We have noticed all the adventures which Rutherford records to have
befallen him during his residence in New Zealand, and have now only to
relate the manner in which he at last effected his escape from the
country, which we shall do in his own words.
"A few days," says he, "after our return home from Showrackee, we were
alarmed by observing smoke ascending in large quantities from several of
the mountains, and by the natives running about the village in all
directions, and singing out Kipoke,[CO] which signifies a ship on the
coast. I was quite overjoyed to hear the news.
"Aimy and I, accompanied by several of the warriors, and followed by a
number of slaves, loaded with mats and potatoes, and driving pigs before
them for the purpose of trading with the ship, immediately set off for
Tokamardo; and in two days we arrived at that place, the unfortunate
scene of the capture of our ship and its crew on the 7th of March, 1816.
I now perceived the ship under sail, at about twenty miles distance from
the land, off which the wind was blowing strong, which prevented her
nearing. Meanwhile, as it was drawing towards night, we encamped, and
sat down to supper.
"I observed that several of the natives still wore round their necks and
wrists many of the trinkets which they had taken out of our ship. As
Aimy and I sat together at supper, a slave arrived with a new basket,
which he placed before me, saying that it was a present from his master.
I asked him what was in the basket, and he informed me that it was part
of a slave girl's thigh, that had been killed three days before. It was
cooked, he added, and was very nice. I then commanded him to open it,
which he did, when it presented the appearance of a piece of pork which
had been baked in the oven. I made a present of it to Aimy, who divided
it among the chiefs.
"The chiefs now consulted together, and resolved that, if the ship came
in, they would take her, and murder the crew. Next morning she was
observed to be much nearer than she had been the night before; but the
chiefs were still afraid she would not come in, and therefore agreed
that I should be sent on board, on purpose to decoy her to the land,
which I promised to do.
"I was then dressed in a feathered cloak, belt, and turban, and armed
with a battle axe, the head of which was formed of a stone which,
resembled green glass, but was so hard as to turn the heaviest blow of
the hardest steel. The handle was of hard black wood, handsomely carved
and adorned with feathers. In this attire I went off in a canoe,
accompanied by a son of one of the chiefs, and four slaves. When we came
alongside of the vessel, which turned out to be an American brig,
commanded by Captain Jackson, employed in trading among the islands in
the South Sea, and then bound for the coast of California, I immediately
went on board, and presented myself to the captain, who, as soon as he
saw me, exclaimed, 'Here is a white New Zealander.'
"I told him that I was not a New Zealander, but an Englishman; upon
which he invited me into his cabin, where I gave him an account of my
errand and of all my misfortunes.
"I informed him of the danger his ship would be exposed to if he put in
at that part of the island; and therefore begged of him to stand off as
quickly as possible, and take me along with him, as this was the only
chance I had ever had of escaping.
"By this time the chief's son had begun stealing in the ship, on which
the crew tied him up, and flogged him with the clue of one of their
hammocks, and then sent him down into his canoe.
"They would have flogged the rest also had not I interceded for them,
considering that there might be still some of my unfortunate shipmates
living on shore, on whom they might avenge themselves.
"The captain now consented to take me along with him; and, the canoe
having been set adrift, we stood off from the island. For the first
sixteen months of my residence in New Zealand, I had counted the days by
means of notches on a stick; but after that I had kept no reckoning. I
now learned, however, that the day on which I was taken off the island
was January 9th, 1826. I had, therefore, been a prisoner among these
savages ten years, all but two months."
Captain Jackson now gave Rutherford such clothes as he stood in need of,
in return for which the latter made him a present of his New Zealand
dress and battle axe.
The ship then proceeded to the Society Islands, and anchored on February
10th off Otaheite.
Here Rutherford went into the service of the British consul, by whom he
was employed in sawing wood. On May 26th he was married to a chief
woman, whose name, he says, was Nowyrooa, by Mr. Pritchard, one of the
English missionaries. While he resided here, he was also employed as an
interpreter by Captain Peachy, of the "Blossom" sloop of war, then
engaged in surveying those islands.
Still, however, longing very much to see his native country, he embarked
on January 6th, 1827, on board the brig "Macquarie," commanded by
Captain Hunter, and bound for Port Jackson. On taking leave of his wife
and friends, he made them a promise to return to the island in two
years, "which," says he, "I intend to keep, if it is in my power, and
end my days there."
The "Macquarie" reached Port Jackson on February 19th, and Rutherford
states that he met there a young woman who had been saved from the
massacre of those on board the "Boyd," and who gave him an account of
that event. This was probably the daughter of a woman whom Mr. Berry
brought to Lima.
