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Chapter iii.
Traffic with Maoris.

Though cannibalism had given a bad odour to the Maori name, roving Englishmen were not repelled from the islands. In 1792, Mr. Raven, sailing in the ‘Britannia’ from Sydney, in quest of live stock and provisions, left at Dusky Bay his second mate, Mr. Leith, with some men, to occupy themselves in sealing, while he went to the coast of Brazil and thence to the Cape of Good Hope before returning to Sydney in 1793. It was not until October, 1793, that Raven went to look for Leith and his companions. They had procured 4500 seal-skins, but had been chiefly engaged in building a vessel of New Zealand pine to aid their escape in case of need. The vessel was of sixty-five tons burden. The natives had not molested, but avoided them. Presents which were left for the Maoris were left untouched. The English had procured abundance of fish and game. The vessel they had built was left in the bay.

More than two years afterwards, Mr. Bampton, in the ‘Endeavour,’ found his ship dangerously leaky, and by common consent of all on board ran her on shore at Dusky Bay. The small vessel built by Mr. Leith and his carpenter was found in good order, launched, and named the ‘Providence.’ All whom she could contain went in her; others remained to sail in a vessel which one Hatherleigh, a carpenter's mate, volunteered to construct out of the long-boat of the abandoned ‘Endeavour.’ The new vessel was called ‘The Assistance,’ and in a few months she carried to Sydney as many passengers as could be supplied with food, leaving others for a future opportunity.

At Dusky Bay there were few Maoris, and visitors were in no danger. But Mr. Dell, the commander of the “snow”‘Fancy,’

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adopted a more daring plan. Keeping his destination secret, though it was suspected, in September 1794 he sailed from Sydney to the Frith of Thames. The “snow”was armed,¹ was of about 170 tons burden,' had a strong crew, a guard of Sepoys, and a commission from the Bombay, Marine Department.

In three months Mr. Dell cut down more than 200 fine trees, for the uses of the East India Company. He bartered bits of iron for flax. He was compelled to fire on the natives, he said, because some axes were stolen. Two Maori men and one woman were killed.

Such was the commencement of the unlicensed traffic which was to make the north-east coast of New Zealand a disgrace to the European name. From this period many Maoris went in European ships to various countries; and, after a time, runaway convicts and reckless adventurers found their way to New Zealand.

In 1800 the Rev. T. Fyshe Palmer (one of the “Scotch martyrs”convicted of seditious practices), the term of his banishment having expired, chartered a vessel, with which he went to New Zealand for timber. Such an adventure was not always profitable. Mr. Palmer was twenty-six weeks at the islands, consumed all his stores, and was compelled to go to Tongataboo to refit. Whalers resorted to New Zealand, and the Maoris, who were daring harpooners, went to sea to earn money and buy guns.

A story is told of one who, when scorned for missing one whale, sprung on the body of the next that appeared, and having struck home, vanished in a whirlpool of blood and foam, emerging coolly with his hand on the gunwale; and being hauled on board as the boat was dragged into speed by the wounded whale.

The Vikings from Hawaii scattered themselves freely amongst the crews of foreign ships. One or two went to England. Some were anxious to see the king of the nation which carried thunder and lightning, and blew its foes to atoms. They were disappointed when they found he was not a great warrior and was an old man. One who vainly sought to see the king saw, without seeking him, the future apostle of the Maori race.

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The Maoris could not gauge the relative importance of Europeans, and appear to have supposed that the commander of a ship was a leader of men who could easily introduce his friends to the king of England. Unscrupulous rogues took advantage of this credulity and inveigled many Maoris to enter upon such vain voyages. Ruatara was one such chief. A casual meeting with him¹ in England was to colour the future fortunes of the Maoris, and render Marsden famous.

Ruatara's story may serve as a type of the Maori sea-rover. He, was nephew of the great warrior-murderer Hongi, the Ngapuhi conqueror, the introducer of fire-arms on a large scale. The nobility of Ruatara was unquestionable. He could trace his pedigree to the chieftains who led the people from Hawaii. He was a relative of King's friend Ti-pa-he.

In 1805 he embarked in a whaler, the ‘Argo,’ at the Bay of Islands. He worked on board as a sailor, fond of the life of adventure, and stipulating that he should be landed at Sydney. The master of the ship cheated him of his earnings and abandoned him there. Another captain (of the whaler ‘Albion’), Richardson by name, treated him honourably, paid him his earnings during a six months' cruise, and landed him at the Bay of Islands.

The spirit of a rover was upon him, and again he shipped with others in a vessel, the ‘Santa Anna,’ cruising for seal-skins in the Pacific. At the head of a sealing party put on shore upon an island while their vessel returned to New Zealand for pork and potatoes, he underwent much privation. Three of the sailors died. Ruatara was fired with a desire to see King George, and the captain took him to England in 1809, promising to gratify him. In London he was ill-used. He did not see the king, was hardly allowed to go on shore, and in extreme illness, without wages and in rags, was put on board the ‘Ann,’ a convict transport bound for Sydney.

He had received that deadly insult to a Maori chief—he had

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been struck. The fate of his persecutor would have been inevitable if Ruatara could have met him amongst Maori fern. But the ship which carried Ruatara carried also Samuel Marsden, the future apostle of New Zealand. In striving to care for the crew his glance fell upon the dusky form of the sick and discontented Ruatara. His sympathies were attracted to the sufferer. The heart of Ruatara was touched.

Kindly treated, he recovered, and on reaching Sydney found a home and a friend in the house of Marsden. After staying some months with his teacher he sailed for his native country, was again deceived by the captain, and was defrauded and landed at Norfolk Island, after passing within a few miles of the home in New Zealand whither the captain had pledged himself to sail. A whaling vessel found him at Norfolk Island and took him to Sydney. The guest of Marsden for a time, he took ship again for New Zealand, and was safely landed among his friends.

His travels and narrative made him the first missionary to his countrymen. The web of European life was not all bad. Some good was mingled with it. The examples of Governor King and of Marsden could more than outweigh the conduct of brutal and fraudulent captains. It was good that in establishing relations with a fearless and intelligent but bloodthirsty race, there was a messenger like Ruatara, who could tell the tale of Marsden's kindness. But he himself was no common man. He had carried some seed wheat with him on last leaving Marsden. The growth of the new crop was watched with curiosity by Ruatara's countrymen, who were loth to believe that it could produce the flour of the Europeans. It was garnered, and a new difficulty presented itself. Ruatara had no mill. His boasted importation was flouted.

But at this juncture Marsden had matured his plans with certain lay missionaries—Hall, King, and Kendall. He had long yearned to evangelize and civilize the Maoris, and the providential encounter with Ruatara in the convict ship seemed to open the way. Hall and King had accompanied Marsden from England. They would have gone at once with Ruatara to New Zealand if tidings had not been received at Sydney, in

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August, 1810, of the massacre of the crew of the ship ‘Boyd’ at Whangaroa.

While Marsden strove to lay the foundation for a good understanding between the two races, another European caused a catastrophe which was to exasperate them and sacrifice not only the friendly chief Ti-pa-he, but almost all his ‘hapu,’ or sub-tribe. One Thompson, master of the ‘Boyd,’ going to New Zealand for timber, had engaged some Maoris in Sydney. One of them was a chief, Tarra, known as George. He was, or feigned to be, too ill to work. Thompson tied him to the gangway and flogged him twice, telling him that he was no chief. The sullen victim answered: “When you arrive in my country you will find that I am a chief.”

He dissembled afterwards, and persuaded Thompson to enter the harbour of Whangaroa, his native place. There he showed his stripes to his friends. The back of a chief is peculiarly sacred in Maori belief. Vengeance was vowed. The captain and several of the crew went on shore to select timber. They were all murdered. Dressing themselves in their victims' clothes, the triumphant savages at dusk went to the ship, scaled its side, and slaughtered all they could seize except one woman and two children, and a boy, who, having shown some kindness to George on the voyage, was spared. Others who appealed to George for mercy were brained by his club. Five sailors had fled to the rigging, where they remained all night. Ti-pa-he, in the morning, being on a visit to Whangaroa to trade for dried fish, saw their situation and invited them into his canoe. He landed them safely, but the Whangaroans pursued and killed them.

The vessel was plundered and burnt. Gloating over the firearms, the father of George snapped a musket over an opened cask of gunpowder,¹ and was, with a dozen followers, blown into the air.

The white women and children were gallantly rescued at some risk by Mr. Alexander Berry (an early and influential colonist in New South Wales), who was at New Zealand for trading purposes in the ship ‘City of Edinburgh.’ Leaving his vessel at the Bay of Islands, Mr. Berry went with three

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armed boats to Whangaroa, but he strove to recover the captives “by gentle measures.”Ti-pa-he assisted him. Mr. Berry sailed away with Mrs. Mozeley and her child; a girl, the daughter of Mr. Commissary Broughton of New South Wales; and the boy Davidson, whose kindness to George had saved his own life.

Five whaling ships met soon afterwards at the Bay of Islands. Believing or presuming that Ti-pa-he was an accomplice in the destruction of the ‘Boyd,’ the captains attacked his village by night, slew nearly all the inmates, and burned the village and the growing crops. Ti-pa-he escaped, wounded, but was soon afterwards killed by the men of Whangaroa, who were incensed with him for endeavouring to save the lives of the sailors who had taken refuge in the rigging of the ‘Boyd.’

The consequences which Ti-pa-he had predicted to Governor King fell upon himself and his tribe through the act of the brutal Thompson. Some of his countrymen, soon after the destruction of Ti-pa-he's village, murdered and ate three sailors belonging to a whaling ship. Though anxious to intervene, Marsden was restrained by Governor Macquarie, who for some time interdicted him from going to New Zealand.

