The Treaty of Waitangi; or, how New Zealand became a British Colony. Buick Thomas Lindsay
policy of anti-Imperialism. There were at this time none amongst the British statesmen blessed with that broader grasp, that wider vision of an Empire "extending over every sea, swaying many diverse races, and combining many diverse forms of religion," which afterwards animated the colonial policy of Lord John Russell.1 The courage and capacity which that planter of Imperial outposts declared were necessary to build such an Empire – to effect such a wholesome blending of peoples – were wanting, and there was even an imminent danger that in this negatory attitude towards colonising other Powers would come to regard Britain not as an equal, nor with the fear that an equal can inspire, but as a timorous weakling, a nation destitute of enterprise, the product of a waning courage and of a pusillanimous hand.
Thus it came about that when in 1839 the Ministry of Lord Melbourne found themselves coerced by circumstances into recognising the need for systematic colonisation, they discovered themselves destitute of what most people believed they possessed – a title to sovereignty in New Zealand "by right of discovery."
The spirit of the British nation had not, however, been as idle as the British statesman, and inherent enterprise, combined with an inherent love of adventure, had sown and matured the seed which continuous Ministries had persistently declined to nourish. The elements which had contributed to the irregular settlement of New Zealand were faithfully recorded in Lord Palmerston's letter to Captain Hobson, and a more unpropitious beginning for any colony could scarcely be imagined. The number of British subjects who, up to 1839, had resorted to New Zealand for the purposes of legitimate and respectable trade were comparatively few, but it is estimated that even earlier than this there were over five hundred escaped convicts living along the sea coast in and around the Bay of Islands, the point at which settlement had, up to that time, chiefly congregated. Of those directly and indirectly concerned in the whaling industry there must have been a considerable number, for it is officially recorded that in the year 1836 no less than one hundred and fifty-one vessels had visited the Bay of Islands alone, and the proportion was even larger in the first half of the succeeding year.
The combination of whaler and convict was not one calculated to strengthen the morality of the community, and so large a leaven of the lawless class, together with the insatiable desire of the natives to procure muskets, had the effect of creating a state of society which, in the words of the Foreign Secretary, "indispensably required the check of some contending authority." In the absence of any such authority the more respectable settlers at the Bay of Islands had organised themselves into a self-constituted Association, into whose hands was committed the administration of a rude justice, which recognised a liberal application of tar and feathers as meet punishment for some of the offences against society. A steadying influence had also been supplied by the appointment at intervals since 1814 of gentlemen empowered to act as Justices of the Peace, their authority being derived from a Commission issued by the Governor of New South Wales, and, if illegal, was on more than one occasion acted upon with salutary effect.2
Although it has been a popular sport on the part of many writers to throw darts of sarcasm at the labours of the Missionaries, they, too, must be accounted a tremendous influence for good, not so much, perhaps, in checking the licentiousness of the Europeans, as in preventing the natives from becoming contaminated by it. Destructive internecine wars had been waging "with fiendish determination" for many years under the conquering leadership of Hongi, Te Wherowhero, Te Waharoa and Te Rauparaha, by which whole districts had been depopulated, and tribe after tribe practically annihilated. Still the Maori people were a numerous, virile and warlike race, capable of deeds of blackest barbarism, or equally adaptable to the softening influences of Christianity and civilisation.
So far as the darker side of their history is concerned, we have it on the irreproachable authority of the Rev. Samuel Marsden that the tragedies in which the natives made war upon the Europeans were in almost every instance merely acts of retaliation for earlier outrages.3 The killing of Marian du Fresne and the massacre on board the Boyd were unquestionably so; and the dread of the natives which for several years after these events almost suspended the sea trade with New Zealand was the natural fruit of that cruelty which trusting Maori seamen had suffered at the hands of unscrupulous captains, who had either inveigled them or forced them on board their whalers. Dark as the history of New Zealand was during these Alsatian days, there is no chapter quite so dark, or which redounds less to the credit of the white race, than the story of the sea-going natives who were taken away from these sunny shores,4 and abandoned in foreign countries, or driven at the end of the lash to tasks far beyond their physical strength, resulting in the premature death of many, while the poison of undying hatred entered into the souls of the survivors.