He also found at Port Jackson two vessels on their way back to England,
with a body of persons who had attempted to form a settlement in New
Zealand, but who had been compelled to abandon their design, as he
understood, by the treacherous behaviour of the natives.
He now embarked on board the Sydney packet, commanded by Captain Tailor,
which proceeded first for Hobart Town, in Van Diemen's Land,[CP] and
after lying there for about a fortnight set sail again for Rio de
Janeiro.
On his arrival there he went into the service of Mr. Harris, a Dutch
gentleman. Mr. Harris, on learning his history, had him presented to the
Emperor Don Pedro, who asked him many questions by an interpreter, and
made him a present of eighty dollars. He also offered him employment in
his navy; but this Rutherford refused, preferring to return to England
in the "Blanche" frigate, then on the point of sailing, in which he
obtained a passage by an application to the British consul. On the
arrival of the ship at Spithead, he immediately left her, and proceeded
to Manchester, his native town, which he had not seen since he first
went to sea in the year 1806.
After his return to England Rutherford occasionally maintained himself
by accompanying a travelling caravan of wonders, showing his tattooing,
and telling something of his extraordinary adventures.
The publisher of this volume had many conversations with him in January,
1829, when he was exhibited in London. He was evidently a person of
considerable quickness, and great powers of observation. He went over
every part of his journal, which was read to him, with considerable
care, explaining any difficulties, and communicating several points of
information, of which we have availed ourselves in the course of this
narrative.
His manners were mild and courteous; he was fond of children, to whom he
appeared happy to explain the causes of his singular appearance and he
was evidently a man of very sober habits. He was pleased with the idea
of his adventures being published; and was delighted to have his
portrait painted, though he suffered much inconvenience in sitting to
the artist, with the upper part of his body uncovered, in a severe
frost.
Upon the whole he seemed to have acquired a great deal of the frankness
and easy confidence of the people with whom he had been living, and was
somewhat out of his element amidst the constrained intercourse and
unvarying occupations of England. He greatly disliked being shown for
money, which he submitted to principally that he might acquire a sum, in
addition to what he received for his manuscript, to return to Otaheite.
We have not heard of him since that time; and the probability is that he
has accomplished his wishes. He said that he should have no hesitation
in going to New Zealand; that his old companions would readily believe
that he had been carried away by force; that from his knowledge of their
customs, he could be most advantageously employed in trading with them;
and that, above all, if he were to take back a blacksmith with him, and
plenty of iron, he might acquire many of the most valuable productions
of the country, particularly tortoiseshell,[CQ] which he considered the
best object for an English commercial adventure.[CR]
Rutherford is not the only native of a civilized country whose fate it
has been to become resident for some time among the savages of New
Zealand. Besides his shipmates, who were taken prisoners along with him,
he himself, indeed, as we have seen, mentions two other individuals whom
he met with while in the country, one of whom had been eight years
there, and did not seem to have any wish to leave it.
[Illustration: A Maori war canoe.]
Savage gives a short notice of a European who was living in the
neighbourhood of the Bay of Islands when he was there in 1805. This
person, whose native country, or the circumstances that had induced him
to take up his abode where he then was, Savage could not discover,
shunned all intercourse with Europeans, and was wont to retire to the
interior whenever a ship approached the coast. The natives, however,
whose customs and manners he had adopted, spoke well of him; and Savage
often saw a New Zealand woman who lived with him, and one of their
children, which he represents as very far from exhibiting any
superiority either in mind or person over his associates of unmixed
breed. Its complexion was the same as that of the others, being
distinguished from them only by its light flaxen hair.
Marsden, also, in a letter written in 1813 to the secretary of the
Church Missionary Society, mentions a young man, a native of America,
with whom he had conversed in New South Wales, and who had lived for
above a year with the New Zealanders.
During all this time these savages, he said, had shown him the greatest
attention, and he would have been very glad to return to live among them
if he could have found any other Europeans to go with him.
Since the Bay of Islands has become so much the resort of shipping, many
seamen have left their ships and taken up their residence of their own
accord among the natives. The "Missionary Reports" state that, about the
close of the year 1824, there were perhaps twenty men who had thus found
their way into the country, and were living on plunder; and that within
the year not less, it was supposed, than a hundred sailors had in the
same manner taken refuge for a time in the island.
Although these men had all run away from their own ships, the captains
of other vessels touching at any part of the coast did not hesitate to
employ them when they wanted hands.
Mawman, whom Rutherford met with at Kiperra, had, it will be
recollected, made his escape, according to his own account, from a sloop
of war. These fugitives, however, it would appear, do not always succeed
in establishing themselves among the natives. Cruise mentions one who,
having run away from the "Anne" whaler, hid himself at first in the
woods, but soon after came on board the "Dromedary" in a most miserable
state, beseeching to be taken on the strength of the ship.