The circumstances of the massacre of Thompson and his crew were revolting in themselves, and distorted in narration. It was not until after many years that collation of evidence enabled Englishmen to form a correct judgment.

Justice requires that it should be recorded that Macquarie afterwards endeavoured to stay the horrors which were rife. He and others had learned that breach of the tapu would be followed by vengeance in order to satisfy an offended God, or a superstition exercising unquestioned control over Polynesians. In 1813 he proclaimed that ill-usage of the natives at New Zealand, Tahiti, and other islands, caused danger of retaliation. He extorted bonds for a thousand pounds from every vessel clearing from the territory of New South Wales. All on board were to behave well to the natives. There was to be no trespass on their lands or burial-grounds. No natives were to be shipped without their free consent and that of their friends, and no female native was to be shipped without written permission of the Governor of New South Wales.

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This Proclamation seems to have been fruitless; for in 1814 Macquarie found it necessary to issue another denouncing the insulting and injurious practice of carrying off New Zealanders, male and female, by commanders and sailors. Many a Maori Helen was the cause of deeds of blood, and coarse abductions by violence were followed by revenge. Macquarie now invested Ruatara (Marsden's friend), Hongi, and Koro Koro, with power to give or withhold permission to white men to remove natives from New Zealand, which permission was to be “certified under the hand of Mr. Kendall the resident magistrate, or of the magistrate for the time being.”Offenders would be prosecuted with the utmost rigour.

The zeal of Marsden was not unsupported in Sydney. In 1813, D'Arcy Wentworth, the father of the statesman, with others, caused a meeting to be held in Sydney to consider measures for promoting the welfare of South Sea Islanders visiting Port Jackson. Marsden meanwhile represented to the Missionary Societies in England the desperate condition in wich the Maoris were plunged by shameful contact with the scum of civilization. When he was in England, in 1809, he had appealed to the London Missionary Society and the Church Missionary Society. They found no clergyman fitted for the task, but two lay missionaries, Hall and King, were selected to aid him. At last he obtained leave to charter a vessel, if a captain could be found daring enough to go, and was promised that if she returned safely Marsden might then follow. After many difficulties (Marsden says): “Finding that the Societies in London could not make up their minds, neither as a body nor as individuals, to send out a vessel, I at last determined to purchase one for the purpose on my own account. The various expenses attending it have created me some little pecuniary difficulties, but they are only known to myself, and not such as will be attended with any serious consequence. I hope in a little time I shall be able to surmount them; whether I shall keep the vessel in my own hands or not, I am not certain as yet. I cannot do it without some assistance at the first; if I could, I certainly would not trouble any of my friends.”His plan was to encourage commerce, and make the vessel, the ‘Active,’ yield some returns. “You

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cannot”(he said) “form a nation without commerce and the civil arts.”

Messrs. Hall and Kendall sailed in the ‘Active,’ carrying a message from Marsden requesting Ruatara's kind offices, and asking him to return with two or three chiefs. They took with them a timely present. Marsden sent a hand-mill for grinding corn. Anxious eyes watched the experiment upon Ruatara's useless grain. Bread was made, doubters were convinced, Ruatara and the missionaries were in high favour. The great warrior Hongi, his nephew Ruatara, and other chiefs were passengers in the ‘Active’ to Sydney in October, 1814. All were Mr. Marsden's guests.

He wrote to England: “They are as noble a race of men as are to be met with in any part of the world. I trust I shall be able in some measure to put a stop to those dreadful murders which have been committed upon the island for some years past both by the Europeans and the natives. They are a much-injured people notwithstanding all that has been advanced against them.”

In November, 1814, Marsden sailed in the ‘Active’ for the Bay of Islands, accompanied by Messrs. Kendall, Hall, and King, and their families. Eight New Zealanders and two Tahitians were with him, and he took three horses as well as a bull and two cows, presents from the Governor. A Mr. Nicholas went also as a friend. Marsden's reputation ensured his favourable reception; but he asked for something more. He wished to establish peace among the natives. A war was then raging. The massacre of the company of the ‘Boyd, and the subsequent slaughter of Ti-pa-he's people, had left unsatiated lust for revenge. Battles had been fought, and at Paramatfa Ruatara and Hongi had told Marsden of the quarrel. (Marsden ascertained also that Ti-pa-he had no hand in the ‘Boyd’ massacre.) These quarrels Marsden set his heart upon terminating. But how was he, the guest of Hongi, to approach Hongi's enemies; and how was he, the countryman of Ti-pa-he's assailants, to approach the kindred or friends of Ti-pa-he's decimated tribe? He whose life was marked as “the first to be taken”in the Irish rebellion in 1804 in New South Wales, who had carried it in his hand for years before that period, was

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deterred by no personal apprehensions now. With Mr. Nicholas he passed over from the camp of Hongi to that of the Whangaroans and was cordially received. “We sat down amongst them and the chiefs surrounded us.”

There was amongst the Whangaroans a chief who had sailed in an English ship. He interpreted. Marsden explained the object of the mission, and dwelt on the blessings of peace. The tribe retired to rest by degrees, Marsden and Nicholas being directed by the interpreting chief to remain near him.

“The night was clear, the stars shone bright, and the sea in our front was smooth. Around us were innumerable spears stuck upright in the ground, and groups of natives lying in all directions, like a flock of sheep upon the grass, as there were neither tents nor huts to cover them. I viewed our present situation with sensations and feelings that I cannot express, surrounded by cannibals who had massacred and devoured our countrymen. I wondered much at the mysteries of Providence, and ho these things could be. Never did I behold the blessed advantage of civilization in a more grateful light than now.”

In the morning Marsden invited the chiefs on board the ‘Active.’ The boat arrived, and Ruatara also. “At first I entertained doubts whether the chiefs would trust themselves with us or not, on account of the ‘Boyd,’ lest we should detain them when we had them in our power; but they showed no signs of fear, and went on board with apparent confidence.”

After breakfast the chiefs sat in the cabin to receive presents which Marsden distributed, Ruatara handing to him axes, billhooks, prints, &c. Marsden introduced the missionaries. Mr. Kendall was to teach the children; Mr. Hall to build houses, boats, &c.; Mr. King to make fishing-lines; Mr. Hanson to command the ‘Active,’ which would procure supplies as required. And then came a request that the contending tribes would be reconciled. “Ruatara, Hongi, and Koro Koro shook hands with the chiefs of Whangaroa and saluted each other as a token of reconciliation by joining their noses together. I was much gratified to see these men at amity once more.”

The chiefs promised in future to protect the missionaries and European traders. The horses and cattle excited the wonder of the natives, and one of the chiefs in turn excited

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that of Marsden. On Saturday Ruatara enclosed half an acre of ground; placed in it a pulpit and a reading-desk (which were covered with black cloth), fixed seats (for the Europeans), made (like the pulpit) of portions of old canoes; erected a flagstaff on the highest hill in the village; and in the evening informed Marsden that everything was ready for Divine Service on the following day.

On that memorable Sunday, 25th December, 1814, the English flag was hoisted, to Marsden's intense gratification.

“About ten o'clock we prepared to go ashore, to publish for the first time the glad tidings of the gospel. I was under no apprehension for the safety of the vessel, and therefore ordered all on board to go on shore to attend Divine Service, except the master and one man. When we landed, we found Koro Koro, Ruatara, and Hongi dressed in regimentals which Governor Macquarie had given them, with their men drawn up, ready to be marched into the enclosure to attend Divine Service. They had their swords by their sides and switches in their hands. We entered the enclosure, and were placed on the seats on each side of the pulpit. Koro Koro marched his men and placed them on my right hand in the rear of the Europeans, and Ruatara placed his men on the left. The inhabitants of the town, with the women and children, and a number of other chiefs, formed a circle round the whole. A very solemn silence prevailed— the sight was truly impressive. I rose up and began the service by singing the Old Hundreth Psalm, and felt my very soul melt within me when I viewed my congregation, and considered the state they were in. After reading the service,—during which the natives stood up and sat down at the signals given by Koro Koro's switch, which was regulated by the movements of the Europeans,—it being Christmas Day, I preached from the 2nd chapter of St. Luke's Gospel, ver. 10: ‘Behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy,’ &c. The natives told Ruatara that they could not understand what I meant. He replied that they were not to mind that now, for they would understand by-and-by; and that he would explain my meaning as far as he could. When I had done preaching he informed them what I had been talking about… . In this manner the gospel has been introduced into New Zealand; and I fervently pray

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that the glory of it may never depart from its inhabitants till time shall be no more.”

Ruatara was as proud as Marsden was pleased, at this formal reception of his countrymen into the Christian fold.

A coasting voyage was undertaken. Twenty-eight armed New Zealanders went in the ‘Active,’ manned by only seven Europeans. Mr. Nicholas wrote: “I do not believe that a similar instance can be shown of such unlimited confidence placed in a race of savages known to be cannibals. We are wholly in their power, and what is there to hinder them from abusing it? Next to the over-ruling providence of God, there is nothing but the character of the ship, which seems to have something almost sacred in their eyes, and the influence of Mr. Marsden's name, which acts as a talisman amongst them. They feel convinced that he is sacrificing his own ease and comfort to promote their welfare.”

One thing Marsden would not do for them. He would supply them with no weapons for war. The smith was forbidden to repair them. Axes, hoes, or agricultural implements he was to make and mend, but implements of war he was on no account to touch. Theft and lying were denounced as deadly, and Ruatara gave manly aid in discouraging them.

