WEBSTER OF HOKIANGA

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXIII, Issue 15902, 13 April 1912, Page 15

WEBSTER OF HOKIANGA

MAN WITH A ROMANTTO STORY. THE LAST CRUISE OF THE “ WANDERER” (Written for the “ Lyttelton Times.”) "WELLINGTON, April 3.

The Press Association telegram from Auckland yesterday which told of the aceident at Devon port to Mr John Webster, an old identity of North New Zealand, did not greatly concern tho present-day public. But there was a time when John Webster’s was a name of some importance. Ho was a man whom Governors delighted to visit, in hij beautiful old home at Opononi, on Hokianga Harbour; and throughout the North his name held an interest only equalled by that of Judge Mailing, the man . who wrote “Old New Zealand.” John Webster has outlived all Ins old comrades but one. That ono is Sir John Logan Campbell, of Auckland, the author of “Poenamo” and the Father and ofttimes benefactor of Auckland City. Governor Hobson, Sir George Grey, Alfred Domett, Sir William Fox, Sir Frederick Whitaker and many another celebrated New- Zealand official or politician of the early days were friends of. John Webster. So, too, were tho pioneer missionaries, the vv nliamses, Hobbses, Hamlins and other forerunners of Church and civilisation; and F. E. Mailing, the “ PakehaMaori ,” and Webster served together as free lances with the friendly Maoris in Hono Heke s war, away back in 1845. It sounds like ancient history, a recital of John Webster s rcoollections and adventures. But he is a very old man; lie is now in his ninety-fourth year, and Sir John Logan Campbell is ninety-fivo. , John Webster is one of those men who liavo led a very wild life.. \\ lid, that is, in the senso of roving And adventure and frequent looking upon tho near face of sudden death. Years ago tlie old man told me some of Jus experiences; they sounded like chapters from “The Rifle Rangers, The Scale Hunters,” “Camping Amongst Cannibals,” or pretty well any other book of hair-raising adventure tales. Wo were riding together from K.v weno, on Hokianga Harbour to Wanna, with the-military forco under Colonel Newall, sent up to put tho fear of the Government into Hone Toia and his fight-able hapu, the Maluireliure, which had .kicked up a tremendous bobbery about the dog tax and other troubles There wa3 very nearly a fight too, ill tho bush where our road led over the hills to Waima, Toia’s settlement. Two shots were fired, over our heads, and Captain Coyle, of tho Permanent Artillery, who Svas just ahead of . Webster and myself, snatched a carbine from one of his men and pointed, it in tho direction from which tho shots came. Fortunately, old Makara, who had fired tho shots lay low in tho tern, otherwise ho would liavo lost tho number of his mess that day. There were eighty armed Maoris lying in wait, though we could not see one of them. Presently a Maori messenger came galloping furiously along tho road, shouting. He was a peace messenger from Hone Toia. r But Coyle did not know that, and he would as likely as not, in liis excitement, have plugged that Maori “ tailup in the dirt ” had not Mr Webster hastily intervened as interpreter. “ It’s all right,” lie told the captain; “they won’t°fight now.” That coloured gentleman turned pale when he looked down Coylo’s carbine barrel as lie pulled his pony up short; I don’t think I have ever seen a man, brown or white, look so scared. Anyhow, all ended well, after an anxious time, and Hone Toia and his men surrendered to our column at Waima; and that night in tho Maori settlement John Wobster told me tho story of his life. This was back in IS9B. Ho was an old man then, but still able to do a long day’s ride across rough country. John Webster is a Scotchman, born in Montrose in 1818; ho is descended on liis mother’s cide from Lord A ’miral Duncan, the hero of tho naval battlo of Camperdowu. I mention this because a northern journal has mixed him up in an amazinght tangled fashion with quite another Webster, the American who laid claim in the’ early days to a largo tract of country on tho shores of tho Hauraki Gulf, and whose claim was recently investigated in England at the instance of tli© United States Government. This Webster was a Yankee sailor, who ran away from a whaleship in the days when New Zealand was No Man’s Land, and who married a daughter of the old chief Horeta To Taniwha, of Coromandel, and became known as tlie “ King of Waiau.” Sir John Campbell gives a racy description of this “ Wepiha,” the trader, m his book “ Poenamo.” But John Webster came of very different and more aristocratic stock. He was* a youngster' of nineteen when he landed in Sydney from the ship Portland, in search of adventure, which he quickly found. Those were' the convict days (1838), and the first sound the young Scot heard when he came ashore was the clanking of chains; the convicts worked on the roads in irons. OVERLANDING, AND FIGHTING THE BLACKS.

