In 1814 the Church Missionary Society sent labourers to the distant vineyard to introduce Christianity, and to instruct the natives in the rights of property.  The first native protector of Christianity and letters was Hongi Hika, a great warrior of the Ngapuhi nation, in the North Island.  He was born in 1777, and voyaging to Sydney in 1814, he became the guest of the Rev. Mr. Marsden.  In 1819 the rev. gentleman bought his settlement at Kerikeri from Hongi Hika, the price being forty-eight axes.  The area of the settlement was thirteen thousand acres.  The land was excellent, well watered, in a fine situation, and near a good harbour.  Hongi next went to England with the Rev. Mr. Kendall to see King George, who was at that time in matrimonial trouble.  Hongi was surprised to hear that the King had to ask permission of anyone to dispose of his wife Caroline.  He said he had five wives at home, and he could clear off the whole of them if he liked without troubling anybody.  He received valuable presents in London, which he brought back to Sydney, and sold for three hundred muskets and ammunition.  The year 1822 was the most glorious time of his life.  He raised an army of one thousand men, three hundred of whom had been taught the use of his muskets.  The neighbouring tribes had no guns.  He went up the Tamar, and at Totara slew five hundred men, and baked and ate three hundred of them.  On the Waipa he killed fourteen hundred warriors out of a garrison of four thousand, and then returned home with crowds of slaves.  The other tribes began to buy guns from the traders as fast as they were able to pay for them with flax; and in 1827, at Wangaroa, a bullet went through Hongi’s lungs, leaving a hole in his back through which he used to whistle to entertain his friends; but he died of the wound fifteen months afterwards.

Other men, both clerical and lay, followed the lead of the Rev. Mr. Marsden.  In 1821 Mr. Fairbairn bought four hundred acres for ten pounds worth of trade.  Baron de Thierry bought forty thousand acres on the Hokianga River for thirty-six axes.  From 1825 to 1829 one million acres were bought by settlers and merchants.  Twenty-five thousand acres were bought at the Bay of Islands and Hokianga in five years, seventeen thousand of which belonged to the missionaries.  In 1835 the Rev. Henry Williams made a bold offer for the unsold country.  He forwarded a deed of trust to the governor of New South Wales, requesting that the missionaries should be appointed trustees for the natives for the remainder of their lands, “to preserve them from the intrigues of designing men.”  Before the year 1839, twenty millions of acres had been purchased by the clergy and laity for a few guns, axes, and other trifles, and the Maoris were fast wasting their inheritance.  But the titles were often imperfect.  When a man had bought a few hundreds of acres for six axes and a gun, and had paid the price agreed on to the owner, another owner would come and claim the land because his grandfather had been killed on it.  He sat down before the settler’s house and waited for payment, and whether he got any or not he came at regular intervals during the rest of his life and sat down before the door with his spear and mere* by his side waiting for more purchase money.