New Zealand Colonised

Kororarika. All this fighting of the Maori tribes made them more

dependent on the trade they had with white men. They could neither make

guns nor powder for themselves, and the tribe that could purchase none

of the white man's weapons was sure to be slaughtered and eaten by other

tribes. Hence white men were more eagerly welcomed, and in course of

time nearly two hundred of them were living Maori fashion with the

trib s. But it was at the Bay of Islands that the chief trading was

carried on. For it was there that the kauri timber grew; it was there

that the pigs were most plentiful and the cargoes of flax most easily

obtained; and when a man named Turner set up a grog-shop on the shores

of the bay all the whaling ships made this their usual place for resting

and refitting. Behind the beach the hills rise steeply, and on these

hills a number of white men built themselves homes securely fenced, and

defended, sometimes even by a cannon or two. But down on the little

green flat next to the beach, rude houses were more numerous. In the

year 1838 there were about 500 persons resident in the little town,

which was now called Kororarika, but at times there were nearly double

that number of people resident in it for months together. A wild and

reckless place it was, for sailors reckoned themselves there to be

beyond the reach of English law.



At one time as many as thirty-six ships lay off the town of Kororarika,

and in a single year 150 ships visited the bay; generally staying a

month or more at anchor. The little church and the Catholic mission

station up on the hill did less good to the natives than these rough

sailors did harm, and at length the more respectable white men could

stand the disorder no longer. They formed an association to maintain

decency. They seized, tried, fined or sometimes locked up for a time the

worst offenders, and twice they stripped the ruffians naked, gave them a

coat of tar, stuck them all over with white down from a native plant,

and when they were thus decorated, expelled them from the town, with a

promise of the same treatment if ever they were seen back in it.





Hokianga. Long before this the capacities of New Zealand and the

chances of making wealth there became well known in England, and in 1825

an association was formed to colonise the country. It sent out an agent,

who reported that Hokianga, a deep estuary on the west coast, just

opposite to Kororarika, and only thirty miles away from it, was a

charming place for a settlement. The agent bought a square mile of land

from the Maoris and also two little islands in the harbour. The company

fitted out a ship the Rosanna, and sixty colonists sailed out in her

to form the pioneers of the new colony. They landed, and liked the look

of the place, but they were timid by reason of the tales they had heard

of Maori ferocity. Now at this time the Ngapuhis were at war with the

Arawas, and the latter were getting up a war dance, which the settlers

were just in time to see. Five or six hundred men stood in four long

rows, stamping in time to a chant of their leader. It was night, a fire

lit up their quivering limbs and their rolling eyes; they joined in a

chorus, and when they came to particular words they hissed like a

thousand serpents; they went through the performance of killing their

enemies, cutting up their bodies and eating them. The settlers fell into

deep meditation and departed. Not half a dozen remained in New Zealand,

the others went to Sydney, and so after an expense of L20,000 this

association, which had been formed for the kindly purpose of putting

people in lands less crowded than their own, failed and was disbanded.





Settled Government. Between 1825 and 1835 the Maoris of the North

Island were in a miserable state. Wars and massacres and cannibal feasts

made the country wretched, and though the missionaries were respected

they could not secure peace. But they persuaded the chiefs of some of

the weaker tribes to appeal to England for protection against the

conquering warriors who oppressed and destroyed their people. It was in

1831 that this petition was sent to King William, and about the same

time the white men at Kororarika, terrified at the violence with which

the Waikato men were ravaging the surrounding lands, asked the Governor

at Sydney to interfere. The result was that although the English would

not regularly take possession of New Zealand, they chose Mr. Busby, a

gentleman well known in New South Wales, to be the Resident there, his

business being, so far as possible, to keep order. How he was to keep

order without men or force to make his commands obeyed it is hard to

see; but he was expected to do whatever could be done by persuasion, and

to send for a British war-ship if ever he thought it was needed.