Towards the end of 1839, John Webster joined an expedition led by Mr Howe, bound overland from New South Wales for Adelaide with a thousand head of cattle. It was a marvollous journey thoso days, rough and dangerous, through almost unknown country. It took the party, numbering twenty men, five months. Thirst was one great enemy; the blackfellow was another. There were sorties nearly every night and many skirmishes with the blacks. One of the white men was speared and killed, and three hundred head of cattle were speared and otherwise lost. They crossed the Darling River at the Murray junction and followed the Murray to tho great southern bend, where they struck off for Adelaide. A second expedition with cattle was organised in 1840; this was an even more exciting and adventurous trip. Mr Webster and his companions, undor Mr E. Howe, travelled down the Murray for fourteen hundred miles—moro than tho wholo length of New Zealand—starting from its head waters. All tho twenty-one members of the party were as .strongly armed as was possible in thoso days, when magazine rifles were unknown. Mr Webster had a gum which ho had brought out from Scotland; the others were armed with the oldstyle flintlock muskets, carbines and blunderbusses, and some of them also carried swords and pistols. One day there was a pitched battle with the natives, who followed the expedition for several -weeks and engaged in frequent skirmishes. They attacked tho wliito men’s camp in open day, five hundred strong, and killed soveral head of cattle; and then the overlanders wont at them mounted. Sir Webster’s horse got three spear wounds and fell under him. He shot tho animal, and getting another horse, charged the blackfellows and routed iJiem. In tho charge Webster ran one of the natives through the body with his sword. After many other adventures tho expedition reached Adelaide all well. Webster’s percussion gun was in great request, whenever any whenever any straight shooting was required he was the one called upon to “ draw a bead.’’ 'ln the folio-wing year (1841) Sir Webster was in the hut-and-tent city of Melbourne. Gum-trees were growing ’where Collins Street is now. He was offered two allotments in the centre of the city for £2O, but he didn’t think it was good enough I

