Gr. — ]

10

against the Company's own settlers), slates, shoes, and sealing-wax, and sixty red night-caps. The complete list of goods, valued at something less than £9,000, which the Natives received in full and just payment is as : — 220 muskets 92 pairs trousers 15 fowling-pieces 60 red night-caps 16 single-barrelled guns 300 yards cotton duck 8 double-barrelled guns 200 yards calico 81 kegs gunpowder 300 yards check 2 casks ball cartridges 200 yards print 4 kegs lead slabs 40 dozen pocket handkerchiefs 200 cartouche-boxes 2 suits superfine clothes 300 tomahawks I dozen umbrellas 300 red blankets 9 dozen pair shoes 2 tierces tobacco 6 dozen slates 15 cwt. 3 qr. tobacco 600 pencils 148 iron pots 17 dozen looking-glasses 6 cases soap 23 dozen pocket-knives 2 cases pipes 19 dozen pairs scissors 10 gross pipes 1 dozen hats 6 dozen spades 6 lb. beads 120 steel axes 100 yards ribbon 3 dozen and 10 adzes 1 gross jews' harps 6 dozen hoes 3 dozen razors 60 pipe tomahawks 3 dozen shaving boxes and brushes 24 bullet-moulds 17 dozen dressing-combs 3,200 fish-hooks 1,500 flints 23 dozen shirts 11 quires cartridge-paper 92 jackets 1 dozen sticks sealing-wax. 1 dozen flushing coats For a time relations with the Maoris were of a friendly nature, but trouble soon arose when the surveyors came on the scene, and Colonel Wakefield discovered, to his dismay, that there was a serious flaw in the title to his twenty million acres. He found that a chief could not deal with tribal lands as he pleased—that all the owners were entitled to a say in its disposal, and that it was even necessary to obtain consents from absentee owners. Soon there were cases of repudiation, and claims for compensation by families who considered they had been overlooked at the original sales ; and this was the beginning of the Company's troubles in New Zealand, for, as time passed on, these claims and repudiations increased. Colonel Wakefield's instructions from the Company were clear and explicit, and in his journal he stated his intention " of acting in the most liberal manner in his transactions." Speed was essential, however, in order to forestall the Sydney speculators, who had heard of his coming, and to provide land for the settlers who would soon be arriving. Unfamiliar with the intricacy of Native custom, and with no plans to guide him, Colonel Wakefield commenced his negotiations with the chiefs. With the knowledge that a shoal of land-sharks was following him, he worked with feverish haste. His only counsel was a whaler and a half-educated Native lad. He conceived the bold but risky plan of purchasing land by parallels of latitude, and within three months he had acquired, or thought he had acquired, millions of acres on both sides of Cook Strait—an area, in fact, larger than the Provincial Districts of Wellington and Nelson. He did admit that within this vast area there were still a few interests to be acquired, although he did not anticipate any difficulty in this respect; and there was also the question of previous purchases made in the neighbourhood of the Strait, but these were, he felt assured, " too insignificant to interfere with the views of the Company."( 2 ) " In purchasing," he wrote, " on the large scale I have done in this transaction— in marking the boundaries of territory acquired, upon the fullest and most satisfactory explanation and examination, by parallels of latitude—I conceive that I have obtained as safe and binding a title as if the subject of negotiation had been but a single acre."( 2 ) Commenting on these purchases, the Hon. Pember Reeves says : — " Nothing can justify the magnitude of Colonel Wakefield's claims, or the payment of firearms for the land. But at the bottom of the mischief was the attempt of the missionaries and officials at Home to act as though a handful of savages—not then more, I believe, than 65,000 in all, and rapidly dwindling in numbers—could be allowed to keep a fertile and healthy archipelago larger than Great Britain. The haste, the secrecy, the sharp practice of the New Zealand Company, was forced on the Wakefields by the mulish obstinacy of careless or irrational people. Their land-purchasing might have taken place legally, leisurely, and under proper Government supervision had missionaries been business-like, had Downing Street officials known what colonizing meant, and had Bord Glenelg been fitted to be anything much more important than an irreproachable churchwarden."( 3 ) 2. The Thkee Deeds. The first deed of purchase, dated the 27th September, 1839, contained the following clause " And the said William Wakefield, on behalf of the Company of Bondon, does hereby covenant, promise, and agree to and with the said chiefs that a portion of the land ceded by them, equal to a tenth part of the whole, will be reserved by the governors, directors, and shareholders of the Company, and held in trust by them for the future benefit of the said chiefs, their families and heirs, for ever."

( 1 ) Compiled from copies of actual deeds of purchase. ( 2 ) Extract from Colonel Wakefield's journal, 24/10/39. ( 3 ) " The Long White Cloud," 3rd ed., by W. P. Reeves, p. 142.