The position on shore was scarcely less disgraceful, for the natives resident in the seaward pas were cruelly ill-treated by the crews of the European vessels who visited them; and it is stated in the records of the Church Missionary Society that within the first two or three years of the arrival of the Missionaries not less than one thousand Maoris had been murdered by Europeans, the natives unhappily not infrequently visiting upon the innocent who came within their reach revenge for crimes perpetrated by the guilty who had evaded their vengeance.
But apart from the commission of actual outrage there was debauchery of several kinds, and always of a pronounced type. "They lead a most reckless life, keeping grog shops, selling spirituous liquors to both Europeans and natives, living with the native females in a most discreditable way, so that the natives have told me to teach my own countrymen first before I taught them. They have called us a nation of drunkards from their seeing a majority of Europeans of that stamp in New Zealand." Such was the testimony of an erstwhile Missionary, Mr. John Flatt, when giving evidence before the House of Lords regarding the northern portion of the colony; and not less unsatisfactory was the position in the South Island, where the whalers were the preponderating section of the white population.
At both Cloudy Bay and Queen Charlotte Sound there was, in 1837, a considerable white settlement, each man being a law unto himself, except in so far as he was under the dominion of the head man of the station. This at least was the opinion formed by Captain Hobson when visiting those parts in H.M.S. Rattlesnake. In describing the result of his enquiries to Governor Bourke, he dismissed the probability of these settlements being attacked by the natives, because they were so confederated by their employment; but he significantly added: "The only danger they have to apprehend is from themselves, and that is in a great measure neutralised by the contending influences of their own reckless and desperate character."
The Rev. Mr. Stack, then labouring in the north, in writing home to the parent Society, complained bitterly of the unprincipled white men who had escaped from the chain gangs at Sydney, and who had recently shown themselves so desperate that two were seized and taken to Sydney to be tried at the Assizes on a charge of attempted robbery and murder.5 Mr. Stack pleaded for the intervention of the British Government, which he hoped would not leave the country at the mercy of the escaped convicts, or the natives to the influence of a commerce carried on with so many circumstances destructive to the moral health of the people, that if unchecked, would effectually do the work of depopulation. "We have no law or justice," wrote Mr. Stack, "no punishment for crime but private revenge."
In the beginning of the year 1840 Kororareka, the settlement at the Bay of Islands which had the greatest right to claim the dignity of a township, contained about three hundred inhabitants of all ages, exclusive of the numerous sailors, whose nightly revels constituted the only interruption to the peace and harmony which generally prevailed. These gentry resorted in great numbers to the native village at the inner anchorage, where the principal chief carried on the lucrative business of grog-selling, besides another of a still more discreditable kind, for the convenience of his reckless customers – French, English, and American. "Here," according to Dr. Jameson, "might be seen the curious spectacle of a still savage chief enriching himself at the expense of individuals who, although belonging to the most civilised and powerful nations in the world, were reduced to a lower degree of barbarism by the influence of their unbridled licentiousness."
Contact with such social degenerates was not calculated to inspire the natives with a
On one occasion when Lord John Russell was asked by a French Diplomat how much of Australia Britain claimed, he promptly replied, "The whole of it."
As indicating the state into which society had fallen it may be mentioned that one Master of a trading vessel who had no muskets to sell, gave a chief a packet of corrosive sublimate wherewith to destroy his enemies. To correct this condition of affairs a proclamation was published in the New South Wales Government
"The Rev. Mr. Kendall has received a commission to act as a Magistrate, but it does not appear that he possesses the means of rendering effective assistance to the natives against the oppressions of the crews of European vessels, and of controlling in any degree the intercourse that subsists between them." – Commissioner Bigge to Earl Bathurst, 1823.
This practice was prohibited by the Governor of New South Wales by Proclamation, on November 9, 1814.
Edward Doyle underwent the extreme penalty of the law at Sydney for a burglary committed at the Bay of Islands on June 18, 1836, the sentence being imposed under a statute of George IV.