Diemen's Land. Whaling vessels were fitted out in Sydney, and it was found that money could be made by oil and whalebone as well as by rum. Sealing was also pursued in small vessels, which were often lost, and sealers lie buried in all the islands of the southern seas, many of them having a story to tell, but no story-teller.

Whalers, runaway seamen, shilling-a-month men, and escaped convicts were the earliest settlers in New Zealand, and were the first to make peaceful intercourse with the Maoris possible. They built themselves houses with wooden frames, covered with reeds and rushes, learned to converse in the native language, and became family men. They were most of them English and Americans, with a few Frenchmen. They loved freedom, and preferred Maori customs, and the risk of being eaten, to the odious supervision of the English Government. The individual white man in those days was always welcome, especially if he brought with him guns, ammunition, tomahawks, and hoes. It was by these articles that he first won the respect and admiration of the native. If the visitor was a "pakeha tutua," a poor European, he might receive hospitality for a time, in the hope that some profit might be made out of him. But the Maori was a poor man also, with a great appetite, and when it became evident that the guest was no better than a pauper, and could not otherwise pay for his board, the Maori sat on the ground, meditating and watching, until his teeth watered, and at last he attached the body and baked it.

In 1814 the Church Missionary Society sent labourers to the distant vineyard to introduce Christianity, and to instruct the natives in the rights of property. The first native protector of Christianity and letters was Hongi Hika, a great warrior of the Ngapuhi nation, in the North Island. He was born in 1777, and voyaging to Sydney in 1814, he became the guest of the Rev. Mr. Marsden. In 1819 the rev. gentleman bought his settlement at Kerikeri from Hongi Hika, the price being forty-eight axes. The area of the settlement was thirteen thousand acres. The land was excellent, well watered, in a fine situation, and near a good harbour. Hongi next went to England with the Rev. Mr. Kendall to see King George, who was at that time in matrimonial trouble. Hongi was surprised to hear that the King had to ask permission of anyone to dispose of his wife Caroline. He said he had five wives at home, and he could clear off the whole of them if he liked without troubling anybody. He received valuable presents in London, which he brought back to Sydney, and sold for three hundred muskets and ammunition. The year 1822 was the most glorious time of his life. He raised an army of one thousand men, three hundred of whom had been taught the use of his muskets. The neighbouring tribes had no guns. He went up the Tamar, and at Totara slew five hundred men, and baked and ate three hundred of them. On the Waipa he killed fourteen hundred warriors out of a garrison of four thousand, and then returned home with crowds of slaves. The other tribes began to buy guns from the traders as fast as they were able to pay for them with flax; and in 1827, at Wangaroa, a bullet went through Hongi's lungs, leaving a hole in his back through which he used to whistle to entertain his friends; but he died of the wound fifteen months afterwards.

Other men, both clerical and lay, followed the lead of the Rev. Mr. Marsden. In 1821 Mr. Fairbairn bought four hundred acres for ten pounds worth of trade. Baron de Thierry bought forty thousand acres on the Hokianga River for thirty-six axes. From 1825 to 1829 one million acres were bought by settlers and merchants. Twenty-five thousand acres were bought at the Bay of Islands and Hokianga in five years, seventeen thousand of which belonged to the missionaries. In 1835 the Rev. Henry Williams made a bold offer for the unsold country. He forwarded a deed of trust to the governor of New South Wales, requesting that the missionaries should be appointed trustees for the natives for the remainder of their lands, "to preserve them from the intrigues of designing men." Before the year 1839, twenty millions of acres had been purchased by the clergy and laity for a few guns, axes, and other trifles, and the Maoris were fast wasting their inheritance. But the titles were often imperfect. When a man had bought a few hundreds of acres for six axes and a gun, and had paid the price agreed on to the owner, another owner would come and claim the land because his grandfather had been killed on it. He sat down before the settler's house and waited for payment, and whether he got any or not he came at regular intervals during the rest of his life and sat down before the door with his spear and mere* by his side waiting for more purchase money.

[*Footnote Axe made of greenstone.]

Some honest people in England heard of the good things to be had in New Zealand, formed a company, and landed near the mouth of the Hokianga River to form a settlement. The natives happened to be at war, and were performing a war dance. The new company looked on while the natives danced, and then all desire for land in New Zealand faded from their hearts. They returned on board their ship and sailed away, having wasted twenty thousand pounds. Such people should remain in their native country. Your true rover, lay or clerical, comes for something or other, and stays to get it, or dies.

After twenty years of labour, and an expenditure of two hundred thousand pounds, the missionaries claimed only two thousand converts, and these were Christians merely in name. In 1825 the Rev. Henry Williams said the natives were as insensible to redemption as brutes, and in 1829 the Methodists in England contemplated withdrawing their establishment for want of success.

The Catholic Bishop Pompallier, with two priests, landed at Hokianga on January 10th, 1838, and took up his residence at the house of an Irish Catholic named Poynton, who was engaged in the timber trade. Poynton was a truly religious man, who had been living for some time among the Maoris. He was desirous of marrying the daughter of a chief, but he wished that she should be a Christian, and, as there was no Catholic priest nearer than Sydney, he sailed to that port with the chief and his daughter, called on Bishop Polding, and informed him of the object of his visit. A course of instruction was given to the father and daughter, Poynton acting as interpreter; they were baptised, and the marriage took place. After the lapse of sixty years their descendents were found to have retained the faith, and were living as good practical Catholics.

Bishop Pompallier celebrated his first Mass on January 13th, 1838, and the news of his arrival was soon noised abroad and discussed. The Methodist missionaries considered the action of the bishop as an unwarrantable intrusion on their domain, and, being Protestants, they resolved to protest. This they did through the medium of thirty native warriors, who appeared before Poynton's house early in the morning of January 22nd, when the bishop was preparing to say Mass. The chief made a speech. He said the bishop and his priests were enemies to the Maoris. They were not traders, for they had brought no guns, no axes. They had been sent by a foreign chief (the Pope) to deprive the Maoris of their land, and make them change their old customs. Therefore he and his warriors had come to break the crucifix, and the ornaments of the altar, and to take the bishop and his priests to the river.

The bishop replied that, although he was not a trader, he had come as a friend, and did not wish to deprive them of their country or anything belonging to them. He asked them to wait a while, and if they could find him doing the least injury to anyone they could take him to the river. The warriors agreed to wait, and went away.

Next day the bishop went further up the river to Wherinaki, where Laming, a pakeha Maori, resided. Laming was an Irish-Protestant who had great influence with his tribe, which was numerous and warlike. He was