under these circumstances, the extreme inconvenience of placing the seat of government on the peninsula at the northern extremity of New Zealand, must be apparent to every one. If Captain Hobson, had been sent to New Zealand to found a small town,

there would, perhaps, be no objection to the spot, but he was sent to govern a colony, and it does seem almost unaccountable that he should have neglected to visit Port Nicholson, and the harbours in Cook's Straits, and should have fixed the seat of government at so great a distance from the people to be governed, and from that part of New Zealand which is, and must continue to be, the most attractive to settlers."

In a newspaper published in 1842, at Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, there is the following remark, "At Wellington, or Britannia as it was first called, there are not less than 5000 white inhabitants; and it was by all expected that the seat of government would shortly be removed thither, which with deference to the opinion of the governor of New Zealand, we certainly think the preferable situation."

The inhabitants of Port Nicholson, during the years 1840 and 1841, laboured under great disadvantages, owing to the title under which the New Zealand Company, as well as others, held their lands, having been called in question by the Governor and Council of New South Wales, under whose jurisdiction the country then was; and at one time the settlers there had it actually in contemplation to move off in a body to Chili, in South America. But the recognition of New Zealand by the Queen of England as an additional colony – the appointment of a governor independent altogether of New South Wales, and, above all, the settlement of the claims of the Company to their lands, upon a fair and reasonable footing, by the home government, dispelled the cloud which for a time overshadowed them, and saved the colony from ruin.

The following is a summary of the arrangement en-

tered into by the Government and the Company, and the same principle was applied in regard to the titles of all the other claimants of lands in that country.

With respect to all lands acquired in the colony under any other than that of grants made in the name and on behalf of her Majesty, it is proposed that the titles of the claimants should be subjected to the investigation of a commission to be constituted for the purpose. The basis of that inquiry will be the assertion on the part of the crown of a title to all lands situate in New Zealand, which have heretofore been granted by the chiefs of those islands, according to the customs of the country, and in return for some adequate consideration.

An account of all the just and moderate expenses of the Company hitherto incurred in forwarding the colonization of New Zealand to be made out, and the crown to grant the company as many acres of land as shall be equal to four times the number of pounds sterling which they shall be found to have expended in the manner stated.

The Company to forego all claim to any lands purchased or acquired by them in New Zealand, other than the lands so to be granted to them, and other than any lands which they may hereafter acquire from the crown, or other persons deriving their title from the crown.

It is proposed to apply to all other British subjects the rule to which the New Zealand Company will be subject in respect of the lands claimed by them within the colony. This advantage, however, will be offered only to those whose lands were acquired before the 5th day of January, 1840, the date of proclamation issued by Sir George Gipps on the subject.

Under this arrangement, all those who had acquired land prior to the above date, were to be allowed one acre of land for every five shillings which they could instruct to have been bona fide expended in any manner of way. The Company, for instance, in the whole expense attending their purchases from the natives – sending out emigrants, &c, and private individuals all the expenses they had been at in improving the land, &c. &c. This enactment, indeed, was chiefly intended to frustrate the attempts of Mr. Wentworth, and some other speculators in Sydney, who had rather imposed on the natives, after they had heard that New Zealand was on the eve of being colonized. Mr. Wentworth, in particular, along with four or five others, had purchased nearly twenty millions of acres in the middle island, (being, as he stated, the whole of that island, with the exception of about three millions of acres which belonged to other purchasers,) from seven chiefs whom he happened to meet in Sydney, for which he gave them £200 in hand, with the promise of a like sum annually as long as they lived, – which must be looked upon as a wonderful purchase. Some of the other Sydney purchasers had bought land at New Zealand at the rate of 50 acres for a penny. Mr. Wentworth is a very opulent individual, and is now one of the members of Council for the city of Sydney. He struggled hard to retain his New Zealand purchase. Though, therefore, the government enactment proved a finishing stroke to all that class of claimants, it must be considered, upon the whole, a liberal and judicious arrangement on the part of Lord John Russell. Prior to February 1842, the government commissioners had sustained 435 claims to land, out of 595 then given in by 280

individuals, the total measurement of which was 13,920,482 acres, or nearly one-fourth of the entire surface of that country, and their arduous labours will now soon be closed.

After this arrangement, the colony may be said to have gone ahead; and as a proof of it, I shall give the evidence of Peter Doreen, who went out in the ship with me from Glasgow, and who, though an Irishman, sailed to New Zealand as one of the first Scotch colonists, which shews that he was fond, at least, of being in good company. In addition to all his other blessings, he was blessed with a numerous offspring of children and grandchildren, like the patriarchs of old. I was somewhat surprised at finding my old friend Peter's letter so well written, his learning, so far as I recollect, not being very extensive, but probably he had the same excuse as one of his countrymen, who, when apologising to a friend for not being able to read nor write so well as he could have wished, said, "that it was the fault of his education, as he had been at school only one afternoon during the whole of his life, and that afternoon, the schoolmaster happened to be absent." Lord Brougham constantly boasts that the schoolmaster was abroad, as this schoolmaster seems to have been, but I should like to hear of his being found occasionally at home. Mr. Doreen's letter appears in the Glasgow Constitutional of 1st September, 1841, where it is thus noticed: –

"New Zealand. – A letter was received in Paisley last week, from a man named Peter Doreen, who went out an emigrant in the Bengal Merchant. He says "the rivers abound in excellent fish, new roads are getting opened up, the inhabitants are becoming very civil, and are the most intelligent race of people

in the world. A year ago, at Port Nicholson, there was not a hundred inhabitants, now they amount to several thousands." He speaks of New Zealand as being a very healthy place, as he has known no one to have been badly except from drinking "Wypera" whisky. The writer gives the following as the prices of some of the articles of ordinary consumption. Flour 4d. to 6d. per lb.; butter 2s.; pork, 4 1/2d. to 6d.; beef, 1s.; tobacco, 2s.; sweet milk, 6d. a quart. He says "emigrants arriving here, have nothing to do but commence work immediately, at two pounds a-week, and no man that ever wrought a day's work but is able to labour in New Zealand." The articles he recommends emigrants to take out, are hammers, chisels, saws, spades, hoes, pick-axes, &c. which are generally about 100 per cent. dearer than in England. Clothing is more reasonable, but generally inferior. Towards conclusion, he says, addressing his countrymen, "I earnestly request of you, if in your power, free yourselves from bondage and slavery, and come to New Zealand; mind nothing what any person says, – we are all better than ever we were, and apparently will have a splendid colony."

After this forcible appeal, I certainly expect to hear that you are all off by to-morrow morning. "Free yourselves from bondage and slavery," exclaims Peter, and who amongst us is so great a lover of bondage and slavery as not to rise at his solemn call?

The following eloquent address on this subject, though in a different style, is from a speech delivered by Sir William Molesworth, late member for Leeds, at a Fete given at Plymouth on the 30th October, 1840, by the Plymouth Company of New Zealand.

After expressing the deep interest he felt in every thing connected with that country, – the more particularly from having a brother settled there, Sir William says, "this young person went thither with my cordial approbation and concurrence; for, in my humble judgment, a young man with active body and vigorous understanding, who has his fortune to make, cannot seek it in a better manner than in the colonies; especially in those of the southern hemisphere, where the climate is similar to our own. In this country every occupation is overstocked; in every employment competition is excessive; the profits of capital are scanty, and there is no room for competitors. Look at the number of barristers without briefs – of lawyers without fees – of doctors without patients. Behold the swarms of clergymen that crowd into the church, without any special vocation for that sacred office, and awaiting in vain expectation for some scanty living. It is only, therefore, after a long life of patient and painful toil, and in too many cases not even then, that a prudent man, who does not possess the gifts of fortune, can indulge in the social affections. The deepest sorrow and compassion must fill the mind of every man who has carefully considered these subjects, and traced the moral as well as the physical consequences of over competition in this densely peopled country. How different is the scene in the colonies of the southern seas! There industry and capital meet with a reward three times greater than in this country. There, with moderate prudence and exertion, every man can obtain a comfortable subsistence; and a numerous offspring, instead of being a burden, is the greatest of benefits. What, then, hinders multitudes from hastening to these lands of

promise? Surely abundance there is better than penury here. Why do not the younger branches of our aristocracy, instead of wasting their time at home in sloth and idleness, or in the ignoble attempt, and henceforth, I trust, a vain one, to quarter themselves upon the resources of the nation – why do not they, I repeat, lead forth numerous bands of emigrants to the colonies? Can they have a more honourable or useful occupation? By putting themselves at the head of systematic colonization, they would confer a lasting benefit on their country and themselves, and gain a renown in history similar to that of the Raleighs, the Drakes, and other worthies, distinguished in the annals of the planting of America. You, intrepid men, who are about to leave these shores, emigrants to New Zealand, bright prospects are before you. Go, then, accompanied with every auspicious omen. Be the pioneers of civilization. Imitate your forefathers: subdue the forest – carry your name, and your language, and your arts, and your institutions, into the wilds of the southern hemisphere. Let the sea and the land be alike witness of your toils. Become the founders of a mighty empire in a new world of your own creation, and thus accomplish the destiny of your race." But as I do not consider myself the advocate of the New Zealand Company, I must turn your attention occasionally to the gloomy side of the picture, as a true and correct view of different countries is best acquired by following the maxim which Lord Bacon inculcated in regard to the true character of men; if you wish to find out their good qualities, ask their friends – if their bad, ask their enemies. In the "London Sunday Times"of 20th March, 1842, is the following paragraph: –

"New Zealand – A correspondent writes as follows:

– Before I quitted England, I bought 200 acres of land. You must not believe half what the papers say in England respecting us. They tell you that the land you buy will be given out in a few weeks after you arrive; which land, at the same time, is scarcely found, much less surveyed. I have not yet had the land I bought; neither have I been able to get any employment; there are so many waiting in the same way. New Zealand is one of the wildest places you can imagine – very mountainous, everywhere so thickly wooded that you cannot walk without a path being cut." And the following extract of a letter from Port Nicholson, appears in the Glasgow Constitutional of 30th March, 1842. "The people can get no work – there are hundreds about the place, out of employ. The Company give 14s. a-week, and rations. Most people are selling their land to get away with the first chance that offers." Now, were I to consult my own interest, I might be disposed to conceal these unfavourable accounts, as I have still a hundred acres of land in that country; but when sojourning in New South Wales, I heard so many curses poured forth upon those, who, by exaggerated statements, had induced so many of their simple-minded and unsuspicious countrymen to exchange the fertile land of their forefathers, for what they found, when too late, were only barren and inhospitable shores, that I determined, whatever others might do, that it should never at least be laid to my charge that I had been guilty of misleading any one.

From the latest accounts, however, that have been received, things seem to be doing much better at Wellington, the name given to the chief town at Port

Nicholson, and the natives there are becoming more active – earning occasionally 3s. a-day. I was not the only one who accused them of being idle at first, as the following passage occurs in Chambers' Edinburgh Journal of 2d January, 1841.

"Amongst the population at Port Nicholson, up to April last, were about 800 natives. Most accounts speak favourably of these individuals, and prognosticate that they will be useful as labourers. They had already been active in clearing land and building houses for the settlers. 'We give them,' says a colonist, (Mr. Partridge), 'blankets, muskets, powder, tobacco, and shirts, in exchange for pigs, potatoes, house-building, and thatching, and things of that sort." Speaking of the chiefs, the same gentleman says, (March 18), 'Warrepore drank tea with me to-night, and drank wine like a good Christian; but his appetite is of the largest. He is a great warrior, six feet high, and a restless fighting devil. Eponee is an orator, and a sensible fellow.' Though irritable when thwarted in their prejudices and customs, they are, if civilly treated, obliging, attentive, and well behaved. To an active European they appear indolent; but it must be readily seen that a barbarian cannot all at once be broken into habits of diligent application. This must be a matter of time, and perhaps the existing generation will never be very serviceable. It is by taking the young into training that the services of the aboriginal race will be most speedily and efficiently secured. A lady (Miss Hunter) says, April 7, 'We are very much pleased with the natives, who seem to be intelligent and obliging, but very indolent.' Another writer, (Mr. Marjoribanks,) speaks of the natives as extremely filthy, and more disposed to thrust themselves

upon the hospitality of the settlers than to work for an independent subsistence. He adverts to two princesses who live in a pig-sty, cover themselves by day with a mat of native flax, and eat vermin. But even he allows that he, by and bye, saw one of these ladies appear on a Sunday in a nice new gown that would not have disgraced a London or Parisian milliner. If once the people in general get a taste for smart dresses and superior accommodations, their barbarism and inactivity will disappear together. It is a noble and humane arrangement which this Company has been the first to make with respect to any aborigines, that a tenth part of the land is reserved for their use as free property. The reserves made for them at Port Nicholson were estimated, a few weeks after the first settlement, as worth, £35,000. This appears like acting upon high principle, and forms a striking contrast with the conduct of the missionaries of the Church Missionary Society, who have possessed themselves of a great deal of land in the most unscrupulous way, and now that their arts are exposed and stopped, do all they can to incense the natives against the Company's settlers."

Warrepore, whom Mr, Partridge mentions having entertained at tea, though anything but a teetotaller, was sometimes entertained by the captains of the emigrant ships, and became fond at last of a glass of wine. 1 saw him on one occasion, when he had had a drop too much, strip himself naked on the beach, in order to give the spectators a specimen of his war dance. The feelings of the English ladies who happened to be present on this trying occasion it is easier to imagine than describe.

Wellington, now presents the appearance of a bus-

tling town, as including the Scotch village of Kaiwarawara, situated a mile from it, with 300 inhabitants, and the villages of Petoni and Aglionby, six or seven miles distant, at the mouth of the valley of the Hutt, where we were first located, the present inhabitants of that district amount to 6000 British, and about a 1000 natives. The number of good houses, and stores, &c. built by the British, is now estimated at 800, besides 400 native huts. The natives, seeing how much more comfortable the English houses are than their own, – in one of which my amiable friend the princess lived, – are pulling them down every now and then, and constructing houses similar to ours, so that most of the superior chiefs have now tolerably well built cottages. The present value of the houses, stores, and public buildings, built there, is computed at £200,000. Upwards of 1000 vessels have anchored within the bay since the colony was first founded in 1840, and in 1814 five vessels arrived direct from it in Britain, loaded with native produce, viz. oil, whalebone, flax, ornamental woods, and wool, the whole valued at £60,000.

