THE TREATY
Captain Hobson having now by his own efforts and the agency of those
who were associated with him completed his negotiations with the
native chiefs, it remains for us to examine briefly the nature of the
compact into which the Maori and _Pakeha_ had thus solemnly
entered. The Treaty of Waitangi is a document of few clauses and
precise terms. Yet under the conflicting interests which it was
designed to harmonise few documents have been more generally
misunderstood or more persistently misinterpreted. More than once in
high places its utility has been denied, its simple contracts have
been repudiated, and its existence has been ignored. Lawyers have
repeatedly questioned its legality, courts have discussed its
constitutional force, parliaments have debated its wisdom, but still
it stands to-day--unaltered in text or spirit--the great charter of
Maori rights. Its most virulent enemies have ever been the land
speculators, and there are not wanting signs in these times of
unsatisfied land hunger--of never-ceasing speculation--that the treaty
has either been forgotten by those whose duty it is to remember it, or
that its obligations have ceased to have their old-time moral value.
Lest we forget that the treaty is still in force, and that native
lands are not common plunder for the avaricious _Pakeha_, let us
briefly review the circumstances which made the compact between the
two nations a political virtue, if not a political necessity.
It is a principle recognised by the civilised nations of the Earth
that the discovery of a waste and uninhabited land by a pioneering
country confers on that country a right, as against all other
civilised countries, to colonise its new discovery. In such a case the
discovering nation may in fact go further, by immediately taking
possession of the new-found territory, and assuming sovereignty over
it. In this way Norfolk Island being found devoid of inhabitants by
Captain Cook, his discovery of the sea-girt isle not only entitled
Britain to colonise it, but automatically added it to the possessions
of the Empire. This principle has thus been concisely stated by
Vattel: "All men have an equal right to the things which have not yet
fallen into the possession of any one; and these things appertain to
the first occupant. Wherefore, when a nation finds a country
uninhabited and without a master, it may lawfully seize upon the same,
and after it has adequately denoted its will in this respect another
cannot thereof despoil it. Thus navigators going on their voyages of
discovery, provided with a commission from their sovereign, and
falling in with desert islands, or other desert lands, have taken
possession of them in the name of their nation, and commonly this
title has been respected, provided that thereupon a real possession
has closely followed."
It is equally an acknowledged maxim of the Law of Nations that should
the newly discovered land not prove to be "waste and without a
master," but that it should be inhabited and under government of any
kind, then the mere fact of its discovery by a civilised nation
confers upon the discoverer no title to the soil, but only the prior
right to colonise as against other colonising nations. This is but the
natural reward which belongs to the enterprise displayed in fitting
out ships and expeditions destined to navigate unknown seas or to
travel in unknown lands. Such prior right to colonise is, however,
strictly limited by the important consideration that colonisation can
only take place with the free will and consent of the savage or
semi-civilised inhabitants of the newly discovered country. In no
sense does the act of discovery confer the right of property in the
land, or the right of sovereignty over its people. That is to say, in
the abstract, no nation whatever can under any pretext violate the
rights of any other independent nation. This was clearly the principle
which guided those British Governments to whose lot fell the
establishment of the first colonies in America. In all these cases was
the property of the Indian tribes respected, and no land was acquired
save by purchase, or by some other equitable arrangement made with the
aboriginal owners.[156] Hence in the celebrated case of the Cherokee
tribe against the State of Georgia, tried in 1832, before the late
Chief-Justice Marshall, that eminent judge was able to declare that as
the United States had only inherited its rights from Great Britain
after the War of Independence, the individual States could not assume
rights greater than Britain had claimed to possess prior to that
event. No right in Cherokee lands therefore vested in the State until
the Indian title had been honourably extinguished.
This equitable principle has not always been observed between
so-called civilised nations and semi-barbarous peoples, but that it
has long held a place amongst the ideals of men is suggested to us by
the Phoenician legend, that when the merchant princes of Tyre and
Sidon resolved to establish a trading factory on the site upon which
subsequently rose the city of Carthage, they fairly bought the land
from the natives of Northern Africa, the area being determined by the
length of the thongs cut from a bullock's hide. Such a story, coming
down to us as it does through the hoary mists of time, may or may not
appeal to our practical present-day minds, but the fact that it was
commonly told and commonly accepted amongst the ancients is at least
an indication that the principles which govern the conduct of modern
nations towards their less fortunate brethren are founded upon and
have the sanction of great antiquity.
When we come to apply these principles to New Zealand it is of course
necessary to remember that the first European discoverer[157] of this
Dominion was not Cook, but Abel Tasman. The Dutchman's association
with the country was, however, so cursory, and his nation's subsequent
interest in it so nominal, that to the sailor it appeared only as "a
great land uplifted high," while to his countrymen it was known only
as a vague scrawl upon the chart. That Tasman's discovery of 1642 gave
the Dutch a right to colonise in New Zealand had they been so disposed
is undoubted; but whatever rights they had thus acquired, such were
clearly exhausted by Holland's failure to assert them during the long
period of 135 years that elapsed before Cook came to make a reality of
what to Tasman had only been a shadow.
With his characteristic thoroughness Cook left no weak link in the
claim which he made on behalf of his nation. He landed on our shores,
held intercourse with the natives, he surveyed our coasts, he took
formal possession of both Islands "in the name, and for the use of His
Majesty King George III."
"A philosopher perhaps might enquire on what ground Lieutenant Cook
could take formal possession of this part of New Zealand in the name
and for the use of the King of Great Britain, when the country was
already inhabited, and of course belonged to those by whom it was
inhabited, and whose ancestors might have resided in it for many
preceding ages. To this the best answer seems to be that the
Lieutenant in the ceremony performed by him had no reference to the
original inhabitants, or any intention to deprive them of their
national rights, but only to preclude the claims of further European
navigators, who under the auspices and for the benefit of their
respective States, or Kingdoms, might form pretensions to which they
were not entitled by prior discovery."
So wrote one of the great explorer's most friendly biographers, and in
his dispassionate review of the facts we have a correct summation of
the rights which Cook's discoveries did and did not confer upon our
nation. Clearly New Zealand was not a country in which, or over which,
Britain could, by Cook's act, acquire a _bona fide_ possession, for it
was inhabited by a strong and virile people, living under a system of
government adequate in all respects for their social and military
purposes.
