Notwithstanding their peculiar customs, one who knew the Maoris well described them as the most patient, equable, forgiving people in the world, but full of superstitious ideas, which foreigners could not understand.

They believed that everything found on their coast was sent to them by the sea god, Taniwa, and they therefore endeavoured to take possession of the blessings conferred on them by seizing the first ships that anchored in their rivers and harbours.  This led to misunderstandings and fights with their officers and crews, who had no knowledge of the sea god, Taniwa.  It was found necessary to put netting all round the vessels as high as the tops to prevent surprise, and when trade began it was the rule to admit no more than five Maoris on board at once.

The flax was found growing spontaneously in fields of inexhaustible extent along the more southerly shores of the islands.  The fibre was separated by the females, who held the top of the leaf between their toes, and drew a shell through the whole length of the leaf.  It took a good cleaner to scrape fifteen pounds weight of it in a day; the average was about ten pounds, for which the traders gave a fig of tobacco and a pipe, two sheets of cartridge paper, or one pound of lead.  The price at which the flax was sold in Sydney varied from 20 pounds to 45 pounds per ton, according to quality, so there was a large margin of profit to the trader.  In 1828 sixty tons of flax valued at 2,600 pounds, were exported from Sydney to England.

The results of trading with the foreigners were fatal to the natives.  At first the trade was in axes, knives, and other edge-tools, beads, and ornaments, but in 1832 the Maoris would scarcely take anything but arms and ammunition, red woollen shirts, and tobacco.  Every man in a native hapu had to procure a musket, or die.  If the warriors of the hapu had no guns they would soon be all killed by some tribe that had them.  The price of one gun, together with the requisite powder, was one ton of cleaned flax, prepared by the women and slaves in the sickly swamps.  In the meantime the food crops were neglected, hunger and hard labour killed many, some fell victims to diseases introduced by the white men, and the children nearly all died.

And the Maoris are still dying out of the land, blighted by our civilization.  They were willing to learn and to be taught, and they began to work with the white men.  In 1853 I saw nearly one hundred of them, naked to the waist, sinking shafts for gold on Bendigo, and no Cousin Jacks worked harder.  We could not, of course, make them Englishmen—­the true Briton is born, not made; but could we not have kept them alive if we had used reasonable means to do so?  Or is it true that in our inmost souls we wanted them to die, that we might possess their land in peace?