IN HONE HERE’S WAR. . From Australia Mr Webster came on, in the same year, to Now Zealand, to join his brother William at _Hokianga. There he settled down, in the wild 'Maori days, trading with the Natives. Logan Campbell he met on Hokianga, getting a load of kauri spars for an English barque. Maning was thore too, trading with the Maoris, and gathering the experiences ‘he afterwards used in “ Old New Zealand.” When the war broke out in the Bay of Islands in 1845, John Webster and Maning polished up their guns and joined the war party of their friend Tamati Waka Nene, the principal friendly chief in the north. They shared in the fighting between Nene and. Hone Hoko before the British troops arrived, around Lake Omapero, and they wero present a little later at the repulse of the troops by Heke at Ohauwai when Lieutenant Philpott and his storming party were shot down. It was a lively time, that campaign, and the two young adventurers, Webster and Maning, revelled in it, but their opinion of the way in which the British commanding officer managed affairs was the reverse of complimentary. , A look-in at San _ Francisco m the rowdy old “ Forty-nine ” days was Mr Webster’s next experience. He sailed from Auckland for San Francisco as super-cargo of the barque Noble, and was in California for eighteen months. BEN BOYD AND HIS REPUBLIC. At San Francisco Mr Webster joined the colobrated Bon Boyd, owner of the schooner yacht Wanderer, for a cruise through the South Sea Islands. He lmd previously met Boyd at Hokianga. Boyd’s idea was to seek a suitable group for founding a. South Sea Islands Republic—so called on the lines of Rajah Brooke's famous enterprise in Borneo. The "Wanderer was a beautiful topsail schooner of 240 tons, belonging to the Royal Yacht Squadron. She had been cruising in the Mediterranean for soveral years. Boyd was a New South Wales squatter, with plenty of money, and lie had fitted up his yacht in lavish fashion. She was well armed, carrying eleven brass deck guns and a 12-pounder “Long Tom” (which is now mounted alongside the two Russian guns from Sebastopol in the Albort Park, Auckland). There was plenty of round shot and grape for the guns, and besides there wero muskets, boarding pikes and tomahawks and hoarding nettings, so that the Wanderer was quite a little man-of-war. Beil Boyd and his adventurers sailed from San Francisco in 1851, and, cruising through the North and South Pacific, they anchored, in October, in a hay now called Wanderer’s ! Bay, on the island of ■ Guadalcanal Solofnon Islands—then a very savage and almost unknown group. On October 15 Ben Boyd, with his native boy, went ashore to have some shooting. Ho was never seen again. Two shots wero heard ashore; that was all. Then, all of .a sudden, a horde 6f savages came off in their canoes and attacked the Wanderer. A THRILLING BATTLE. “ It was touch and go with us that day,” said old John Webster. When the islanders began yelling and sounding tlieir war-horns —conch-shells—I know it was all up with,my poor friend, Ben Boyd. They’ came at us in swarms and attacked our schooner on the side nearest the shore. Had they taken us on both quarters I wouldn’t be tolling this story to you now. It was a hand-to-liand fight for some minutes. I shot down one or two of them aboard of us, and then, after we had got them off the deck, we brought our guns to bear on tho canoes. That settled them. We poured' grapo into tho canoes, and our “Long Tom” did good duty. Those guns saved us. We sank somo of tho canoes, and then wo cannonaded the native villages on shore and burned them. I landed in our largest boat, with a two-pounder in the bows and searched for Mr Boyd. Wo found his sword-bolt and part of tho native boy’s skull, and that was all. This tragedy put an end to the South Pacific Republic notion. The idea had been to form a confederation of the I Solomons under tho protectorate of the Government of the Sandwich Islands. In his home at Opononi Mr Webster lias somo of the official documents connected with the scheme, with elaborate arms and seals. Webster was to have been “Sovereign Chief” of Eastern San Christoval, with a special flag and so on. But the darkies of Guadalcanar settled the Republic’s affairs for good, and no doubt nad the pleasure of eating the gentleman who was to have been their monarch

THE WRECK OF THE .WANDERER. Tho Wanderer sailed for New. South Wales after this bloody affair in the Cannibal Islands, but she was totally wrecked in a gale near Port Macquarie. Spine of the guns were saved; and the ■Long Tom ” which had dono • the yacht*.? company such good service that red day in Wanderer’s Bay (it had been originally captured from the French at Waterloo and presented to Mr. Boyd by the British War Office), was carried for some time on board one of tho Australian gold ships in the MelbourneLondon trade, and later presented to the city of Auckland. That was the end of John Webster’s fighting days. - Pie made a voyage to England, and had the opportunity of showing Queen Victoria his sories of sketches for his book “The Cruise of the Wanderer,” a now very rare little volume. The Queen was greatly interested in the story of Mr Boyd, who was High Steward of Scotland at the time of her Coronation. Then back to Hokianga, where by tile beach-side at Oponini Mr Webster established a beautiful home, with trees and flowers from all parts of the world, and with many art and literary treasures. He was a 6ood artist in water-colours himself. annon guarded the house, and there are other quaint guardians—tuatara lizards blinking at you from the great conch shells at the entrance. An interesting spot this, where the Grand Old Man of tho North entertained many a notable visitor in his dignified, hospitable fashion. An uncommonly interesting man, with some curious memories, far removed from the stodgily safe and respectable colonial life of to-day.