When Marsden and Nicholas left New Zealand, a number of the chiefs sent their sons with them to Port Jackson; and such a scene of anguish took place on the parting between the parents and their children that there was no European present, Nicholas says, not excepting the most obdurate sailor on board, who was not more or less affected.  “But I cannot help noticing,” he adds, “that in the general expression of inconsolable distress, Pomaree was the only person who showed no concern; he took leave of his son with all the indifference imaginable, and hurrying into his canoe, paddled back to the shore—­a solitary exception to the affecting sensibility of his countrymen.”

Even Pomaree, however, could weep on some occasions, as the following account which Marsden gives us of an interview he had with him four or five years after this will show.  “He told me,” says Marsden, “that he was very angry that I had not brought a blacksmith for him; and that when he heard that there was no blacksmith for him, he sat down and wept much, and also his wives.  I assured him that he should have one, as soon as one could be got for him.  He replied it would be of no use to him to send a blacksmith when he was dead; and that he was at present in the greatest distress:  his wooden spades were all broke, and he had not an axe to make any more; his canoes were all broke, and he had not a nail or a gimlet to mend them with; his potato grounds were uncultivated, and he had not a hoe to break them up with, nor a tool to employ his people; and that, for want of cultivation, he and his people would have nothing to eat.  He begged me to compare the land of Tippoonah,[BH] which belonged to the inhabitants of Ranghee-hoo[BI] and Shungie, with his; observing, that their land was already prepared for planting, because a smith was there, and they could get hoes, &c.  I endeavoured to pacify his mind with promises, but he paid little attention to what I said in respect to sending him a smith at a future period.”

Pomaree was by much too cunning to be cheated of his object in this way.  He was evidently determined not to go without something in hand; and nothing accordingly would drive him from his point.

When Marsden tried to divert his attention to another subject by asking him if he should wish to go to England, he replied at once that he should not; adding, with his characteristic shrewdness, that he was a little man when at Port Jackson, and should be less in England; but in his own country he was a great king.  The conference ended at last by an express promise that he should have immediately three hoes, an axe, a few nails, and a gimlet.  This instantly put him in great good humour.