In 1842 it took eight months before an official, when writing from New Zealand to England, could hope to get an answer.  The time was far distant when the results of a cricket match in the southern hemisphere could be proclaimed in the streets of London before noon on the day of play.  It was not therefore surprising that Hobson’s successor did not reach the Colony for more than a year after his death.  Meantime the Government was carried on by Mr. Secretary Shortland, not the ablest of his officials.  He soon very nearly blundered into war with the Maoris, some of whom had been killing and eating certain of another tribe—­the last recorded instance of cannibalism in the country.  The Acting-Governor was, however, held back by Bishop Selwyn, Chief Justice Martin, and Swainson the Attorney-General, a trio of whom more will be said hereafter.  The two former walked on foot through the disturbed district, in peril but unharmed, to proffer their good advice.  The Attorney-General advised that what the Acting-Governor contemplated was ultra vires, an opinion so palpably and daringly wrong that some have thought it a desperate device to save the country.  He contended that as the culprits in the case were not among the chiefs who had signed the Treaty of Waitangi, they were not subject to the law or sovereignty of England.  Though it is said that Dr. Phillimore held the same opinion, the Colonial Office put its foot upon it heavily and at once.  Her Majesty’s rule, said Lord Stanley, having once been proclaimed over all New Zealand, it did not lie with one of her officers to impugn the validity of her government.

Mr. Shortland’s day was a time of trial for the land claimants.  After nearly two years’ delay Mr. Spain, the Commissioner for the trial of the New Zealand Company’s claims, had landed in Wellington in December, 1841, and had got to work in the following year.  As the southern purchases alone gave him work enough for three men, Messrs. Richmond and Godfrey were appointed to hear the Auckland cases.  By the middle of 1843 they had disposed of more than half of 1,037 claims.  Very remorselessly did they cut them down.  A well-known missionary who had taken over a block of 50,000 acres to prevent two tribes going to war about it, was allowed to keep 3,000 acres only.  At Hokianga a purchaser who claimed to have bought 1,500 acres for L24 was awarded 96 acres.  When we remember that among the demands of the greater land-sharks of the Colony had been three for more than a million acres each, three for more than half a million each, and three for more than a quarter of a million each, we can appreciate what the early Governors and their Commissioners had to face.  The Old Land Claims, now and afterwards looked into, covered some eleven million acres.  Of these a little less than one twenty-second part was held to have passed from the natives, and was divided between the Crown and the claimants.  A number of the Church of England missionaries had