The Book of the Bush | Page 4

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