The New Zealand Gazette/1839/08/21/Historical Sketch of the Colonization of New Zealand
Historical Sketch of the Colonization of New Zealand
As such a record may prove interesting to the future inhabitants of New Zealand, and instructive to those who shall engage in similar undertakings, we propose to give a brief history of the colonization of our adopted country.
It is supposed by some that New Zealand was visited by Juan Fernandez. He left memoranda stating that he had sailed westward from South America thirty days, when he reached a country inhabited by a people of a light complexion, clothed in a kind of linen, who treated him hospitably; and in all parts of New Zealand the natives have traditions of being visited by Europeans long before the time of Captain Cook. Further information on this subject may be found in Burney's 'History of Discovery in the South Seas.' It is clear, however, that Abel Jansen Tasman first made known the existence of New Zealand to Europeans. He saw it first on the 13th of September, 1642, when he made the northern extremity of the islands, according to his latitudes; and, running down the east coast, passed through Cook's Strait into a Bay, which he called Murderer's Bay, from the circumstance of losing four men in a conflict with the natives, who effectually prevented him or any of his people from landing. There is no evidence of any European having landed on these islands before Captain Cook, which he did on the evening of Sunday the 8th of October, 1769, accompanied by Solander and Banks.
It may be satisfactory to those engaged in the colonization of New Zealand, or other islands of the Pacific, to know that they are fulfilling the intentions of his Majesty George the Third, as will appear from the following extract from the instructions given to Captain Cook:—
"You are also, with the consent of the natives, to take possession, in the name of the King of Great Britain, of convenient situations in such countries as you may discover, that have not already been discovered or visited by any other European power; and to distribute among the inhabitants such things as will remain as traces and testimonies of your having been there; but if you find the countries so discovered are uninhabited, you are to take possession of them for his Majesty, by setting up proper marks and inscriptions as first discoverers and possessors."
In pursuance of these instructions, Captain Cook having circumnavigated and surveyed both islands, which had formerly been deemed part of the great Terra Australis Incognita, and passed through the Straits which bear his name, landed on various points in both islands, and with the usual solemnities took possession of them on behalf of the King of Great Britain; and thus, according to the received law of nations, established a claim to the sovereignty as against all foreign power,— a claim which the crown itself cannot lightly abandon. After such an act on the part of a servant of the crown as that performed by Captain Cook, any British subject settling on those islands carried with him, according to Blackstone and all the authorities, the common and statute law as his birthright, and might claim protection accordingly.
Captain Cook saw that New Zealand was an eligible site for a colony, and recommended it as such; but no attempt was made to follow up his suggestions. Benjamin Franklin and Mr Dalrymple issued proposals, but without any success, for raising a sum of 15,000l., with a view to supply the New Zealanders with those useful animals, vegetables, ,&c. and arts of life, of which they were destitute. This paper is dated August 29th, 1771, and may be found among Franklin's 'Miscellaneous Works.' In the parliamentary debates which led to the establishment of a penal settlement at New South Wales, New Zealand was mentioned as a desirable place for the experiment, and narrowly escaped through the terror of its cannibalism. Attention was further drawn to that part of the world by the establishment of missions in the Society Islands, about the year 1795, by the London Missionary Society; and in the year 1814 the Rev. Samuel Marsden, of New South Wales, laid the foundation of the Church of England Mission at the Bay of Islands. Previously to this, however, Col. Foveaux, of the New South Wales Corps, had recommended New Zealand to the governor of Sydney as a penal settlement, on the plan afterwards adopted at Norfolk Island; and suggestions were made by Col. Jackson and others to take possession of the country by a military force from India. The first regular proceedings were taken in the year 1814, with a view to the protection of the missionaries and other British settlers, and under the same authority which enabled the Sydney government to take possession of Norfolk Island, in the same longitude,— namely, the priority of discovery, the consent of the natives, and the commission of the governor of Sydney under an act of parliament, extending his jurisdiction over New Zealand and other islands of the Pacific.
There are diplomatic grounds connected with certain European treaties which give importance to the date of this proclamation, which is, Nov. 9th, 1814. Among other things the paper states,— "His Excellency being equally solicitous to protect the natives of New Zealand and the Bay of Islands, in all their just rights and privileges, as those of every other dependency of the territory of New South Wales, hereby orders and directs," &c. &c.; then proceeds to appoint Mr Thomas Kendall "resident magistrate at the Bay of Islands," extends the regulations laid down for New Zealand to "the adjacent isles," and names "Duaterra, Shunghi, and Korra-korra magistrates" in New Zealand, for the purposes of the proclamation.