In conferring upon New Zealand her charter of severance from New South
Wales in 1840 Lord John Russell thus conveyed to Captain Hobson his
view of the governmental state to which the Maori had risen: "They are
not mere wanderers over an extended surface in search of a precarious
existence; nor tribes of hunters, or of herdsmen, but a people among
whom the arts of government have made some progress; who have
established by their own customs a division and appropriation of the
soil; who are not without some measure of agricultural skill, and a
certain subordination of ranks, with usages having the character and
authority of law." New Zealand then being an inhabited country and a
country under a system of government at least so efficient as to
subsequently induce the British authorities to recognise the Maori
nation as an independent State, it becomes obvious that this could not
be designated a land which could be lawfully seized upon by
circumnavigators.
But such rights as Cook's discoveries did confer upon the nation, the
Government of that day sought to conserve. Following upon his return
to England with the accounts of his travels in strange waters, his
contact with strange peoples, his finding of new lands, proclamations
were issued which were not contested by other Powers. The Dutch title
to these islands was thereby lawfully extinguished, and New Zealand,
Van Dieman's Land, and Australia became for geographical and
colonising purposes portions of the British Empire.
A laudable effort was made to render the claims of Britain even more
explicit when in 1787 Captain Philip was appointed by Royal Commission
Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief in and over the colony of New
South Wales and its dependencies, which were claimed to include all
the discoveries of Cook in the Southern Pacific. The territory over
which the new Governor was authorised to exercise jurisdiction was
described in his Commission as extending "from Cape York, the
extremity of the coast to the northward in the latitude of 11° 37´
south, to the South Cape, the southern extremity of the coast in the
latitude of 43° 30´ south, and inland to the westward as far as 135°
of east longitude, comprehending all the islands adjacent in the
Pacific Ocean within the latitudes of the above-mentioned capes."
Unfortunately, owing doubtless to imperfect geographical knowledge on
the part of those responsible, these boundaries were but loosely
defined, for if they had been strictly adhered to, then Britain was
setting up a claim not only to Cook's valuable discoveries, but to all
the islands eastward of Australia, as far as the western coast of
South America, embracing many Spanish discoveries; while on the other
hand they excluded not only Stewart's Island, but all that part of the
Southern Island of New Zealand south of Bank's Peninsula. Governor
Philip's Commission was therefore faulty, because it asserted
excessive rights in the one direction and made insufficient claims on
the other.
It is true that in later years these boundaries were abandoned and the
position made even more anomalous. During the Governorship of Sir
Thomas Brisbane it was deemed expedient to separate Van Dieman's Land
from New South Wales, and more circumscribed limits were assigned to
the Mother State. In this readjustment, whether by accident or design
it is impossible now to say, not only Van Dieman's Land but New
Zealand were excluded from amongst the dependencies of New South
Wales. Then it became an arguable point whether the word "adjacent"
had ever covered Islands so far distant from the parent colony, and
much legal acumen was expended in the effort to justify the contention
that New Zealand had always been beyond the pale of the dependencies.
Up to this point, however, the official mind had never been troubled
by doubts as to the extent of its jurisdiction. Governor Philip not
only believed that his authority extended to New Zealand, but far
beyond it, and under this belief he actually colonised Norfolk Island
as a part of the territory he had been commissioned to govern. In like
manner the British Government believed it had a right to all that it
claimed in Philip's Commission; and at the Congress of Vienna at the
close of the Napoleonic wars in 1814, when the map of Europe was
recast, it had its claims allowed, New Zealand being acknowledged by
the Great Powers to be a portion of our then infant Empire. Even
earlier in the century Ministers had seriously discussed a
representation made by Lieutenant-Colonel Foveaux, of the New South
Wales Corps, to appoint a Lieutenant-Governor in New Zealand, which
under his scheme was to become a penal settlement subordinate to New
South Wales. Fortunately for New Zealand that baneful suggestion was
not entertained; but Governor Macquarie appointed Justices of the
Peace and exercised the functions of Government within the Islands, as
did his successor, Sir Thomas Brisbane, down to the time of his
proclamation which excluded New Zealand from amongst the dependencies
of New South Wales.
Thus far Britain would seem _prima facie_ to have kept alive her
right to colonise in these Islands as against any other nation,
except, perhaps, in the important particular that she had not
systematically occupied the land. It is not sufficient that discovery
should take place, or that the free will and consent of the native
inhabitants should be obtained to the introduction of colonisation. It
is an essential factor in the acquisition of new territory that the
sanction thus secured should be followed up by speedy emigration and
effective settlement, for obviously no nation could be permitted to
hold idle for an indefinite period vast tracts of waste country to the
exclusion of another nation to whom the inhabitants might also be
willing to concede the right to colonise. The principle upon which
this view is based has thus been stated: "The Law of Nations, then,
will recognise the proprietary rights, and the sovereignty of a
nation over only uninhabited countries which it shall have occupied
really and in fact, in which it shall have formed a settlement, or
from which it shall be deriving an actual use."
In the case of inhabited countries the condition of occupation is no
less exacting. It is, however, hedged about by the additional
restriction that before occupation can take place the right to settle
must be ceded by the inhabitants. Had the point ever become one of
national importance as between ourselves and France, Britain might
have pleaded that her occupation was at least as far advanced as that
of her rival. She might have pointed to her Missionaries, her traders,
and her whalers as evidences of an irregular settlement by no means
inconsiderable. But whatever importance British jurists may have
attached to such a form of occupation in the settlement of an
international dispute, it cannot be denied that it loses much of its
value from the fact that the settlement was irregular, and that
British Ministers would have been put in the anomalous position of
calling to their aid a condition of society which had arisen, not with
the sanction of the Crown, but in spite of the Crown.
If these views be founded on the principles of justice, it will be
seen that it is a popular fallacy to suppose that Britain acquired any
rights of sovereignty in, or over New Zealand by virtue of Cook's
discovery. Her position in 1770 was much less absolute than that, and
whatever rights she had then acquired she subsequently proceeded to
abrogate. In 1817 commenced a period of renunciation during which
successive British Governments appeared only too anxious to absolve
themselves from all further colonial responsibilities. Not only by
neglect, but by direct Act and Ordinance did they repudiate the claim
to New Zealand which their predecessors had been laboriously building
up through all these years. These Acts of repudiation were
specifically enumerated by Lord John Russell in the memorandum which
he prepared for Lord Palmerston in reply to the protest of the New
Zealand Company against the views on sovereignty adopted by Lord
Normanby in his instructions to Captain Hobson, and it was the known
abrogation in these statutes of whatever claim Britain may have had to
New Zealand that led to the Declaration of Maori Independence in 1835.