The first war-ship that thus came over did more harm than good. Its

visit was caused by a disastrous wreck. The whaling barque Harriet,

under the command of a man named Guard, a low fellow who had formerly

been a convict, was trading among the islands when she was wrecked off

the coast of Taranaki. The Maoris attacked the stranded ship, but the

crew stayed on her and fired into the assailants, and it was not till

after quite a siege, in which twelve seamen were killed, that the rest

fled from the wreck, leaving Mrs. Guard and her two children in the

hands of the Taranaki tribe. Guard and twelve seamen, however, though

they escaped for a time were caught by a neighbouring tribe, to whom he

promised a cask of gunpowder if they would help him to reach an English

ship. This they did, and Guard reached Sydney, where he begged Sir

Richard Bourke to send a vessel for the rescue of his wife and children.

Bourke sent the Alligator, with a company of soldiers, who landed and

demanded the captive seamen. These were given up, but the captain of the

ship supported Guard in breaking his promise and refusing to give the

powder, under the plea that it was a bad thing for natives. The

Alligator then went round to Taranaki for the woman and children. The

chief of the tribe came down to the beach and said they would be given

up for a ransom. The white men seized him, dragged him into their boat

to be a hostage, but he jumped out of the boat and was speared with

bayonets. He was taken to the ship nearly dead. Then the natives gave up

the woman and one child in return for their chief. After some parley a

native came down to the beach with the other child on his shoulders. He

said he would give it up if a proper ransom was paid. The English said

they would give no ransom, and when the man turned to go away again,

they shot him through the back, quite dead. The child was recovered,

but Mrs. Guard and the children testified that this native had been a

good friend to them when in captivity. Nevertheless, his head was cut

off and tumbled about on the beach. The Alligator then bombarded the

native pah, destroyed all its houses to the number of 200, with all the

provisions they contained, killing from twenty to thirty men in the

process. This scarcely agreed with the letter which Mr. Busby had just

received, in which he was directed to express to the Maori chiefs the

regret which the King of England felt at the injuries committed by white

men against Maoris.





Captain Hobson. But there were many difficulties in securing justice

between fickle savages and white men who were in general so ruffianly as

those who then dwelt in New Zealand. The atrocities of the Harriet

episode did some good, however, for along with other circumstances they

stirred up the English Government to make some inquiries into the manner

in which Englishmen treated the natives of uncivilised countries. These

inquiries showed much injustice and sometimes wanton cruelty, and when a

petition came from the respectable people of Kororarika, asking that

some check should be put upon the licence of the low white men who

frequented that port, the English Government resolved to annex New

Zealand if the Maoris were willing to be received into the British

Empire. For that purpose they chose Captain Hobson, a worthy and upright

sea-captain, who in his ship of war, the Rattlesnake, had seen much of

Australia and New Zealand. It was he who had taken Sir Richard Bourke to

Port Phillip in 1837, and Hobson's Bay was named in his honour. After

that he had been sent by Bourke to the Bay of Islands to inquire into

the condition of things there, and when he had gone home to England he

had given evidence as to the disorder which prevailed in New Zealand. He

was sent in a war-ship, the Druid, with instructions to keep the white

men in order, and to ask the natives if they would like to become

subjects of Queen Victoria and live under her protection. If they agreed

to do so, he was to form New Zealand into an English colony and he was

to be its Lieutenant-Governor under the general control of the Governor

of New South Wales.



Hobson reached Sydney at the end of 1839 and conferred with Governor

Gipps, who helped him to draw up proclamations and regulations for the

work to be done. On leaving Sydney, Hobson took with him a treasurer and

a collector of customs for the new colony, a sergeant of police and four

mounted troopers of the New South Wales force, together with a police

magistrate to try offenders, and two clerks to assist in the work of

government. It was the 29th of January, 1840, when he landed at the Bay

of Islands. Next day, on the beach, he read several proclamations, one

of which asserted that all British subjects, even though resident in New

Zealand, were still bound to obey British laws; and another declared

that as white men were tricking the Maoris into selling vast tracts of

land for goods of little value, all such bargains made after that date

would be illegal, while all made before that date would be inquired into

before being allowed. It was declared that if the Maoris in future

wished to sell their land the Governor would buy it and pay a fair price

for it. All white men who wished for land could then buy from the

Governor. Three days later the respectable white men of Kororarika

waited on Captain Hobson to congratulate him on his arrival and to

promise him their obedience and assistance.





