muskets and a
supply of powder and bullets.

The Sydney Government did not prevent him. At Marsden's table, at
Parramatta, Hongi met a chief of the offending tribe. Grimly he warned
his fellow-guest to take himself home, make ready for war, and prepare
to be killed--and eaten. Landing in New Zealand, he determined to
imitate Napoleon. Allowing for the enormous difference in his arena,
he managed to be nearly as mischievous.

His luckless enemies, armed only with spears, tomahawks, stones and
clubs, were shot and enslaved by thousands and eaten by hundreds. Wide
districts were swept bare of people. No man cared for anything except
to procure a gun and thereby have a chance to save his life. A musket
was, indeed, a pearl of great price. It has been pleaded for Hongi
that he protected the missionaries, and that by forcing his race to
get guns at any price he unwittingly developed trade. It is indeed
true that in their desperate straits the tribes sold flax, timber,
potatoes, mats, tattooed heads, pigs--even their precious land--for
firearms. Without them their lives were not worth a month's purchase.
Men and women toiled almost frantically at growing and preparing flax
or providing anything exchangeable for muskets, powder and lead. An
old Brown Bess was worth three tons of scraped flax. Undoubtedly
whites were welcomed, both as traders and fighters, with a readiness
unknown before. In 1835, New Zealand exports to Sydney alone were
valued at L113,000, her imports at L31,000. It was a poor set-off
against an era of butchery.

Determined to carry out the threats he had made in Sydney, Hongi began
his campaigns by sailing southward with a great fleet of war-canoes.
Passing to the head of the Hauraki Gulf he sat down before the _pa_ of
Totara, the chief fortress of the Thames tribes--the men whom he had
doomed in Sydney. The place was well garrisoned, and commanded by the
head chief, Trembling-Leaf. Even the three hundred musketeers found
the _pa_ too strong for open assault, though those inside had but
one gun and no ammunition. Hongi fell back upon fraud and offered
honourable peace, if a certain sacred greenstone _mere_ were handed
to him as a trophy. It was solemnly handed over, and the principal
invaders were feasted in the _pa_. One of them, ashamed of the
intended treachery, whispered to an acquaintance in the garrison,
"Beware!" In vain. That night, as Hongi's victims were sleeping
securely, the Ngapuhi rushed the