It cannot be said that this Declaration of Independence was a serious
bar to Britain's colonising scheme, for under the Confederation of
Chiefs which grew out of it, no Government was founded stable enough
to merit recognition by other established administrations. Indeed its
own members were the first to acknowledge its failure in the face of
the difficulties by which it was confronted. As useless and as
harmless as the "paper pellet" to which it has been compared by the
sarcastic Gipps, it was neither government for the Maori nor a
controlling influence for the Europeans. It was therefore not that
which the Maori had done which created difficulty for the Melbourne
Cabinet when they had seriously to face the question of assuming
responsibility in New Zealand--the obstacles to be overcome had,
curiously enough, been raised by the acts of the British Parliament
itself. This was why, at the critical hour, Britain stood in no better
position towards New Zealand than did any of the other nations; why
she had to run the gauntlet of their competition for sovereignty, and
why more astute statesmanship on the part of France or the United
States might have robbed her of "the fairest flower in all the field."
In bidding for the sovereignty of the country two courses were open to
the British Government--force of arms, or honourable negotiation with
the chiefs. It is not to be doubted that had Britain chosen to invade
the country, she might, by pouring her battalions into it, in course
of time have overcome the tribes by the slaughter of the sword. But
who can estimate at what a cost the country would thus have been
won?--while the crime of it would have been even more awful to
contemplate than the sacrifice of blood and treasure. Happily it can
never be suggested that Lord Melbourne's Ministers had ever
contemplated such a mode of securing sovereignty. Their personal view
was that it must be ceded if it was to be acquired at all, while the
House of Commons had made it abundantly clear that it would accept it
on no other terms.
Here then we have the genesis of the treaty. Discovery gave us no
right of sovereignty. Force of arms was incompatible with the spirit
of the times; possibly beyond the resources of the nation. Negotiation
on the other hand had been made easy by the labours of the
Missionaries, and the repeated expressions of good-will which had
passed between the British Sovereigns and the chiefs. It was the line
of least resistance; a mode agreeable to the national conscience, and
approved by the laws of civilisation. For these all-sufficient reasons
then Captain Hobson was despatched to New Zealand, charged with the
mission of securing for the British Crown the sovereignty of the
country by the "free and intelligent consent of the natives, according
to their established usages."
In proceeding to an analysis of the treaty itself it will not be
necessary to refer to the preamble, which is but an abridged recital
of all that has appeared in the previous chapters of this work. It
asserts no principle, and is remarkable only for the fact that it
reflects in dignified terms the spirit of justice and equity in which
its promoters desired to approach the Maori people.
In the first clause the chiefs both within and without the
Confederation were invited to "cede to Her Majesty Queen Victoria
absolutely and without reservation all the rights and powers of
sovereignty which the said Confederation or individual chiefs
respectively exercise or possess, or may be supposed to exercise or
possess, over their respective territories as the sole sovereigns
thereof."
It has been said that this was a condition which the natives never
did, and could not possibly understand, seeing that they had neither
sovereignty amongst themselves, nor any word in their language to
express the idea of sovereignty. Their tribal system, it is true, was
fatal to the principle of sovereignty in its broadest sense, and until
the formation of the Confederation of Chiefs there was no force
amongst them capable of exercising absolute authority over any great
number of the people, the sovereignty of each chief being limited to
his own tribe. No real sovereignty, however, vested even in the
Confederation. From the first it was impotent as a national
Government, because it lacked the requisite cohesion. Mutual tribal
jealousies still prevailed, making it a Confederation only in name;
and so far as is known it did not pretend to exercise any sort of
dominion over the people after the excitement consequent upon the
advent of Baron de Thierry had subsided. The native mind had therefore
learned nothing of what was meant by sovereignty as we understand it,
from the union of their chiefs. All that they knew of a paramount
authority which it was their duty habitually to obey was the
_mana_[158] of their personal chiefs. That they understood perfectly,
and that conveyed to them all that they required to understand. Each
chief was a sovereign over his own people, and the people were not so
lacking in intelligence as not to perceive that the treaty meant the
passing of this _mana_ from the chief to the Queen. It would, of
course, be radically unsound to pretend that every native who signed
the treaty had perfectly grasped its provisions, and knew with even
moderate certainty what he was retaining and what he was conceding. In
many instances, particularly where the land had already been sold, it
might not be incorrect to say that some of the chiefs did not even
attempt to comprehend it. The red blanket[159] or the juicy plug of
tobacco was an irresistible bait to many who felt they had no longer a
"name," and so far as they were concerned, sovereignty and all else
might fly to the four winds so long as their personal wants and their
love of colour were gratified. The predicament in which those natives
found themselves who afterwards alleged they had signed the treaty
without a full appreciation of its terms and its obligations was
poignantly put by Paora (Paul) Tuahaere, who, speaking at the
Kohimarama Conference[160] in 1860, said the treaty had come "in a
time of ignorance," and upbraided the elder chiefs for being caught
thus unwarily. "Blankets were brought by Mr. Williams. These I call
the bait. The fish did not know there was a hook within. He took the
bait and was caught. When he came to a chief Mr. Williams presented
his hook and drew out a subject for the Queen."
In less figurative, but not less pointed speech, Paora was supported
by Heme Parae, who declared that the only law he heard of in 1840 was
the law of God. "As to what is called the Treaty of Waitangi, I have
heard nothing about it. It is true I received one blanket from Mr.
Williams, but I did not understand what was meant by it. It was given
to me without explanation by Mr. Williams and Reihana."
Twenty-three years after the event, when discussing the mental
attitude of the Maori towards the treaty, the Rev. John Warren, one of
the Wesleyan Missionaries, wrote: "I was present at the great meeting
at Waitangi when the celebrated treaty was signed, and also at a
meeting which took place subsequently on the same subject at Hokianga.
There was a great deal of talk by the natives, principally on the
subject of securing their proprietary right in the land, and their
personal liberty. Everything else they were only too happy to yield to
the Queen, as they said repeatedly, because they knew they could only
be saved from the rule of other nations by sitting under the shadow of
the Queen of England. In my hearing they frequently remarked, "Let us
be one people. We had the Gospel from England, let us have the law
from England." My impression at the time was that the natives
perfectly understood that by signing the treaty they became British
subjects, and though I lived among them more than fifteen years after
that event, and often conversed with them on the subject, I never saw
the slightest reason to change my opinion. The natives were at that
time in mortal fear of the French, and justly thought they had done a
pretty good stroke of business when they had placed the British lion
between themselves and the French eagle. We have heard indignation
expressed at the way in which the natives were, in the treaty,
overreached by the Government, especially in the matter of securing to
the Queen the right of pre-emption in the purchase of their lands.