Convicts, too, occasionally make their escape to New Zealand, and
attempt to secrete themselves in the interior of the country. When the
"Active" was at the Bay of Islands in 1815, two men and a woman of this
description were sent on board to be taken back to New South Wales. The
woman, Nicholas says, was particularly dejected on being retaken; and it
was found that while on shore she had done everything in her power to
prevail upon one of the native females to assist her in her attempt to
conceal herself. Her friend, however, resisted all her entreaties; and
well knowing the hardships to which the poor creature would have exposed
herself, only replied to her importunate solicitations, "Me would, Mary,
but me got no tea, me got no sugar, no bed, no good things for you; me
grieve to see you, you cannot live like New Zealand woman, you cannot
sleep on the ground."
The Rev. Mr. Butler, in March, 1821, found two convicts who had escaped
from a whaler, in the hands of one of the chiefs, who was just preparing
to put them to death. On Butler interfering and begging that their lives
might be spared, the New Zealanders replied: "They are nothing but
slaves and thieves; they look like bad men, and are very ragged; they do
not belong to you, and we think they are some of King George's bad
cookees." After a great deal of discussion, however, they yielded so far
to Butler's entreaties and arguments as to agree not to kill the two
men; but the chief insisted that they should go home with him and work
for him four months, after which he said that he would give them up to
any ship that would take them to "King George's farm at Port Jackson."
When Nicholas was in New Zealand in 1815, he met with a Hindoo, who had
made his escape from Captain Patterson's ship, the "City of Edinburgh,"
about five years before, and had been living among the natives ever
since. Compared with the New Zealanders, he looked, Nicholas says, like
a pigmy among giants. However, he had got so much attached to the
manners of his new associates that he declared he would much rather
remain where he was than return to his own country. He had married a
native woman, and was treated, he said, in the kindest manner by the New
Zealanders, who always supplied him with plenty of food without
compelling him to do more work than he chose. Nicholas offered him some
rice, but he intimated that he decidedly preferred fern-root.
The circumstances of Rutherford's capture and detention in New Zealand
were but indifferently calculated to reconcile him to the new state of
society in which he was there compelled to mix, notwithstanding the rank
to which his superior intelligence and activity raised him.
Though a chief, he was still a prisoner; and even all the favour with
which he had himself been treated could not make him forget the fate of
his companions, or the warning which it afforded him to how sudden or
slight an accident his own life might at any time fall a sacrifice. But
it is certain that, where no such sense of constraint is felt, not only
the notion, but even the reality, of savage life has a strong charm for
many minds. The insecurity and privation which attend upon it are deemed
but a slight counterbalance to the independence, the exemption from
regular labour, and above all the variety of adventure, which it
promises to ardent and reckless spirits.
Generally, however, the Europeans that have adopted the life of the
savage have been men driven out from civilization, or disinclined to
systematic industry. They have not chosen the imaginary freedom and
security of barbarians, in contempt of the artificial restraints and
legal oppressions of a refined state of society, in the way that the
Greek did, whom Priscus found in the camp of Attila, declaring that he
lived more happily amongst the wild Scythians than ever he did under the
Roman government.
But if those who have been accustomed to the comforts of civilization
have not infrequently felt the influence of the seductions which a
barbarous condition offers to an excited imagination, it may well be
conceived that, to the man who has been born a savage, and nurtured in
all the feelings and habits of that state of society, they must address
themselves with still more irresistible effect.
We have many examples, accordingly, of how difficult it is to
extinguish, by any culture, either in an old or a young savage, his
innate passion for the wild life of his fathers.
Tippahee's son, Matara, on his return from England, strove to regain an
acquaintance with his native customs. Moyhanger, Savage's friend, might
be quoted as another instance, in whom all the wonders and attractions
of London would appear not to have excited a wish to see it again. Nor
does any great preference for civilized life seem to have been produced
in other cases, by even a much longer experience of its accommodations.
When Nicholas and Marsden visited New Zealand in 1815, they met at the
North Cape, where they first put on shore, a native of Otaheite, who had
been brought from his own country to Port Jackson when a boy of about
eleven or twelve years old. Here he had lived for some years in the
family of Mr. McArthur, where he had been treated with great kindness,
and brought up in all respects as an English boy would have been. Having
been sent to school he soon learned not only to speak English with
fluency, but to read and write it with very superior ability; and he
showed himself besides in everything remarkably tractable and obedient.