The valley of the Hutt, where it was originally intended to have placed the town, is now getting fast into cultivation. It is fortunate that it was abandoned as a township, as the water on one occasion, rose three or four feet in several of the huts, so that some of the guests of a gentleman, who happened to give a ball and supper at that time, arrived in their boats, instead of their carriages; and instead of a stable had to use an anchor. The soil in this valley, when cleared of the timber, is rich beyond measure, being eight or ten feet deep of beautiful black vegetable mould, and will consequently require no manure for many years.

Mr. Molesworth cleared 100 acres in this valley, previous to his departure for this country in 1844, and his potatoe crop, in 1842, produced twelve tons per acre, some of which he sold at £10 a ton, or at the rate of £120 per acre, though the circumstance of his having obtained that price, even for a small quantity, arose from the colony being then comparatively in its infancy. The average return per acre of land in this valley, is forty bushels of wheat, and ten tons of potatoes. The natives, when they dig their potatoes, leave the small ones in the ground to grow larger, – an admirable plan, as there is no frost to hurt them in that country. Some of Mr. Molesworth's potatoes, the produce of native seed, measured nine inches in length, and the wheat grown in this valley, was five feet and a half in length, and the ears full and large in proportion. The cost of clearing, fencing, planting, hoeing, and digging, the first crop of potatoes, amounted to about £30 an acre, so that the expence of clearing the land of its heavy timber, (averaging £20 an acre), was repaid by the first crop. There are 7000 acres surveyed and given out in this valley, which may be said to comprise all the level land in it, but as most of the sections are very good, when they come all to be cleared and rendered available, which will be the case in the course of a couple of years, the produce, with two crops in the year, will be immense, – sufficient, it is thought, for the whole inhabitants of that district. Those settlers who are located at Aglionby, on the Hutt, about two miles from its embouchure, are chiefly sawyers and labourers, employed on the clearings in the valley.

The land at Wellington is becoming valuable, par-

ticularly in the immediate vicinity of the water; and the houses now extend along the whole of the beach frontage of the town, or nearly three miles. The average rent of land on the beach is about sixteen shillings per lineal foot of street frontage, and all land within half a mile of it lets advantageously. The merchandise and provisions in the different stores are estimated at £400,000, a large sum for a colony of only six years standing; and there are now three breweries in the town, and five wind, water, and steam mills.

The want of roads, so long a drawback to the prosperity of Wellington, is now, in a great measure, supplied. There is an excellent carriage road to Petoni, six miles distant, which has been lately extended up the valley of the Hutt; and from the upper valley of that river, a cattle or bridle path has been formed to the magnificent valley of the Wairarapa, thirty miles from Wellington, containing 400,000 acres of good arable and pasture land, passing through the Ruamahunga plains, containing 100,000 acres, and situated about twenty miles from Wellington, thereby opening up to that district half a million acres of available land. A road or cattle path, five feet broad, has also been opened up to Porirua, sixteen miles distant, by the road, from whence cattle can be driven to Wanganui and Taranaki. Where these cattle tracks are widened, and rendered available for carts and bullock teams, the thing will be complete. The country around Port Nicholson is considered perhaps the best adapted for settlers of capital, who do not depend on immediate return, on account of its extreme fertility; but Wanganui, Manawatu, and New Plymouth, in the North Island, and Nelson on the Middle, are perhaps more

suitable for rearing flocks and herds, as the land there, from not being so heavily timbered, can be cleared and cultivated with less outlay.

The natives at Port Nicholson are becoming quite domesticated with the settlers, and a few of them live in their houses. They are so fond of being dressed like the British, that one of the merchants at Wellington had the names of one hundred of them at one time in his books, to whom he had furnished clothing, &c. and they are very honourable in discharging their debts. Being great misers, many of them are becoming opulent; and Mr. Smith, the intelligent manager of the Wellington Bank, estimates the amount of their capital in houses, money, &c, at £150,000.

The cattle turned out to graze round Wellington get comparatively fat, without having, at times, any grass to eat, as they feed very much on the Kraka laurel, a good supply of which makes even a cow in the stall give abundance of milk. The Hon. Mr. Petre mentions, that oxen which were worked all day, and only turned loose at night, had reached 900 pounds weight, which astonished him very much, as he adds, "What the cattle and sheep do feed upon I am unable to say; they browse, to a great extent, on the young shoots of various trees and shrubs, and find great abundance of nourishing food even before any grasses spring up. The rapidity with which they fatten is very remarkable." Mr. Thorp says, "Poultry, pigs, and cattle thrive well, almost in every part where there are bushes, herbs, plantain-leaf, and a little grass. Cattle occasionally take a bite of the fern, but, as the natives do of its roots, because other food is scarce." There are now 3000 cattle, and 10,000 sheep, in the vicinity of Wellington, besides pigs innumerable.

PETRE. – This town has been colonized chiefly with settlers from Port Nicholson. It is named after Lord Petre's son, and is beautifully situated on the river Wanganui, about four miles from its embouchure in Cook's Straits. The river there is about 1000 feet in width, with an average depth of two fathoms at low water; but as it is a bar harbour, no vessel drawing more than eight feet of water, or about 150 tons burden, can enter the river with safety. The country all round is much more free from timber than in many other parts of New Zealand, being chiefly covered with fern and flax. The fern land at Wanganui costs from £5 to £8 an acre to clear and extirpate its immense roots, but, like the land in the valley of the Hutt, will require no manure for several years, it being only necessary after each crop, to turn up a fresh soil by ploughing sufficiently deep, when it is ready for immediate cultivation.

Petre is beautifully situated on level ground, and the site of the town, including streets, &c. covers 700 acres. In the course of a few years all the available land betwixt it and Port Nicholson, one hundred and ten miles distant, will be more or less in a state of cultivation. The settlers are in good spirits, and already amount in numbers to 400 individuals, besides natives. There are now roads, or more properly speaking cattle tracks, opened up from it, both to Wellington and New Plymouth, from which latter it is distant ninety miles. A large tribe of natives live near the Wanganui. At some little distance to the north-west of Wanganui, on the shore, is the river Waimate, celebrated as the place where, on the shipwreck of the "Harriet," a fierce struggle ensued between the natives and Europeans, in which several were killed on both sides. Though

this conflict was mainly owing to the conduct of the Europeans, yet Her Majesty's vessel, "Alligator," afterwards inflicted a severe and summary punishment on the natives; which has filled them ever since with an awful, and almost superstitious, horror for the guns of a ship.

New Plymouth. – This was the second of the New Zealand Company's settlements, and has been founded in the Taranaki district, thirty miles from Mount Egmont. This district, from being the finest in that country, has been called the "Garden of New Zealand." The Company would probably have placed their chief town there, instead of Port Nicholson, had there been a good harbour, but there is only an open roadstead, and when a strong north west wind blows, no vessels of any size can lie there with safety, though the moorings lately formed, remedy in some measure this defect. The produce of this valuable district will probably therefore be conveyed for shipment to Port Nicholson, from which it is distant 200 miles. Some few of the settlers there have already gone to it, and these, with the great body of emigrants from Plymouth in England, whence it derives its name, now form a population of about 1500 individuals. It is said that a plough could run straight along that district for fifty miles, if steered in the direction of Wanganui, at the back of Mount Egmont. This mountain is worthy of a special notice, as it is certainly by far the grandest and most sublime object I ever saw, worthy of a visit to New Zealand, though one were to see nothing else. My friend Dr. Dieffenbach, in his excellent Travels in New Zealand, published in 1843, gives such an interesting account

of his journey to the top of that mountain, that I must refer my readers, who are curious on such subjects, to his work. Though at one time supposed to be nearly ten thousand feet high, yet he calculates the height, from certain data which he points out, at 8839 feet, or about eight times higher than Arthur's Seat, near Edinburgh. He came to the line of perpetual snow, at a point about 1600 feet below the summit. The ground round its base is almost level, which adds greatly to its magnificence. Dr. Dieffenbach concludes his description of this celebrated mountain in these words: – "Mount Egmont, and the smiling open land at its base, will become as celebrated for their beauty as the Bay of Naples, and will attract travellers from all parts of the globe."

NELSON – situated on the Middle Island, in Blind Bay, or Tasman's Gulf, at the south west entry of Cook's Straits, is also one of the Company's settlements, and was founded in 1841. The climate there is infinitely better than at Port Nicholson, from being both warmer, and not nearly so much exposed to heavy gales. The harbour, which may be said to be formed by nature, will admit vessels of 500 tons burthen. Nelson is not far distant from Waimea, Moutura, Mowtuaka, and Wairoa, where 125,000 acres of available land have been discovered; the plains in these several districts being almost all open, and covered principally with fern, grass, and other herbage. It is also near to Massacre Bay, where they have discovered most excellent coal and lime, and, in consequence of that, have now changed the name to Coal Bay.

The Nelson district may be considered the most open perhaps in that country, and is, therefore, well

adapted for pasture and flax. The Auckland Gazette, when noticing, in November, 1841, an advertisement of town, suburban, and country allotments for sale there, makes the following remark: – "Nelson will not be an obscure provincial town, but in all probability will be the capital of the great South Island. It will have immediately a considerable population." This population, including the Germans, who lately arrived, now amounts to 3000.

In the Middle Island there is another thriving settlement called Akaroa, in Bank's Peninsula, where there is a tolerable harbour, adjoining a good agricultural district. In this settlement, in addition to a population of 200 British, there are about 100 French, who are all doing well, many who had not a sous on dissembarking from the "Comte de Paris," in 1840, being already possessed of several thousand francs.

NEW EDINBURGH – Port Otago was fixed upon in 1844, as the site of this settlement, and several hundred emigrants, chiefly Scotch, are about to embark for it. It must be considered, on the whole, a most desirable locality, nearly as much so as any of the Company's other settlements; indeed, the whole of them have been most judiciously selected. Port Otago is a splendid bay, several miles wide, and extending about twenty miles into the interior of the country, with deep water and safe anchorage on all sides. It is situate on the Middle Island, now called New Munster, about 200 miles to the south of Bank's Peninsula, and about 400 from Port Nicholson. The ground to the north of it is high, but to the south, as far as Foveaux's Straits, 150 miles distant, it is toler-

ably level, and the hills are of moderate height. The greater part of the natives now in the Middle Island are settled there, and as their numbers amount to about a thousand, they will soon become of great use to the settlers.

The whole British population now settled in New Zealand, may be stated pretty nearly as follows: –

Port Nicholson, including Wellington,Petoni, and Aglionby,.....6000
Auckland, and the Waitemata District,.....3000
Nelson, including 200 Germans,.....3000
New Plymouth and Taranaki,.....1500
Bay of Islands, including Russell, (Kororarika,) and the Church of England Missionary Settlements,.....800
New Edinburgh,.....500
Petre and Wanganui,.....400
Akaroa, including 100 French,.....300
Hokianga,....200
And at the different Whaling Stations,.....700
In all,..... 16,400

THE ABORIGINES. – The amount of the native population, owing to wars and various other causes, has been gradually decreasing. Dr. Dieffenbach, gives an accurate list of the various tribes, and computes their whole number as amounting at present to 114,890, though in Captain Cook's time they were supposed to amount to 300,000. They may be said to inhabit the Northern Island almost exclusively, as there are probably not above 2000 in the Middle Island, and none in Stewart's Island, with the exception of a few brought from other parts, and living with the Whalers.

The natives in the Middle Island are chiefly settled at Otago, where New Edinburgh is placed; and there are a few at Cloudy Bay, two or three tribes at Massacre Bay, and one tribe near Nelson, and at one or two other places. They call themselves Maori, which means indigenous or aboriginal, in opposition to Pakea, which means a stranger. Their colour is of a light clear brown, varying much in shade, and sometimes even lighter than a native of the south of France. Their features are in general good, though their mouths are somewhat large, and their lips generally thick, but their eyes are dark and full of vivacity and expression, and their whole physiognomy exceedingly open and pleasing, bearing no signs whatever of ferocity, but exhibiting great placidity and composure. The females are not nearly so handsome as the men, and, though treated with great kindness, are burdened with the greater part of the heavy work, such as cultivating the fields, carrying wood and provisions from their distant plantations, &c.

One of the most powerful tribes is that of the Waikato numbering 25,000, and comprising eighteen subdivisions, inhabiting the country about a hundred miles to the north of the New Plymouth settlement. It was this tribe which drove the numerous tribes in the Taranaki district, into the country on both sides of Cook's Straits, and the natives at Port Nicholson are amongst the number who were driven away. Rauperaha, the leader of one of the divisions of the Nga-te-awa tribe, also yielded at one time to this tribe, and took possession of a district of country east from Wanganui, called Rauperaha after him, not far from Porirua, besides other places, including the district of country at Cloudy Bay, in the Middle Island,

called the Wairoa Plains, the scene of the late massacre, he having conquered the original tribes settled there. The most numerous tribe of all, is that called Nga-te-Kahuhunu, estimated at 36,000, and inhabiting the east coast, from Waiapou to Hawke Bay. They formerly lived as far down as Port Nicholson, but were driven thence by the Nga-te-awa tribe, with whom they have lately made a peace. The natives in Cook's Straits are estimated at 6400.

I may mention here in passing, that the only advantage which Auckland possesses over Port Nicholson, is from being in the centre of the greater part of the native population of that country; and Dr. Dieffenbach takes notice of this also, as he says, in reference to Auckland, "In short, it appears to me that there can be no question but that the place has been very judiciously chosen for the site of a town, as commanding a great extent of cultivable land in its neighbourhood, great facility of communication with the coast and the interior, and as being a central point for the most powerful native tribes, the Nga-pui to the northward, the Waikato to the southward, and the Nga-te-hauwa to the eastward, separating them in a military point of view, but uniting them for the purposes of civilization and commerce." Till of late there was one custom prevalent amongst the New Zealanders, as amongst all savage nations, namely, that the crime of an individual involved his whole tribe, little reference being had to the individual who actually committed the crime. It was in vain to represent to them, that the criminal alone should suffer; their answer was ready, and it is perfectly consistent with the dictates of natural justice, that as his tribe would not give him up to be punished for

his crime, they became, in consequence, participators in it. A war would then commence betwixt the two tribes; and the circumstance of those who survived among the defeated party having had to leave their pahs or native villages, accounts for the number of these that are to be found every where deserted. In New South Wales also, when any of the aborigines are killed by the whites, the former are sure to kill the first of the latter they meet, and thus the innocent have frequently to suffer for the guilty.