Marsden's leave of absence was short, and in February, 1815, he sailed to Sydney, having first bought with twelve axes from “Anodee O Gunna, king of Rangheehoo,”about two hundred acres of land for the Church Missionary Society. The land was in “the district of Hoohee, bounded on the south side by the Bay of Lippoona and the town of Rangheehoo, on the north by a creek of fresh water, and on the west by a public road into the interior.”Mr. Nicholas and Mr. Kendall signed their names to the deed, which made the land “free from all taxes, charges, impositions, and contributions whatsoever for ever.”The “amoco,”or tattooing in the face of Gunna, was drawn by Hongi in the deed, and Gunna placed his mark by it. The sagacious Marsden had taken with him a form of conveyance prepared by lawyers in Sydney.

Thus was New Zealand first drawn within the vortex of wholesome Western influence. Well would it have been if all Marsden's countrymen had been imbued with his spirit!

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This narrative cannot embrace the minute details of later occurrences. But Marsden's singular encounter with Ruatara; his daring confidence at Whangaroa; the scene, worthy of a national picture, of the celebration of Divine Service under the guidance of the chiefs; and the rapidity with which Marsden's mission of peace was accomplished, throw a singular air of romance about this portion of New Zealand story.

Marsden's safe return with his companions to Sydney was unexpected, and Macquarie congratulated them upon it. The little colony at Rangheehoo (or Rangihoua) numbered twenty-five Europeans.

Ruatara died soon after the ‘Active’ sailed. He had said with triumph to Marsden: “I have now introduced the cultivation of wheat into New Zealand. New Zealand will become a great country. In two years more I shall be able to export wheat to Port Jackson, in exchange for hoes, axes, spades, tea and sugar.”Maori honours were paid to Ruatara. Hongi wept like a child. Rahu, the widow, violently took away her own life in order to rejoin her husband in the land of spirits. The priests had surrounded him during his illness. Anxious to introduce Christianity among his countrymen, Ruatara had not been formally received into the Christian Church.

The English Government, stimulated by reports from Governor Macquarie, and the representations made by the missionaries and their friends, took occasion to pass an Act (57 Geo. III. cap. 53; 27 June, 1817), for the more effectual punishment of murders and manslaughters not committed within His Majesty's dominions.

The preamble declared that murders at Honduras, “and like offences committed… as well on the high seas as on land, in the islands of New Zealand and Otah eite, and in other places . . not within His Majesty's dominions, by the masters and crews of British ships and other persons,”necessitated the enactment. It was provided that all such crimes “committed, or that shall be committed, in the said islands of New Zealand and Otaheite… not within His Majesty's dominions… shall and may be tried, adjudged, and punished in any of His Majesty's islands, plantations, colonies, by virtue of the King's Commission…

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in the same manner as if such offences had been committed on the high seas.”¹

The death of Ruatara did not abate Marsden's zeal. He sent two New Zealand youths, “not to be idle,”but to aid in preparing a vocabulary. If they could not be useful in that way he asked that they might be “put into a rope-walk and be kept to close labour while they remain in England.”They returned safely, and accompanied Marsden to their native land in 1819.

It is needless to narrate his proceedings in detail. They were like his past doings. He commanded the respect and enjoyed the affection of all.

His congregation assembled on the beach, there being “no place sufficiently spacious to hold the people.”He saw one of the New Zealanders to whom Governor King had been kind, and who now spoke gratefully of King.

Hongi was still ferocious to his enemies and faithful to his friends. Marsden was able to dissuade him from a warlike expedition when the warriors were gathered together, and the war-canoes ready. But Hongi bided his time. He revolted against Marsden's prohibition of fire-arms, and devised subtle schemes to defeat it.

In 1820 Marsden went again to New Zealand in H.M.S. ‘Dromedary,’ though leave was reluctantly given to him.

The natives had determined to do no work, and exchange no article, except for muskets and powder.

Marsden addressed the settlers, the missionaries, and the natives, in turn. To the Church Missionary Society he wrote:

“I think it much more to the honour of religion and the good of New Zealand, even to give up the mission for the present than to trade with the natives on these terms.”

But no dissuasion could restrain Hongi's thirst for guns.

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While Marsden was in New Zealand in 1820, Hongi sailed for England, determined upon doing, by the worst means, the worst.

The small body of settlers collected at the Bay of Islands received casual accessions of a more or less equivocal nature, and Kororarika through their means was soon to obtain unenviable notoriety, as the gathering-ground of the reckless, the debauched, and the murderous.

It was bootless for Marsden to protest against the callousness with which the ruffians amongst them supplied fire-arms to the Maoris. An early instance of the efficacy of fire-arms in Maori hands, which occurred at Tauranga, was more potent with Hongi than any eloquence.

Temorenga, a Ngapuhi chief, to avenge the death of a niece (who after being carried away by a Sydney vessel had been landed at Mercury Bay, treated as a slave, and finally killed and eaten by Te Waru, a Tauranga chief), went with many men in war-canoes to Tauranga about 1818. He had thirty-five muskets. Te Waru had none. Hundreds of the Tauranga men were slain. The great pah at Maunganui was taken. In a second battle two hundred and sixty men were made prisoners. The astonished Te Waru fled to the woods. One day Te Whareumu, a Ngapuhi chief, was pounced upon not far from Temorenga's camp. “Who are you?”said the assailant. The prisoner equivocated. “I must know your name. I will not kill you. I am Te Waru, and I wish for peace.”Te Whareumu gave his name. Finding the importance of his captive, Te Waru gave him a mat and said: “Lead me to Temorenga.”Temorenga's people would have slain Te Waru on the spot, but Whareumu motioned them away and told the story of his own capture by the self-risking chief. Peace was made. Te Waru declared he could not have conceived that muskets would prove so deadly. He asked for his wife and children, and Temorenga released them. He sorely lamented his slain father. Temorenga gave him a musket to console him; and he departed. Three days the victors remained to feast upon the slain, and then took away their prisoners and a fleet of captured canoes.

Hongi saw his way to bad eminence. He would better the example of Temorenga. “There is but one king in England,”he said, “and there shall be but one in New Zealand.”

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He had been in Sydney. He resolved to go to England. He went there with another chief Waikato, in company with the lay-missionary Kendall, in 1820; leaving Marsden in New Zealand in the ship ‘Dromedary,’ labouring for the peace of the Maoris. The services of Hongi and his companion were availed of by Professor Lee and Mr. Kendall in the arrangement of a Maori vocabulary and grammar at Cambridge.

Kendall had previously compiled and Marsden had caused to be printed in Sydney an elementary Grammar, which formed the basis of Professor Lee's new Grammar and Vocabulary. This was subsequently revised and largely amended by labours of missionaries in New Zealand, and it may be well to record some of their names here. Mr. Shepherd in 1824 translated the Gospel of St. John. The Rev. William Williams, an Oxford graduate (afterwards Bishop of Waiapu), in 1826 had translated some portion of the book of Genesis.

In 1832 the Rev. W. Yate went to Sydney to superintend editions of two Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, Epistles, and part of the Book of Common Prayer.

In 1833 William Williams translated the Gospel of St. Luke.

In 1834 the Church Mission Society sent a printing-press to New Zealand, under charge of Mr. W. Colenso, destined to be celebrated for knowledge of Maori lore.

In 1835 the Rev. Robert Maunsell carried his zeal and devotion to the islands, and his ripe scholarship was of infinite advantage; as was the example he set as a noble Christian in every hour of trial.

In 1844 Bishop Selwyn procured the appointment of William Williams, Maunsell,¹ and Puckey, to revise the Maori Prayer Book. In the same year William Williams published the first edition of a Maori Dictionary.

Two Wesleyan missionaries, Messrs. Hobbs and Buddle, assisted in a revision. In 1847 William Williams, his son Leonard Williams, and Maunsell, with the aid of Hobbs, Reid,

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and Whiteley, Wesleyans, still further revised the translation of the Old Testament.

In 1867 William Williams, his son Leonard, and Maunsell, again revised the New Testament. Mrs. Colenso, an excellent Maori scholar (a daughter of Mr. Fairburn, missionary catechist), prepared the last revision by writing the corrections on a printed copy, and the final work, promulgated under the sanction of Bishop Selwyn, justified its claim to be called, in the words applied to an earlier edition by Dr. Broughton, the Bishop of Australia—“a monument of well-directed piety.”

Although Hongi in 1820 condescended to assist Professor Lee, his own affections were riveted to muntions of war. The soldiers, the arms in the Tower of London, were ever in his mind. The king presented him with a suit of armour. Loaded with presents he returned to Sydney; and there converted his treasures into weapons of war, with which to destroy his countrymen and demoralize himself. He saw Marsden at Paramatta. Four chiefs from the Thames district were there desirous to go to England and do as Hongi had done. Marsden tried to dissuade them. Hongi concurred with Marsden, and told them that the English climate had injured his own health. Tidings reached him while yet he was Marsden's guest that his son-in-law had fallen in battle at the Thames.

He said to Hinaki, one of his fellow-guests at Marsden's table, “Hasten home, and prepare for war. I shall soon attack you.”He sold in Sydney all ordinary presents and gathered together about three hundred stand of fire-arms. With a great fleet of war-canoes he descended upon the gulf of Hauraki. Hinaki had taken warning, and the Ngatimaru were in force in their pah Tωtără near the mouth of the Thames. The works were so extensive that even Hongi's impatience condescended to resort to guile. Barter was put forward as the object of the Ngapuhi, and many of them were received in Tωtără. An old chief, thus hospitably entertained, struck with compunction, or prompted by Maori chivalry, lingered behind his fellows and said “Kia tupato”— be cautious. His warning was vain. In the night Tωtără was surprised and a thousand Ngatimaru were destroyed.

