IN THE EARLY DAYS

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 96, 20 October 1934, Page 24

IN THE EARLY DAYS

"MARSDEN'S LIEUTENANTS"

"Marsden's Lieutenants," which is edited by Dr. J. R. Elder and which is printed and published for the Otago University Council by Coulls, Somerville, Wilkie, Ltd., and A. 11. Road (Dunedin), is a sequel to "The Letters and Journals of Samuel Marsdon," which was published some two years ago. Like its forerunner, it is based upon original MS. material in Hocken Library in the Otago University Museum. The present volume relates to the letters and journals of the three men who first represented the Church Missionary Society in New Zealand under the general supervision of Marsden. These three missionaries— Thomas Kendall, William Hall, and John King—were men of very different training and character, and formed an ill-mated trio whose quarrels with each other and frequent disobedience of orders added greatly to Marsden's difficulties as superintendent of the mission. Their letters to friends at Home, to Marsdcn, and to each other reveal the situation in the New Zealand Mission in the first years after its establishment at the end of 1814, and contain, naturally, many interesting observations upon the habits and beliefs 6f the Maoris among whom these three were the first white men to reside in regular fashion. '

Kendall, in particular, as might be expected from a well-educated man given to self-examination and accustomed, unlike his brethren, to selfexpression on paper, is full of interest in his observations upon Native customs and his own reactions to his new life. His Journal records his early life and first religious experiences, his voyage of 1813 to New South Wales in the Earl Spencer, Ms pioneering journey to New Zealand in the early months,' -of 1814 when he sailed with William Hall in the Active (Captain Peter Dillon) and made a stay of some six weeks at the Bay of Islands, and his final settlement there ■ after Marsden's first voyage of December, 1814. His subsequent letters and journals till his unfortunate dismissal from the mission in 1823 are full of interest, for Kendall was the first man to reduce the Maori language- to writing, an intense student of Native lore, and the particular friend of the great Hongi.

William Hall and John King were tradesmen and lacked Kendall's facility, with the pen but, at the same time, left records which _ throw considerable light upon the vicissitudes and trials of the period of beginnings. Hall, from reasons of health, was compelled to return to New South Wales in 1825. King, who arrived in the Active with Marsden in December, 1814, was destined to serve the society in New Zealand for nearly forty years; he died in 1854. The Hall MSS. cover tho period 1819 to 1824, the King MSS. the years 1819 to 1853, particularly the years before 1833. Hall, a practical man, speaks much of the whalers and their work, and is of particular interest for tho light he throws upon the arrival of the Eev. Samuel Leigh and the consequent beginnings of the Methodist Mission. King, a more reflective individual, makes many comments on ethnogolical matters.

These manuscripts, therefore, give an added interest to Marsden's work in New Zealand and together make an absorbing picture of the times with which they deal. This is no mere record of tho beginnings of a mission but a stirring drama in which the actors are tho white incomers on the one hand, and the Native chiefs, eager above all things" for muskets and powder, on the other. The Journals now published present the first act of the drama which ends with the arrival in 1824 of the strong man Henry Williams with whom the second phase begins.