FRENCH OCCUPATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2649, 21 December 1904, Page 24 (Supplement)

FRENCH OCCUPATION.

An eccentric Frenchman, styling himself "Baron de Thierry," conceived the i brilliant idea of proclaiming a Maori kingdom with himself as King. He bought 200 acres of land at Hokianga, and after vainly trying to interest first the French and then i the English Governments in his scheme, in 1835 he settled on his land at Hokianga, and assumed sovereign airs which amused the white, and mystified the brown man. A number of French ships were off the New Zealand coast at the time; it was known that a French company called the "NantoBordelaise" had been formed to acquire land to add to a concession already secured by a French ship's captain at Akaroa. These circumstances gave colour to the rumour of a projected French occupation. This complication determined matters, and Lieutenant Governor Hobson was promptly despatched to New Zealand to treat with the chiefs.

All land that he could acquire from them was to be added to the colony of New South Wales, and no land transactions were to be recognised except those fully authorised by the Governor. Meantime Mr Edward Gibbon Wakefield and his party had formed "The New Zealand Land Company," on lines quite their own, and successfully sold in London lands which they had never seen, much less purchased, from their Maori owners. Thus by the close of 1836 three separate expeditions were following the path of the Brown Sea-Rovers. Colonel Wakefield, another of the Wakefield brothers, with his confiding colonists ready to settle on lands yet unbou^ht, making for Cook Strait, Hobson steering direct for the Bay of Island*, and the French expedition bound for Akaroa. Of these three expeditions two only were destined to make their mark on New Zealand's history : that under Governor Hobson, and that headed by Colonel Wakefield.