There is a native proverb which says, with reference to a man of great
keenness and sagacity, 'He was born with his teeth,' and in the matter
of making bargains the New Zealanders may be said to be a people who
were born with their teeth. I believe it is a very long time since it
was possible to overreach the natives much in a bargain. I know that
their particular clause of the treaty was there by their own urgent
request, and that it met with the universal and unqualified
approbation of the chiefs."
In adopting this view Mr. Warren is not singular, for we find that his
impression is confirmed by many equally competent authorities. It
would therefore be an undeserved reflection upon the well-established
intelligence of the Maori race to suppose that these indifferents
constituted any large section of the people, there being amongst them
a wide comprehension of the two great principles embodied in the
treaty--that they were surrendering the magisterial control of the
country to the Queen, and retaining the possession of the land to
themselves.[161] The speeches of its opponents were eloquent of this
fact. This was what Te Kemara meant when he exclaimed, "If thou
stayest as Governor then perhaps Te Kemara will be judged and
condemned. Yes, indeed and more than that--even hung by the neck."
This surely was what the great Te Heuheu of Taupo meant when,
addressing some natives who had signed the treaty, he said: "You are
all slaves now. Your dignity and power are gone, but mine is not. Just
as there is one man in Europe, King George, so do I stand alone in New
Zealand; the chief over all others; the only free man left. Look at
me, for I do not hide when I say I am Te Heuheu. I rule over you all
just as my ancestor Tonga-Riro, the mountain of snow, stands over all
this land."
The forms by which our sovereignty was exercised were doubtless new
and strange to them, as witness their amazement at the pains the Crown
took to prove a crime against a prisoner who had already confessed his
guilt.[162] In some instances the degree of authority parted with may
also have exceeded their anticipations, for we are told that it came
as a shock to some of the chiefs when they discovered that they were
not free to kill their slaves under the new regime as they had been
under the old. Failure to comprehend such details is understandable in
the peculiarity of the circumstances. Indeed complete clarity of
mental vision could not have been expected, and would not have been
attained in all particulars had civilised men instead of savages been
concerned. The natives, however, understood clearly enough that for
the advantages they hoped to reap from the treaty they were yielding
much of their existing power to the _Pakeha_ Governor, and
whether it was much or little they were the more willing to surrender
it because they realised that the advent of the European had so
altered their social conditions that rule by the old method was no
longer possible.
To these convictions must be added the indispensable persuasions of
the Missionaries, in whose word and advice the Maoris placed implicit
trust; but the thing which proved the determining influence in the
negotiations--more than the inducements offered by the Crown, or the
persuasions of the Missionaries--was that the chiefs had acquired a
clear grip of the primal fact that whatever it took from them, the
treaty left them in secure possession of their lands.
The sovereignty was the shadow, the land was the substance; and since
the shadow was already passing from them by force of circumstances
over which they were powerless to exercise control, they consented to
its surrender with all the less regret. Once having determined upon
this course, and given effect to their determination, there was no
wavering, even though in its early stages the rule of the
_Pakeha_ must have clashed harshly with their ideas of individual
authority. The Maori people were a people capable of delegating their
sovereign rights, and they did so delegate them. The Treaty of
Waitangi therefore became what it professed to be, a yielding of the
supreme political power in the country to the British Crown,[163] and
when the last signature had been put to it, Britain's right to
colonise and govern in New Zealand was incontestable before all the
world.
That is why it has always appeared to the writer that there was at the
time, and has been for many years since, much beating of the air by
the importance given to the so-called race to Akaroa, between the
British sloop _Britomart_ and the French frigate _L'Aube_,
when, soon after the consummation of the treaty, the sovereignty of the
South Island was supposed to be in danger. As this incident is the
leading historical event which seems to challenge the value of the
clause now under review it will be convenient to discuss it here.
Major Bunbury had returned from his southern mission on July 4, and at
midnight of the 10th the French corvette, _L'Aube_, cast anchor
in the Bay of Islands. From the pilot who went out to bring her in,
Captain Lavaud heard that British sovereignty had been proclaimed over
the country by Captain Hobson, and that the Union Jack was flying over
his residence as an evidence of the fact.
This was serious intelligence for the Frenchman, who saw in it a
circumstance that would render discreet a material modification of the
instructions under which he had sailed from France. He had been
commissioned to hoist the French flag at Akaroa, where a colony of his
countrymen was to be established under his protection. These
instructions had been given to him by the French Ministry in ignorance
of the British Government's intentions, and Captain Lavaud now saw
that to carry them out in their strict and literal sense must
inevitably plunge the two countries into a distressful and useless
war. The French Commander thus found himself in a position of great
delicacy, but fortunately he was an officer blessed with a healthy
frankness of spirit, and he lost no time in communicating to Captain
Hobson the real nature of his mission. So soon as he had satisfied
himself by an examination of the treaty and the proclamations that
British sovereignty had been procured in a manner such as could be
approved by other nations, and was effectual in its operation, he
readily agreed to respect the rights thus acquired without committing
himself so far as to formally acknowledge them until he should hear
further from his own Government. At the same time he undertook, upon
the first opportunity, to communicate with his Minister, and he
entertained little doubt that on his representation of the altered
conditions he would be instructed to recognise British sovereignty,
and honour the British flag. It is at least certain that at the
conferences between the two officers, an amicable arrangement was
arrived at by which the French commander was able to preserve the
honour of his own flag, while avoiding the tragedy of a conflict
between their respective countries. There is even colour for the
suggestion that the subsequent despatch of H.M.S. _Britomart_,
followed by _L'Aube_, was only a part of a preconcerted plan, and that
the much-paraded race to Akaroa between the French corvette and the
British sloop was not a serious contest for sovereignty, but merely a
little piece of theatrical play, promoted for the purpose of saving
the Frenchman's face. Certain it is that before he left the Bay of
Islands, Captain Lavaud had realised that it would be impossible to
carry out his instruction at Akaroa without rupturing the national
peace, and he was equally determined that he would not accept the
responsibility of firing the first shot until he had been further
advised from Paris. When this is understood it is all that is
necessary to explain the conciliatory manner in which he met the
British demands at Akaroa, and participated with our officers in the
preservation of order at the southern settlement.