Such was the first introduction of European settlers into New Zealand; and so far from colonization being then regarded, with suspicion, it was the only form that missionary labour was permitted to assume. It was the deliberate resolution of the Church Missionary Society to give the mission, in the first instance, a secular and merely civilizing character. No ordained clergyman was sent out; and the missionaries were officially termed "the society's settlers at the Bay of Islands." We may indeed venture to say, on behalf of those laborious men who made the first successful inroad upon barbarism, that it is unjust in their friends to turn round upon them for too faithfully adhering to the principle of their institution, by continuing to be a colony after the subscribers at home had changed their minds and resolved to patronize nothing but missions. The slow but sure success of what Dr Lang calls "the missionary carpenter, boat-builder, blacksmith, ploughman, rope-spinner, &c." made known in monthly and weekly reports throughout England, drew attention to the vast resources of the country; and the Church Missionary Society so effectually performed its work in preparing the way for a colony, that within a very few years after the settlement was founded at the Bay of Islands, the secretary, the Rev. Josiah Pratt, declared that in one of the provincial towns of England he knew of a large number of families ready to emigrate to New Zealand. The bug-bear of cannibalism had now nearly vanished. New Zealand had become the head quarters of the whale fishery. The. value of its timber, its flax, and other indigenous products had been made known by Mr Nicholas and other writers, and the natives themselves had been frequently employed as able seamen on board British vessels, when many abortive schemes were propounded for the colonization of the country. Among other attempts was one, we believe, originally suggested by Col. Nicholls of the Marines, who in vain submitted his plans to Lord Bathurst, then Secretary of State for the Colonies. Col. Nicholls had collected a great deal of information with respect to the country and its inhabitants, which was, communicated to his relative, Col. Torrens, and led, through the exertions of the latter gentleman, to the formation of the company of 1825. That company, under the sanction of its enlightened chairman, Mr Lambton, now Earl of Durham, accomplished all that was possible under the circumstances. An unfortunate selection appears to have been made of the company's chief agent, who made some valuable acquisitions of territory, held sacred to the uses of the company by the natives to this day, and now incorporated, after the lapse of fourteen years, with the other possessions of the present company, yet he suddenly abandoned the enterprize on mistaking a war dance performed in honour of him for a hostile demonstration. The gentlemen composing this association abstained from opening it to the public until some further success had been obtained, and were discouraged also by the well-remembered state of the money market in the year 1826. They, however, expended 20,000l., and received from Mr Huskisson the promise of a charter of incorporation, which has been recognized by subsequent governments, and is considered in force at the present day.
The proceedings of the company, nearly the whole of whose artizans, when discharged by the agent at Sydney, returned and settled in New Zealand— so little did they share in the panic of their commander— the growing prosperity of the missionaries, the increasing resort of shipping, the influx of runaway convicts and deserters from vessels, with the flagrant crimes perpetrated in this mixed and lawless community, drew the attention of the governor of Sydney, who was induced to appoint, with the concurrence of the home government, what he termed a consul "accredited to the missionaries at the Bay of Islands." Those excellent men doubtless were not aware that this was, diplomatically speaking, a transfer to them of the sovereignty from the crown of England; and it may quiet the apprehension of those jurists who may imagine that the sovereignty of those islands was indeed ever parted with, to recollect that, under these circumstances, it could only be held in trust, or, at the least, as a feudatory principality. That the missionaries regarded it somewhat in this light, is clear from the manner in which they have resisted the encroachments of foreign nations, and the way in which they have modelled the administration of their government after that of the prince-bishops of the middle ages. They have maintained the powers delegated to them, within their palatinate. Resisting all attempts to mediatize them, they have upheld their theocracy; and we know not whether to compare the converted chieftains to tenants in capité, the lesser barons, or to the heads of tribes ministering to that of Levi. At home the influence of a wealthy and important society was all-powerful at the colonial office, glad to be relieved of trouble and responsibility whilst obliging a great party; and the organ of that society, its secretary, wielding an expenditure of fifteen thousand a year in New Zealand, found himself virtually governor and bishop of both islands, of which that sum might have bought the fee simple.