This custom, however barbarous it may at first sight appear, is really, after all, but little different from that which exists among civilized nations. Were an American, for instance, to shoot our Queen, and escape to his own country, and were the government there to refuse to deliver him up, a war would inevitably follow from the conduct of this single individual. The late affair of MacLeod, which is a case in point, almost involved the two greatest nations of the earth in a sanguinary war. Among savage tribes, the slaughter of a hundred or two on each side, generally puts an end to the matter; but these two civilized nations would probably have carried on till a hundred thousand, at least, had disappeared. Oh, that men were wise, that they would consider these things.

Of the three grand or staple productions of New Zealand, namely, flax, oil, and timber, the flax is undoubtedly the most important. This plant, though found in dry ground, flourishes best in swampy ground, and grows wild in every part of the country; that growing in hilly ground being of a different species from that which grows on swampy. In some marshy spots it has attained the height of thirteen feet, with a leaf six inches broad. The manufacture

of it has already commenced at Wellington, and some vessels have been supplied with cordage, &c. from it. Several country sections have also been chosen on the sea coast, near to Port Nicholson, for flax farms, on land which, from the exposed situation and poverty of soil, would not produce grain, or be at all adapted for general agriculture. Colonel Wakefield says, in one of his despatches, "It is impossible to overrate the value of flax as a staple article of commerce; and the only impediment to its introduction into Europe and America has been removed, by the discovery of a cheap method of preparing large quantities for export, in reduced bulk, and without injury to the fibre. A short time only will elapse before our settlement will provide a profitable return cargo for the foreign vessels visiting Cook's Straits." The Hon. Mr. Petre says, in like manner, "Although I will not venture to anticipate what profit the future cultivator of New Zealand flax is likely to realize, I have a very strong conviction that it will be our staple article of export; and that like the wool of New South Wales, its profitableness will be such, as to make it not worth while, for many years to come, to invest capital in any other exportable commodity."

Though it grows wild every where, yet the best districts are at Taranaki and Hawke Bay, in the North Island; and at Nelson, on the Middle Island, which is considered preferable even to the Taranaki district, from the country being more open, and more abundantly watered. The more recent accounts received in this country in regard to this article are very favourable, as will appear from the following paragraph which appeared in the New Zealand Jour-

nal of 17th February, 1844, published in London once a fortnight.

"The Nelson, which has recently arrived from New Zealand, brings replies to despatches and advices by the "Ursula," the first of Mr. Earp's packet ships. The "Ursula" made her passage to the colony in 110 days, and the letters received by the Nelson were in reply to others from home, written only eight months previous; the most rapid communication that has yet taken place with the colony. The Nelson brings a few tons of flax, exported by Messrs. Ridgways, Guyton, and Earp, of a very superior quality, fully equal to the best Russian hemp, and of longer staple. This flax was prepared by machines made in the colony, and the quality of the article is such as at once to set at rest the question of the possibility of preparing New Zealand flax in a state fit for the home market. With the improvements which experience will suggest, there can be now no doubt but that, in a short time, flax, equal to the best Flemish specimens, will arrive from the colony, which will thus speedily possess a staple article of export, limited only by the scarcity of labour necessary for its production, and equal to that of oil – for which New Zealand is rapidly becoming the depot of the Pacific Ocean." A cheap plan of preparing it has been lately discovered, by merely boiling it in a solution of potash, or wood ashes.

Oil is the next valuable staple commodity. From May to December, the different bays in Cook's Straits, and on the east coast of the Middle Island, are much frequented by the black whale; and the sperm whale is found in great abundance in the surrounding ocean,

not far from land. The whales of New Zealand are said to yield one-fourth more of oil than those of a similar size or species in any other part of the world. The black whales have no teeth, consuming their food by suction. The sperm whales, on the contrary, have teeth, and, in general, do not exceed sixty feet in length, whereas, the black whales are sometimes a hundred. The former, however, are the most dreaded by the whalers, from its being so often dangerous to attack them. One of them, to whom they gave the name of New Zealand Tom, was long celebrated for the havoc he made among the ship's boats. Tom seemed to be delighted at the sensation which he produced; and spent occasionally an hour before breakfast at his favourite amusement, by way of a lark, and with the view, no doubt, of improving his appetite.

The principal whaling stations in New Zealand were, till of late, in the hands of the Sydney merchants; but the settlers on the spot have now become formidable rivals to them. In the year 1838, one single mercantile house in Sydney, exported to London seventy tons of whalebone, which is produced exclusively from the black whale; and as each whale yields about five hundred weight of bone, the number required to supply the above quantity of whalebone must have been 284. The Americans, however, have perhaps the greatest number of large vessels engaged in this trade of any nation, as they have upwards of 500 whalers in the Pacific Ocean, while the English have only about 160, and the French 140. The quantity of oil imported into that country amounted in 1838 to 129, 400 barrels of sperm oil, and 228, 710 barrels of black. Indeed, till of late, they injured the

local fisheries very much, as sometimes twenty American and foreign vessels have been seen at one time at the entrance of Cloudy Bay, in Cook's Straits, intercepting the whales as they approached the shore; and sailors on board of whale ships are very active, as they are paid in shares, at the end of the voyage, according to the net proceeds of the oil.

"Shore parties," as they are termed, for capturing the black whale, (sperm whales never coming within reach of a shore party,) are now forming rapidly in Cook's Straits and other parts; composed chiefly of emigrants who have gone to settle in that country. Captain Daniell almost loaded a vessel called the "Brougham," from his own fishing station at Porirua, about fourteen miles from Port Nicholson, in the year 1842, which was the first vessel that sailed direct from that country to England loaded with oil, and made the passage in ninety-two days. These shore parties have large boats, and being constantly on the lookout, when the whales make their appearance, they man their boats and seldom fail in capturing them: and the process of cutting them up and boiling them, generally takes place on shore. This, besides being more economical, is more advantageous for New Zealand than sending out ships on a three year's voyage; for though that may be necessary when the whales are at a distance, yet, as on the coasts of that country, they come so frequently within reach of boats from the shore, the great cost of pursuing them with ships is saved. "This advantage," Mr. Petre says, "is well understood by the settlers at Port Nicholson, who bid fair to be the purchasers of the greater part of the oil made at the stations already established, and have begun to form new stations." It is evident

that a great part of the black oil, in particular, which was procured at New Zealand, and shipped for this country at Sydney, will, in future, be conveyed in the boats and small vessels which they have begun to use on the spot, into merchant ships about to return home direct, so that the Sydney, American, and French trade will soon be annihilated. The first shipments of oil and flax direct from New Zealand to Britain, of any extent, commenced in 1843, as will appear from the following despatch from Colonel Wakefield, the Company's principal agent at Wellington, to the secretary in London, dated 18th September, 1843.

"I have information from the coast, where the natives are apprehensive of a visit from the man-of-war. They remember with awe the power exhibited by the "Alligator" and the "Pelorus." They have a great fear of regular troops, and particularly of the guns of a ship; but I must repeat that continued impunity will encourage them to petty assaults on individuals, and the entire obstruction of the further settlement of the country.

"I am happy to be able to assure you that, with the exception of the state of the natives, this settlement is in a much more prosperous state than when I last wrote; and, considering the fearful impediments to colonization, by reason of the unsettled state of titles to land, than could reasonably be expected.

"The whale season, now drawing to a conclusion, has turned out to be very successful. The quantity of oil taken in the Bay fisheries, which will be exported principally from this port, on account of the supplies furnished by the merchants of Wellington, will not be far short of two thousand tons.

"The preparation and exportation of the native

flax have long been subjects of untiring assiduity and interest amongst our settlers, and have this year yielded important profits, and a valuable accession of wealth to the place. Partial cargoes of that prepared by the natives are constantly shipped to Sydney and Hobart Town; and full ones to England may be relied on, if intelligence, in answer to inquiries on the subject, should satisfy us that the price to be obtained there will render it an advantageous remittance. Hitherto, no process of preparing the flax has been entirely approved of, as sufficiently economical and expeditious to supersede the method in use by the aborigines; but various modes are under trial, and await only the supply of machinery from Sydney to be tested. Should any of them succeed, the exportation of their produce would be steady, and limited only by the demand for it.

"The "Nelson" brig, which takes this, will sail from hence to-morrow direct for London, with a full cargo of oil and flax. The "Tyne" will take all her dead weight in oil from this port and other parts of Cook's Straits, and the "Lady Leigh" will sail direct for England with a full cargo of oil in about six weeks."

Though Mr. Thorp says that whalers had left their ports as provisions had become dear, and whales scarce, and though Dr. Dieffenbach predicts that in a few years there will be none at all, yet Mr. Heaphy maintains, on the contrary, that this is not the case; for after stating that during the year 1841, upwards of 1800 tons of oil, and seventy tons of bone, had been obtained at the various fisheries, the worth of which, in England, would be nearly £60,000, he adds, "it is generally imagined in England, that the fisheries on the New Zealand coast are declining, and

that ere long, the trade will cease to be profitable, but this idea is erroneous. There can be no doubt of the fact, that fewer whales are taken at some of the stations than was the case formerly, but this is no proof that a less number frequent the coast. The establishment of so many whaling parties along the coast, causes such competition, that there are actually more fish caught now than at any other period since the commencement of the enterprize. As a proof of this, I may mention, that the value of the oil exported from Sydney, was, in 1830, £59,471; in 1835, £180,349; and in 1840, £224,144; which proves an increase of nearly four times the quantity and value. Much of this oil is obtained at New Zealand; probably more than one half, as there are but few fisheries, comparatively, on the Australian shores; and the number of whaling vessels fitted out there is small." The above statement by Mr. Heaphy, is fully borne out by Colonel Wakefield's despatches.

The third staple commodity of New Zealand is timber, of which some kinds are adapted for furniture, and others for spars, masts of ships, and sawn planks. Of the Kauri pine, which is the only timber (with the exception of some wood adapted for furniture,) exported from that country to England, Australia, and the East Indies, there is none nearer than 200 miles to the north of Port Nicholson, as it does not grow to the south of thirty-eight degrees of south latitude; but from its growing almost invariably upon a poor soil, which, after being cleared of the timber, is not worth cultivating; the inhabitants there, would rather dispense with it on that account, as they have other woods which are equally useful, particularly for furniture, though not so large. The largest specimen

of the species is at Mercury Bay, seventy-five feet in circumference, though it grows to the greatest perfection in the Hokianga district, where it frequently attains the height of a hundred feet, and thirty feet in circumference, though the highest timber trees there, fit for the royal navy, are nearly all gone, those remaining being good for logs, but not for spars, and therefore the timber trade there is on the decline. From its durability, elasticity, and size, besides being easily wrought, it was occasionally used by the Board of Admiralty for spars, masts, &c, in their various dock-yards; and I have seen in Sydney the most beautiful floors laid with it in some of the more fashionable houses. The shipment of spars, however, has never been a profitable trade, owing to the great expense of bringing them to the water side.

Extensive fields of coal have been discovered in different parts of New Zealand. At Massacre Bay, in the Middle Island, situated in Tasman's Gulf, there is enough on the surface for the supply of all the settlements for many years to come; and there is no occasion for steam engines or mining, as in England, as it is procured by merely excavating horizontally through the cliffs from the beach. One cargo of it that was taken to Wellington, was found to give a great heat, and leave no ashes, though it burned away rather too fast to make it economical for poor emigrants. Coal has also been discovered at Port Nicholson, and at Mokau, in the Taranaki district; whilst at Port Otago, in the Middle Island, where New Edinburgh has been placed, about fourteen miles up the river, there are large beds of it, of which the natives make no earthly use.

The shores of New Zealand abound with various

fish suitable for the palate, and they expect soon to carry on an extensive trade in dried and cured fish. The habouka, or abuka, which sometimes weighs nearly a hundred pounds, is a wonderfully good fish for its size. The moki, weighing about twenty pounds, is also tolerably good; and the kawai, or New Zealand salmon, though by some amateurs considered equal to ours, would no doubt be much prized by the slaves in Brazil, as being infinitely preferable to the flesh of the shark, and the whale, which they eat there. Most of the fish, however, of which I partook when at New Zealand, was so strong tasted, compared to ours, that I am satisfied the people there eat of it, as the cattle do of the fern, because they can get no other.

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER III.

Manners and Customs of the Natives – Tattooing and Cutting their Flesh – Tapuing – Cannibalism – Massacre of the Crew of the Boyd – Feasting on American Sailors – Horrible Treachery and Murder of Captain. Marion and his Crew.

The New Zealanders have a singular method of testifying both their joy and sorrow, by cutting their faces, arms, and legs, with broken muscle-shells, inflicting deep gashes; and I have seen a dozen of them at a time, covered with blood from head to foot, upon the death of a relative. Indeed, I gave a female a trifle to let me see how she did it, when she immediately took up a muscle-shell, broke it, and came across her arms in two or three places, when the blood almost immediately oozed out. She was so much disfigured before, that I thought an additional cut or two could do her no harm. When friends arrive after a long absence, in addition to this cutting process, they continue howling for several days like wolves, which is rather a singular method of testifying their joy. This practice is fast disappearing, however, with the progress of civilization.

Polack, in his excellent work on the manners and customs of the New Zealanders, after allud-

ing to the numerous ceremonies performed at the great religious fete of the Haihunga, and describing the war dance, says, that whilst engaged in it, the tongues of the performers are thrust out of their mouths, thereby indicating the contempt they have for their enemies, and as they do this before commencing a battle, it seems to produce a wonderful effect in raising the bravery, and heightening the implacable hatred the belligerents have to each other.