During their stay at the Bay of Islands the officers of _L'Aube_
were entertained with the utmost cordiality by Captain Hobson, who in
conversation with their Commander learned something of the proceedings
of the Nantes-Bordelaise Company, a colonising corporation organised
in France for the purpose of establishing a settlement of their own
countrymen at Banks's Peninsula, and whose vessel, the _Comte de
Paris_, was now within a few days' sail of the coast. In 1838 a
Captain L'Anglois, as master of a French whaler, had visited Banks's
Peninsula, and there, for some articles of European manufacture valued
at £6, together with some agreeable promises, had secured the
signatures of several chiefs to a deed conveying to him an estate of
30,000 acres of the Peninsula's finest land.[164] This document,
composed in French, provided the basis of a negotiation which
L'Anglois arranged between two mercantile firms in Nantes, two in
Bordeaux, and three Parisian gentlemen, by which they agreed to
promote the Nantes-Bordelaise Company whose purpose was to promote a
French colony in New Zealand. Their project received the sanction and
support of Louis Philippe, who undertook to sustain their enterprise
by the presence of one or two ships of war in the South Pacific.
Meanwhile the French King had repeatedly assured the British Foreign
Office that he had no designs towards territorial aggrandisement in
New Zealand. This, in a qualified sense, may have been perfectly true,
because while it had been agreed that the Nantes-Bordelaise Company
was to cede certain lands to the French Crown in consideration of the
protection afforded them, there is every reason to suppose that the
French colonising design did not extend beyond Banks's Peninsula, and
that there never was any serious intention to annex the South Island.
This position was made clear to Captain Hobson by Captain Lavaud, and
if it was not secretly agreed upon as a means of strengthening the
latter's hands in making his representations to his Government, the
sending of the _Britomart_ south with two Magistrates can only have
been a precautionary measure on the part of Hobson, who hoped by this
means to make the assurance of his former act doubly sure. It has long
been a cherished conviction in our history that by his strategetical
move Captain Hobson cleverly outwitted the French. It is more probable
that he was acting in concert with them, and that what has hitherto
passed as a popular historical fact must now be relegated to the realm
of historical fiction. Be that as it may, it is a fact that on the
night of July 30, while _L'Aube_ lay at her anchors, the old and
weather-worn _Britomart_ sailed for Akaroa, carrying with her
Messrs. Robinson and Murphy, who were instructed to open courts at all
the settlements on the Peninsula, where the British flag was also to
be displayed by Captain Stanley. The manner in which that officer, and
those associated with him, executed their mission, is told in the
Commander's Despatch, written while the Britomart was returning to the
Bay of Islands.
HER MAJESTY'S SHIP "BRITOMART,"
_September 17, 1840_.
SIR--I have the honour to inform Your Excellency that I
proceeded in Her Majesty's sloop under my command to the port of
Akaroa, in Banks's Peninsula, where I arrived on August 10, after a
very stormy passage, during which the stern-boat was washed away, and
one of the quarter boats stove. The French frigate _L'Aube_ had
not arrived when I anchored, nor had any French emigrants been
landed. On August 11 I landed, accompanied by Messrs. Murphy and
Robinson, Police Magistrates, and visited the only two parts of the
Bay where there were houses. At both places the flag was hoisted, and
a court, of which notice had been given the day before, was held by
the Magistrates. Having received information that there were three
whaling stations on the Southern side of the Peninsula the exposed
positions of which afforded no anchorage for the _Britomart_, I
sent Messrs. Murphy and Robinson to visit them in a whale boat. At
each station the flag was hoisted and a court held. On August 15 the
French frigate _L'Aube_ arrived, having been four days off the
port. On the 16th the French whaler _Comte de Paris_, having on
board 57 French emigrants, arrived.[165] With the exception of Mr.
Bellegui, from the Jardin des Plantes, who is sent out to look after
the emigrants, and who is a good botanist and mineralogist, the
emigrants are all of the lower order, and include carpenters,
gardeners, stone-masons, labourers, a baker, and a miner, in all 30
men, 11 women, and the rest children. Captain Lavaud, on the arrival
of the French emigrants, assured me on his word of honour that he
would maintain the most strict neutrality between the British
residents and the emigrants, and that should any difference arise
between them he would settle matters impartially. Captain Lavaud also
informed me that as the _Comte de Paris_ had to proceed to sea,
whaling, that he would cause the emigrants to be landed in some
unoccupied part of the Bay, where he pledged himself he would do
nothing that could be considered as hostile to our Government; that
the emigrants would merely build themselves houses for shelter, and
clear away what little land they might require for gardens. Upon
visiting the _Comte de Paris_ I found that she had on board, besides
agricultural tools for the settlers, six long 24-pounders, mounted
on field carriages. I immediately called upon Captain Lavaud to
protest against the guns being landed. Captain Lavaud assured me he
had been much surprised at finding the guns had been sent out in the
_Comte de Paris_, but that he had already given the most positive
orders that they should not be landed. On August 19 the French
emigrants having landed in a sheltered, well-chosen part of the Bay,
where they could not interfere with any one, I handed over to Messrs.
Murphy and Robinson the instructions entrusted to me by Your
Excellency to meet such a contingency. Mr. Robinson, finding that he
could engage three or four Englishmen as constables, and having been
enabled through the kindness of Captain Lavaud to purchase a boat
from a French whaler, decided upon remaining. Captain Lavaud
expressed much satisfaction when I informed him that Mr. Robinson was
to remain, and immediately offered him the use of his cabin and table
as long as _L'Aube_ remained at Akaroa. Mr. Robinson accepted Captain
Lavaud's offer until he could establish himself on shore. On August
27 I sailed from Akaroa for Pigeon Bay, when finding no inhabitants I
merely remained long enough to survey the harbour, which, though
narrow and exposed to the northward, is well sheltered from every
other wind and is much frequented by whalers, who procure great
numbers of pigeons. From Pigeon Bay I went to Port Cooper, where Mr.
Murphy held a Court; several chiefs were present, and seemed to
understand and appreciate Mr. Murphy's proceedings in one or two
cases that came before him. Between Port Cooper and Cloudy Bay I
could hear of no anchorage whatever from the whalers who frequent the
coast. I arrived at Port Nicholson on September 2, embarked Messrs.
Shortland and Stuart, and sailed for the Bay of Islands on September
16.