Hongi's dreams were realized. None could stand before him.

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The unhappy Ngatimaru, scattered before his guns, had to meet on the sources of their rivers the savage Te Waharoa. Many were killed and eaten, but hundreds were made captives. The refugees will be encountered hereafter at Horotiu, the Waikato river; where their fortress Haowhenua was to become notable.

When Hongi's conquering canoes returned the missionaries were witnesses of the slaughter of several of the captives by the widows of Ngapuhi chiefs who had been killed by the Ngatimaru. They retreated horror-struck, but were afterwards told that the savage Hongi himself slew five victims with his own hand. The brave Hinaki was amongst those who were eaten. More slaughters occurred before Hongi fitted out in 1822 another expedition. It was asserted that some Waikato people had been in alliance with the Ngatimaru, and Hongi went to punis them. He sailed into the Tamaki;¹ and, where the suburb of Panmure now stands, carried by assault two notable pahs, Mauinaina and Makoia, which had been built not far from a vast Maori fort of olden time, which stood upon Mount Wellington in the eighteenth century in the days of Nga Iwi or “the Tribes.”

Again the deadly fire-arms destroyed the owners of wooden weapons; and again the cannibal conquerors glutted themselves on the bodies of the slain Ngatipaoa.

But Hongi thirsted for more sweeping vengeance. He drew his war canoes across the isthmus at Otahuhu, crossed the Manŭkau harbour, and again hauled his canoes overland to the Waiaroa, which he descended,—straightening the channel where its curves where too sharp to allow his canoes to pass. Reaching the Waikato river the fleet moved up the stream. The Waikato tribes, aghast at the ruin of their Northern neighbours, had mustered in a great pah at Matakitaki (look-out, or place

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for watching), situate between the Maungapiko and the Waipa rivers, below the existing town Alexandra.

On a narrow neck of land, with precipitous banks on each side, under which the rivers ran, the pah was raised. A deep ditch and an enormous bank formed the inland barrier, and ran from the top of one river-bank to the other. Two other banks and ditches within the pah crossed the neck of land; and, where the high land terminated suddenly, leaving a low tongue between the angle of the meeting rivers, the final fortification was made steep as a cliff, at the foot of which was a deep ditch, on the outer side of which was a large glacis sloping downwards to the low tongue of land between the converging rivers. The Maori palisades were of vast strength. The portion of the pah nearest the river junction was held by the men of Waikato.¹ The inland division, several hundred yards wide and about as long, was held by the allied tribes which had fled for shelter to the stronghold. Some of them had perhaps seen the effects of fire-arms at Tωtără and at Mauinaina.

Hongi landed at the point of low land. The Waikato warriors dashed forward to dispute his landing. Long afterwards they told how one daring warrior slew four of the Ngapuhi before he was shot. But valour was vain. Two hundred muskets mowed down the Waikati, and the terrified survivors fled. Their steep glacis, ditch, and earth cliff, impeded their escape. Their narrow gateway was choked by the fliers. They were shot and slaughtered like sheep. They clambered round the bank in hopeless confusion. A panic seized the inmates of the pah. The inland gateway for egress was too narrow for the crowd of men, women, and children. They rolled in heaps into the deep ditch, and were suffocated before the Ngapuhi men arrived to deal death to the strugglers.

Te Whero Whero himself, the future Maori king, was rescued by a friendly hand which dragged him from the floundering mass in the ditch. A remnant of the fliers turned upon the pursuers and drove them back nearly a quarter of a mile across

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the level ground to the pah, but were again met by the fatal fire-arms, and fled to rally no more, nor even to pause until they reached Hangatiki, many miles away.

More than a thousand had been killed. Hongi revelled in his ferocity, and boasted that he had slaughtered fifteen hundred fellow-creatures at Matakitaki.

The dispersion of the tribes from the Thames to the Waipa seemed complete. Men, women, and children, enslaved by hundreds, were carried to the Bay of Islands. The missionaries thought all their past efforts had been annihilated by Hongi's fell designs. It is one proof of the sagacity of Rauparaha that at this period he had though with difficulty, persuaded his tribe to abandon their homes at Kawhia and seek other lands, under his guidance, at the south.

But Hongi was still unsatiated. In 1823 he took his warcanoes down the east coast and sacked the Arawa stronghold at Maketu. Ascending a stream as far as the depth of water permitted, he dragged his canoes along a road which he made to Lake Rotoiti. The lake tribes were gathered in their pah on the island of Mokoia in Lake Rotorua. Their canoes were all carefully kept at the island, and they had laughed to scorn the idea that Hongi could assail them. Bringing canoes from the coast to their stronghold had seemed impossible. But the fleet entered Rotorua from Rotoiti, and made straight for Mokoia.

The pah was on a plateau overlooking the lake, on the south side of the hill which forms the island. Higher ground in the centre of the island overlooked it. The Arawa rushed to the water's edge to confront the enemy with spears and stones. They fell in heaps before the Ngapuhi fire-arms. Some fled over the spur of the hill to the pah. The pursuing Hongi, from the height above the pah, poured a murderous fire on the defenders. The pah was quickly stormed, and again a thousand Maoris were slaughtered by their countrymen. The miserable survivors escaped in canoes. This was the last of Hongi's great successes, but he never ceased to war upon the weak or the strong.

Another war-party of Ngapuhi, led by Tareha, besieged Waharoa at Matamata; but that wily chief, having stores of food, kept within his fort, until, when the Ngapuhi became

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over-confident, he dashed upon them, slew several in close combat, and crucified several prisoners on the posts of his pah beneath the grinning heads which disfigured rather than adorned the posts. Then he sent a challenge to the gigantic Tareha:—“I hear you fight with the long-handled tomahawk. So do I. Meet me.”But Tareha and his men withdrew.

The dragon's teeth of civilization had been sown, and the Maoris had reaped the consequences. Ere long the fiery and astute Waharoa was known to be plotting to drive the weakened Ngatimaru from their settlements on the upper part of the Thames valley. The land seemed given up to slaughter. Rauparaha had escaped the evil at Kawhia but he had carried it southwards. From Cook's Strait to Waitemata there was wailing and gnashing of teeth.

The missionaries were almost in despair. Their previous labours had not produced much apparent effect, and it seemed that all their efforts had been neutralized. If Marsden could have prevailed upon the Government to prevent rather than assist Hongi's baleful plans the result might have been otherwise. But with the guns obtained in England, and under the eyes of Governor Macquarie in Sydney, he had stalked through the land, and did not conceal his contempt for the persuaders of peace. But Marsden was as militant for good as Hongi was for evil.

In 1823 he took another Christian soldier into the field. Henry Williams, born in 1792, had entered the navy in 1806. Serving gallantly at Copenhagen and elsewhere (being on board of the ‘Endymion’ when she captured the ‘President’), he had retired on half-pay. A relative, the Rev. E. G. Marsh, was an active member of the Church Missionary Society. In 1819 Williams was preparing himself for mission work in New Zealand. In 1822 he was ordained, and when the deeds of Hongi struck the Society with horror, a change of field was offered to him, but he persevered in his plans. In 1823, with his wife and three children, he was at Marsden's home, assisting in parochial work. Marsden had not lost courage, for Williams wrote to Marsh, “He is in great spirits at present about the mission.”Two Maori chiefs assisted Williams, at Paramatta, in learning their language.

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In August, 1823, Marsden landed at the Bay of Islands with his new friend, who, like himself, knew the dangers of the task before them, but had courage for them all. Paihia, on the opposite shore to Kororarika, was chosen as the scene of Williams' labours. Whether from old association or from compunction, the powerful Hongi still condescended to patronize the missionaries, although he never professed Christianity. His reputation was a partial protection for them from meaner people.

When Williams arrived the war-party of 1823 was absent on the east coast. Not long afterwards peace was made between the Waikato and Ngapuhi tribes. Te Kati and other chiefs visited the ferocious Hongi at the Bay of Islands. A chief woman of the Ngapuhi was given in marriage to Te Kati, who was brother of Te Whero Whero, and Rewa and sixty Ngapuhi chiefs accompanied the bride, Matire Toha, to her new home. There they tarried two years amongst those whom they had so murderously treated at Matakitaki, and they formally restored them to their lands to which Hongi's conquests had acquired presumptive titles for the Ngapuhi.

The reconciliation of the great tribes of Waikato and of the Bay of Islands removed one stumbling-block from the path of the missionaries, who then dwelt at the Bay of Islands, and relieved the isthmus of Auckland from some of the horrors which had converted a pleasant land into a waste, where, in the language of a Maori witness (Warena Hengia, in 1869), “all the men were wandering about the face of the earth.”“All that men then thought of”(said Hori Tauroa) “was to save their lives and to get guns.”The procurement of guns was the one thing in which the missionaries would not assist. But without stern efforts on the part of the British Government no check could be imposed. Marsden and his friends did what they could. They offended many chiefs by resolute resistance to the importation of fire-arms. But hoes, spades, and axes he distributed largely. “They”(he said) “are silent but sure missionaries.… The natives have made considerable advances in civilization.”One missionary had lent himself to the introduction of fire-arms. He was dismissed, and Marsden had to argue much before he could convince the chiefs that the

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dismissal was just, and that no missionary could be allowed to sell muskets and powder. They admitted at last that if the man had disobeyed positive orders he was rightly discharged.

It was perhaps fortunate that the wreck of Marsden's vessel detained him two months at the Bay of Islands, and enabled him to acquire “great confidence”in Henry Williams, and commend him successfully to the Maoris.