The solemnity, however picturesque, of convening a few savage chieftains in the neighbourhood of the Bay of Islands, making them declare their independence, and giving them a flag, could no more quell the disorders that prevailed through the islands, than it could, in constitutional law, give away the king's dominions. Atrocious crimes were perpetrated by Englishmen. Ardent spirits, gunpowder, and virulent diseases were introduced. Ruffians who had escaped from the chaingangs of New South Wales, or who from various causes were ashamed of appearing in convict society, flocked to New Zealand and furnished the natives with corrosive sublimates, laudanum and other poisons, to destroy each other with; and the neighbourhood of the missionary settlements soon became the most demoralized in New Zealand.
Repeated representations were made to the government in England to do that which should repress these evils, but without the least effect. The merchants of London joined in a memorial, signed by the heads of all the principal houses engaged in the south-sea trade. A petition, in 1834, was sent home by the most respectable of the settlers in New Zealand, which was repeated in 1836, and signed by all the influential members of the mission itself; but, through some influence at the Colonial Office, all applications, both public and private, were disregarded; and it seemed the fixed resolution of the government, whatever inconvenience or suffering might be occasioned by it, to leave undisturbed the experiment of training up a native Levitical republic under missionary control, directed primarily by a lay secretary-in England.
Such was the state of things in New Zealand when an incident gave reality to a project which had long been familiar to the minds of its author. In a work entitled 'England and America,' New Zealand had been pointed out as one of the finest fields for colonization. A committee of the House of Commons, "upon the disposal of waste lands in the British colonies," was sitting on the 27th of June, 1836, when the following answer was given by Mr Edward Gibbon Wakefield to a question by the chairman, Mr Ward :—
"961. Are there any parts of the world subject to our dominion now, in which you imagine that new colonies might be founded advantageously under this proposed system?— Many. I consider that in Australia, at present, there are no colonies; I look upon the settlements in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land as mere gaols of a peculiar kind. They call the keeper 'his excellency,' and the chaplain 'right reverend;' but the real truth is, they are nothing else but gaols. Then South Australia is not yet founded. There remains a large extent of country between South Australia and that which is called Western Australia: there is in Extra-Tropical Australia a district of ground open to colonization, of which the outline touched by the sea-coast cannot be less than 4,000 miles. Very near to Australia there is a country, which all testimony concurs in describing as the fittest country in the world for colonization; as the most beautiful country, with the finest climate and the most productive soil; I mean New Zealand. It will be said that New Zealand does not belong to the British crown, and that is true; but Englishmen are beginning to colonize New Zealand. New Zealand is coming under the dominion of the British crown. Adventurers go from New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land and make a treaty with a native chief— a treaty in duplicate, the poor chief not understanding a single word about it; but they make a contract upon parchment with a great seal, and for a few trinkets and a little gunpowder they obtain land. After a time in these cases, after some persons have settled, the government at home begins to receive hints that there is a regular settlement of English people formed in such a place; and then the government at home generally has been actuated by a wish to appoint a governor, and says, 'This spot belongs to England; we will send out a governor.' The act of sending out a governor according to our constitution, or law, or practice, constitutes the place to which a governor is sent a British province. We are, I think, going to colonize New Zealand, though we are doing so in a most slovenly, and scrambling, and disgraceful manner."
The statement here quoted led to a conversation between a member of the committee, the Hon. Francis Baring, and the witness, and to the formation of a plan which was shortly after embodied in the draft of a bill, intituled "A Bill to facilitate and regulate the Settlement of British' Subjects in New Zealand." As it was in advocating the peculiar principles of colonization, of which he was the author, and upon which he had recently succeeded in founding the colony of South Australia, that Mr. Wakefield drew the attention of Mr Baring to the subject, we need scarcely add that he proceeded throughout on his own system. That system is too well known to all who are engaged in colonizing operations, to require farther notice here.
Having matured his plan, Mr Wakefield communicated it to some private friends, before the close of the year 1836. Early in the following spring, some additional co-operators having been obtained, the New Zealand Association was founded, of which the first meeting was held on Monday, the 22nd of May, 1837, at No 20 Adam street, Adelphi, where rooms where hired for the use of the association. Mr Wakefield presided as chairman, and resolutions were passed founding an association, consisting of two classes of members— those intending to emigrate, who undertook to pay all the expenses (although they ultimately fell upon Mr Wakefield and Dr Evans[1] alone), and of public men who, without any pecuniary interest or view to profit, and on public grounds alone, as they clearly and. distinctly stated in every publication, gave up their time and labour to the prosecution of a very arduous national undertaking.