Much has been said and written concerning this incident, and in the
discussion it has been invested with an importance which it does not
deserve. In no sense can it rightly be elevated into the crisis of a
great international dispute, for the simple and sufficient reason that
no dispute existed. Whatever Captain Hobson may have understood as the
result of his conversation with Captain Lavaud, the amiable manner in
which that officer complied with every request made by Captain
Stanley, together with his conciliatory despatch to his own immediate
Minister in France, indicate that he at least had no views in the
direction of taking forcible possession of any territory in New
Zealand, since British sovereignty over it had been officially
declared. The pleasure he expressed when he learned that the British
Magistrate had determined to remain amongst the settlers; the ready
hospitality he extended to him; his refusal to allow the master of the
_Comte de Paris_ to land the artillery brought in that vessel; and his
promise to do even-handed justice to both English and French should
disputes arise, were not the acts of a man who felt that he had been
forestalled and worsted in a race involving the sacrifice of new
territory and the loss of national prestige.
That Captains Hobson and Lavaud understood each other perfectly is
abundantly clear from the letter which the latter wrote to the former
over twelve months (September 17, 1841) after the events just
narrated. In the month of October 1840 Mr. Robinson, the Magistrate
stationed at Akaroa, had intimated his intention of hoisting the
British flag, against which Captain Lavaud had successfully protested,
as being, in the peculiar circumstances, calculated to inflame the
prejudices of the colonists, and to destroy his influence as a keeper
of the peace between his own people and the whalers. When Governor
Hobson paid his first official visit to Akaroa in September 1841,
Captain Lavaud interviewed him and subsequently wrote to him,
explaining the incident, and asked that his action might be sustained.
During the course of his communication he said:
You have been good enough to promise me that you will give orders to
Mr. Robinson that nothing shall be changed in the already established
position at Akaroa, upon which we were agreed at the Bay of Islands,
until I should receive fresh instructions. I have received nothing
since my arrival in New Zealand, but I learned when you arrived that
the corvette _L'Allier_ was being fitted out at Brest in
February last, to come to relieve me, and would consequently bring
the instructions which I now await with so much impatience. This
vessel must now soon arrive, and any day I ought to see it make its
appearance. From the note of our _chargé d'affaires_ at London,
which you were good enough to send to me, I have no doubt as to the
recognition by the French Government of British sovereignty over
these Islands, and that is all the more reason why I should appeal to
Your Excellency to maintain the position we are in to-day, until the
arrival of the vessel which will take the place of _L'Aube_ in
the protection of the fisheries. My conduct at Akaroa should have
sufficiently proved to the British Government that I have no idea of
opposing the rights of Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain to the
sovereignty, or in any way impeding it, upon the land. There has been
no act on my part, other than with the idea of maintaining order in
this place, and preventing friction between the two races. It is not
without some trouble and firmness that I have been able, up to the
present, to maintain order and satisfy the colonists. I have told
them that I have taken all the responsibility upon myself until I
receive fresh instructions, and that then I would inform them
definitely as to the position in which they would be placed with
regard to the British Government. If so soon before the time when my
promise should be fulfilled some aggressive action on the part of the
British Government were to take place my honour would be seriously
compromised. The authority which I exercise over my countrymen has,
up to the present, been as advantageous to the interests of Great
Britain as to the colonists, seeing that it has only been used for
the maintenance of order. More than once I have been asked by the
Magistrate appointed by Your Excellency to interfere in a quarrel
between some Englishmen and the police who had been driven back and
beaten by the first named. The corvette which I command, in giving
its protection to the authorities, detained the law-breakers for a
few days, and since it was proved that the war-ship was a protection
for British authority, order has been maintained. Last October,
however, this influence which has been exercised only for good by me,
was on the point of being destroyed, when Mr. Robinson announced that
he was going to hoist the British flag. Upon representations from me
he consented to postpone these proceedings. The following were the
grounds upon which I based my objection: The hoisting of the flag in
the present state of affairs would add nothing to British rights, the
flag having already been hoisted and saluted by the corvette
_Herald_ before my arrival. The proclamations in the name of the
Queen had quite another effect, as also had the acts and presence of
the Magistrate to enforce the British sovereignty. Nothing on my part
could have caused the English authorities to doubt in any way the
purity and sincerity of my intentions, and of the arrangements
between myself and Captain Stanley, to whom I promised that no arms
or projectiles of war should be landed. If the British flag were to
be hoisted at Akaroa so shortly before the day when I shall doubtless
receive orders from my Government to recognise the British
sovereignty, the authority which I exercise over my countrymen would
come to an end. I should be unable to interfere in any manner
whatever on land for the maintenance of peace and order. I should
confine myself to my functions as captain of my ship, and should
regard myself merely as the protector of my nation's subjects in case
of trouble or judicial proceedings, as in the case of all foreign
countries where there is no Consul. From such a state of affairs
serious evils might result, and before long, so you may be assured
from the experience of my fourteen months' sojourn here,
consternation and disgust would take possession of the colonists;
work would not be proceeded with; there would be widespread
drunkenness, and most complete disorder. If on the other hand you may
think fit to order Mr. Robinson to await the arrival of my
instructions, which certainly cannot fail to be in agreement with the
spirit of the note of our _chargé d'affaires_, in London, you will at
the same time prevent the colony being placed in the undesirable
position which I have shown you is possible, and you will give me the
pleasure of according to your flag, the day it is hoisted, the
honours which are due to it, without any disturbance taking place, as
I shall inform the colonists that my Government, having recognised
the Queen's sovereignty, they must, like myself, submit to the orders
I have received.
This letter Captain Hobson acknowledged with becoming courtesy, and
promised that as, under existing circumstances, no question could
arise respecting the sovereign rights of Her British Majesty over
every part of the colony of New Zealand, he would willingly forego the
exhibition of any authority that could have a tendency to weaken
Captain Lavaud's influence over the minds of his countrymen. He would
therefore not display the British flag or publish any proclamation at
Akaroa, unless some pressing and unforeseen event should render such
measures necessary.[166]
Fortunately no such exceptional circumstances did arise before the
formal acknowledgment was made by France, and in the following
November Hobson, when penning his despatch to the Home authorities,
was able to assure them that Captain Lavaud's attitude had been
consistent throughout; that he had frankly disclaimed any national
intentions on the part of his Government, but had vigilantly supported
the claims of the French emigrants as private individuals. As a matter
of fact, since he had satisfied himself as to the validity of Britain's
pretensions, Captain Lavaud had taken up the position that he was in
these waters for no other purpose than to see his countrymen peaceably
settled on the estate of 30,000 acres to which the Nantes-Bordelaise
Company believed they had secured a title by one of those loose
transactions so common in the history of New Zealand. He was
determined to preserve the peace until he should be instructed to make
war.
