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 were 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 Lord Glenelg been fitted to be anything much more important than an irreproachable churchwarden.

Meanwhile the Company had been advertising, writing, canvassing, and button-holing in England, had kept a newspaper on foot, and was able to point to powerful friends in Parliament and in London mercantile circles.  By giving scrip supposed to represent plots and farms in its New Zealand territory, it secured numbers of settlers, many of whom were men of worth, education, and ability.  The character of the settlers which it then and afterwards gave New Zealand may well be held to cover a multitude of the Company’s sins.  Towards the end of 1839 its preparations were complete, and, without even waiting to hear how Colonel Wakefield had fared, the first batch of its settlers were shipped to Port Nicholson.  They landed there on January 22nd, 1840, and that is the date of the true foundation of the colony.  But for some weeks after that New Zealand remained a foreign country.  Not for longer, however.  In June, 1839, the Colonial Office had at length given way.  What between the active horde of land-sharks in New Zealand itself—­what between the menace of French interference, and the pressure at home of the New Zealand Company, the official mind could hold out no longer.  Captain Hobson, of the Royal Navy, was directed to go to the Bay of Islands, and was armed with a dormant commission authorizing him, after annexing all or part of New Zealand, to govern it in the name of Her Majesty.  In Sydney a royal proclamation was issued under which New Zealand was included within the political boundary of the colony of New South Wales.  Captain Hobson was to act as Lieutenant-Governor, with the Governor of New South Wales as his superior officer.  On January 29th, 1840, therefore, he stepped on shore at Kororareka, and was loyally received by the Alsatians.  The history of New Zealand as a portion of the British Empire now begins.

[Illustration]

Chapter X

IN THE CAUDINE FORKS

I would rather be governed by Nero on the spot than by a Board of Angels in London.—­John Robert Godley.