Treaty of Waitangi. Meantime Hobson had asked the missionaries to

send word round to all the neighbouring chiefs that he would like to see

them, and on the 5th of February, 1840, a famous meeting took place on

the shore of the Bay of Islands near the mouth of the pretty river

Waitangi. There on a little platform on a chair of state sat the new

Governor, with the officers of the ship in their uniform, and a guard of

mariners and sailors; while beside the platform stood the leading white

men of Kororarika. Flags fluttered all round the spot. At noon, when

Hobson took his seat, there were over five hundred Maoris, of whom fifty

were chiefs, in front of the platform. Then one of the missionaries rose

and in the Maori tongue explained what the Queen of England proposed.

First, that the Maoris, of their own accord, should allow their country

to be joined to the British Empire. Second, that the Queen would protect

them in their right to their land and all their property, and see that

no white men interfered with them in it, but that if they chose to sell

any of their land, then the Governor would buy it from them. Third,

that the Queen would extend to the Maoris, if they so desired, all the

rights and privileges of British subjects and the protection of British

law.



When these proposals had been fully explained the Maoris were asked to

say what they thought of them. Twenty-six chiefs spoke in favour of

accepting, and so bringing about peace and order in the land. Six spoke

against them, declaring that thus would the Maoris be made slaves. The

natives seemed very undecided, when Waka Nene arose and in an eloquent

address showed the miseries of the land now that fire-arms had been

introduced, and begged his countrymen to place themselves under the rule

of a queen who was able and willing to make the country quiet and happy.

The Maoris were greatly excited, and Hobson therefore gave them a day to

think over the matter. There was much discussion all night long among

the neighbouring pahs and villages; but the next day when the Maoris

gathered, forty-six chiefs put their marks to the parchment now always

known as the treaty of Waitangi.



This treaty was taken by missionaries and officers from tribe to tribe,

and in the course of two or three months over five hundred chiefs had

signed it. On the 21st May, Hobson proclaimed that the islands of New

Zealand were duly added to the British Empire, and that he would assume

the rule of the new colony as Lieutenant-Governor. Meantime houses

had been built at Kororarika for the Governor and his officers; a

custom-house had been set up, and taxes were levied on all goods landed,

so as to provide a revenue with which to pay these and other Government

expenses.