After describing the moans and wailings in which they occasionally indulge during this feast on account of the dead, recalling to their remembrance their virtues and endearing actions; and with noses pressed against each other, chanting the happiness that had now vanished, Mr. Polack adds, "This strange custom is not confined to apparent cause for grief; for to give an additional zest to the entertainment, sharp muscle-shells are made use of to excoriate the skin, and the consequence follows in streams of blood issuing from every part of the body, face, arms, breast, legs – no part having the preference of an escape from this brutal practice. Nor is this lamentation confined to such occasions; on any persons, known or related to each other, meeting after an absence of a few weeks, or on the illness of a friend or relative, the muscle-shell and the accompanying tangi are instantly put in requisition. So enamoured are these people of affliction, that the writer has been viewing a play (takaro) among the natives, when suddenly it has entered the afflicted head-piece of one of the performers to sit down to a tangi or weeping, a ceremony consisting of long and silent embraces, interrupted only by sobs and tears. The suitor for this display of misery has no sooner expressed his desire, than,

with the vacillating habits of these people, the whole company, instantly squatting down on the ground, have commenced crying with 'might and main,' as if they were about to be deprived of existence now and hereafter. So copious is the effusion of blood and tears, that their scanty garments are soon saturated." I daresay none of you would have any great desire to join the New Zealanders in this delightful amusement of the tangi, though it must be an excellent thing for those who are troubled with too much blood. Though these ceremonies may to us appear somewhat absurd, yet they shew that, amongst uncivilized nations, the affections they entertain towards each other are infinitely stronger than amongst those who call themselves civilized; and this being the case, I am decidedly of opinion that the march of intellect destroys the march of affection and of love.

This practice of cutting themselves, and tattooing, not only their faces, but a great part of their bodies, seems to leave but little doubt of their Asiatic origin, or that they were descended from the Jews; for, in the 16th chapter of Jeremiah, it is said, – "Both the great and the small shall die in this land, they shall not be buried, neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves." And, in the 19th chapter of Leviticus, the following prohibition was addressed to the children of Israel, "Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you;" – which shows that they must have been in the habit of doing so. Now, what is called tattooing, may not inappropriately be designated a printing on the skin or flesh. It is both a tedious and a very painful operation, and is performed by the priest, who, if not very skilful, has sometimes to delegate the task to

people of skill among the different tribes. The higher the rank, the more they are tattooed, so that a king or chief, has scarcely any of his natural face or body left. They make out a plan for the face, in particular, and occasionally for the body, as a surveyor in this country would make out a plan for an estate. They commence the operation at an early age, about fourteen or fifteen, as it takes two or three years before the operation is completed, the pain being so great, that they can do but little at a time, otherwise the patient would fever and die; and instances occasionally occur of its proving fatal. The tattoo is done either with the sharp bone of a bird, or with a small chisel, the candidate for this distinction reposing his head upon the knees of the operator, who drives the chisel into the skin with his hand. After each incision, the chisel is dipped into a pigment called narahu, which is prepared by carbonizing the resin of the Kauri pine; and after each incision also the blood is wiped off. After the inflammation subsides, the scars appear dark. Women have their lips chiefly tattooed, which is by far the most painful operation, though they submit to it cheerfully, red lips being a great reproach to a woman.

The prophets of Baal, of old, were in the habit of cutting themselves in a similar manner; for, in the 18th chapter of the First Book of Kings, it is thus written – "And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them." The process of tattooing prevents the face from assuming the furrows of passion, or the wrinkles of age. I may mention one other circumstance, which leads me to the conclusion that they were Jews, though passing for New Zea-

landers, and that is their wonderful rapacity and love of money. This feature in their character is not mentioned by any of the historians whom I have read, but during my residence in that country, I became acquainted with two Englishmen named Smith and Eberly, and a Scotsman called Malcolm, who had all married Maori, or native girls, and had resided there for some years, who all assured me that they were remarkably greedy in their disposition. They described them also as being rather ungrateful, at which I was surprised, as savages in general make it a rule never to forgive an injury, nor forget a favour; a doctrine considered sound by many of our philosophers. In regard to this additional feature in their character, namely, ingratitude, I observe that Mr. E. J. Wakefield states, in his description of a hostile meeting of two tribes on the Wanganui river, that the missionaries there assured him that they knew no such feeling as gratitude. And yet these are represented by some as the most noble-minded, princely set of men in the world; but from all such nobles, and such princes, I trust that I, at least, may be delivered.

Mr. Thorp confirms this statement in regard to their rapacity, in a letter addressed to the editors of the Sydney Herald, the leading journal of New South Wales, which appeared in that paper on the 8th of March, 1842. The editors called the public attention to this letter in the following paragraph: –

"In the fourth page of this day's Herald, there is a letter from Mr. Joshua Thorp, giving an account of New Zealand, which will be sure to draw down upon him the wrath of the land-jobbers, who are holding New Zealand up as an "airthly paradise," as Sam Slick calls it. For the information of those who do not

know Mr. Thorp, we may mention that he is a very respectable man, well known in this colony, and that for several years he held the office of town surveyor of Sydney. The statements made by Mr. Thorp may be depended upon: of the fairness of the inferences which he draws, our readers must judge for themselves."

Mr. Thorp says 'the natives have protectors appointed, a measure which affords no more satisfaction to the settlers here, than it does to those of New Holland. Our lord in Downing Street, has done this to gratify those termed saints in England, whose beneficence shines like a lantern in a dark place, glaring at a distance and emitting a faint gleam near at hand. Look at the pale aborigines of England, and compare them with the sable sons of remote nations, the red Indian, or the copper-coloured Mowry, and which has the advantage. It is true, that wherever the white man sets his foot, in temperate regions at least, they seemed doomed to dwindle away, but this is the consequence of knowledge, and the order of providence. The Mowries are well able to protect themselves, better, at present, than the settlers. In trade, selling land, or selling their produce, no Jew of Monmouth Street can deal with more cunning or more persevering importunity; nothing is done, however slight, without demanding the ootu or payment, and, if instead of higgling, you at once give what is asked, they become uneasy at having made such a boko keeno (trade bad). Squatting on their hams, which as they grow old causes their knees to be covered with large wrinkles, they will spend an hour selling a pigeon or a fish, and then produce ten or twenty more seriatim from under their blankets. They are generally an

idle race, passing more than half their time squatting or lying muffled up to the mouth in blankets or mats, smoking, talking, singing psalms, and sleeping. Since the whites have come in greater numbers, they have grown more idle, and tenfold more extortionate for whatever they do. The Kowry timber, which covers large tracts of mountains is now very dear and unavailable, because the Mowries will not carry it out to water carriage at a remunerating price." Yet these are the men who have had protectors appointed with large salaries. Why, it would have been a more sensible act on the part of our distinguished friend Lord John Russell, had he appointed some of them as protectors to the British, as, poor creatures, they seem to stand much in need of it; and better protectors than the New Zealanders, I for one would not desire.

I shall now give you a few of the more peculiar characteristics of that singular people, and, though my opinion of them is not so favourable as that of many others, yet I am inclined to think that the character given of them by the Rev. J. Butler, in a letter dated Kerikeri, 10th October, 1821, and quoted in the Report of the House of Lords in 1838, is not altogether applicable to them at the present day; Mr. Butler says, "New Zealand is covered with fern, weeds, brush, and woods; and the natives are covered with lice and filth to the last degree; and withal a proud, savage, obstinate, and cruel race of cannibals."

The "tapu" or tabboo is a ceremony common to New Zealand, along with all the other South Sea Islands. The power of "tapuing" seems to be vested in the principal chief alone, and may be considered the most important bulwark of his authority. This ceremony

renders every object, either animate or inanimate, sacred, or not to be approached, so that no person can enter tapued ground, nor touch a tapued person. Every girl promised in marriage is tapued, and married women also, until chastised by their husbands, when the "tapu" ceases, and they are then free to any one who can catch them, a remarkably good plan for securing the affections of the husband, and relieving the sex from some of those periodical chastisements in which some of the husbands in this country are so apt to indulge. Favourite pigs, canoes, and muskets are sometimes tabooed; burial ground is always tabbooed, and so is also a chief's head. A person who has touched a dead body is tapued for a certain time. Had I remained in the colony I meant to have asked them to "tapu" me, as then no one could have touched me. The only inconvenience I should have felt would have been, that I would not have been allowed to touch food or drink, but would have had to be fed by others till the tapu was taken off. Desecration of the "tapu" was, at one time, punished with death, though that punishment is not now inflicted. Nayti, the New Zealand chief, says, in his examination before the House of Lords, that if a New Zealander goes into tabbooed ground, the man to whom it belongs goes and takes his pigs and every thing belonging to him. Nayti also states, that at one time they used to fight every moon, and burned ships when they first saw them, as they could not possibly understand what they were.

But the cannibal propensities of the natives is, perhaps, the most distinguishing feature of their character, and hence that country was long known under the title of the Cannibal Islands. It was chiefly the pri-

soners taken in battle who were devoured, and those whom they did not kill were made slaves of, though when they took the head chiefs of their enemies they generally put them to death, a practice adopted with the English chiefs at the Wairoa massacre. It was only certain parts of the body that they partook of, and two of Captain Cook's officers, who tasted a morsel of it, which was handed to them by a New Zealander, found that its flavour was not unlike that of pork. Several British residents whom I met with in New Zealand, and who had tasted it also, agree in this opinion. They generally devoured those also whom they slew in revenge; the tragic fate of the crew of the Boyd, was a striking example of this. That vessel was chartered in Sydney, to convey spars from Wangaroa, in New Zealand, about twenty-six miles to the northward of the Bay of Islands, and land them at the Cape of Good Hope. She sailed about the latter end of 1809, and soon after leaving Sydney, the cook, having accidentally thrown overboard, in a bucket of water, a dozen of pewter spoons, and, apprehensive of being punished for his negligence, told the captain that they had been stolen by George, a young New Zealand chief, who was on board, returning to his own country. The captain, without sufficient investigation into the affair, directed the boatswain to punish him, and, though George protested that he was innocent, and as a chief ought not to be degraded in such a manner, the captain was inexorable, and, as the boatswain was a powerful man, George suffered severely, his back being much lacerated

When George landed at Wangaroa, amongst his subjects in New Zealand; (the Nga-pui tribe,) and

showed them his back, they were roused to the highest pitch of indignation, and vowed revenge.

The captain, never suspecting any treachery, engaged George and his tribe to accompany him and his party, consisting of nearly all the ship's crew, to the spar forest, about ten miles up the river, and when arrived at one of the thickest recesses, and, when the men were scattered here and there amongst the natives, George threw off his New Zealand cloak, which had been arranged as the signal for a general massacre, and pointing to his wounds, said, "Captain Thomson, see how you have served my back." He had scarcely uttered these words when his brother dashed out the captain's brains, and in a moment, before the least opposition could be offered, every European was laid dead on the spot. George and his party then hastened to the ship, where they massacred the few who had been left to guard her, sparing only Mrs. Marley, wife of a publican in Sydney, with her child; Miss Broughton, daughter of the acting commissary general at Port Jackson, and the cabin boy, who had behaved with much kindness to the New Zealand chief during the voyage.

Thus, by the lie which the cook told, seventy British subjects were killed, roasted, and devoured, and property lost to the amount of £30,000, the ship having taken fire the day after the massacre, owing to some powder having accidentally ignited, through the ignorance and negligence of one of the natives, by which several of them were killed, and the ship completely destroyed.

The Rev. Mr. Wilkinson states, that they ate a women when he was there; and at the dreadful fight that took place in 1836, betwixt the tribes of Makatu

and Tamu, when 400 were killed, Mr. Knight mentions, that he came accidentally on the field of battle, and saw bodies which had been newly killed, besides halves and quarters of bodies, legs, and hands, lying in every direction. The Rev. A. N. Brown, writes thus on 25th August, 1836, – "We visited to-day, the site of the mission station, and the spot where the battle was fought, – -sticks, and native weapons, were placed about in different directions, denoting where the natives who were shot fell. We then went to the spot where Waharoa's party lay encamped, and where, for two days after the battle, they remained to gorge on sixty human bodies. The sight is even now horrifying; – human bones of all kinds are spread about, many of them evidently broken for the purpose of extracting the marrow, and all of them picked as clean as they could have been by the wolf or the vulture." Mr. Leigh, a Wesleyan Missionary, who was sent from New South Wales, to New Zealand, in 1819, mentions having come to a place where they were roasting a lad about fourteen. The cook held him up by the feet, to allow Mr. Leigh to look at him, but he was not enough done at that time.

The first introduction of fire-arms into that country, occasioned dreadful scenes of massacres and cruelty. The great chief Shungee, by some called E-ongi, "the scourge of New Zealand," was the person who may be said to have first introduced them. This chief paid a visit to England, and was very courteously received by George the Fourth, who among other things, gave him a great quantity of arms and ammunition. On leaving England, he sailed to New South Wales, and the Governor of that country made him a present of a number of cows, and other articles. These

Shungee, exchanged for fire-arms, and thus equipped, he sailed to New Zealand, determined to be superior to all the chiefs in his own country. He first extirpated the whole tribes on the River Thames, and made dreadful ravages all over the islands. He collected 3000 fighting men, and commenced his march against the tribes residing at Mercury Bay, and the river Thames, having heard that in his absence they had slain one of his relations. The battle was dreadful; but Shungee proved victorious, and returned to the Bay of Islands in triumph. Mr. Leigh says, in reference to this victory, (vide Report by the House of Lords,) "After my arrival in New Zealand, I learned that Shungee and his party slew 1000 men, 300 of whom they roasted and ate, before they left the field of battle. Shungee, killed the chief above mentioned, after which he cut off his head, poured the blood into his hands, and drank it. This account I had from Shungee and Whycatoa, who related it with the greatest satisfaction. In war the New Zealanders give no quarter to the men, and take the women and children prisoners, who are sometimes killed and eaten as an act of revenge. Shungee, and his party, have killed more than twenty slaves since their return from war, most of whom they have roasted and eaten. I conversed with Shungee, and some other chiefs on the subject of my residence amongst them, but Shungee, said, that it would not be safe for me to proceed to Mercury Bay, or to any place near it for the present, as he intends to kill all the people at that place, and the river Thames."

