INTRODUCTION.
Before the writer enters on the subject of the following pages, he thinks it right to inform his readers why it became written in the manner it is, and how two persons wholly disassociated came to unite in supporting it.
First: It was thus written in its present condensed form by the writer, from notes taken at the time, for the secretaries of the Church Missionary Society, London. It will be seen that he was not only present, but had a little to do on that occasion, also, both before and after it, in his then more particular vocation in the printing-office of the Church Mission at Paihia, near Waitangi, of which he was the printer and superintendent, but without any assistants. And here he may further observe that had he not been so closely worked at that time (both for the newly-established Government and the mission), without any assistant and under many peculiar disadvantages, his MS. would have been much larger. And it was solely owing to his many heavy and pressing duties that he did not attend the great public meeting held two days after at Kororareka (now Russell), when the foundation of the newly-formed colony was duly proclaimed with the usual demonstrations of show and ceremony. This also accounts for the non-appearance of his name among those of the Europeans who signed as witnesses on that occasion.
Second: Mr. William Richard Wade, hitherto a member of the Church Mission, was about to leave both it and New Zealand, with his wife and family, to reside in Tasmania. Mr. Wade and the writer had come out to-