Auckland. But the people at Kororarika had bought from the natives

all the level land in the place, and thinking their town would soon be a

great city, and the capital of an important colony, they would not sell

it except at very high prices. Now Captain Hobson had seen at the head

of the Hauraki Gulf a place which seemed to him to be more suitable for

the capital of the future colony. To this lovely spot he changed his

residence. He bought from the natives about thirty thousand acres, and

on an arm of the gulf, where the Waitemata harbour spreads its shining

waters, he caused a town to be surveyed and streets to be laid out. In

April, 1841, after he had reserved sufficient land for Government

offices, parks and other public purposes, he caused the rest to be

offered in allotments for sale by auction. There was a general belief

that now, when the islands were formally annexed to the British Empire,

New Zealand would be a most prosperous colony, and that land in its

capital would go up rapidly in value. Many speculators came over from

Sydney. The bidding was brisk, and the allotments were sold at the rate

of about six hundred pounds per acre. A few months later a sale was held

of lands in the suburbs and of farming lands a little way out from the

town. This was again successful. Houses began to spring up, most of them

slender in structure, but with a few of solid appearance. Next year

ships arrived from England with 560 immigrants, who rapidly settled on

the land, and before long a thriving colony was formed. The little town

was very pretty, with green hills behind the branching harbour that lay

in front, dotted with volcanic islets. The whole district was green; and

the figures of Maoris in the grassy streets, their canoes bringing in

vegetables to market, their pahs seen far off on the neighbouring hills,

gave the scene a charming touch of the romantic. A company of six

soldiers with four officers came from Sydney to defend the settlers, and

barracks were built for them. The name chosen for the city was Auckland,

after a gentleman named Eden, who had taken for half a century a deep

interest in colonising experiments, and who had been raised to the

peerage with the title of Lord Auckland.








New Zealand Company. Meantime another part of New Zealand had been

colonised under very different circumstances. The English association,

which in 1825 attempted to form a settlement at Hokianga and failed, had

consisted of very influential men. They had not given up their plans

altogether, and in 1837 they formed a new association called the New

Zealand Company. That restless theorist Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who had

already sent out the settlers who had just founded Adelaide, joined this

association, and impressed the members with his own idea already

described on page 67. It was arranged that a colony should be sent out

to New Zealand on the plan of a complete little community. There were

to be gentlemen and clergymen and teachers; so many farmers, so many

carpenters, so many blacksmiths; every trade was to be represented so

that everybody would have something to do, and there would be none too

many of any one kind. A bill was brought before Parliament for the

purpose of establishing a colony after this fashion, and at first

Parliament was inclined to favour the bill. But the missionaries in New

Zealand were hostile to the proposal. They were steadily converting the

Maoris to Christianity. They hoped to turn them into quiet, industrious

and prosperous people, if white men did not come and take away their

land from them. Parliament, therefore, refused to pass the bill. But the

company had gone too far to retreat. It had already arranged with many

settlers to take them and their families out to New Zealand, and had

begun to sell land at so much an acre, nobody knew where except that it

was to be in New Zealand. They therefore quietly purchased and fitted

out a vessel named the Tory to go to New Zealand and make

arrangements. The party was under the charge of Colonel Wakefield,

brother of Edward Gibbon Wakefield; and he took with him surveyors to

lay out the land, farming experts to judge of the soil, and a scientific

man to report on the natural products. This vessel sailed away quietly

in May, 1839, hoping to reach New Zealand unnoticed. The English

Government heard of it however, informed the company that its action was

illegal, and immediately afterwards sent off Captain Hobson in the

Druid, as has been already described, to take possession on behalf of

the British nation. The New Zealand Company then apologised; said that

they would direct their agents who had gone out to New Zealand to obey

the Governor in all things, and promised that the new settlement should

abide by the law.





Wellington. Meantime the Tory was ploughing the deep on her way to

New Zealand. Her passengers first saw the new country on the west coast

of the South Island. They were then very much disappointed, for the

shore was high and wild, the mountains were close behind it, and their

lofty sides were gloomy and savage. The whole scene was grand, but did

not promise much land that would be suitable for farming. They turned

into Cook Strait, and anchored in Queen Charlotte Sound, a lovely

harbour, but surrounded by high hills clothed in dark and heavy forests.

When they landed, they were amazed at the depth and richness of the

black soil and the immense size to which the trees grew. Such a soil

could grow all sorts of produce in rich abundance, but it would cost

forty pounds an acre to clear it for ploughing. Boats were got out,

however, and parties rowed up into all the branches of the beautiful

harbour, but without seeing any sufficient extent of level or open land.