The practice of eating human flesh must certainly be considered as characteristic of a people sunk far beneath the average condition of even savage life,

scarcely, indeed, rising above the level of beasts of prey. "So incredible," says Walton, in his history of New Zealand, "did it seem that a species of barbarism so revolting should in any country take place, that the accounts of its existence were for a long time either doubted, or disbelieved. I was among the sceptical on this subject, but I had not resided long in New Zealand, till every doubt that cannibalism was practised by the natives was removed by the strongest evidence. Aware, however, that this practice is detestable in the eyes of Europeans, they are at pains to conceal as much as possible the instances of it that take place from their knowledge; and it was only incidentally that I could discover the proofs of its existence. It is, however, disappearing, and will gradually die away in proportion as the civilization of the natives, from their intercourse with emigrants, advances. No European, however, need entertain the the slightest apprehension of being subjected to this horrible custom, the victims of which are exclusively selected from among slaves and prisoners of war. When a victory is obtained, a council is held on the fate of the prisoners, of whom some are adjudged to slavery, and others to be killed and devoured. The dreadful process of killing and dissecting the latter is performed before the eyes of their countrymen, and the agony and horror with which the bloody spectacle must be beheld when, as often happens, the sufferers are the dearest relatives of the spectators, may easily be conceived.

"To detail the sacrifices offered at the bloody shrine of cannibalism, is the most unpleasant part of the task which the plan of this publication imposes. I will, therefore, out of the many instances that might be

brought forward in illustration of the cannibal propensities of these islanders, select only two, with which to conclude this part of the subject. The chief of a party, who had gained a battle, having bound one of the prisoners, caused a tomahawk to be fixed firmly betwixt his teeth. He then made an incision in his throat, and drank like a vampire the blood which streamed from the wound. Another monster commanded a young female slave to prepare the oven for making ready a feast with which he intended to entertain a party of his friends. When her master's order was executed, she asked him for the provisions that were to be put into the oven, when he told her that the dish intended to be cooked in it was herself. The wretched girl, at this horrible annunication, bursting into tears that would have melted any heart but that of a fiend, importuned him to spare her life, – but all entreaty was vain; the inexorable wretch bound his victim hands and feet, and threw her into the oven alive!"

Walton here states, that Europeans run no risk of being devoured, and no doubt, as a general rule, and when not actuated by revenge, this may be correct. But, when pressed with hunger, they become in some measure like beasts of prey, as a tiger when gorged becomes gentle, and even the lion of the forest seldom eats human flesh when he can get any other, so that if you meet him after his repast, he will walk politely past; whereas, if you come across his path when he is roaring out "where shall I dine," you must lay your account with his dining on you. The following narrative will show what the New Zealanders will do when situated like the lion.

In 1821, a vessel called the "General Gales," sailed

from Boston, in America, to New Zealand, on a sealing voyage; and on the 10th of August, a number of men, and an overseer, were landed near the southwest cape of the district of Te-Wai-Poenama, for the purpose of engaging in that fishery. In the course of six weeks they had obtained 3563 skins, which they had dressed and prepared for shipment, though seals have now almost disappeared on these coasts. One night, about eleven o'clock, an attack was made upon their cabin by a horde of savages, who made the Americans prisoners, and burnt the cabin and every thing which it contained. They forced the traders to go with them to a place called Looking Glass Bay. Having rested there one day, they proceeded on a long journey of about 200 miles, in a northerly direction, and arrived at a place called Sandy Bay. The cannibal propensities of the savages could hold out no longer. They laid hold of one of the traders, and having made him fast to a tree, they beat out his brains with a club. They then cut off his head, which they buried in the ground, and cooked and devoured the remaining part of his body. They offered some of this food to his companions, who, from the pressure of hunger, not having tasted food for a long time, partook of it. The remaining Americans were made fast to trees, and every day one of them was killed, and afterwards cooked and eaten. The whole would have shared the same fate; but one evening the savages were so affrighted by a terrible storm of thunder and lightning, that they fled from the place, and the two remaining Americans having succeeded in unloosing the flax they were bound with, made their escape in a canoe that happened to be within their reach. They had no water, nor provisions of any kind, and after suf-

fering, during three days, all the miseries attendant on an absolute want of the necessaries of life, they were rescued from their perilous situation by the "Margery," a flax trader, belonging to Sydney.

I shall conclude this detail of their cannibal propensities with a narrative of the fate of Captain Marion. That amiable French officer touched with two ships at Cape Brett, Bay of Islands, in 1772, and went on shore himself, with a crew of sixteen, including four of his officers, having been invited to land by the natives, who went on board of his vessel; and the whole of them were murdered by the savages. Not returning, another boat's crew, consisting of twelve men, was despatched next morning to the shore, for wood and water; and, while it was absent, a man was observed swimming towards the vessel, and a boat having been sent to his assistance, all on board were horrified at the account which he gave of the tragical fate which his companions had experienced.

When the boat reached the shore, the natives came up to the party, and to delude them the more, with a show of kindness, carried them from the boat to the beach, to prevent their feet from getting wet. The seamen then dispersed to collect the wood, and while thus occupied, unarmed, a signal was given, upon which the natives by whom they were surrounded, rushed in upon them, and with their stone hatchets, beat out their brains. Eleven were, in this manner, very quickly dispatched, one only having escaped to tell the dreadful tale. When the carnage began, he disengaged himself by a desperate effort from the grasp of those who had laid hold on him, and sprang into a thicket, where he lay concealed till the canni-

bals had left the place, after cutting up and dividing among them the mangled bodies of his unfortunate countrymen. He then darted from the wood, and succeeded, as before noticed, in reaching the vessel.

Though, after this appalling information had been given, little doubt could be entertained as to the fate of Marion and his people, a company of men, well armed, was immediately dispatched in the long boat of the "Mascarin," to ascertain, if possible, how they had been disposed of. After searching for some time, they perceived the boat crowded with natives, in which the unfortunate commander and his companions had been conveyed. Lieutenant Crozet, who had under his command a party of sixty men, employed in cutting down wood not far from the place, on being informed of what had taken place, ordered his men to collect their tools and proceed instantly to the boats, without communicating to them the intelligence he had received, which he thought might discourage them. When approaching the boats, the natives followed them, demonstrating by their gestures the most hostile intentions, and crying out that their chief, Te Kuri, had killed and devoured Marion. The undaunted resolution of Crozet, who drew a line upon the sand, and threatened to shoot whoever should overstep the boundary, had the desired effect of keeping them at bay till the sailors got into the boats. But no sooner were the boats putting off, than maddened, it is supposed, at their own folly in permitting their prey to escape, when it was in their power, they rushed into the water with the view of hauling the boats ashore. By this manoeuvre, however, they laid themselves open to that just and severe

retaliation which the French did not hesitate to inflict. 5

Walton has omitted to state one reason why they do not eat white flesh when they can get black, and that is from the aversion which all savages entertain to salt provisions, and the flesh of the whites, it seems, has a saltish taste, probably from taking salt to our meat, which they never do. From the (inquiries which I considered it my duty to make on this important subject, I discovered that the flesh of a girl about fifteen or sixteen, if plump, and in healthy condition, was considered the most delicate and juicy, and I have no doubt it was a girl of this description who was thrown into the oven alive, to be ready by dinner time. Dr. Dieffenbach states, when treating on cannibalism, that the natives, "when conversing with him freely on the subject, admitted that human flesh was well-flavoured, particularly the palm of the hands and the breast."

Cannibalism has now, however, ceased over the whole of that country, and also wars among the various tribes, – thanks to the introduction of civilized society amongst them. The only possible reason that can be adduced for their continual wars, and the inhuman banquet which was the consequence of victory, among a people, in other respects, comparatively mild and gentle, is that what at first originated in necessity, had been perpetuated by habit, and exasperated by revenge. Cannibalism indeed, as a matter of

course, ceased with their wars, as it was all along connected with them, and seems to have been kept up more from the implacable desire of revenge, joined to the superstitious belief that the strength and courage of a devoured enemy were transferred to him that eats him, than from any predeliction to that unnatural practice. Indeed, as a proof of the friendship that now subsists among the different tribes so lately at war with each other, I may mention, that one of the tribes in the Northern Island, not far from Auckland, gave a grand feast, in 1844, to all the surrounding tribes, at which several thousands attended; and, among other dainties provided for that feast, there were 5000 sharks, which were all demolished. It may therefore be said, that

No longer tribes encount'ring tribes,
Disturb that peaceful shore;
To ploughshares they now beat their spears,
And study war no more.

5 In the "Voyage de Marion," quoted in the "New Zealanders," p. 53, Crozet remarks, "that they treated us with every shew of kindness for thirty-three days, with the intention of eating us on the thirty-fourth."

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER IV.

The Wairoa Massacre.

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

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,

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

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

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-

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-

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-

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

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-

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

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

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

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

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

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,

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

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-

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

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

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

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-

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

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

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,

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

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,

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

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

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

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

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

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-

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.'"

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

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-

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.

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

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

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,

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

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

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, –

Thou shalt arise, and mercy yet
Thou to New Zealand shalt extend;
Her time for favour, which was set,
Behold is now come to an end.

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER V.

Law compared to a Country Dance – Cause of the Love of Life – Infanticide in New Zealand and the other South Sea Islands – Wonderful Effects of Christianity in checking it – Evils of Surplus Population – Different remedies for this Evil.

When I mentioned, in a letter which I wrote on leaving New Zealand, that one of the native princesses there had appeared in a neat English dress, I was not then aware that this was one of the effects of Christianity, but Mr. Williams, in his interesting narrative of "Missionary Enterprizes to the South Sea Islands," shews its wonderful effects in ameliorating not only the spiritual but the temporal condition of the natives. From Tahiti, which is now Christianized, they export nearly 200 tons of sugar annually, furnish beef to ships at threepence the pound, and 200 vessels now anchor there annually, whereas, some years ago, it was not safe to land either there, or on almost any of the islands of these seas. Some of them, no doubt embraced Christianity from motives apart from religion, and the inhabitants of the Samoa Islands, in particular, held meetings for several months before doing so, at which the subject was discussed in all its bearings. At one of these meetings a venerable chief

rose up and addressed them as follows – -"It is my wish that the Christian religion should become universal amongst us. I look at the wisdom of these worshippers of Jehovah, and see how superior they are to us in every respect. Their ships are like floating houses, so that they can traverse the tempest-driven ocean for many months with perfect safety; whereas if a breeze blow upon our canoes, they are in an instant upset, and we sprawling in the sea. Their persons also are covered from head to foot with beautiful clothes, while we wear nothing but a girdle of leaves. Their axes are so hard and sharp, that with them we can easily fell our trees, but with our stone axes we must dub, dub, dub, day after day, before we can cut down a single tree. Their knives too, what valuable things they are, how quickly they cut up our pigs compared with our bamboo knives. Now I conclude that the God who has given to his white worshippers these valuable things, must be wiser than our gods, for they have not given the like to us. We all want these articles, and my proposition is, that the God who gave them should be our God." – This speech, which throws all the logic of Locke and of Bacon into the shade, produced the desired effect. Talking of the dress of the inhabitants of Tahiti Mr. Williams says, "The females had long observed the dress of the missionaries' wives, but while heathen, they greatly preferred their own. No sooner, however, were they brought under the influence of religion than all of them aspired to the possession of a gown, a bonnet, and a shawl, that they might appear like Christian women. And if it be not already proved, the experience of a few more years will demonstrate the fact, that the missionary enterprize is incompar-

ably the most effective machinery that has ever been brought to operate upon the social, the civil, and the commercial, as well as the moral and spiritual interests of mankind."

When the natives, some years ago, were in the habit of selling their land to Europeans, for muskets, blankets, &c. they used every possible method by persuasion and argument, to get as much value as possible in these articles, money being seldom given. "Can you compare," they would say, "the articles which you offer, and which must eventually perish, with the broad land before you, which can never decrease, but will survive beyond the lives of your latest posterity. What will become of your blankets? they must rot and be as nothing; and your muskets? they must wear out; and when you die, the land which you purchase will yet belong to your children; but what will fall to our children, when your payments have ceased to be serviceable to us?"

Almost immediately however after making the purchase and paying the price, it was necessary to take possession of the land, otherwise one was exposed to the risk of their selling it again; and instances have occurred, where they sold the same land two or three times over, from the purchasers not having taken possession of it. In this country, possession is said to be nine-tenths of the law, but in New Zealand, it was the whole law, and nothing but the law. This reminds me of an anecdote of an English lawyer, who lived in the days of William the Conqueror, and was introduced to that monarch shortly after his arrival in London, from Normandy, in France. William, by way of complimenting him on his great age, said to him, "I understand, my venerable friend, that you

have outlived all the lawyers of your own day," – "Please your Majesty," replied this old lawyer, "had you not come over, I would have outlived the law itself."

Law is said to be like a country dance, where people are led up and down till they are tired, so that this old lawyer must have danced with a good many in the course of his day.

It is a remarkable circumstance in the history of man, that age, while it lessens the enjoyment of life, increases the desire of living. Dangers which he despised in his youth, assume new terrors as he grows old; – and though experience tells him that past enjoyments have yielded him no real happiness, and reflection must convince him, that from the infirmities of age, he must every day have less, yet hope, more powerful than either, still beckons him to pursue. New sources of happiness even at this the last, the. closing stage of all his wanderings, still open up to his imagination, and like a losing gamester, every succeeding disappointment serves only to increase his ardour to continue the game. He takes infinitely more care of his health than in the days of his youth, his caution increases as his years decline, and at the very moment that life becomes scarcely worth retaining, he is most taken up in useless efforts to prolong it.

Our attachment to every object in nature, seems to increase with the length of time we have known it. An old friend is a proverbial expression, and an old horse, and an old dog, attract much of our regard. Even the fall of a tree familiar to him from his youth, brings a tear to the eye of old age. – "A mind," says Goldsmith, "long habituated to a certain set of objects, insensibly becomes fond of seeing them; visits

them from habit, and parts from them with reluctance. Hence proceeds the avarice of the old in every kind of possession; they love the world, and all that it produces; – they love life, and all its advantages, not because it gives them pleasure, but because they have known it long." Life, in short, would be insupportable to those who, beset with the numberless calamities of decaying nature, and the consciousness of having survived every pleasure, feared death no more than when in the vigour of manhood; and thus happily the contempt of death forsakes us when it could only be prejudicial; and life acquires an imaginary value, in proportion as its real value is no more.