The committee consisted exclusively of the latter class, to whom it was proposed to confide the execution of the plan in England, and was at first composed of the following gentlemen:—
The Hon. Francis Baring, M. P., Chairman,
The Right Hon. Lord Petre,
Walter F. Campbell, Esq., M.P.,
Robert Ferguson, Esq., M.P.,
Benjamin Hawes, Esq., M.P.,
Philip Howard, Esq., M.P.,
William Hutt, Esq., M.P.,
Sir Wm. Molesworth, Bart., M.P.,
Sir Geo. Sinclair, Bart, M.P.,
Henry George Ward, Esq., M.P.,
W. Wolryche Whitmore, Esq.
It was during the month of July in this year that two New Zealanders, whose names are familiar. to the public, the Rangatira, Te Naiti, and Te Hiakai, visited France. Mr Wakefield, hearing they were at Havre, employed a person at his expense to bring them to this metropolis, if agreeable to them. The younger one, Hiakai, resided for about eight months in the family of Dr Evans, until he died of consumption, which in this country so often proves fatal to the natives of the mild regions of the Pacific. During his lifetime, he showed a disposition of the most amiable kind; and a capacity of the very first order. It was the opinion of the gentleman with whom he resided, that his abilities would have enabled him to master any of the abstract sciences, and to have distinguished himself. He was the brother of Iwi Kau, the chief of Banks's Peninsula. He was buried in Brompton churchyard; and it was to the credit of his companion Naiti that, three weeks after the funeral, he was found alone, weeping over the grave. Te Naiti, resided during his two years stay in England, under the roof of Mr Wakefield, who always treated him as a friend. He is a young man of high feeling and most gentlemanly deportment. He is nearly related to the most powerful chieftain in New Zealand, the Rangatira Te Raupora, whose dominions happen to include those territories on both sides of Cook's Straits, which it will be most desirable for the company to purchase. Te Naiti, therefore, has accompanied the first expedition, as interpreter, for which office he is pre-eminently qualified, by his knowledge of the English language, his rank among his countrymen, the favourable impressions made upon his mind in England, and his perfect knowledge of the real principles and ultimate designs of the company. In this way there can be no fraud, no sham convention of the natives to set up a government nominally native, really European. He knows, and is to explain to his countrymen, that if they cede their territory for the purposes of the colony, they must submit to the laws of England, but that both races are, to be on a perfect equality. He is confident that the proposal will be embraced with eagerness by his countrymen, and his ambition is "to see a town in his country, where he can live like an Englishman." So large a circle in the metropolis received him on terms of equality, and knew him intimately, that we have not hesitated to speak in the strongest terms of the gentleness of his disposition, and the urbanity, we might say elegance, of his manners. On parting with his English friends at Gravesend, he could not control his emotion, but burst into tears, and went sobbing to the ship, where he remained alone in his cabin for the rest of the day.
To return from this episode, about the same period of which we have been speaking (the summer of 1837), a pamphlet was drawn up and published, explaining the principles and objects of the association; and application was made to the prime minister for an interview. Lord Melbourne apparently inclined to favour the undertaking, and immediately granted an audience to the committee. At this meeting Lord Howick was the only minister present besides the premier, apparently as the organ of the Colonial Office. That noble lord, to whom the plan was referred by Lord Melbourne, and who has taken especial pains to connect his name with the colonization of New Zealand, examined the draught of the bill minutely, professed a warm interest in the project, and returned the papers with a very full commentary, suggesting various alterations. In conversation with various members of the association, he gave further reason to expect that the measure would have the best assistance of the government. Several of them, therefore, abandoned professional engagements, sold property on the faith of the expectation virtually held out to them, and made preparations for emigrating. A new bill was drawn, embodying every one of Lord Howick's suggestions, to some of which the association had objections, but which they waived in consideration of receiving his lordship's powerful influence and support.
The death of his Majesty, William the Fourth, at this juncture, stopped all further proceedings. Parliament was dissolved, and the committee, with Lord Howick's written communication before them, came to the following resolution:—
Resolved— "That this committee are satisfied with the progress that has been made in negociating for the consent of her Majesty's government for the introduction of a bill for giving effect to the views of the association; and that they will use their best endeavours to procure an act for that purpose during the next session of parliament. That it is expedient to strengthen the association by laying their views before the public, and adding to their numbers."