Then they crossed the strait, and sailing in by a narrow entrance,

viewed all the wide expanse of Port Nicholson. It was a great harbour

with a little wooded island in its middle; it opened out into quiet arms

all fringed with shelly beaches, and behind these rose range after range

of majestic mountains. The trouble was that here too the land which was

fairly level was too limited in extent to satisfy the colony's needs;

for already in England the company had sold 100,000 acres of farming

land, and the purchasers would soon be on their way to occupy it. After

examining the shores with care they chose the beach of the east side as

the site for their town. Behind it stretched the beautiful valley of the

Hutt River, enclosed by mountains, but with broad grassy meadows lying

between. Here they started to build a town which they called Britannia,

and they made friends with the Maoris of the district. A Pakeha Maori

named Barrett acted as interpreter. The natives went on board the

Tory, were shown 239 muskets, 300 blankets, 160 tomahawks and axes,

276 shirts, together with a quantity of looking-glasses, scissors,

razors, jackets, pots, and scores of other things, with eighty-one kegs

of gunpowder, two casks of cartridges and more than a ton of tobacco.

They were asked if they would sell all the land that could be seen from

the ship in return for these things. They agreed, signed some papers and

took the goods on shore, where they at once began to use the muskets in

a grand fight among themselves for the division of the property. It was

soon discovered that the site of the town was too much exposed to

westerly gales, and the majority of the settlers crossed Port Nicholson

to a narrow strip of grassy land between a pretty beach and some steep

hills. Here was founded the town called Wellington, after the famous

duke.



By this time the settlers were arriving thick and fast. The first came

in the Aurora, which reached the settlement on 22nd January, 1840;

other ships came at short intervals, till there were twelve at anchor in

Port Nicholson. The settlers were pleased with the country; they landed

in good spirits and set to work to make themselves houses. All was

activity--surveyors, carpenters, bricklayers, blacksmiths, every one

busy, and rapidly a smart little town of some hundred houses rose behind

the beach. The Maoris came and helped in the work, getting three or four

shillings a day for their services, and proving themselves very handy in

many ways. All were in sanguine spirits, when word came from Governor

Hobson at Auckland that, in accordance with his proclamation, all

purchases of land from the natives were illegal, he having come to

protect the Maoris from imposition.





The Land Question. Now Colonel Wakefield had fancied that he had

bought 20,000,000 acres for less than L9,000 worth of goods, and he was

assigning it as fast as he could to people who had paid L1 an acre to

the company in England. Here was a sad fix. The Governor sent down his

chief officer, Mr. Shortland, who rode across the island with the

mounted police, and told the settlers not to fancy the land theirs, as

he would ere long have to turn them off. Disputes arose, for it seemed

absurd that fifty-eight Maori chiefs should sell the land on which many

thousands of people dwelt, the majority of these people never having so

much as heard of the bargain. The settlers talked of starting for South

America and forming a colony in Chili, but more kept on coming, so that

they had not ships enough to take them across. And, besides, they had

paid a pound an acre to the company and demanded their land. Colonel

Wakefield went off to Auckland to talk the matter over with Governor

Hobson, who left the difficulty to be settled by his superior, Governor

Gipps, at Sydney.



Wakefield then went to Sydney to see Governor Gipps, who said that the

whole thing was irregular, but that he would allow the settlers to

occupy the land, supposing that every Maori who had a proper claim to

any part of it got due compensation, and if twenty acres of the central

part of Wellington were reserved for public buildings. These conditions

Wakefield agreed to, and, very glad to have got out of a serious

difficulty, he returned with the good tidings. Shortly afterwards

Governor Hobson himself visited Wellington, but was very coldly received

by the settlers there.



In the next two years 350 ships arrived at Wellington, bringing out over

4,000 settlers. Of these about 1,000 went up into the valleys and made

farms; but 3,000 stayed in and around Wellington, which then grew to be

a substantial little town, with four good piers, about 200 houses of

wood or brick and about 250 houses of more slender construction. More

than 200 Maoris could be seen in its streets clad in the European

clothes given as payment for the land. In all there were about 700

Maoris in the district, and for their use the company set apart 11,000

acres of farm lands, and 110 acres in the town. Roads were being made

into the fertile valleys, where eight or ten thousand acres were

occupied as farms and being rapidly cleared and tilled. Parties were

organised to go exploring across the mountains. They brought back word

that inland the soil was splendid, sometimes covered with forests,

sometimes with meadows of long grass or New Zealand flax, but always

watered by beautiful rivers and under a lovely climate. The Maoris were

everywhere friendly throughout their journey.





