rights of the
dark-skinned inhabitants of the soil should not be altogether ignored,
but neither should they be allowed to stand in the way of progress and
expansion. The world was made for the Englishman: if the Maori came
between them, so much the worse for him.

Such projects might well alarm the friends of the Maori, both in England
and in New Zealand. They could not blind themselves to the fact that
the coming of the white man had almost everywhere led to the
disappearance of the coloured races from the earth. The influential
friends of the Church Missionary Society accordingly opposed the New
Zealand Company's plans in parliament, and prevented it from obtaining
government recognition. Its emigrants went forth from their native land
against the wishes of the authorities, and they naturally carried with
them a prejudice against the cause of missions. On their arrival they
were received by the missionaries with mixed feelings. Natural instinct
led them to welcome the sight of men of their own race, but their minds
misgave them when they thought of the effect which would be produced
upon their converts. The Maoris were not yet grounded and settled in the
faith: they looked up to their spiritual teachers for guidance in all
the matters of life. Their faith was that of children, and for the time
their safety lay in their child-like submissiveness to their teachers.
How long would this happy state continue, if anything should dispel the
veneration in which the missionary had hitherto been held?

The coming of white men had so far brought little but trouble.
Kororareka was the one European settlement before the founding of
Wellington, and Kororareka was looked upon as a sink of iniquity. A
church had been built there by the missionaries, but some of the
townspeople had approached Bishop Broughton with a petition that he
would appoint someone other than a missionary to officiate within it. At
Port Nicholson we have seen how Henry Williams had been roused by the
high-handed proceedings of Colonel Wakefield. Hadfield had indeed won
the respect of the colonists by his high sense of honour, and his
readiness to use his influence with the Maoris on their behalf; but it
remains true, on the whole, that the opposite ends of the island were
set against each other--missionaries and Government in the north over
against colonists and Company in the south.

Such was the condition of affairs on May 29th, 1842, when there arrived
i