But had his intentions been other than peaceable, Captain Hobson's
precautions in sending Magistrates to Akaroa could not have made the
British title more secure than it already was. The Treaty of Waitangi
was a compact such as no civilised nation could, or would ignore, and
when Major Bunbury, by virtue of that treaty, hoisted the British flag
at the Cloudy Bay _pa_ on June 17, 1840, he put the sovereignty
in the South Island beyond all question of doubt until it could be
wrested from Britain by force of arms.
The most that can be said for the sudden despatch of the _Britomart_
to Akaroa, and the proceedings of her Captain and his associates
there, is that the presence of British authority on the Peninsula may
have prevented the growth of any false ideas concerning national
interests in the minds of the emigrants, and so obviated possible
friction at a later date. In no sense did it give anew to Britain a
right that had already been ceded to her by the only people who were
capable of ceding it--the natives. That the official mind of France
had no delusions on this point was demonstrated during the discussion
which engaged the Chamber of Deputies after the receipt of Captain
Lavaud's despatch, when M. Guizot, as Foreign Minister, maintained in
the face of the sharpest opposition that the British proclamation read
at Cloudy Bay determined by the highest principles known to nations in
whom the right of sovereignty lay.
It is both interesting and instructive to observe that during this
debate M. Guizot declined to seriously discuss the proclamation issued
by Captain Hobson on May 21, declaring the Queen's sovereignty over
the South Island, "by right of discovery," although the point was
warmly pressed by MM. Billault and Berryer. Captain Hobson had always
favoured this mode of dealing with the South Island, he being under a
grave misapprehension both as to the number and character of the
natives residing there. Before he left England he felt that his
instructions were meagre in this regard, and in seeking more explicit
direction from the Chief Secretary of State he drew the attention of
Lord Normanby to what he regarded as a material distinction between
Britain's position in the two Islands. In August (1839) he wrote to
his Lordship:
The first paragraph (of the original instructions) relates to the
acquisition of the sovereign rights by the Queen over the Islands of
New Zealand. Under this head I perceive that no distinction is made
between the Northern and Southern Islands, although their relations
with this country, and their respective advancement towards
civilisation are essentially different. The Declaration of
Independence of New Zealand was signed by the United chiefs of the
Northern Island only (in fact only of the Northern part of that
Island) and it was to them alone that His late Majesty's letter was
addressed on the presentation of their flag; and neither of these
instruments had any application whatsoever to the Southern Islands.
It may be of vast importance to keep this distinction in view, not as
regards the natives, towards whom the same measure of justice must be
dispensed, however their allegiance may have been obtained, but as it
may apply to British settlers, who claim a title to property in New
Zealand as in a free and independent State. I need not exemplify here
the uses that may hereafter be made of this difference in their
condition; but it is obvious that the power of the Crown may be
exercised with much greater freedom in a country over which it
possesses all the rights that are usually assumed by first discoverers,
than in an adjoining State which has been recognised as free and
independent. In the course of my negotiations, too, my proceedings
may be greatly facilitated by availing myself of this disparity, for
with the wild savages in Southern Islands, it appears scarcely
possible to observe even the form of a treaty, and there I might be
permitted to plant the British flag in virtue of those rights of the
Crown to which I have alluded.
[Illustration: A SECTION OF THE TREATY SIGNATURES.]
To this Lord Normanby replied that Captain Hobson had correctly
interpreted his instructions when he limited his Lordship's remarks
concerning the independence of the New Zealanders to the tribes
inhabiting the Northern Island. His knowledge respecting the Southern
Island was too imperfect to allow of his laying down any definite
course of action to be pursued there. If it were really as Captain
Hobson supposed, uninhabited, or peopled only by a small number of
tribesmen in a savage state, incapable from their ignorance of
entering intelligently into any treaties with the Crown, then the
ceremonial of entering into any such engagements with them would be a
mere illusion and pretence which ought to be avoided, and discovery
might be made the basis of the Crown's claim. Still he had a marked
predilection in favour of a treaty as the only means of affording an
effective protection to the natives; "but," he continued, "in my
inevitable ignorance of the real state of the case I must refer the
decision in the first instance to your own discretion, aided by the
advice you will receive from the Governor of New South Wales."
The frankness with which Lord Normanby admitted his "inevitable
ignorance" of native conditions in the South Island is in striking
contrast to Hobson's confident assurance that they were "wild savages
with whom it was scarcely possible to observe even the form of a
treaty," for at this time his intercourse with the southern tribes was
as limited as that of the Chief Secretary's. Nor was his knowledge of
them any more complete when he issued his proclamation on May 21. He
was then clearly under the impression that the southern tribes were a
people physically, intellectually, and socially much inferior to those
whom he had met in the North; in fact, so much inferior that he did
not believe them capable of understanding the spirit or the letter of
a treaty. Such an opinion could only have been founded upon
information conveyed to him at the Bay of Islands, and that by chiefs
who, glorying in the pride of conquest, were no doubt wont to look
upon their southern enemies as the siftings of the race; as "the
remnant of their meal." It is therefore open to doubt whether Hobson
ever anticipated any great measure of success when he despatched Major
Bunbury to the South, and it is conceivable that the results achieved
by that ambassador were as pleasing to the Lieutenant-Governor as the
information was surprising that the Southern Island and the southern
people had been much misunderstood. The falsity of the impression
under which Captain Hobson acted, together with all that had gone
before, completely undermines the value of his proclamation of May 21,
and M. Guizot was only stating the fact when in answer to his critics
he declared in the Chamber of Deputies that "this method of taking
possession (by right of discovery) has never had any serious
consequences. It could not be regarded as having constituted rights,
and that is so true that the English Government has been the first to
proclaim it."
The second clause of the treaty proved to be the storm centre of the
compact. By those natives who took the trouble to reason out the
purpose and effect of the negotiation it was unanimously approved; by
the land-jobbers it was as unanimously condemned. Guaranteeing as it
did to the tribes the full and complete possession of their lands,
fisheries, and forests, it complied with the one condition that made
the treaty tolerable to them; yet by reserving to the Crown the right,
by pre-emption,[167] to become the medium of purchase between the
natives and the settlers, it provided the contentious point upon which
all who were interested in the acquisition of land concentrated their
attacks. Nor was this opposition shown merely because by a broad sweep
of the pen the speculator's sphere of operations had been materially
limited for the future, but the hostility became the more vehement
because by an equally bold assertion of a great principle of law, the
treaty called under review all that they had done in the past. The
acknowledgment by the British Crown of the native title to all the
land in New Zealand, whether waste or cultivated, was in the opinion
of many a blunder grievous enough; but that the Crown should claim the
right to scrutinise all titles which had been acquired before
sovereignty was declared, was an excess of zeal which they regarded as
nothing short of preposterous.