From this period to the assembling of the new parliament, several members of the association never relaxed in their attendance or their labours, for a single day. Information relating to New Zealand was collected from all quarters. A volume was compiled and published, and put into circulation in all parts of the kingdom. Mr Burford was induced to paint a panorama of the Bay of Islands, from drawings procured by the association from Mr Augustus Earle, draughtsman to her Majesty's ship Beagle, and the author of an interesting work on New Zealand. A series of lithographic prints from drawings by the same artist, and executed in a beautiful style, was begun at the instance and under the auspices of the association. Articles appeared also in 'Blackwood's Magazine,' and in other publications; highly favourable to the project. A large accession was made to the emigrating members of the society, and a junction effected with the members of the old company of 1825,— a most opportune event, and owing entirely to the good offices of Lord Durham, who has never abandoned the public object of colonizing New Zealand, though he has ever been ready to forego his private interest in the work, for the sake of agreement in the pursuit of a great national object.
The following committee was agreed upon after the union of the societies:—
The Hon. Francis. Baring, M.P., Chairman.
The Right Hon. the Earl of Durham.
The Right Hon. Lord Petre.
Hon. W.B. Baring, M.P.
Walter F. Campbell, Esq., M.P.
Charles Enderby, Esq.
Robert Ferguson, Esq., M.P.
The Rev. Samuel Hinds, D.D.
Benjamin Hawes, Esq., M.P.
Philip Howard, Esq., M.P.
William Hutt, Esq., M.P.
George Lyall, Esq.
Thomas Mackenzie, Esq., M.P.
Sir William Molesworth, Bart., M.P.
Sir George Sinclair, Bart., M.P.
Captain Sir William Symonds, R.N.
Henry George Ward, Esq., M.P.
W. Wolryche Whitmore, Esq.
When parliament assembled, Lord Melbourne was reminded of what had passed before; and an interview was requested for the purpose of obtaining the final sanction of government to the measure. Lord Melbourne and Lord Glenelg jointly received the deputation, which, however, had scarcely been admitted to the presence of the ministers, when they evinced symptoms of official hostility to the scheme. A powerful opposition to it had evidently grown up during the recess of parliament. Whatever Lord Melbourne might intend, it was plain that the Colonial Office had resolved to crush the undertaking.
In order to discover the origin of this change of feeling in the government, it would be necessary to go back to an earlier period, when a deputation, consisting of the Hon. Captain Wellesley, R.N., Captain Arthur Wakefield, R.N., and Dr Evans, waited upon Mr Dandeson Coates, the secretary of the Church Missionary Society, in the month of June, 1837, to present to that society the first pamphlet of the association, and to request their advice and co-operation. The answer given by Mr Coates to those gentlemen was, that "he had no doubt of the respectability of the gentlemen composing the association, or of the purity of their intentions, but that he was opposed to the colonization of New Zealand upon any plan, and would thwart them by all the means in his power." Shortly after this interview the Rev Dr Hinds, vicar of Yardley, a member of the committee of the association, addressed an official letter to the committee of the Church Missionary Society, expressing the sincere desire of the association to adopt any reasonable suggestions that might be made by the society in London, and to uphold the missionaries in the colony. Of this letter, coming officially from a society of noblemen and gentlemen, and written by a distinguished clergyman, no manner of notice was taken. We have reason to believe that Mr Coates did not even think fit to lay it before his own employers; and that the great bulk of the members of the Church Missionary Society have been kept in the dark with respect not merely to the overtures of the Association, but to the proceedings and condition of the Mission in New Zealand. That, however, is exclusively their own affair. The public are only interested in knowing that every possible attention and respect was paid to the Church Missionary Society, and that every overture was rejected with incivility and disdain. We can state upon authority, that the association were anxious to place among the commissioners for founding the colony some leading members of the Missionary Society, and to revise the bill with them, clause by clause, adopting any suggestions that might be reasonably made, with a view to protect the missionaries and to benefit the aborigines. Instead of the courtesies which the demeanour of the association seemed to invite, Mr Coates replied by pamphlets, in which the members of the association were charged with love of lucre and wilful deception. These were answered by Mr Wakefield and Dr Hinds. To analyse the whole of the controversy would be impossible on this occasion.