Yet nothing could wean him from his partiality to his original
condition; and he at last quitted the house of his protector, and
contrived to find his way to New Zealand. Here he settled among a people
even still more uncivilized than his own countrymen, and married the
daughter of one of the chiefs, to whose territories he had succeeded
when Nicholas met with him.
Jem (that was the name by which he had been known at Port Jackson) was
then a young man of about twenty-three years of age. Unlike his brother
chiefs, he was cleanly in his person; and his countenance not being
tattooed, nor darker than that of a Spaniard, while his manners
displayed a European polish, it was only his dress that betokened the
savage.
"His hair," says Nicholas, "which had been very carefully combed, was
tied up in a knot upon the crown of his head, and adorned with a long
white feather fancifully stuck in it; in his ears were large bunches of
the down of the gannet, white as the driven snow, and napping about his
cheeks with every gale. Like the natives, he wore the mat thrown over
his shoulders; but the one he had on was bordered with a deep Vandyke of
different colours, and gaily bedizened with the feathers of parrots and
other birds, reflecting at the same moment all the various shades in the
rainbow. He carried a musket in his hand, and had a martial and imposing
air about him, which was quite in character with the station he
maintained."
He brought his wife with him in a canoe to the ship; and having known
Marsden well in New South Wales, was delighted to see that gentleman,
and proved of considerable use to him in his intercourse with the other
New Zealanders. Although not accustomed to speak English in his new
country, Jem had by no means forgotten that language. He had been on
three warlike expeditions to the East Cape in the course of the past
five years; but had gone, he said, only because he could not help it,
and had never assisted in devouring the prisoners. Dillon met both Jem
and the Hindoo, when he was at the Bay of Islands in July, 1827. The
former had his son with him, a boy about twelve years of age.
These, and many other examples which might be added, exhibit the force
of habit which governs the actions of all men, whether in a savage or
civilized state. There are, of course, exceptions. When Cook left
Omai,[CS] during his last voyage, at Huaheine, with every provision for
his comfort, he earnestly begged to return to England. It was nothing
that a grant of land was made to him at the interposition of his English
friends, that a house was built and a garden planted for his use. He
wept bitter tears; for he was naturally afraid that his new riches would
make him an object of hatred to his countrymen. He was much caressed in
England; and he took back many valuable possessions and some knowledge.
But he was originally one of the common people; and he soon saw,
although he was not sensible of it at first, that without rank he could
obtain no authority. He forgot this, when he was away from the people
with whom he was to end his days; but he seemed to feel that he should
be insecure when his protector, Cook, had left their shores. He divided
his presents with the chiefs; and the great navigator threatened them
with his vengeance if Omai was molested. The reluctance of this man to
return to his original conditions was principally derived from these
considerations, which were to him of a strictly personal nature. The
picture which a popular poet has drawn of the feelings of Omai is very
beautiful, and in great part true as applied to him as an individual;
but it is not true of the mass of savages.
The habits amidst which they were born may be modified by an intercourse
with civilized men, but they cannot be eradicated. The following is the
poetical passage to which we alluded. Omai had, altogether, a more
distinguished destiny than any other savage--he was cherished by Cook,
painted by Reynolds, and apostrophised by Cowper:--
"The dream is past, and thou hast found again
Thy cocoas and bananas, palms and yams,
And homestall thatch'd with leaves. But hast thou found
Their former charms? And, having seen our state,
Our palaces, our ladies, and our pomp
Of equipage, our gardens, and our sports,
And heard our music, are thy simple friends,
Thy simple fare, and all thy plain delights,
As dear to thee as once? And have thy joys
Lost nothing by comparison with ours?
Rude as thou art (for we return'd thee rude
And ignorant, except of outward show)
I cannot think thee yet so dull of heart
And spiritless, as never to regret
Sweets tasted here, and left as soon as known.
Methinks I see thee straying on the beach,
And asking of the surge that bathes thy foot,
If ever it has wash'd our distant shore.
I see thee weep, and thine are honest tears,
A patriot's for his country: thou art sad
At thought of her forlorn and abject state,
From which no power of thine can raise her up."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote CO: Kaipuke, a ship.]
[Footnote CP: That is, Tasmania.]
[Footnote CQ: There are no tortoises in New Zealand.]
[Footnote CR: Rutherford did not return to New Zealand, and nothing more
was heard of him. On December 5th, 1828, "The Australian," which 'was
published in Sydney, stated that a man named Rutherford, who had been
tattooed by the Maoris, and naturalized by them, was then in London,
practising the trade of a pickpocket, in the character of a New Zealand
chief, but that was before he supplied his story for "The New
Zealanders."]
[Footnote CS: Omai was an islander, who was taken to England, where he
was lionized, and was afterwards taken back to the islands during Cook's
last voyage.]