Mrs. Williams required heroic virtues for her post as wife of a missionary. She gratefully saw the loving estimation in which Marsden was held. When Marsden's vessel struck as he was sailing away the chiefs prevented plunder. All property was saved from the wreck. When Mrs. Williams landed at Paihia the natives crowded round to shake hands, exclaiming with glee, “The wife (Te Wahine): Tena ra ko koe, Homai mai te ringaringa,—How do you do? give me your hand.”The bold apostle and his wife soon found themselves “comfortable, nay, never more happy”than in their noble task.

Occasional outbreaks marred their peace. It was Maori law that if a man were hurt, or lost anything, he might make reprisals against any of the tribe of him who robbed or injured in the first instance. A rude chief determined to take something by force, leaped the fence of the mission-house, and, with all the savageness of his race, demanded payment for an injury done to his foot against the fence. For more than two days he indulged in frantic exhibitions, threatening to burn the house. He was quiet while the family were at prayers. Mrs. Wiliiams sent him some tea in the morning, and “hoped it might prove a quieting draught, but before long he was again prancing about in the yard with others, hideous figures armed with spears and hatchets, and some few with muskets.”

Notwithstanding these freaks the worthy Christians (said the Bishop of Waiapu, W. Williams, the brother of Henry) “were able to lie down in peace every night, without fear of molestation, the windows not secured, and in a raupo (rush) hut, which would burn to the ground in less than ten minutes.”They trusted in God and were instant in prayer.

The first-fruits which they had reason to believe had been yielded to their Master were shown by a chief, who had been Marsden's guest at Paramatta. Whatu had then heard but not

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understood. Now he came with more willing mind, and there was hope that he was comforted by Christian faith.

In 1824 Rangi, a chief from Bream Bay, went with his people to live near Paihia. He was an ally of Hongi, but retired from Bream Bay to avoid surprise in case the incensed natives of the Thames should plan a murderous revenge on Hongi's friends. He inclined seriously to hear the Gospel. He induced his followers to respect the Sunday. He became a true disciple, humble, yet hopeful. Before his death in 1825 he said: “I have prayed to God and to Jesus Christ, and my heart feels full of light.”He had been steady in his conduct for many months, and Mr. Williams baptized him. “This,”says the Bishop of Waiapu, “was the first Christian baptism, the earnest of a large harvest, which, in God's appointed time, was to be gathered in. Whatu and one or two others may have gone before, but now was Christ acknowledged in a more open manner.”

Reflecting that angels rejoice over the repentant, Marsden and his devoted assistants took comfort, and were cheered by Rangi's example, although the family of the chief did not seem inclined to follow it. Ten years of mission labour had been undergone before the first-fruits of the harvest gave cause for rejoicing. Hongi meantime pursued his deadly course, and perished by it.

About 1825¹ or 1826, he fought a battle against the Ngatiwhatua and their allies, and an Englishman, who professed to have been amongst the latter, described it. The march of the Ngatiporou contingent from the East Cape shows the hatred entertained against Hongi for his southern raids. Rutherford, the sole survivor of the crew of the ‘Agnes,’ destroyed by the Maoris on the east coast in 1816, had been treated as a chief by the Ngatiporou, and accompanied his tribe with a war-party five hundred strong, inclusive of slaves. Many of the latter were sent home when the provisions they carried were consumed. The journey occupied five weeks. Eleven hundred Maoris

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received Rutherford's friends at Kaipara. The food of the army was fern-root, cockles, and fish. On the opposite side of a wide river four hundred of the enemy waited for reinforcements. Heralds passed to and fro between the foes. One told Rutherford that a white man in Hongi's army wished to see him; and that the chiefs, who also desired to see him, would grant safe conduct and return. Rutherford's father-in-law, ‘Aimy,’ consented. The tattooed Englishman accepted his dangerous mission; and was saluted by the enemy chiefs in the usual manner by the rubbing of noses. The white man with Hongi's forces was also living with a Maori woman at Hokianga. He admitted that he had been a runaway from a sloop of war, and might have added that he had been formerly convicted of theft in Sydney. Rutherford saw a slave brought before Hongi, who smote him dead and devoured his heart upon the spot. Rutherford was told that the slave had stolen Hongi's armour, and was caught in the act of decamping with it to the enemy. Rutherford returned to his friends. “The two parties,”he said, “had altogether about two thousand muskets among them.”¹ Rutherford was not required to fight, but stood with a double-barrelled gun; his wife and two slave girls being seated at his feet. The commanders on each side stood forth and commenced the war-song. Both parties then danced the war-dance, singing, and brandishing their weapons in the air. Each array was formed in line two-deep, the women and children being about ten yards in the rear. Advancing, till they were about a hundred yards apart, each side fired a volley. The muskets were thrown behind for the women to collect; tomahawks and mĕrĕs were drawn, and with yelling war-song both sides rushed to close combat. The women and boys followed with “most shocking cries.”The enemy after a few minutes fled. One of them threw a short spear at Rutherford as he passed, and wounded him in the thigh. Rutherford's friends returned with nearly forty bodies of the enemy to be devoured. Hongi (who usually had five guns in battle, with four attendants to load them) had shot one of Rutherford's tribe, but the body was rescued. On

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the other hand, a son of Hongi had been killed, and the head was taken back to the east coast as a trophy.

Such was Rutherford's narrative, which is partially confirmed by other accounts. But whether the sequel was known to him or not, it was fatal to his friends. Hongi speedily avenged the temporary defeat of his forces, and drove the Ngatiwhatua and their remaining friends to Waikato.

There are conflicting accounts of subsequent events, but it is said by the Ngapuhi, that Hongi with a small but daring band traversed Waikato in pursuit of the flying Ngatiwhatua, and finally wreaked his wrath by slaughtering the fugitives at a pah in the Waikato district, after warning the Ngatipaoa hosts of the Ngatiwhatua not to interfere between him and his prey. It is stated that in storming the pah Hongi was aided by Waharoa's tribe the Ngatihaua.

This was the culmination of his successful ferocity. His countrymen, goaded by fear and revenge, imitated his example. When soon afterwards a Ngapuhi war-party led by Pomare invaded Waikato they found fire-arms arrayed against them. Not stupefied as at Matakitaki, but artful as their foes, the Waikato warriors surprised the invaders at Te Rore, and hardly a man returned to tell the tale. Hongi's brutal schemes recoiled upon himself. Fire-arms in other hands were destructive as in his. He fell eventually in domestic strife. Matuku, his nephew, intrigued with one of Hongi's wives, and on the fact becoming known shot himself.

Hongi, to vent his spleen or satisfy his lust for blood, attacked his own friends at Whangaroa in January, 1827, and while pursuing was wounded by a bullet which pierced his lungs. His death was expected, and as he had been in his peculiar manner a patron of the missionaries, they might, by Maori usage, be pillaged by any of the tribe. Even his wound would justify such conduct. In effect a marauding band plundered and burnt, on the 9th January, 1827, the Wesleyan Mission station at Whangaroa. The Maori servants had fled beforehand. No life was taken, but the missionaries and their families went forth terrified and destitute to seek Kerikeri, the Church of England station twenty miles distant.

At that station, and at Paihia, another trouble was at the

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moment rife. A brig, the ‘Wellington,’ carrying convicts to Norfolk Island, had been seized by the prisoners and taken to the Bay of Islands on the 5th January.¹ On Sunday, the 7th, while a gale prevented egress from the harbour, two whaling captains of the ‘Harriet’ and the ‘Sisters,’ fired upon the ‘Wellington.’ The convicts capitulated on condition of being allowed to land. As they landed the Maoris captured them. “Tapsell,”a Pakeha-Maori, was then chief mate of the ‘Sisters.’ The Maoris guarded the convicts at Kororarika, but they were a source of terror to the missionaries when on the 10th they heard of the destruction of the Wesleyan Mission station at Whangaroa. Henry Williams and Mr. Davis nevertheless started with sixteen Maoris to the relief of the homeless Wesleyans. William Williams and Mr. Fairburn mounted guard at Paihia. Apprehensive of a plundering party the Maori domestics had fled from the missionaries at Kerikeri. On the 11th Henry Williams took the houseless wanderers to his wife's care at Paihia. The ‘Sisters’ after a few days sailed to Sydney, with most of the run-away convicts, and with the Wesleyans. The Maoris demanded and obtained a musket and gunpowder for securing each convict.

Mrs. Henry Williams wrote in her Diary on the 19th January: “All the tribes are rising there (at the north); some to avenge Hongi's supposed death; some to oppose his avengers.”

Hongi's wound embittered his wrath. He captured a pah, and ordered indiscriminate slaughter of man, woman, and child. Only slaves were to be spared. He sent for William Williams, who found him encamped in a pah he had captured. He was dejected only lest his wound should incapacitate him for further conquests. He was courteous to Williams, and a few weeks afterwards visited Paihia with a hope to benefit his health. Returning to Whangaroa while he brooded over future wars as ‘utu,’ or satisfaction for his wound, he died on the 6th March, 1828, exhorting his followers to be bold in resisting any force, however great.

He was asked, by an attending savage, “who should be killed

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in satisfaction for his death,”but answered that the only ‘utu’¹ he required was bravery of his tribe in war. He breathed his last breath as he uttered “Kia toa. Kia toa.”(Be courageous. Be courageous.)

Though he never professed Christianity, he sent his children to mission schools, and he would not permit the priests to perform the Maori incantations before his death. He commanded that no slaves should be sacrificed upon his grave; and he urged his followers to be kind to the missionaries, who were “doers of good.”