Taranaki. In the beginning of the year 1840, an emigration society

had been formed in the south-west of England to enable the farm

labourers and miners of Cornwall, Devon, and Dorset to settle in less

crowded lands. The Earl of Devon was its president, and Plymouth its

headquarters. They chose New Zealand for the site of their colony, and

understanding that the New Zealand Company had bought half of the North

Island they gave that company L10,000 for the right to select 60,000

acres of it. It was in March, 1841, that the pioneers of this new colony

arrived at Wellington under the guidance of Mr. Carrington, a surveyor

in the ship William Bryant. The exploring party had just come back,

and its report of the Taranaki land was very tempting. Immediately after

receiving that report Colonel Wakefield had gone off to purchase it. He

found a few natives left there, the remnant of the tribes whom Te Whero

Whero had either destroyed or carried into slavery. These few people had

taken refuge up in the awful solitudes of the giant Mount Egmont, but

had come back to dwell, a sorrow-stricken handful, in the homes of their

fathers. Barrett was left to arrange a bargain with them, and in return

for a quantity of goods they sold all the land along sixty miles of

coast with a depth of fifteen miles inland. This was the land which

Wakefield recommended for the new settlers, and he lent them a ship to

take them round. There they landed, and in spite of their disappointment

at the want of a safe harbour, they set to work and built up their

little town, which they called New Plymouth.



In September of the same year the main body of settlers arrived for this

new colony, and were landed at Taranaki, when they immediately scattered

out over the country, as fast as Carrington could survey it for them.

But there was now a difficulty. For Te Whero Whero and his tribe had

released many hundreds of the Taranaki natives who had been carried off

as slaves. Whether it was because they had now become Christians or

because the slaves were more in number than they could use, it was not

easy to determine; but at any rate, in that very month of September when

hundreds of white men were arriving to occupy the land, hundreds of

Maoris were coming back to re-occupy it. They begged the settlers not to

fell their big trees, but were very mild in their conduct. They chose

places not yet claimed by the white men, and there fenced in the land on

which to grow their sweet potatoes.



Meanwhile there was another complication. By Maori custom a warrior had

the ownership of the lands he conquered. Governor Hobson therefore

regarded Te Whero Whero as the owner of the Taranaki land, and gave him

L400 for his right to it. Hobson declared that the Auckland Government

was the owner of this land, and that all settlers must buy it from him.

Eventually the trouble was cleared up for the time being, when Hobson

allowed the company to keep ten miles of coast running back five or six

miles, the rest to belong to the Government, which would set aside a

certain part for the use of the Maoris. In December, 1842, a settler

claimed a piece of land which a Maori had fenced in; he pulled down the

fence; the Maoris put it up again. The settler assisted by an officer

pulled it down once more. A young chief who brandished a tomahawk and

threatened mischief was arrested, and carried into New Plymouth where a

magistrate liberated him, and declared the action of the settler

illegal. Matters for a time kept in this unfriendly state, ominously

hinting the desperate war that was to follow.





Wanganui. Meanwhile the settlers in the Wellington district were

finding that by crossing difficult mountains they could get sufficient

level land for their purpose, and at the close of 1840 two hundred of

them sailed 150 miles north to where the river Wanganui falls into Cook

Strait. The land was rich and the district beautiful. Colonel Wakefield

supposed that he had bought the whole of it, though the natives

afterwards proved that they sold only a part on the north side of the

river. Here, about four miles from the mouth of the stream, the settlers

formed a little town which they called Petre, but which is now known as

Wanganui. The natives were numerous; on the river banks their villages

were frequent, and up on the hills, that rose all around like an

amphitheatre, the palisades of their fortified pahs were easily visible.