There is one thing in which New Zealand women resemble the Chinese, the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands, and some other savage nations, and that is, in destroying their children occasionally after they have a sufficient number, lest they should not be able to support them all; and sometimes from caprice or superstition, as if the mother had boasted that she would have a male child, and it turns out a female, it would be very apt to suffer in the cause. This however but rarely happens, as they have seldom so many as to cause them to have recourse to this remedy. Indeed, they seem to be fast decreasing from a variety of other causes, such as the wars among the different tribes which prevailed till within this year or two, and from the manner in which they are suffocated every night in their pahs or native villages, which are often heated to a temperature of 100 deg. Fahrenheit, from a large fire placed in the centre, with almost no opening for the smoke to get out, thus bringing on colds when they are ushered into the chilly air of the morning. Mr. Busby, the British resident at the Bay of Islands'

in one of his despatches of 16th June, 1837, says, "the natives are perfectly sensible of this decrease, and when they contrast their own condition with that of the English families, amongst whom the marriages have been prolific to a very extraordinary degree of a most healthy progeny, they conclude that the God of the English is removing the aboriginal inhabitants to make room for them; and it appears to me, that this impression has produced amongst them a very general recklessness and indifference to life." At the date of Mr. Busby's despatch, the Church of England missionaries had been amongst them for twenty-three years, and had only lost one adult, and three infants, during the whole of that time, and were carrying on at a prodigious rate; so that I do not wonder at the New Zealanders being astonished at their exertions in the good old cause.

Mr. Polack, who has written so largely on that country, gives the following evidence before the House of Lords on this subject: – .

"Has the native population decreased? It has.

"Do you account for that chiefly by war? No; I think the principal cause is infanticide. I have seen many women who have destroyed their children, either by abortion, or after their birth, putting them into a basket, and throwing them into the sea, after pressing the frontal bones of their heads.

"Why have they done that? I have had conversation with them upon it. I saw a girl one day, and knowing she was pregnant, I said, "Where is the child?" The answer was, "Gone." "Gone where, where is it gone too?" "I killed it," was the answer, with the greatest apathy. I felt rather curious at the moment, and showed it. She said, "what a fool you

are! it was not yours." I said, "I am aware of that." She then described how it was done. They destroy the children generally by pressing the nose until life is extinct. I said "How would you have liked if your mother had served you the same?" She said, "Oh I would have been pleased at it; I should not have been the poor miserable thing I have been, to be knocked about by a master or a husband.

"Is this woman a slave? A free woman; one of the middling class. Another woman was supposed to have killed eight children of her own. She had two children by the master of a whaler. Their principal reason is that they have not food to bring them up when unmarried; it is principally the unmarried women who have the trouble of procuring them food; they cannot go about their plantations, for they have nobody to take care of their children.

"Why should the trouble of getting food have increased in consequence of Europeans having settled there? I should not say the crime of infanticide has increased; on the contrary, it has decreased much since Europeans have been amongst them."

Mr. Polack is quite wrong however in this evidence, as there is no doubt, that in New Zealand at least, though certainly not in some of the other South Sea Islands, the wars among the different tribes were infinitely more depopulating than the small number of children whom they sacrificed.

Nayti, a New Zealand chief, from Cloudy Bay, in Cook's Straits, who came to France in a French whaler, in order, as they told him, to see the king, which, however, he never did, – was also examined before the House of Lords, on this and other subjects connected with his native country, after he had been in

England for some time, and could speak the language; and the following is a portion of his evidence.

"New Zealand women kill their children sometimes; do they not? Sometimes they do.

"Why do they kill the children? Because they have too many.

"They kill boys as well as girls? Yes, they kill boy and girl when they have too many.

"They only kill them when they are quite little? Yes; he comes to-day, and then they kill him.

"Do the New Zealand women often kill their little children? No, some women do it; not many. They like eight or ten; they do not like any more; – then they begin."

We sometimes hear in this country of people being blessed with large families; and if a large family be really a blessing, then it follows, as a matter of course, that the larger the family, the greater must be the blessing. In this view of the case, a man with fifty children, must be ten times more blessed than a man with only five. The New Zealanders take a more enlightened and philosophical view of the subject, for though they consider eight, or perhaps ten, a blessing, they seem to think any more a perfect curse; and they get quit of this curse in a very simple and summary manner, by merely pressing their nose betwixt their fingers for a minute or two immediately after they are born; when the poor, innocent, momentary sufferer, makes, in my opinion, a happy change; being ushered, in the twinkling of an eye, from a world of care, of trouble, and of sorrow, into a state of everlasting felicity.

Among the savages of Guiana, in South America, when twins are produced, one of them is always de-

stroyed, for two reasons; – first, from an idea they have formed, that to bring more than one at a time into the world, is to resemble rats, toads, opossums, and the vilest of animals; and secondly, because they consider that two children born at once, cannot belong to the same father; but how they select the proper one is more than I can tell. Those who are deformed, are also put to death; and those of a feeble constitution sometimes undergo the same fate, as the additional care which they require is very inconvenient to those who lead a wandering life.

Chambers, in his Edinburgh Journal of 1st August, 1840, says, – "Till about forty years ago, there was a comfortable doctrine in the world, that children were a good thing, and that it was desirable to encourage population. Louis XIV. actually went so far as to give pensions to men who had more than ten children; and there were few European states in which he who had three or four did not get a discount from his taxes. But since then, a most melancholy notion has taken possession of the brains of politicians, namely, that population requires rather to be checked than encouraged, seeing that, if allowed full head-way, it is apt greatly to outstrip the increase of the means of subsistence. It is not very likely that many marriages and births have been prevented in our islands by this doctrine. Somehow, people fall in love and marry without much regard to theory, and children come into existence in loud defiance of all that can be said to the contrary. Every day that rises on our islands sees a thousand more human beings squalling upon them than what were squalling the day before; and it is rather remarkable that our total numbers have increased more since this damping

doctrine came out, than they did for perhaps a century and a half before."

It is a singular circumstance, that New Zealand women commence squeezing the noses of their children when they arrive at the precise number that the king of France began to give pensions to those who had any more; so that Louis the XlVth seems to have viewed the matter in a very different light from what they do.

But though the practice of the New Zealanders, the Chinese, the South Sea Islanders, of Otaheite when first discovered, of the inhabitants of Chili in South America, and some other nations, in destroying their children occasionally, appears to us very barbarous, laying the crime of murder altogether aside; yet we must bear in mind, that this arises not from any want of that instinctive love of offspring, which is as great among the mothers of these children, as it is with the queen-mother, or the mother of the queen, as they cut themselves and begin to howl for them like wolves, the moment after they despatch them; but solely from the exercise of those reasoning powers which providence has given them, unrestrained by any moral or conventional laws. These being of an overpowering nature, seem to have overcome their instinctive love of offspring, and led them to the conclusion, as they had not food to support them till they grew up, without starving themselves, that of two evils they must choose the least, and self-preservation being the first law of nature, – that the children must be sacrificed rather than the mother who bore them, seeing that one or other must go; just as sailors, in time of shipwreck, save themselves by pushing off in the boat, and leaving the passengers to their fate.

They have no dislike whatever to the passengers, and indeed would make every exertion to save them, consistent with their own safety, but knowing that all cannot be saved, they naturally give the preference to themselves.

The New Zealanders were perhaps afraid also of their children reflecting on them afterwards, had they brought them up in misery and starvation, and must, no doubt, have studied with infinite care and anxiety those passages of the prophet Jeremiah, wherein it is thus written: –

"The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst; the young children ask bread and no man breaketh it unto them. They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger; for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field. Cursed be the day wherein I was born; let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed. Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying a man-child is born unto thee, making him very glad. And let that man be as the cities which the Lord overthrew and repented not; and let him hear the cry in the morning, and the shouting at noon-tide. Because he slew me not from the womb; or that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb to be always great with me. Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame."

In every country where the population increases faster than the means of subsistence, – and this is the case in almost every country of the world, excepting the United States of America, and the pampas of Buenos Ayres, there are just four ways of remedying

this evil, first, either by emigrating to some other country where a greater supply of food can he obtained, or, secondly, abstaining from breeding more children than are wanted; or, thirdly, destroying the supernumeraries at the time of their birth; or, lastly, suffering the overplus to die gradually by starvation. By the first process, that is emigration, the surplus population of this country is, to a certain extent, released, though not nearly to the extent required. In regard to the second, most people seem averse to follow the advice of that benevolent and enlightened philosopher the late Dr. Malthus, whose celebrated work on the principles of population goes to show the extreme importance of the principle of moral restraint, and the fatal consequences arising from bringing children into the world without a rational prospect of being able to provide for their subsistence and education, a doctrine which all admit to be remarkably sound in theory, though they complain bitterly of the difficulty of putting it in practice. Neither will the human race follow the example of that enlightened class the farmers, who breed no more cattle on their farms than they are capable of feeding well, as no farmer desires to have a numerous stock deteriorated in value by starvation. In regard to the third remedy, namely, infanticide, the New Zealanders, the Chinese, and some other nations, having no funds for emigration, and no place to which they could go without being even worse off than at home, and not having sufficiently studied Malthus and the other philosophers, who have endeavoured, with such praiseworthy zeal, though ineffectually, to introduce the principle of moral restraint to bear upon mankind; and above all, having been restrained by no law either human or

divine, seem to have resorted to this as affording them a very simple and remarkably speedy deliverance from the evils of surplus population, infinitely preferable, they must no doubt think, to the fourth and last expedient, namely, bringing up their offspring in misery while young, to be starved perhaps altogether at the last. Now it is well known that among the Irish thousands die annually from starvation, and among the Hindoos tens of thousands, and many thousands are now unfortunately carried off every year, both in England and Scotland, from the same cause, particularly in the larger towns; and by the word starvation, I include all those diseases brought on, not only from deficiency of food, but deficiency of clothing, of fuel to warm them, and similar privations which generally accompany the want of food, bringing on fever and other diseases, and eventually death itself. In fact, emigration and starvation combined, contrive to dispose pretty comfortably of all the surplus population of these three kingdoms. Walton says, in reference to this important subject, "It has been observed that there is little chance of living comfortably in this country, unless by some sweeping mortality one-half of its inhabitants should be sent to their graves. The inhabitants of this country are too numerous for its means of subsistence. The feast is not large enough for those who require to partake of it. Some, indeed, occupy such good seats at the table as give them the command of the choicest dishes; but these are few, compared with the number who are very scantily provided for. So great indeed is the crowd pressing for admission to the table, that some cannot obtain seats at all, and hence the accounts with which we are every now and then horrified, of

persons dying from absolute want of the indispensible necessaries of life."

But though the New Zealanders were in the habit of destroying their infants occasionally, when they became too numerous, from a dread of not being able to support them comfortably without starving themselves; yet in some of the islands to the north of it, particularly in the Tahitian and Society islands, the extent to which infanticide was carried on, previous to the missionaries going amongst them about the year 1830, was almost inconceivable, and that too from causes altogether apart from that motive. Mr. Williams, the missionary, mentions that he never met with a single female who had had children prior to the introduction of Christianity, who had not destroyed more or less – some five, some ten, and so on. The wife of one. chief, in particular, who sent for him, in great agony, when she was dying, confessed that she had killed no less than sixteen of her children. She was almost frantic, crying out – "Oh, my children, my murdered children," – a striking proof of their natural affection.

At the examination of one of his schools in the islands of Raiatea, where 600 children attended, they had a number of flags prepared, with such mottoes as these written on them, – "Had it not been for the Gospel we should have been destroyed as soon as we were born." The parents also attended the examination, and their eyes were gleaming with delight, as the father said to the mother, or the mother to the father, "What a mercy it] is that we spared our dear girl." Others lamented in bitterness that they had not spared theirs, and the silent tear, as it stole down the cheeks of many, told the painful tale that all their children

had been destroyed. In the midst of their proceedings a venerable chieftain, grey with age, an arioi of the highest rank, the laws of whose class required the destruction of all his children, arose, and with impassioned look and manner exclaimed, "Oh, that I had known that these blessings were in store for us, then I should have saved my children, and they would have been amongst this happy group, repeating these precious truths; but alas! I destroyed them all, – I have not one left." Turning to the chairman, who was also a relative, he stretched out his arm and exclaimed, "You, my brother, saw me kill child after child, but you never seized this murderous hand, and said, stay, brother, God is about to bless us, – the gospel of salvation is coming to our shores." Then he cursed the gods which they formerly worshipped, saying, "It was you who infused this savage disposition into us, and now I shall die childless, although I have been the father of nineteen children." He then sat down, and in a flood of tears gave vent to his feelings.

Mr. Williams also mentions that he had a female servant for fifteen years, who had been in the habit of practising infanticide as a trade; just as a female in this country would practise midwifery; and went about the country killing children, just as a man in this country would go about killing rats. Both he and Mrs. Williams often listened with feelings of agony to the details of the various modes in which it was done. Sometimes they put a wet cloth on their mouths – sometimes they pinched their throats till they expired, and occasionally they buried them alive. But perhaps the most brutal method of all was breaking the first and second joints of their fingers and toes the moment they were born. If they survived this,

they next dislocated their ankles and wrists; and if that did not do, they then broke their knee and elbow joints; and failing, all these they finished them by strangulation. Mr. Owen would call these children the creatures of most unfavourable circumstances.

They assigned as one reason among others for this practice, the distress entailed upon those who had families, by their frequent and desolating wars; and another, that nursing impaired their personal attractions, and curtailed the period during which the bloom of their beauty lasted. Some people who are near-sighted have much difficulty in discovering any bloom upon a black skin, and are apt to exclaim with the Prophet Jeremiah, "Though thou clothest thyself with crimson, though thou deckest thee with ornaments of gold, though thou rentest thy face with painting, in vain shalt thou make thyself fair." The cause assigned by the New Zealanders for destroying their children may be considered rational compared to this, for though they occasionally were in the habit of doing so, yet this was but rare, and the children suffer much for want of proper food, from the time they are weaned till they are three years old. Mr. Clarke says that one-half of their children die during that time for want of proper nourishment, while many mothers hurt themselves by suckling them too long, from having no suitable food for them afterwards.