Had he died soon after his wound it seemed almost certain that the Church of England Mission stations would have been destroyed like the Wesleyan, but Hongi's transfer of his residence from Kerikeri to Whangaroa contributed to a different result. Because his immediate connection with the missionaries had been for a time broken, it was by Maori custom less incumbent upon Maoris to rob his friends.

Thus the Church of England Mission stations were saved, when the great Hongi died as he had lived—in blood. His deeds can best explain his character. Though he was of the class “conqueror”there is no reason to suppose that he was as corrupt as Julius Cæsar. He bribed no Curio, but he would have been proud to eat Pompey.

On the other hand, he was no lawgiver. He sent his children to school because, like many Maoris, he valued mental training.

To secure European tact, the New Zealanders had created a singular institution already alluded to in the first chapter. Many white men had taken up their abode amongst them. Masters of whaling vessels obtained Maori wives with facility, and sometimes abandoned them, without remorse, at a different part of New Zealand, or even on foreign shores. Some white men took Maori wives and cherished them as lovingly, and were loved in return as dearly, as if the partners had been of one race. Runaway sailors, desperadoes of every kind, were among the white clients of the Maori patron. Many a daring deed was

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done by the foreigner. He was possessed moreover of the musket or fowling-piece, which while rare amongst the Maoris was a sign of power. The white vassal was called Pakeha Maori, and knew his Maori patron as his “Rangatira”or lord.

Hongi's plans diminished the value of a common Pakeha as the possessor of fire-arms, but the white man of intelligence and education was valued as the channel for trade, and the purveyor of luxuries; the greatest of which was a gun. Not Hongi alone, but the wily Rauparaha at Cook's Straits accumulated ammunition and supplies.

One craving passion ruled the Maori mind. Power to conquer, power to defend, could only be found in fire-arms. The quantity obtainable for a given amount of native products depended on the intelligence and honesty of the Pakeha friend.

Many Europeans had been treated as slaves before Hongi's campaigns. Afterwards, the Pakeha Maoris increased twenty-fold. In 1840 there were said to be 150 of them. In that year the establishment of English settlements at Wellington, and in the north, palsied their importance, and their number rapidly dwindled away.

One English witness saw on the Upper Wanganui river, a ‘Shakspeare’ and a ‘Classical Dictionary,’ which the Rangatira said had belonged to his deceased Pakeha Maori. The wit and wisdom which might belong to such a man were shown in the celebrated F. E. Maning, whose name has been already quoted in these pages, and will be found again.

Shrewdness and honour induced respect for some of the Pakeha Maoris, but as a rule they exercised no wholesome influence, and rather injured than promoted the aims of Marsden to humanize the war-loving Maori. One, whose life was prolonged until 1880, was so firmly believed to have partaken in feasts on human flesh that for years he was called by an appropriate name.¹

There was one of them who had no choice when he was adopted.

John Rutherford, an Englishman, after various marine adventures, shipped on board the ‘Agnes,’ an American brig,

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trading for pearls and tortoise-shell, and carrying six guns. Intending to touch at the Bay of Islands, the master, one Coffin, was driven to the southward, and anchored at Tokomaru in March, 1816. The Maoris offered mats for sale and carried water and pigs to the ship. Rutherford says that they began to pilfer lead from the ship's stern, and drew nails out of the boats. Coffin, suspecting danger, made arrangements to leave, but the Maoris anticipated him, murdered him, the mate, and the Cook, and bound the twelve others who formed the crew. The cable was cut, and the ‘Agnes’ drifted on shore, and was burnt.

On the following day six more white men were killed and eaten, after being cooked in Maori ovens before the eyes of Rutherford and the survivors. Atrocious as were these deeds, the surprise in England was qualified by the fact that, within a few years, at least a hundred Maoris were murdered by Europeans at the Bay of Islands.¹

Loaded with plunder the natives took Rutherford and his remaining comrades to the interior. The captives were stripped and held on the ground for four hours while they were tattooed. Nearly the whole of Rutherford's face, the lower part of his arms, his breast, and part of his body, were deeply scarred and coloured with dark pigment. For three days the victims were in a state of “tapu,”and not allowed to touch food with their hands, but were fed by women who treated them kindly.

The six tattooed captives were gradually dispersed in the possession of different sections of the tribe. Rutherford and another were left with the chief Aimy. They acquired the use of the language, and went out fishing and shooting. Their lives appeared safe. One of them lent his knife to a slave to cut rushes for repairing a house. He afterwards peeled potatoes with it, and gave some of them when cooked to an old woman (the mother of the chief Aimy), who was ill, and who ate them in the presence of the Maori doctor. She died on the following morning, and funeral obsequies showed that she was a notable person. On the third day some hundreds of the assembly cut themselves and wept, and the ordinary occupants of the village, including the white men, sat down to feast upon provisions brought by the numerous visitors. On the fourth morning only

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the men appeared, formed in a circle round the body which was in state, in a sitting posture.

The old woman's doctor strode up and down within the circle and explained the course of her illness to the questioning chiefs. Rutherford and his companion understood the dialogue. The doctor retired, and a chief of importance, adorned with the feathers of the “huia,”and striding up and down in the circle, declared that in his opinion the woman's death was caused by eating potatoes peeled by a white man's knife after it was used for cutting rushes to repair a house. The man to whom the knife belonged ought therefore to be killed in honour of the old woman.

The proposition was favourably accepted, and Rutherford went into the circle to argue against it; pleading that even if the act of his comrade was wrong, ignorance of their customs might excuse it. He besought Aimy to spare his friend, but Aimy sat motionless mourning for his mother, and while Rutherford was yet speaking the chief with the huia feathers smote the white man dead with a mĕrĕ. Aimy did not allow the man's body to be eaten, and Rutherford caused it to be buried.

Some time afterwards Aimy, commending Rutherford's activity in shooting and fishing, proposed to make him a chief. Rutherford consented. His hair was cut in front with an oyster shell. Mats were presented to him, and a green-stone mĕrĕ. Having to choose wives he took Aimy's two daughters. In Rutherford's wanderings with the tribe he met an Englishman in like circumstances to his own, but not, like him, desirous to escape. In 1825 or 1826 he was with his tribe at Kaipara and saw Hongi's temporary defeat, as already described.

He had not long returned to the east coast when signal fires announced that a vessel had arrived at Tokomaru. Preparations were made to capture her, and Rutherford was deputed to decoy her people. With the son of a chief and four slaves he went in chiefs attire in a canoe to the ship, not yet at anchor.

The ship was American. Rutherford warned the captain of the plot. The chief's son was flogged upon a charge of stealing, and put back into the canoe, and Rutherford was carried away and landed at Tahiti.

He worked there as a labourer for the British Consul, went

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to Sydney in 1827, found his way to Rio Janeiro, and obtained a passage to England in the frigate ‘Blanche,’ in 1828. He gained money by exhibiting his tattooed body, and his adventures were published. His new life had no charms for him. He wished to return to Tahiti, and thought that if he could go to Tokomaru with “a blacksmith and plenty of iron,”his Maori friends would receive him gladly (on the supposition that he had been forcibly kidnapped when he escaped), and that he would be able to make much money by trade.¹

As a record of New Zealand after the introduction of firearms his personal observations deserve mention.

Local differences in New South Wales had deprived Marsden of active co-operation on the part of Governor Macquarie in evangelizing New Zealand. Marsden was one of those who successfully resisted the endeavour of the Governor to force emancipated convicts into society. They were found at Government House, but not at the private houses of the colonists.

These differences somewhat marred missionary labours in New Zealand, where Macquarie exercised a quasi authority, and whither Marsden could not go without leave. Sir T. Brisbane, who became Governor in 1821, sympathized with the chaplain. But it was difficult to ward off the importation of fire-arms amongst a race so greedy to obtain them.

The influence which Marsden had obtained, not only as evangelizer but as introducer of arts and promoter of agriculture, had waned under Hongi's baleful star. His own conduct had been impugned by the chiefs when a trading missionary had been dismissed. Nor could Marsden resent inquiry into it.

In spite of his ferocity Hongi himself submitted to decisions duly arrived at. He was amenable to Maori law like the meanest of his brethren. The Rev. Henry Williams wrote (16th March, 1827): “If a chief be insulted he is visited by (taua muru) parties which strip his plantation or property of any kind. If he meet with an accident it is the same; so also when he dies. In these cases the whole tribe suffers. Hongi has several times been subject to this compliment within these two years. Once he was severely hurt by the falling of a tree;

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they commenced the pillage immediately, and he was visited by parties from all the northern part of the island. He has been several times served in this way, owing to the death of his son and some of his wives,”&c. The greater the plundering band the higher was the compliment to the victim of “muru,”and the more incumbent it was upon Hongi to maintain a Spartan demeanour under the infliction.

Marsden had the good sense to make allowance for the faults of his disciples. Writing to England after he had left Henry Williams at Paihia, he said that “agriculture had increased twenty-fold since the New Zealanders had got hoes;”that able missionaries were required; that the natives were “a wise and understanding people. Their study is human nature in all its bearings; they talk more of the heart of man than we do, and of the evil that is lodged there.… Cannibalism is interwoven through the whole of their religious system. They offer up human sacrifices as sin-offerings.… Their eating human flesh has its origin in superstition.… As for their wars, these will not be prevented until an object can be found that will employ their active minds.… Agriculture and commerce are the only means that promise to remedy their civil wars.… To bring this noble race of human beings to the knowledge of the only true God and Jesus Christ is an attempt worthy of the Christian world.”

On one point only did Marsden differ from Henry Williams. Marsden ever contended that civilization must pave the way for the conversion of the heathen. Williams urged that first of all “the seed of eternal life should be sown.”The labours of both were strenuous, and were not clogged by any theoretical differences.

