For years they battled against their persistent opponents the Church Missionary Society and the officials of the Colonial Office.  The former, who hit very hard at them in controversy, managed Lord Glenelg, then Colonial Secretary; the latter turned Minister after Minister from friends of the colonizers into enemies.  Thus Lord Melbourne and Lord Howick had to change face in a fashion well-nigh ludicrous.  The Government offered the Association a charter provided it would become a joint-stock company.  Baring and his friends refused this on the ground that they did not want any money-making element to come into their body.  Moreover, in those days joint-stock companies were concerns with unlimited liability.  The Association tried to get a bill of constitution through Parliament and failed.  Mr. Gladstone spoke against it, and expressed the gloomiest apprehensions of the fate which the Maoris must expect if their country were settled.  New Zealand, be it observed, was already a well-known name in Parliament.  The age of committees of inquiry into its affairs began in 1836.  Very interesting to us to-day is the evidence of the witnesses before the committee of that year; nor are the proceedings of those of 1838, 1840, and 1844, less interesting.  In the third of the four Gibbon Wakefield, under examination, tells the story of the New Zealand Association.  In 1839 it became the New Zealand Land Company.  Baffled in Parliament, as already described, the colonizers changed their ground, decided to propitiate the powers, and become a joint-stock company.  Having done so, and subscribed a capital of L100,000, they tried to enlist the sympathies of Lord Normanby, who had just succeeded Lord Glenelg at the Colonial Office.  They found the new-made Secretary of State very affable indeed, and departed rejoicing.  But, like many new-made ministers, Lord Normanby had spoken without reckoning with his permanent officials.  A freezing official letter, following swiftly on the pleasant interview, dashed the hopes of the Company.  They were getting desperate.  Lord Palmerston had, in November, 1838, promised them to send a consul to New Zealand to supersede poor Mr. Busby, but the permanent officials thwarted him, and nothing was done for eight months.  At last, in May, 1839, Gibbon Wakefield crossed the Rubicon.  As the Government persisted in treating New Zealand as a foreign country, let the Company do the same, and establish settlements there as in a foreign land!  Since repeated efforts to obtain the help and sanction of the English Government had failed, let them go on unauthorized.  Secretly, therefore, the ship Tory, bearing Colonel Wakefield, as Agent for the Company, was despatched in May to Cook’s Straits to buy tracts of land for the Company.  He was given a free hand as to locality, though Port Nicholson was hinted at as the likeliest port.  With him went Gibbon Wakefield’s son, Jerningham Wakefield, whose book, Adventures in New Zealand, is the best account we New Zealanders have of the every-day incidents of the founding of our colony.