But the fine black soil of the district, in places grassy, in places

with patches of fine timber, proved very attractive to the settlers, and

soon there came half a dozen ships with more colonists direct from

England. The natives were friendly to white men, and gave them a cordial

welcome. Down the river came their canoes laden with pigs, potatoes,

melons, and gourds for sale in the market of the little town. All was

good-will until the Maoris found that the white men had come not merely

to settle among them, but to appropriate all the best of the land. Then

their tempers grew sour and the prospect steadily grew more unpleasant.





Nelson. The emigration spirit was at this time strong in England;

for it was in the year 1840 to 1841 that free settlers chiefly colonised

both Victoria and South Australia. New Zealand was as much a favourite

as any, and when the New Zealand Company proposed in 1841 to form a new

colony somewhere in that country to be called Nelson, nearly 100,000

acres were sold at thirty shillings an acre to men who did not know even

in which island of New Zealand the land was to be situated. In April of

the same year the pioneers of the new settlement started in the ships

Whitby and Will Watch, with about eighty settlers, their wives,

families and servants. Captain Arthur Wakefield was the leader, and he

took the ships to Wellington, where they waited while he went out to

search for a suitable site. He chose a place at the head of Tasman Bay,

where, in a green hollow fringed by a beautiful beach and embosomed deep

in majestic hills, the settlers soon gathered in the pretty little town

of Nelson. The soil was black earth resting on great boulders; out of it

grew low bushes easily cleared away, and here and there stood a few

clumps of trees to give a grateful shade. The place was shut in by the

hills so as to be completely sheltered from the boisterous gales of Cook

Strait, and altogether it was a place of dreamy loveliness. Its

possession was claimed by Rauparaha, the warrior, on the ground of

conquest. With him and other chiefs the settlers had a conference, the

result of which was that a certain specified area round the head of the

bay was purchased. But the white men regarded themselves as having the

right of superior beings to go where they wished and do with the land

what they wished. Finding a seam of good coal at a place outside their

purchase they did not in any way scruple to send a vessel to carry it

off, in spite of the protests of the Maoris.





Death of Governor Hobson. These things hinted at troubles which

were to come, but in 1842 all things looked promising for the colonies

of New Zealand. There were altogether about 12,000 white persons, most

of them being men who wore blue shirts and lived on pork and potatoes.

Auckland the capital had 3,000 but, Wellington was the largest town with

4,000 people. Next to that came Nelson with 2,500; New Plymouth and

Wanganui were much smaller but yet thriving places. They had no less

than nine newspapers, most of them little primitive sheets, but

wonderful in communities so young. In October, 1841, Dr. George Selwyn

was appointed to be Bishop of New Zealand; and he left England with a

number of clergymen who settled in Auckland, Wellington, Nelson, and New

Plymouth. Churches began to spring up, and schools not only for white

children, but also for Maoris. An immense change for the better had

appeared among the Maoris. The last case of cannibalism took place about

this time; and though they still fought among one another, it was not

with the same awful bloodshed that had characterised the previous twenty

years.



On the 16th November, 1840, the Queen declared New Zealand an

independent colony. Hobson was then no longer Lieutenant-Governor

merely, and subject to the Governor at Sydney. He was Governor Hobson,

and of equal rank with all the other Governors. He now had a

Legislative Council to assist him in making for New Zealand such laws as

might be needed in her peculiar circumstances. In that council the Chief

Justice, the Colonial Secretary, the Surveyor-General, the

Attorney-General and the Protector of the Maoris had seats. But Hobson

did not long enjoy his new dignity. He had had a difficult task to

perform, and his duty had led him into conflict with many people who

wished to purchase their land from the natives at ridiculous prices. In

the midst of his worries he had several strokes of paralysis, of which

the last killed him in September, 1842; and he was buried in the

cemetery at Auckland. He had lived, however, to see New Zealand

colonised, and had died much liked by the Maoris, without seeing any of

that bitter struggle between the two races which was soon to shed so

much blood and waste so much treasure.