The altered tone of Lord Melbourne was, however, apparent at the interview just mentioned, when he and Lord Glenelg, but especially the latter, objected not merely to the details of the plan but to every principle of the bill, and even to all further colonization by England. "This country had colonies enough, more than we could protect in case of war." — "There were diplomatic reasons against colonizing New Zealand in particular: the Russians, the Americans, the French would object to it; and, as to the appointment of a special authority for the purpose, such a thing was without precedent— an innovation quite uncalled for." The noble secretary for the colonies was reminded, or rather informed, of what he seemed previously to have known nothing, that all the great colonies of America were founded upon that plan, and that the innovation was the other way; that, in fact, the Swan River was the only colony, excepting the Penitentiaries of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, which had been established without the intervention of a commission or a chartered corporation. Of course this vacillation, on the part of the government gave rise on the occasion to earnest remonstrances from the deputation. It led also to a correspondence between Lord Melbourne and some influential members of the association, which ended in another interview with Lord Glenelg only, on that day week. Lord Durham again headed the deputation, and it appeared that "a change had come o'er the spirit of" the noble secretary's "dream," for he now spoke as a friend and patron of the scheme. He stated that, in consequence of despatches which he had received from New South Wales since the last interview, her Majesty's government, had come to the resolution of adopting the principle of the plan, although they held themselves "unfettered as to details." The plain English of which was, that the prime minister had been reminded of, and had honourably considered, the encouragement which he at first gave to the project; that the hostility of the Colonial Office had been overcome by superior authority; and lastly, that the despatches from New South Wales most fortunately furnished a pretext to Lord Glenelg for expressing his approval of a measure which, but a week before, he had earnestly condemned.
Thereupon followed a letter, in which his lordship expressed the assent of the government upon certain conditions, the spirit and intent of which are accurately described in Mr Baring's speech, on the second reading of the bill, which we have printed in another page.
The principal condition insisted upon, as thereby appears, was, that the society should resolve itself into a joint-stock company, which was directly at variance with one of its leading principles, over and over again declared. This could not have been intended to produce any other effect than that which ensued. It could only end in the dissolution of the society, or in exposing it, with an appearance of justice, to those church missionary attacks which had been levelled against it as "a joint-stock company," &c.
The association then determined to proceed without the aid of government. In order to obtain the independent opinion of parliament, and to procure an inquiry into the subject, which the state of business in the House of Commons rendered impossible at that period, the Earl of Devon moved for, and obtained, a committee in the House of Lords. Every influence was used to disincline the committee to the scheme; and they ultimately evaded a decision on the substance of the question, by resolving to the effect, "that the extension of our colonies was a question belonging exclusively to the crown."
Notwithstanding this unfavourable event, the utility of the inquiry was great. It brought out a mass of authentic information relating to the country, and, by exciting and satisfying curiosity, most usefully seconded the various publications of the association.
Nevertheless, under these adverse circumstances, the bill was brought into the House of Commons by Mr. Baring. The most conclusive reasoning, and the support of powerful and independent members on both sides of the house, were of no avail. The bill was thrown out upon the second reading, by a large majority, and with an air of scorn, bordering, in some quarters, on malignity. The most surprising circumstance in the opposition to the measure in the House of Commons, was the course taken by Lord Howick, who was relied upon as a sure friend, bound in honour to support a measure which had been modified to suit his views, and pursued with great toil and trouble in dependence on the sincerity of his first friendly professions. We attribute no motives: we only state plain facts. The bill being rejected, the absence from England of Lord Durham, and of Mr Wakefield, the author of the project, rendered further efforts apparently hopeless. It never occurred, however, to the adversaries of the colony, that men who had embarked in such an enterprise, were not likely to submit to a single defeat. They soon formed another plan for founding a settlement, without asking the sanction of Lord Howick or the colonial office. After various troubles and difficulties, during which many new partisans joined the old body of emigrants, an association termed the "New Zealand Colonization Company" was formed at Messrs Wright's banking house, on the 29th of August, 1838, and on the 2nd of May following, the "New Zealand Land Company," combining all the preceding societies, was brought before the public, through the powerful exertions of Mr Wakefield, who now resumed the part ' which had been sustained by others during his absence from England. The list of directors of this company is perhaps unexampled for weight with the public. In unremitting attention to the business of the shareholders, the directors have never been surpassed. Their anxiety to provide for the safety and well-being of those who are about to emigrate under their auspices and direction, merits grateful acknowledgment from this first organ of the colonists.
