’If, dear tutor, you really were not in joke, just try to find some good man who would come and place himself under the Bishop’s direction unreservedly, and in fact be to him much what I am + the ability and earnestness, &c.  Seriously, I am not at all fitted to do anything but work under a good man.  Of course, should I survive the Bishop, and no other man come out, why it is better that the ensign should assume the command than to give up the struggle altogether.  But this of course is pure speculation.  The Bishop is hearty, and, I pray God, may be Bishop of Melanesia for twenty years to come, and by that time there will be many more competent men than I ever shall be to succeed him, to say nothing of possible casualties, climate, &c.

’Good-bye, my dear Uncle; kind love to all.

’Your loving nephew and pupil,

‘J.  C. Patteson.’

The three women and the two babies were disposed of in separate houses, but their husbands, with thirty-nine other Melanesians, four Norfolk Islanders, two printers, Mr. Dudley and Mr. Patteson, made up the dinner-party every day in the hall of St. John’s College.  ’Not a little happy I feel at the head of my board, with two rows of merry, happy-looking Melanesians on either side of me!’

The coughs, colds, and feverish attacks of these scholars were the only drawback; the slightest chill made them droop; and it was a subject of joy to have any day the full number in hall, instead of one or two lying ill in their tutor’s own bed-chamber.

On the 29th of December came the exceeding joy of the arrival of the Judge and Mrs. Martin, almost straight from Feniton, ready to talk untiringly of everyone there.  On the New Year’s day of 1859 there was a joyful thanksgiving service at Taurarua for their safe return, at which all the best Church people near were present, and when John Cho made his first Communion.

On the 20th these much-loved friends came to make a long stay at the College, and the recollections they preserved of that time have thus been recorded by Lady Martin.  It will be remembered that she had parted from him during the year of waiting and irregular employment: 

’We were away from New Zealand nearly three years.  We had heard at Feniton dear Coley’s first happy letters telling of his voyages to the islands in 1856-7, letters all aglow with enthusiasm about these places and people.  One phrase I well remember, his kindly regret expressed for those whose lot is not cast among the Melanesian islands.  On our return we went to live for some months at St. John’s College, where Mr. Patteson was then settled with a large party of scholars.

’We soon found that a great change had passed over our dear friend.  His whole mind was absorbed in his work.  He was always ready, indeed, to listen to anything there was to tell about his dear father; but about our foreign travels, his favourite pictures, the scenes of which we had heard so much from him, he would listen for a few minutes, but was sure in a little while to have worked round to Melanesia in general, or to his boys in particular, or to some discussion with my husband on the structure of their many languages and dialects.  It was then that Bishop Abraham said that when the two came to their ninth meaning of a particle, he used to go to sleep.