But war still raged, and when in 1827 the Wesleyan Mission premises at Whangaroa were destroyed and Marsden's own friends were in danger he hastened to them. The storm had passed away and he remained but a few days at the Bay of Islands. Soon afterwards he circulated translations of portions of the Bible into the Maori tongue; but much as he hoped for from the Sacred Word he was constrained to admit that the tide of events necessitated some European (therefore some English) interference.

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Weakened by wars, the tribes, nevertheless, would not or could not unite under an Egbert. Hongi had failed in his subjugation schemes and was dead. It was surmised, though doubtless with exaggeration, that fire-arms and new diseases had, in twenty years, swept away one hundred thousand natives.

Kororarika had become the gathering-ground of scoundrels of every dye. Beyond the control of law, their orgies were such as would defile the page of history.

Marsden reluctantly came to the conclusion that even for the sake of the Maoris British authority ought to be asserted. A brief experiment was actually made, in 1825, to form an orderly settlement, by purchase of land at Hokianga and elsewhere in the North Island. Lord Durham (then Mr. Lambton) was one of the promoters; but the project wanted the vigour which Gibbon Wakefield was afterwards to infuse, and the scheme of 1825 was abortive.

In 1826 some of the company's emigrants actually reached New Zealand, intending to take up lands on the Thames and at Hokianga. They did not remain long in the land. It was said that what they saw of a war-dance, and what they heard of cannibalism, cured them of their colonization scheme.

The agent, one Captain Herd, professed to buy land on behalf of the company, and without doubt some Maoris were willing to sell and to adhere to their bargains. The titles, such as they were, were bought up by the more important New Zealand Company, formed in 1839, of which Lord Durham was called the Governor, and amongst the directors of which were other names included in the unprosperous company of 1825.

One of the settlers who remained at Hokianga lived to a green old age.

A singular attempt to form a colony, French or English, or to found a sovereignty in his own name, was made by one Baron de Thierry in 1822. The son of French parents, he had been partly educated in England. He had held a minor diplomatic appointment, and had been in an English regiment. He appeared to think that, if the English Government were slow to recognize him, he would cast off his English skin and become a Frenchman whom France was bound to support. He had seen Hongi and Waikato with Mr. Kendall at Cambridge in

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1820. His soul was fired with ideas of sovereignty. He invited Kendall's co-operation.¹ He declared afterwards that Kendall promised to buy for him all the land from Auckland to the North Cape. But as Kendall had been many years in New Zealand, and knew something of Maori customs, it is impossible to believe De Thierry's statement.

Kendall did something for him. He bought, through three chiefs, about 200 acres of land at Hokianga for a few axes. Waka Nene, and his brother Patuone, were among the contracting Maoris, and their version of the sale is more worthy of credence than De Thierry's.

He bemoaned his hard fate in obtaining what he chose to call 40,000 acres for 36 axes, but recorded in his Diary a regret that his payment was so small.

Kendall could only say, “I have done as well as I could for you.”The result was 200 acres, bought for less than 30 axes. But the purchaser determined to erect a sovereignty on such a foundation. He applied at once to Earl Bathurst for recognition. The Under-Secretary, Wilmot Horton, replied (Dec. 1823), that New Zealand was “not a possession of the Crown.”He applied to the French Government without success. He endeavoured to “assemble a colony”in London. He failed. He rushed to France to plead his rights in person. He found his countrymen offended because he had in the first instance applied to England.

In 1826 he opened an office in London and received applications from intending colonists who might have been impressed by Falstaff.

To add bitterness to failure, he saw what he called a “rival scheme,”Lord Durham's Company, send out their expedition under Herd. In due time he learned the failure of his rivals.

He went to America, still thinking of his “Hokianga property,”but also revolving schemes for cutting the Isthmus of Panama, and colonizing on a scale which the world had never seen. He found sympathizers, but they were not monied men, or they would not devote their money to his objects. He roamed from city to city. He was at Guadaloupe in 1834, on

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his way to Hokianga; and, going from Guadaloupe to Panama, at last found conveyance to Tahiti in 1835, and met a rebuff from Mr. Busby, British resident at New Zealand, who denied De Thierry's claims in a manner to be told hereafter.

The failure of the English Company in 1826, and the frustration of De Thierry's early schemes, left the missionaries to fight the battle as they best might against the evil passions of the Maoris and the lawlessness of the abandoned Europeans.

They did, after Hongi's death, prevail upon offended tribes to lower their weapons. A Bay of Islands chief had been shot in a quarrel. A Ngapuhi chief Whareumu went with an armed band to examine the case. There had been much discussion, and peace seemed assured, when excitable spirits brought on a battle. Whareumu was killed and his friends were driven off. Maori law demanded revenge for Whareumu's death. Maori armies were gathering in March, 1828, to extort it, although the injured and the injurers were in many cases close blood-relations. Some Ngapuhi chiefs, already influenced by Christian teaching or example, invited the missionaries to accompany their war-party and strive for peace. Henry Williams, Clarke, Davis, and Kemp accompanied the Ngapuhi chief Rewa, to Hokianga.

After several days, during which Sunday (as “ra tapu”or sacred day) intervened peacefully, the tribes separated without fighting. On the Sunday a congregation of 500 listened attentively to Divine Service. Seven hundred men, the greater part armed with muskets, paraded on the 24th March, danced in their savage manner, and by mutual arrangement fired volleys in the air. Then Rewa spoke for the Bay of Islands tribe in favour of peace. Patuone followed on the part of the men of Hokianga, and the missionaries were escorted to the Hokianga pah. Bullets, not intended to do harm, but as ebullitions of joy, were flying about in all directions until the missionaries entered the pah, when the chiefs succeeded in checking the demonstrations of their people. Thus, for the first time, the gospel of peace prevailed in the mouths of the grateful missionaries.

Having once acted as peace-makers they used their vantage-ground on other occasions.

In the end of 1828 they ventured to hold at Paihia a public

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examination of their three schools situate at Rangihoua, Kerikeri and Paihia.

The proceedings were opened with the Church of England Liturgy in the Maori tongue, and greatly gratified the relatives of the 170 pupils assembled.

An examination was held in 1829 at Kerikeri with similar results. Early in 1830 Taiwhanga, a great warrior in Hongi's wars, was publicly baptized, and the missionaries entertained hopes of other conversions.

Mrs. Henry Williams wrote (Feb. 1830): “When I saw Taiwhanga advance from the other end of our crowded chapel with firm step and subdued countenance, an object of interest to every native as well as to every English eye, and meekly kneel, where, six months before, we had, at his own request, stood sponsors for his four little children, I deeply felt that it was the Lord's own doing.”

The conduct of a master of a whaler dashed the high hopes of the missionaries. He had cohabited with a Maori woman of Kawa Kawa, and had abandoned her for a daughter of a chief at Kerikeri. Maori law demanded reparation. The friends of the injured woman determined to avenge her wrongs. The tribes mustered. Eight hundred men opposed six hundred. Vainly the missionaries raised their voices on the field of battle. Henry Williams looked in vain for a chief of importance as he stood between the armies, concealed from one another by fences and leafy screens, and distant but few yards apart.

When a conference was at last brought about, it was rendered null by a casual shot, and in the consequent resumption of battle (6th March) the fall of a great chief, Hengi, who had rushed between the combatants to stay them, seemed to make peace impossible. A hundred lives were lost. The native houses at Kororarika were in flames. The deck of a vessel in the harbour was covered with the wounded Kororarika warriors. The enemy, from Whangaroa, had withdrawn but a short space from the field of battle.

At this juncture Samuel Marsden appeared upon the scene (on the 8th March, 1830). His arrival was opportune. Two thousand armed men were ready to renew the fray of which the battle of Kororarika was but the beginning. In each camp

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were near relatives to many in the other. Fathers had fought against sons, brothers against brothers. During the truce they mingled freely with the ranks against which they had fought and were about to fight again. It was rumoured that all the men of Hokianga were about to march to take one side or the other. A “tremendous shout”announced (Mrs. Williams wrote) “a ship, Mr. Marsden!”It was echoed on the shore, and the old man landed with his daughter. The mission was in danger, as were the whaling vessels anchored in the Bay.

Marsden visited the victors, and was well received. He turned to the worsted, and found them thirsting for revenge. “The war had been caused by an Englishman; what satisfaction could Marsden give for the lives lost?”Marsden could give no satisfaction, but would write to England to prevent the shipmaster's return. The natives begged him to do nothing of the kind: they longed for the man's return, that they might take their revenge. A whole day was spent in parleying. In the morning it was decided that Marsden and his companion missionary, Henry Williams, should, with two commissioners from each camp, arrange a peace.

On the following day, Sunday, Marsden preached, contrasting doubtless, in his sermon as in his journal, the two shores of the Bay. Decently clad natives reading the Litany in their own language on one side; on the other, wrath, and preparation for war.

The peace was unconcluded. On Tuesday thirty-six war-canoes came upon the scene. The women were left behind. None but fighting men were on board. Marsden hastened to intercede. The native commissioners told him that if peace should not be concluded he must die like the rest.

“The whole day was spent in deliberation: at night, after a long oration, the great chief on one side clove a stick in two to signify that his anger was broken. The terms of peace were ratified, and both sides joined in a hideous war-dance together, repeatedly firing their muskets. We then took our departure from these savage scenes with much satisfaction, as we had attained the object we were labouring for.”¹

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Other and less discouraging scenes followed. He married some converts, and at an earnest service, at which the widow of the great Hongi was present, she could but ejaculate “Astonishing!”as she saw the fervour of her country-folk.