The property and influence of the old company of 1825, are thrown into the common stock, with other purchases and acquisitions made by the directors. Shares to the amount of 100,000l, to be paid up almost immediately, have been subscribed for; and, what is still more remarkable, the sum of 100,000l. was paid within five weeks, for as many acres of land, in a township the site of which is not yet determined. Two vessels have been despatched to New Zealand, one (the Tory) with the company's principal agent, Col. Wakefield, the other (the Cuba) with the surveyor-general, Lieut. Smith, and a surveying force of thirty persons. A large body of emigrants are preparing to sail in the beginning of September, carrying with them all the elements of civilization,—a church, an infant school, for the children of natives as well as colonists, a public library, a dispensary, a bank; together with a large amount of capital invested in machinery, mills, steam-engines, agricultural implements, the frame work of houses, and property of various kinds. The first colony will consist of more than 100 cabin passengers, and about 3000 of the labouring class; all conveyed to the colony by means of the purchase money of land. Five large vessels, of more than 500 tons each, are nearly ready for sea, and will sail early in September. Others will follow, in regular succession; and the whole party will rendezvous at Port Hardy, D'Urville island, Cooks's straits, it is hoped before the end of January.
Such an expedition is unprecedented in modern times; and it was imagined that such a body of her Majesty's subjects, about to extend her dominions and the bounds of civilization, at their own cost, would have had the same sympathy from the government which they have had from all other classes of their countrymen. This hope has been disappointed. The colony, so far as it has had any intercourse with the government, has been treated with cold indifference, to say the least. The arrangements which have been made for its government, are wholly inefficient, not to say offensive. By a treasury minute which we have printed elsewhere, it appears that the colony is to be placed under the rule of the governor and council of New South Wales—a penal settlement, twelve hundred miles from New Zealand, and where the new colony must necessarily be regarded with the jealous feeling of rivalry. Applications have been made to the colonial office for local administration, but without any effect. The only reply is a reference to the treasury minute. From this we learn that Captain Hobson, R.N., who sailed a few days ago, is to treat with the native chiefs for a cession of the sovereignty,—a thing for which their language did not afford a word until the missionaries coined one for the occasion—and then he is to become lieutenant-governor of the of the islands so ceded. Meanwhile, the country is to be abandoned to the scramble which Dr Lang has so powerfully described; in which the missionaries and grogshop keepers are to vie with the "land sharks" from Sydney, in plundering the natives of their territory, without any of those provisions for their permanent advantage which a just and paternal government would enforce. We know that we speak the sentiments of the New Zealand company, and of those who have purchased land under them, when we affirm that nothing would be so satisfactory to them as the plan laid down in Dr Lang's pamphlet, for a general assumption by the crown of the property in all lands in New Zealand; provided only, that the South Australian system were rigidly enforced; that the present owners of lands were allowed a reasonable time for pre-emption; and that a set-off were allowed to them for what they have expended in the purchase and improvement of those lands. In fact, this is not a new proposal. It was a fundamental principle of the bill prepared by the New Zealand association last year; and to this, sooner or later, the colonial office must come, if they would not abandon the islands to the bold adventurers who may dispute with the missionaries the possession of the soil.
Lord Howick is unremitting in expressions of hostility to the colony. We know that he is in the habit of advising gentlemen in the House of Commons to avoid all connection with it; and that he goes about describing it as a bubble scheme, and Poyais project for cheating the public. His influence in the cabinet on colonial questions is known to be very great. He will probably continue to exert it to the injury of this infant society, to which he seems to bear an animosity not less bitter than inexplicable. Whatever success, however, may attend his ungenerous efforts, our consolation is, that all things and all men bide their time; and that, come what will, Englishmen carry with them, wherever they go, not merely the right, but the determination and the capacity, to manage their own affairs. With these feelings, and with this farewell, three thousand emigrants take leave of his lordship and the Colonial Office.
We feel great satisfaction in publishing the following verses by the distinguished author of the 'Pleasures of Hope,' Thomas Campbell, one of the original members cf the New Zealand Association, who has always taken the deepest interest in the undertaking.
- ↑ The gentleman to whom Mr Wakefield first communicated his plan, after maturing it with Mr Baring and his brother, Capt. Arthur Wakefield, R. N.