In regard to the language of the New Zealanders, though I only picked up a few words of it myself, yet my friend, Dr. Lang, who is a Hebrew scholar, discovered that many of their words were precisely the same as those of that language. The Doctor, and Mr. Williams the missionary, point out also the striking similitude between them and the inhabitants of that

part of Asia where the land of Judea is situated, in respect of physical conformation, general character, Malay features, tapuing and caste, treatment of women, particularly in their being forbidden to eat certain articles of food, or to eat in the presence of men, – a very proper regulation, – their polygamy, or plurality of wives, some of them having three or four; their polite attention to the sick, leaving them to recover the best way they can; the immolation of widows on the death of their husbands, and cutting their flesh, and tattooing or printing their bodies; and these combined, seem to leave no doubt that they came originally from Judea. I have taken the liberty of adding to this long catalogue, their wonderful rapacity and love of money, which may not inappropriately be called the innate Jewish propensity of their nature, and confirms the theory of these learned divines in a still more striking degree. The greatest difficulty which they had to overcome was, "How in all the world they got from Judea to New Zealand;" but this difficulty Mr. Williams has removed with his usual ingenuity, by bringing forward some remarkable instances of the drifting of canoes full of natives to a very great distance from their own shores. Mr. Williams fell a sacrifice to the treachery of the savages, in one of the islands of the New Hebrides in 1839.

The account which the New Zealanders themselves gives of their country is sufficiently absurd. Mawe, their divinity, they say was one day amusing himself fishing, a singular employment for a deity, – and was for a long time very unsuccessful. At last however, when his patience was almost exhausted he felt a bite, and after great exertion pulled out his line, but to his great surprise, instead of a fish, which he

no doubt thought must have been a whale, he found attached the three Islands of New Zealand. I wonder that Mr. Mawe did not continue fishing after such wonderful success, as the next bite he got might have been Australia. It is singular that the natives name of the Northern Island, is Ea-hei-no-Mawe, which when translated signifies the child of Mawe; and though our knowledge of the history and biography of Mr. Mawe be very limited and incomplete, yet as there are three islands, we are entitled to infer from this that he had three children.

The only other circumstance in the customs of the New Zealanders worthy of being made mention of, is, that the whole of the native race, men, women, and children swim well, and like the North American Indians, swim like dogs, not dividing the water as we do with the palm of the hand, but paddling along with each arm alternately. Those who swim in this way, can hold out much longer than those who adopt the other plan.

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VI.

Singular description of New Zealand, as contained in the Land claims given in – Compared by Mr. Montefiore to a Paradise – Views of it as a Field for Emigration – Murder of Mrs. Roberton and her whole family, at the Bay of Islands, by a young Chief – His Execution.

The greatest deception that has been practised on the people of this country in regard to New Zealand is, that those interested in its prosperity, when stating its wonderful fertility, keep almost entirely out of view the extent to which this fertility extends. They tell you that the crops are the finest in the world, and the soil the finest in the world, and the climate the finest in the world, and though this may be all true enough, yet they too often conceal the circumstance, that not above one-tenth part of that country can ever be rendered productive, thus reducing the available land within a comparatively narrow limit. Mr. Thorp, says, "Above half of New Zealand is mountain, one entire scene of rugged volcanic distortion; perhaps nearly one-fourth is swampy, and one fourth plain or available land. If the pound

an acre gentleman, find his lot cast on the mountain or in the swamp, he may pray for a speedy deliverance." 6

Nearly the whole country to the north of the river Thames, extending in length, upwards of a hundred miles, excepting the missionary settlements, is in a great measure barren and unproductive, being either sandy or very mountainous, and covered with the Kauri pine. Indeed the Northern Island is more or less mountainous throughout, and the Middle Island is sadly cut up by the enormous ridge of mountains called the Southern Alps.

Nothing perhaps will give a better idea of its rugged and mountainous nature, than the description of the land contained in the different titles of the proprietors in that country, who were obliged to give in their claims to the commissioners appointed by Government, for all the lands they had acquired. In addition to a short description of the land, the value or consideration given for it, of whatever nature that might have been, had to be specially stated in the claim given in, and the whole was then inserted in the Government Gazette. Mr. Oakes of the M'Leay River, New South Wales, I observe, acquired 300 acres near Hokianga, from a chief, as the price of a mare, valued at £50, so that this chief probably wished to have a little equestrian exercise. It was better, however, that he should ride on a horse than on pigs, as some of the natives did fifty years ago with three of them, as they took them for horses, and rode two to death, killing the third for entering tabbooed burying ground. Blankets and calicoes seem to have

been the chief things given, and they are generally stated in these claims as at the Sydney prices, a very proper distinction, as these were about double the English prices, and they were allowed three times the Sydney prices. The following are a few of the claims which I have selected from those which appeared in the Government Gazette of 20th July, 1841, published at Auckland.

The first is that of George Green, of North Shore, Sydney, whose claim is thus stated: – "Twenty thousand acres, more or less, viz. all that piece or parcel of land situated in the northward part of Stewart's Island, bounded towards the north by that part of the Straits extending from Rogetty Point to Oronta Point, about five miles; towards the west of the ocean four miles; towards the south by a line running about parallel to the north coast in the Straits, about five miles; towards the east by a line running from Oronta Point to the east part of the line last mentioned, about five miles.

"Alleged to have been purchased from John Toawack, with the consent of Toby Patrick, Auroa, John White, and Tyroa – Consideration, £30 Sterling."

"Release from John Towack to claimant, dated 24th October, 1838."

The following is another claim of the same party, –

"George Green, as above, claimant – All that piece or parcel of land on Middle Island; bounded on the north, east, and south sides, by other parts of the Middle Island; and on the west by the waters of the South Pacific Ocean, and fronting thereto forty miles or thereabouts, commencing at a point called Waukerpito, bearing south-east forty miles; then by a line running to Mistaken Bay forty miles or thereabouts. Contents not stated. Alleged to have been

purchased as above. – Consideration £200 Sterling. Release as above, dated 31st October, 1838."

Here our enterprizing friend makes a wonderful bargain, having purchased a tract of land forty miles square, for £200, so that he must have intended to have become a New Zealand chieftain, and to have eclipsed the native chiefs altogether.

The next is that of "William Wright, and William S. Grahame, merchants of Sydney, claimants. – Forty thousand acres, more or less, viz., all that piece or parcel of land or ground situate or lying and being on the river Otamatea, and known by the general name of Te Wairau, commencing at the creek or river Kaiwaka, and following its course to the creek Pounau, and then along the Pounau, including the mountains Pepo Watu, Te Rangi, and Pupu Rangi, and all the land on that side of the Pouri Uri, then from the first mentioned creek Kaiwaka, along the course of the Otamatea, following its windings, including the Wairau and the Wi to Parawinuama, and then including Parawinuama and Kouwakatu, thence to the aforesaid Pupu Rangi, including all the land on that side of the river, extending back to what the natives call Tokirau. This land is alleged to have been purchased from Paikea, a chief residing on the river Wairoa – Consideration given is stated to have been £65 in cash, and goods to the amount of £687. 6s. 10d. amounting in all to £752. 6s. 10d. Deed from Paikea to claimants dated 10th January, 1840."

The next is that of James Busby, Esq. the British consul, or resident as he is called, at New Zealand; who gives in no less than eleven claims to upwards of 50,000 acres of land, so that he must have been a

very enterprizing consul. Of these I shall only insert the two following; the first is as follows, – "Two thousand acres, more or less, situated in the district of Waitangi, at the Bay of Islands; bounded on the east by a mangrove swamp; on the south-east by the river Hutia and the middle of a swamp, in a direct line to the river Waitangi, above the fall; on the south by the river Waitangi; on the west by the top of the range of hills stretching from the river Waitangi, over the hills called Tanpare and Moerewa, to the hill Tananui; and on the north by the ridge of hills extending from Tananui to Terakanihi, whence it is bounded by the land purchased from the Puke tribe. Alleged to have been purchased from Kamera, Te Tao, Parangi, Wakarua, Taro, Puhiahia, Puri, Ripa, Ngoua, Tuhirangi, Peia, Te Arapiro, and Wieru –

Consideration, cash and goods to the amount of £21. 2s. 6d. Sydney prices."

The second is "James Busby, as above, claimant. – Twenty-five thousand acres, more or less, situated at Wangarei or Bream Bay, on the east coast, about fifty miles south of the Bay of Islands; bounded on the north by the harbour of Wangarei; on the east by the sea; on the south by the top of a range of hills commencing near the sea, called Kukunui, and stretching inland to the mountain called Tangi Hua; and on the south-west and west by the hill called Puke-Moki-Moki, and the Wai-a-horu, and from thence to a hill called Warau, and over the summit of Mount Tikerangi to the harbour of Puri Noa. Alleged to have been purchased from Tirerau, Motutara, Amotiriri, Teakiriri, Te Karkeare, Tutahi, Iwitahi, Waka Ariki, Pou, Kawanui, Tauwite, Toru, Kahunui, Hamiora Maru, Parihora, Umaugawa Te Haimgere,

Te Rou, Hori Tipoki, Tipeue, Hari, and Pauri Kaitangata. – Consideration, cash and goods to the amount of £193. 0s. 6d. Sydney prices."

The last I shall insert is one in the Port Nicholson district, where Commissioner Spain held his Court, on 16th May, 1842. This claim is stated in the Government Notice as follows: "Case No. 118. – John Terry Hughes of Sydney, merchant, claimant. – All that land known by the name of Porerooa, from the rocks upon the north-east side of the river Porerooa called Kicketoa, north-east by north thirty miles, and is bounded on the east by a range of snowy mountains; to the south by a range of hills three miles from Port Nicholson, upon the south-west side of the river Porerooa to Teeti Bay; from Teeti Bay south-east by east to the south branch of the Porerooa river. (Contents not stated.)"

The above are sufficient to give some idea of a country which that eminent individual, Joseph Barrow Montefiore, Esq. late merchant of Sydney, now of London, in his valuable evidence before the House of Lords, had the audacity to say, in the ardour of his enthusiasm, "was in scenery, climate, and productiveness, a, perfect paradise." It appears to be a singular sort of paradise at all events, – unlike what mankind in general look forward to, – being composed chiefly of mountains, hills, ranges of mountains, ridges of mountains, tops of mountains, snowy mountains, creeks, bays, lagoons, and mangrove swamps. When making out a description of the land in this paradise, they seem just to have stood on the top of one ridge of mountains, and looked across to another; then taken a glance at the ocean in the distance; then turned their eyes towards some creek, lagoon, or man-

grove swamp, and when all this was done, guessed the probable contents as nearly as they could. In giving the contents of the land they almost invariably use the words "more or less," two remarkably convenient words in a country like that, as with the aid of two such valuable words, they could hardly go far wrong. If they sold, for instance, 10,000 acres of land, and they turned out to be only seven, the word "less" would apply in that case, and the natives were too wide awake ever to think of giving much more. But in regard to ascertaining the precise quantity, it was totally out of the question, as from having to wade through creeks, lagoons, mangrove swamps, and rivers, and scramble over rocks and precipices, they must either have been drowned or dashed to pieces; and where the value of an acre, as at that time, was scarcely a penny, it was not worth their while even to wet their feet, and far less to run the risk of perishing in making the attempt.

I have now given you an impartial account of that singular country, pointing out its numerous advantages, and not concealing its disadvantages, the latter consisting mainly in the mountainous nature of almost the whole county; and shall allow you to judge for yourselves whether, upon the whole, it be an eligible field for emigration. I should certainly be sorry to dissuade any one from going, who may consider it advisable to do so; but neither will I call upon you as my venerable friend Peter Doran has done, to free yourselves from bondage and slavery here and hasten there, for the scripture hath said, "Go not forth from thy kindred, lest a worse thing befal thee."

The climate being in many respects superior to our own, and the land where it is good, being rich to a

degree, will probably insure a steady course of emigration towards it, and I am of opinion that an annual emigration of 2000 individuals will find employment, if scattered judiciously over its romantic shores. To expect, however, that an emigration to that extent would be felt as a relief to the overgrown population of this country, is as absurd as to expect that a single spoonful of turtle soup thrown into the parish soup-chaldron, would convert the whole into turtle soup.

There is one great advantage, however, which emigrants who go now to New Zealand, have over those who went there in 1840, namely, that the price of every thing has fallen at least the one-half since that time, and in some cases two-thirds. Potatoes have fallen from £10 the ton to £4. Beef and mutton from 1s. the pound to 6d.; pork from 6d. to 4d.; the quartern, or 4 lb. loaf, from 2s. to 8d.; fowls from 8s. the couple to 3s.; tea from 5s. the pound to 2s. 6d.; raw sugar from 6d. to 3d.; eggs from 6s. the dozen to 2s.; fresh butter from 3s. the pound to 1s.; and fish, (such as it is,) for a mere trifle. When we keep in view this comparatively low price as regards all the necessaries of life, and consider that the present average rate of wages is, for mechanics, two guineas per week, and for labourers one guinea, it will readily be seen, that to the working classes, at least, it presents a fair field for emigration, to the extent mentioned above; and it is satisfactory also to know, that by the latest accounts, every person who is steady and willing to work can now find employment.

A considerable opening for miners has taken place within the last two or three years, by the discovery of very extensive copper mines at the Barrier Island,

about fifty miles from Auckland, where that interprising individual, Mr. Charles Abercromby of Sydney, the owner, has nearly one hundred men employed in the workings. The ore is of very superior quality, containing upwards of forty per cent. of pure metal.

Before concluding, I shall give a short narrative of one of the most cold blooded murders to be found in the pages of history, committed on five individuals, by a maori or native youth, son of Ruhe, one of the greatest chiefs at the Bay of Islands, and only sixteen years of age. The victims of this atrocity were Mrs. Roberton and her two children, a boy about eight, and a girl about two years of age; – Isabella Brind, about three years old, the natural daughter of a Captain Brind, by a native woman – the daughter of Rewa, the head of the Ngapuhis, who principally inhabit Kororarika; and Mrs. Roberton's man servant, Thomas Bull, about thirty-five years of age.

Mrs. Roberton was the widow of a Captain Roberton, whose mother resided in Edinburgh, prior to her departure for New Zealand in November 1842, for the purpose of looking after the effects of her deceased son and his family. That lady, (who is now nearly eighty years of age,) waited upon me in Edinburgh in 1839, on hearing that I was going to New Zealand, and gave me letters to her son, who had settled at the Bay of Islands, but not having gone to that part of New Zealand, I forwarded them by post, and had a polite letter from him when at Sydney, acknowledging their receipt. He was drowned shortly afterwards, when sailing in a small boat, and in sight of his own house, though, unfortunately, no assistance could be given to him.