In the end of 1830, the tribes which had been recently arrayed against one another in war were represented by peaceful delegates to the Maori school examination at Paihia. Two hundred pupils were collected.

Early in 1831 the sons of Hengi having feasted on the slain in the south at Mayor and Motiti islands, in revenge for their father's death elsewhere, were themselves surprised and slaughtered by the enraged enemies, and a general war to avenge so much noble blood seemed impending.

The missionaries devised an embassy to the south, whence an ambassador from Rotorua had already been sent to ask for a missionary. When at Paihia, in 1828, the Rotorua chief, Pango, had been saved by Mr. Williams. A plot had been laid to massacre Pango and his friends. Williams took them on board ship, and sailed away with them in the night. Hence the embassy from Rotorua in 1831. The Rev. H. Williams and Mr. Chapman went to Ohinemutu at Rotorua, preached, conversed, and prayed.

The Maoris were greedy to learn letters, and to read and write the language of their forefathers. In half-an-hour one young man had learned the alphabet and was teaching it to his eager comrades.

The efforts of the missionaries to restrain the Ngapuhi from avenging the sons of Hengi were not successful. The future Bishop of Waiapu, William Williams, in vain aided his brother. The Ngapuhi led a war-party to the Bay of Plenty; and though the missionaries were allowed to cross from camp to camp in peace, neither the Ngatiawa nor the Ngapuhi would accept their counsel.

In 1833 the Rarawa from the north plunged into the fray, and the missionaries, in despair, left the murderous work which they were unable to arrest.

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An event occurred at the same period which led to important results. A whale-ship becalmed at the East Cape received on board twelve Ngatiporou. As they slept on board, a breeze carried the vessel northwards. The master, whether ignorant or reckless of Maori usage, landed his unwilling guests at the Bay of Islands. The Ngapuhi distributed them amongst their chiefs as slaves. The missionaries pleaded against the injustice of enslaving those who had been brought against their will to the place, and a sense of right induced the chiefs to consent that the Ngatiporou should reside at the mission station until they could be returned to their homes in the mission schooner. After eight months they went home with the future Bishop of Waiapu. Other Maoris, released from slavery, swelled the number of returned exiles to thirty, who were returned to their friends in January, 1834.

Nothing had been heard of them by those friends since their departure. Their joy was unbounded. Their gratitude to William Williams was wild. They had been assembled for war when the schooner arrived, but they said: “Give us missionaries to teach us and we will cease to war. We like what you tell us; but when you are gone who shall teach us?”

He preached to five hundred of them on the site of his future bishopric, and fixed upon it in his own mind as a mission station. He saw the ruins of pahs, sacked by the Ngapuhi in years bygone, and extending his researches to Table Cape, he heard that thither had been gathered the Maoris, hunted by Rauparaha from Wairarapa, near Cook's Straits. They were protected by Te Wera, a Ngapuhi chief, who, having under Hongi's banner conquered and enslaved at Table Cape, after a time enfranchised his prisoners, went with them to their home, and was received as their own chief. With him Rauparaha had no desire to be at feud, and under his Ngapuhi “mana”the land had rest. The long strife between the Ngapuhi and the men of Tauranga also came to an end without signal defeat of either party, the wearied invaders finally abandoning the feud which the sons of Hengi had so wantonly originated.

Shocked at one form of atrocity which was encouraged by Europeans, Governor Darling, in 1831, made it known that the English Government reprobated and would punish it. The heads

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of slain Maoris, dried by their slayers, had become the object of a brutal traffic. In ancient days the conqueror kept his enemy's head as an enduring trophy. But curators of European museums, careless as to causes of death, set a high value upon heads thus cunningly preserved. A trade grew up. At first hardly secret, it soon became shamefully open, although it was known that, in their desperate strife for fire-arms, Maoris, to procure guns slaughtered their slaves in order to exchange heads for guns.¹

Brutal traders added heads to their ordinary exports. One of their transactions aroused the wrath of Darling, and relegated the trade to secrecy, if it did not destroy it. In one of the Ngapuhi raids upon the Ngatirangi at Tauranga in 1830 some of their men were killed, and the heads were prepared for sale. A debauched ruffian named Jack, the master of a schooner (the ‘Prince of Denmark’), bought them. Touching at Kororarika on his way to Sydney, while many of the Ngapuhi had boarded his vessel, the brutal trader brought upon deck a sack from which he rolled out a number of heads which the Ngapuhi recognized as those of their lost friends. Terror, weeping, and rage broke forth, and the Maoris fled to the shore. The trader, alarmed lest they should return in vengeance, fled to sea. Rumour accompanied him. When he arrived in Sydney Governor Darling promptly proclaimed that such atrocities would be severely punished. He demanded the restoration of the heads to the friends of those “to whom they belonged.”He imposed a fine of forty pounds for each infringement of his order, and determined to publish as marks for detestation the names of all engaged in the inhuman traffic. It was, he said, his “imperative duty to take strong measures for totally suppressing the inhuman traffic which the masters and crews of vessels trading between New South Wales and New Zealand”were pursuing.

The word of a governor was potent in those days, and it served to strengthen the missionaries in their contest with the evil agencies of their countrymen. When he issued his edict to stay the traffic in heads (April, 1831) he had already commanded that the master of a trading vessel should be prosecuted for

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an atrocity committed in New Zealand. The result (King v. Stewart) will be told elsewhere.

But the career of Waharoa the Ngatihaua for many years had boded ill for missionary influence. As ferocious as Hongi, he was more astute, and knew how to obtain power without the crushing superiority of weapons possessed by the Ngapuhi chief.

The Ngatimaru held Matamata while Waharoa was young. He had expelled them from it. His own stronghold had been Maungakawa, near the sources of the Piako. Between Maun-gakawa and Tauranga, Matamata was held by the Ngatimaru, whose territory also extended by way of the Piako swamp to the Waikato river, where Cambridge and Hamilton are now situated. Much of this territory they appear to have occupied peacefully after their flight from Hongi, but in process of time strife arose between them and the Ngatihaua. Until 1825 the Ngatimaru leader, Takurua, maintained his ground, although his tribe had been much weakened by the massacre at the Totara pah at the Thames. Waharoa proposed terms of friendship and joint occupation at Matamata. They were accepted. For two years the tribes lived like Romans and Sabines—geminata urbe. Then the Maori Romulus profited by the murder of his rival which he was thought to have contrived. He was on a journey to Tauranga when at midnight the Ngatihaua treacherously rose and murdered the Ngatimaru Tatius and most of his people at Matamata.

Thus Waharoa secured control of the upper Waiho, or Thames. He was nevertheless grieved to see the Ngatimaru assembled at many strong pahs, especially Haowhenua¹ on the Horotiu or Waikato river (near Cambridge). There were assembled many who had fled from the shambles of Mauinaina and Makoia. Moreover, Waharoa in 1828 lost the support which he might have expected from the Ngatiraukawa. In that year they yielded to Rauparaha's solicitations, and large numbers migrated to share his fortunes in the south.

Haowhenua was not only a stronghold of the Ngatimaru. It intercepted Waharoa's communication with the Waikato people under Te Whero Whero, whose alliance Waharoa valued highly.

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He invited the co-operation of the Waikato and Ngatimaniapoto tribes in 1830. With two hundred warriors they joined him at Maungatautari, where his force, of his own people and numerous Ngaiterangi allies from Tauranga, amounted to seven hundred. The Ngatimaru, the Ngatipaoa, and their friends had gathered together to meet the coming storm. They marched to battle at Taumatawiwi, were defeated, and pursued to Haowhenua. The victors nevertheless had suffered severely. But for the courage and skill of Waharoa it was thought that they would have been beaten. He was shot in the hand and wounded by a tomahawk. He devised a plan for obtaining possession of Haowhenua without further loss. He was in the position of conqueror. He occupied the field of battle, and had possession of the bodies of the slain. But his men were weary, and the enemy were entrenched in fortifications. An accepted tradition¹ told that in the stillness of the night he sent a herald to announce that during four days the enemy might retire unmolested, but that if they would not do so, on the fifth day Haowhenua and all that it contained would be destroyed. “No answer was returned, but during the interval a multitude of all ages and sexes issued from the pah and marched in close order along the road by Matamata to the Thames.”Slaves availed themselves of the downfall of their Ngatimaru masters, and by night deserted to the ranks of the conqueror. Such was the Ngatihaua tradition.

In 1871, when English rule had been set up in the land, and Judges of the Native Lands Court pronounced upon Maori titles, the Pakeha Maori, Judge F. E. Maning, with Judge Monro, delivered a decision upon tribal titles, accruing from the battle of Taumatawiwi, the retreat of the Ngatimaru (called in the judgment Maru-tuahu), and the extent to which the claims of the Ngatihaua encroached upon the former domain of their enemies.

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The Ngatihaua asserted a right to the Aroha, a tract of land on both sides of the Waihou river, where the Aroha mountain stood pre-eminent as an object of beauty seen from far and near, and was sometimes confronted and sometimes apparently left behind by voyagers towards it on the sinuous waters of the river. The tract in dispute was about two hundred thousand acres. The Ngatihaua claimed it by conquest, and the terms of the evacuation of Haowhenua, followed by sufficient occupation to establish a right.

The Ngatimaru denied the defeat of their forefathers, and declared that the terms of the evacuation gave no title to the Aroha, which had been in their possession subsequently. For both claims there was colourable evidence, for after the expulsion of the Ngatimaru from Haowhenua the Aroha was comparatively tenantless.

Witnesses on both sides admitted that the space which intervened between the abodes of the hostile tribes was unsafe, and that the Aroha was more often traversed