The mate had a secret and wanted to get rid of it.  While looking round at the shore, and apparently talking about indifferent subjects, he said to the pilot:  “Don’t look at the men, and don’t take any notice of them.  They threw Blogg, the master, overboard, when he was flogging the cook, and they would murder me, too, if they knew I told you; so you must pretend not to take any notice of them.  What their plans may be, I don’t know; but you may be sure they won’t go back to the Tamar, if they can help it.”

If the pilot felt any surprise, he did not show it.  After a short pause he said:  “You go about your business, and don’t speak to me again, except when the men can hear you.  I will think about what is best to be done.”

During the night Captain Young thought about it to some purpose.  Being a master mariner himself he could imagine no circumstances which would justify a crew in throwing a master mariner overboard.  It was the one crime which could not be pardoned either afloat or ashore.  Next day he took the vessel up the estuary, and anchored her within two hundred yards of the shore, opposite the residence of Captain McDonnell.

It is true there was no government at that time at Hokianga, nor anywhere else in New Zealand; there were no judges, no magistrates, no courts, and no police.  But the British Angel of Annexation was already hovering over the land, although she had not as yet alighted on it.

At this time the shores of New Zealand were infested with captains.  There was a Captain Busby, who was called British Resident, and, unfortunately for our seamen, Captain McDonnell had been appointed Additional British Resident at Hokianga a few weeks previously.  So far he had been officially idle; there was no business to do, no chance of his displaying his zeal and patriotism.  Moreover, he had no pay, and apparently no power and no duties.  He was neither a Governor nor a Government, but a kind of forerunner of approaching empire—­one of those harmless and far-reaching tentacles which the British octopus extends into the recesses of ocean, searching for prey to satisfy the demands of her imperial appetite.

McDonnell was a naval lieutenant; had served under the East India Company; had smuggled opium to China; had explored the coasts of New Zealand; and on March 31st, 1831, had arrived at Hokianga from Sydney in the ‘Sir George Murray’, a vessel which he had purchased for 1,300 pounds.  He brought with him his wife, two children, and a servant, but took them back on the return voyage.  He was now engaged in the flax and kauri pine trade.