How terrible it is to sink,
Beneath the chilly stream;
To stretch the powerless arms in vain,
In vain for help to scream.

It is a remarkable circumstance in the history of that lady's family, that he was the last of five sons who have all shared the same fate, that is, been drowned.

His widow, who was a Sydney lady, resided in one of the numerous islands from which the Bay of Islands derives its name. This island belonged to her husband, and she and her family were its only occupants. She had employed this young chief, who was a remarkably powerful lad, to assist her white man servant, Thomas Bull, in some of her farming operations, and Thomas having told Mrs. Roberton that he was a lazy fellow, he watched the opportunity when he had fallen asleep, to split his skull open with an axe. Mrs. Roberton having accidentally happened to come upon him when in the act of doing so, he judged it advisable to despatch her also with the same instrument, and then the two female children. Mrs. Roberton's son seeing what was going on, fled to a mountain close by, but the monster overtook him, and threw him headlong over the rock, two hundred feet high, so that he was literally dashed to pieces.

You have here a melancholy picture of man in a savage state. This boy had evidently been naturally of a ferocious disposition, and brought up with the notion, perhaps, that to kill strangers, or those of another tribe, when he had an opportunity, was a praiseworthy act; so that he probably felt no more compunction at killing these five individuals, than if they had been as many rats. The dread of eternal punish-

ment had never been instilled into his mind; and from all risk of temporal punishment he had no doubt trusted that his own tribe would protect him, and he knew that they would never punish him themselves. Indeed his father only gave him up from the apprehension that the Kororarika tribes would kill him on the spot, in consequence of the murder of the grandchild of Rewa, the chief of the Ngapuhis. He was thus the slave of passion and not of reason, and unquestionably the creature of most unfavourable circumstances. He was taken to Auckland, tried, condemned, and executed on the 7th of March, 1842, with great formality. We may judge from this, in what a sad state the world would be placed, were all moral and religious influence withdrawn. Among mankind in a state of civilization murder is considered the most atrocious of all crimes; no temptation or provocation whatever, except self-defence, being considered a justification of it. The murderer himself becomes, moreover, frequently a prey to remorse, which Dr. Adam Smith characterizes as the most dreadful of all the sentiments that enter the human breast. This sentiment is made up of shame, from a sense of the enormity of his crime – of grief for the effects of it – of pity for those who have suffered by it – of fear of eternal punishment, and of dread of temporal punishment, from a consciousness of the justly provoked resentment of all rational creatures; for in the 35th chapter of Numbers it is written, "For blood it defileth the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it." These feelings combined constitute the sentiment of remorse; and so overpowering is its influence over man in a civilized state, that many instances are on record, (and

one in particular, occurs in the Edinburgh Courant, of 23d May, 1844,) of those who had escaped detection, delivering themselves up even years afterwards to undergo the punishment prescribed by law for their offence; declaring, at the same time, that their life had become so miserable, their conscience tormenting them both night and day, that even death itself would be hailed by them as a relief from sufferings which they could no longer endure.

There was no human eye had seen
The blood the murd'rer spilt;
His conscience never knew before,
Th' avenging goad of guilt.

In vain at midnight's silent hour,
Sleep clos'd his weary eyes;
In ev'ry dream the murd'rer saw,
His victim's form arise.

In vain by restless conscience driven,
The murd'rer left his home;
Far from the scenes that saw his guilt,
In pilgrimage to roam.

No resting could he find at all,
No ease nor heart's content;
No house, nor home, nor dwelling place,
But wand'ring forth he went.

To distant climes the murd'rer fled,
But could not fly despair;
He sought his home again, but peace,
Was still a stranger there.

Man, in a savage state, on the contrary, is an absolute stranger to these feelings. Were you to attempt to explain to him the meaning of the word "remorse" he would only gaze on you with wonder; and the word "cruelty" has never appeared in his dictionary.

His mind may be said to resemble a garden, in which weeds have been sown instead of good seeds. Actions which we have been taught from our youth upwards to look upon with horror, and as contrary to the laws both of God and of man, he has been trained to consider as actually praiseworthy. His passions, from his earliest years, have suffered no control; his reasoning powers have been in abeyance, and hope has no influence over him, as he has but little to hope for. The passion of fear alone keeps him in check, and when that is removed, the natural savage propensities of his nature come again into play, and he returns as the dog to his vomit, or as the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire.

6 Though Mr. Thorp mentions one-fourth, yet almost every individual whom I have seen, who has been in New Zealand, calculates it at one-tenth.

APPENDIX

APPENDIX.

INTERVIEW BETWIXT RAUPERAHA AND THE GOVERNOR.

On 12th February, 1844, His Excellency, Governor Fitzroy, and suite, landed at Waikanao, where he met Rauperaha and Rangihaiata, and upwards of 400 of their tribes, who were assembled in a large open enclosure within the pah.

His Excellency said, – "I have heard from the English all that happened at the Wairoa, and it has grieved my heart exceedingly. I now ask you to tell me your story, that I may compare the two, and judge fairly. When I have heard your account of that dark day, I will reflect, and then tell you what I shall do. The bad news I have heard about killing the English so cruelly at the Wairoa, after they had ceased fighting, and had trusted to your honour, has made my heart very dark, has filled my mind with gloom. Tell me your story, that I may compare it with the English, and know the whole truth.

"When I first heard of the death of my friends, of the English who fell at Wairoa, I was very angry, and thought of hastening here with many ships of war, with many, many soldiers, end several fire-moved ships (steamers). Had I done so, your warriors would have been killed, your canoes would have been all taken and burnt, your houses and pahs would have been all destroyed; for I should have brought with me from Sydney and other places an irresistible force.

"But these were hasty, angry, unchristian thoughts; they soon passed away. I considered the whole case; I saw that the English had been very much to blame, even by their own account; and I saw how much you had been provoked. Then I determined to put away my anger, and come to you peaceably. Let me now hear your story."

Rauperaha then rose; and several voices from among the crowd of his countrymen urged him to speak out, that they might all hear. He said, –

"There was evil intended in the commencement of this affray. Land is the foundation of all our troubles. The Europeans say it is theirs; but who says so besides themselves?

"The 'Tory' came to Port Nicholson, and that was the commencement of the evil. We heard of the sale of that place by Warepori and Puni. Warepori was smoking his tobacco, and wearing his blankets alone; we never agreed to it; payment was made, but we never received it; thus grew the seeds of evil. Who authorised Warepori to receive his payment? Who authorized him to do it privately? Why did he not call the people together, and pay them all?

Porirua also is claimed by Colonel Wakefield; but Rangihaiata will never consent to sell it. Now I come to Wairoa.

Wairoa was taken away by Thompson and Wakefield," (meaning Captain Wakefield). "When we heard that they were surveying the land, we went to Nelson to forbid them doing so. We went to Captain Wakefield's house. He said 'I must have Wairoa.' I said 'No.' He replied 'I must have it.' I answered 'No, you shall not have it'. He said 'If you do not give it up, you shall be tied in this manner.'" (Here Rauperaha, to explain his meaning of the threat held out by Captain Wakefield, put his hands in the position of a person handcuffed.) "Rangihaiata said, 'I will not give up Wairoa, neither will I be taken prisoner by you.' Captain Wakefield then said, 'We will shoot you.' 'Well, what matter if you do? We shall lose our life, but Wairoa shall not be taken.'

"After this interview at Nelson, Captain Wakefield sent over more surveyors; amongst them was Mr. Cotterrell. We heard that the survey of the Wairoa was nearly finished. Puaha went to tell them to desist; but they would not. Puaha returned to the Porirua, and told us so. We then arose. The Chiefs and old men went on board a schooner, and the young men in canoes to Cloudy Bay. We stayed at Totara-nui" (Queen Charlotte's Sound) "some time, and then went to Wairoa. We pulled up till we saw Mr. Cotterell. We then brought all their goods, &c. down to the mouth of the river. Our slaves and the Europeans were engaged in moving the things. Then we pulled up to the wood, and saw Mr. Barnicoat; told him we had come to fetch him, – he had no boat; so we took him and his things on board my canoe, and conveyed them to the mouth of the river, having burned the huts which they had erected.

"The Europeans then left Wairoa for Cloudy Bay, thence to Nelson. We were up the river planting. After this Mr. Tuckett arrived with some people to survey. I sent to him and said, 'Come, Mr. Tuckett, you must go.' He said, 'I must survey the land.' I replied, 'No you shall not;' and brought him down to the mouth of the river. I asked Mr. Barnicoat to remain with me till the boat came for him; the boat with Mr. Tuckett had gone to Nelson. We continued our planting till one morning we saw the 'Victoria'" (Government Brig). "Then were our hearts relieved; for we thought Mr. Spain and Mr. Clarke had come to settle the question of our lands. Being scattered about at different places on the river, we took no further notice, expecting a messenger to arrive from Mr. Spain and Mr. Clarke; but a messenger came up to say, that it was an army of English, and that they were busily engaged cleaning their arms, and fixing the flints of their guns. They met Puaha, and detained him prisoner. They said, 'Where are Rauperaha and Rangihaiata?' Puaha said 'Up the river.' They answered, 'Let us go.' Puaha was glad to hear them say this, as he was afraid they would kill him. He afterwards watched his opportunity and ran away, and came to us. After Puaha and Rangihaiata arrived, we con-

sulted what we should do. I proposed going into the bush; but they said, 'No, let us remain where we are. What have we done that we should be thus beset?'

"The Europeans slept some distance from us; and, after they had breakfasted, came on towards us in two boats. We remained on the same spot, without food: we were much alarmed. Early in the morning we were on the look-out; and one of our scouts, who caught sight of them coming round a point, called out, 'Here they come! here they come!' Our women had kindled a fire, and cooked a few potatoes that we had remaining; and we were hastily eating them when they came in sight. Cotterell called out, 'Where is Puaha?' Puaha answered, 'Here I am; come here to me.' Cotterell then said, 'Where is a canoe for us to cross?'" " Thompson, Wakefield, and some other gentlemen, crossed over to us with a constable, to take me; but the greater number stopped on the other side of the creek.

"Thompson said, 'Where is Rauperaha?' I answered, 'Here.' 'Come, you must come with me. I replied, 'Where?' He said, 'On board the ship.' I replied, 'What for?' He answered, 'To talk about the houses you burnt down.' I said, 'What house was it I burnt! was it a tent belonging to you, that you make so much ado about it? You know it was not; it was nothing but a hut of rushes; the materials were, cut from my own grounds. Therefore I will not go aboard, neither will I be bound. If you are angry about the land let us talk it quietly over; I care not if we talk till night and all to-morrow; I will settle the question about the land.' Mr. Thompson said, 'Will you not go?' I said, 'No;' and Rangihaiata, who had been called for, and who had been speaking, said so too. Mr. Thompson then called for the handcuffs, and held up the warrant, saying, 'See, this is the Queen to make a tie, Rauperaha.' I said, 'I will not listen either to you or to your book.' He was in a great passion; this eyes rolled about, and he stamped his foot. I said, 'I had rather be killed than submit to be bound.' He then called for the constable, who began opening the handcuffs, and to advance towards me. Mr. Thompson laid hold of my hand. I pushed him away, saying, 'What are you doing that for?' Mr. Thompson then called out, 'Fire!' The Europeans began to cross over the creek; and as they were crossing, they fired one gun. The women and children were sitting round the fire. We called out, 'We shall be shot!' After this one gun, they fired a volley, and one of us was killed, then another, and three were wounded. We were then closing fast. The English guns were levelled at us. I and Puaha cried out, 'Friends, stand up and shoot some of them in payment.' We were frightened because they were very close; we then fired, and three of the Europeans fell. They fired again, and killed Rongo, the wife of Rangihaiata. We then bent all our energy to the fight, and

the Europeans began to fly. They all ran away, firing as they retreated. The gentlemen ran too. We pursued them, and killed them as we overtook them. Captain Wakefield and Mr. Thompson were brought by the slaves who caught them to me. Rangihaiata came running to me, crying out, 'What are you doing? Your daughter is dead. What are you doing, I say?' Upon which some heathen slaves killed them.

"There was no time elapsed between the flight and the slaughter of the prisoners. When the prisoners were killed, the rest of our people were still engaged in the pursuit. When we arrived at the top of the hill, Mr. Cotterell held up a flag, and said, 'That is enough; stop fighting.' Mr. Thompson said to me 'Rauperaha, spare my life!' I answered, 'A little while ago, I wished to talk to you in a friendly manner, and you would not; now you say, Save me! I will not save you.'"

Rauperaha continued; "It is not our custom to save the Chiefs of our enemies; we do not consider our victory complete unless we kill the Chiefs of our opponents; our passions were much roused, and we could not help killing the Chiefs."

Rauperaha then sat down, and after a silence of about half an hour, His Excellency rose, and addressed the Natives as follows: –

"Now I have heard both sides, I have reflected on both accounts, and I am prepared to give my decision.

"In the first place, the English were wrong; they had no right to build houses upon lands to which they had not established their claim, – upon land, the sale of which you disputed, on which Mr. Spain had not decided. They were wrong in trying to apprehend you, who had committed no crime. They were wrong in marking and measuring your land, in opposition to your repeated refusal to allow them to do so, until the Commissioner had decided on their claim.

"Had you been Englishmen, you would have known that it was wrong to resist a magistrate under any circumstances; but not understanding English law, your case was different. Had this been all, had a struggle caused loss of life in the fight, – wrong and bad as it would have been in the sight of God, – I could not have blamed you so much as the English.

"The very bad part of the Wairoa affair, – that part where you were so very wrong, – was the killing of the men who had surrendered, who trusted to your honour as Chiefs.

"Englishmen never kill their prisoners; Englishmen never kill men who have surrendered. It is the shocking death of those unfortunate men that has filled my mind with gloom; that has made my heart so dark; that has filled me with sorrow.

"But I know how difficult it is to restrain angry men, when their passions are roused. I know that you repent your conduct, and are now sorry that those men were killed.

"As the English were very greatly to blame, and as they brought on and began the fight, and as you were hurried into crime by their misconduct, I will not avenge their death." &c.

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