This feeling of indignation was rampant amongst those who were deeply
implicated in land speculations when the proclamations were issued at
Sydney and the Bay of Islands, declaring null and void all titles
which were not derived from the Crown; and their ideas of British
enterprise were even further outraged when on May 28, 1840, Sir George
Gipps introduced to his Legislative Council, "A Bill[168] to empower
the Governor of New South Wales to appoint Commissioners to examine
and report on claims to grants of land in New Zealand."
In addition to the gigantic pretensions put forward by the New Zealand
Company there were 1200 claimants whose demands upon the soil of the
country varied from a single rood to over 20,000,000 acres. Three of
these exceeded 1,000,000 acres each; three others were claiming
1,500,000 acres between them; three others comprised more than 25,000
acres each, while upwards of thirty persons expected to be placed in
possession of more than 20,000 acres each, the aggregation of alleged
purchases amounting to 45,976,000 acres. "Some of these claimants,"
says one writer, "had nothing more to show for their purchases than an
ornamental scrawl on a deed which was so phrased as to be unintelligible
to the chiefs who signed it." To reduce these wholesale purchases to
some principle regulated by justice was the purpose of the Government;
to let the dead past bury its dead was the fervent wish of all
those who had entrenched themselves behind Maori signatures.
By the following June 25 the provisions of the Bill had been widely
circulated, on which date a spirited protest against its enactment was
received from a number of gentlemen claiming to be landowners in the
new colony. This document, which was presented to the Legislative
Council by Mr. H. H. Macarthur, set out that the petitioners having
perused certain proclamations in the New South Wales Government
_Gazette_ of January 22, as well as the Bill introduced by the
Governor, they submitted that their rights and privileges as subjects
of the Queen and as landowners in New Zealand would be unwarrantably
and unconstitutionally invaded by the provisions of the said measure.
They therefore prayed that they might be heard by the Council in
protest against such unjust legislation.
So reasonable a request was readily acceded to by the members of the
Legislature, and on June 30 Mr. Busby, the former British Resident,
Mr. William Charles Wentworth, Mr. A'Beckett, and Mr. Darvall,
barristers-at-law, were introduced to the Council, and on that and
several subsequent days addressed the members in opposition to the
Bill.
The burden of Mr. Busby's contention in defence of his claim to 50,000
acres, including the site of a township, was that the Bill sought to
legalise confiscation, and that therefore the principles which it was
designed to enact were at variance with and in excess of all that was
sanctioned by the British constitution.[169] No doubt, he said, there
were many claims to land in New Zealand which would not bear
investigation; but contrariwise there were many respectable settlers
on the banks of the rivers and shores of the harbours who would be
deeply injured were the proposed Bill to become law. This injury
would be all the more ruthless because no attempt had been made by the
Government, now become so paternal, to prevent British subjects
acquiring property in New Zealand, as had been done in the case of
those settlers who had come over from Van Dieman's land to originate
the settlement at Port Philip. No sooner did it become known that
these speculators had purchased extensive tracts of country from the
aborigines than a proclamation was issued declaring the illegality of
their proceedings. No such prohibition had, however, been put upon the
acquisition of property in New Zealand, where the settlers, relying
upon certain acts of repudiation by the British Government, had
purchased from the natives in the belief that they were negotiating
with an independent people. Mr. Busby proceeded to review the various
stages of New Zealand's history in order to emphasise the events by
which the independence of the chiefs and people had been repeatedly
acknowledged, and concluded by asking why the chiefs had been induced
under the Treaty of Waitangi to surrender the pre-emptive right of
purchase to the Queen if they had never had the right as an
independent people to dispose of their lands as they pleased?
Mr. Busby was followed by Mr. Wentworth, one of the local Magistrates,
who was claiming 100,000 acres in the North Island, and practically
the whole of the South Island except some 3,000,000 acres which he
magnanimously conceded had been already sold to other purchasers. The
history of Mr. Wentworth's claim, which to say the least, was one of
the most scandalous in the long list of extraordinary transactions
with the natives, is thus told by Sir George Gipps in his despatch to
the Chief Secretary for the Colonies,[170] in which he intimated that
in consequence of the part Mr. Wentworth had played in this flagrant
attempt to flout the Government, he desired to withdraw a recommendation
he had previously made in favour of this gentleman's appointment to
the Legislative Council.
"In the month of February last" (1840), wrote Sir George, "seven[171]
chiefs from the Middle Island of New Zealand happening to be in
Sydney, it was suggested to me by the persons who had brought them
here, and under whose protection they were living, that they should
be invited to sign a declaration of willingness to receive Her
Majesty as their sovereign, similar in effect to the declaration
which Captain Hobson was then engaged in obtaining from the chiefs of
the Northern Island. The chiefs in question were accordingly brought
to the Government house, and, through the medium of an interpreter,
the nature of the document they were required to sign was fully
explained to them in the presence of myself, the Colonial Secretary,
and several persons who claimed to have purchased land in the Middle
Island; and amongst other things it was expressly declared to them
that only such purchases of land as should be approved by Her Majesty
would ultimately be confirmed. At the conclusion of this conference a
present of ten sovereigns was made to each of the chiefs, and they
all promised to attend on the next day but one to sign the paper
which was to be prepared for them. On the day appointed, however,
none of them appeared; and in reply to a message that was sent to
them, a short answer was received by one of the Englishmen, under
whose protection they were, that they had been advised to sign no
treaty which did not contain full security for the possession by the
purchasers of all lands acquired from the natives.
"It subsequently appeared that it was by the advice of Mr. Wentworth
that they adopted this course of proceeding; and Mr. Wentworth, when
before the Council, acknowledged that he had not only given the
advice, but also that he had subsequently and after the issue of my
proclamation, in conjunction with four or five persons, purchased the
whole of the Middle Island (or all the unsold portion of it) from
these very natives, paying them for it £200 in ready money, with a
promise of a like sum as long as they should live.[172]
"Such was the origin of Mr. Wentworth's claim to twenty millions of
acres in the Middle Island," continued Sir George, "and it was the
legality and validity of this transaction that he appeared before the
Council to defend."