’We hope to get, at all events, one ready-made boat, so as to cause no delay.  The good people at Norfolk Island will be anxious if the vessel does not reappear soon.

’Auckland, June 6th—­“Southern Cross” could not sail till May 23.  If I am not found by them at Norfolk Island on their return, they are to come on for me.  I hope to make a two months’ cruise.

‘General health quite well, no pain for weeks past.  Dr. Goldsboro’ says I shall be better in a hot climate; but he won’t let me out of his hands yet.

’I really think I shall do very well by-and-by.

’Your very affectionate

‘J.  C. Patteson.’

’The repairs took some time (continues Lady Martin).  The delay must have been very trying to the Bishop in his weak state, as it threw out all the plans for the winter voyage; but he showed no signs of fretfulness or of a restless desire to go himself to see after matters.  The winter was unusually cold after the vessel sailed again; and I used to wonder sometimes whether he lay awake listening to the wind that howled in gusts round the house; he may have, but certainly there was always a look of unruffled calm and peace on his face when we met in the morning.

’Tis enough that Thou shouldst care
 Why should I the burden bear?

’Our dear friend mended very slowly.  It was more than a month before he could bear even to be driven up to Bishop’s Court to receive the Holy Communion in the private Chapel, and some time longer before he could sit through the Sunday services.  I cannot be sure whether he went first on Ascension Day.  His own letters may inform you.  I only remember how thankful and happy he was to be able to get there.  He had felt the loss of the frequent Communions in which he could join all through his illness.’

He was making a real step towards recovery, and by the 10th of June he was able to go and stay at St. Sepulchre’s parsonage with Mr. Dudley, and attend the gathering at the Bishop of Auckland’s Chapel on St. Barnabas Day; but the calm enjoyment and soothing indifference which seems so often a privilege of the weakness of recovery was broken by fuller tidings respecting the labour traffic that imperilled his work.  A schooner had come in from Fate with from fifteen to twenty natives from that and other islands to work in flax mills; and a little later a letter arrived from his correspondent in Fiji, showing to what an extent the immigration thither had come, and how large a proportion of the young men working in the sugar plantations had been decoyed from home on false pretences.

This was the point, as far as at the time appeared in New Zealand.  If violence had then begun, no very flagrant instances were known; and the Bishop was not at all averse to the employment of natives, well knowing how great an agent in improvement is civilisation.  But to have them carried off without understanding what they were about, and then set to hard labour, was quite a different thing.