rs changed their
ground, decided to propitiate the powers, and become a joint-stock
company. Having done so, and subscribed a capital of L100,000,
they tried to enlist the sympathies of Lord Normanby, who had just
succeeded Lord Glenelg at the Colonial Office. They found the new-made
Secretary of State very affable indeed, and departed rejoicing.
But, like many new-made ministers, Lord Normanby had spoken without
reckoning with his permanent officials. A freezing official letter,
following swiftly on the pleasant interview, dashed the hopes of
the Company. They were getting desperate. Lord Palmerston had, in
November, 1838, promised them to send a consul to New Zealand to
supersede poor Mr. Busby, but the permanent officials thwarted him,
and nothing was done for eight months. At last, in May, 1839, Gibbon
Wakefield crossed the Rubicon. As the Government persisted in treating
New Zealand as a foreign country, let the Company do the same, and
establish settlements there as in a foreign land! Since repeated
efforts to obtain the help and sanction of the English Government had
failed, let them go on unauthorized. Secretly, therefore, the ship
_Tory_, bearing Colonel Wakefield, as Agent for the Company, was
despatched in May to Cook's Straits to buy tracts of land for the
Company. He was given a free hand as to locality, though Port
Nicholson was hinted at as the likeliest port. With him went Gibbon
Wakefield's son, Jerningham Wakefield, whose book, _Adventures in New
Zealand_, is the best account we New Zealanders have of the every-day
incidents of the founding of our colony.

Arriving in August among the whalers then settled in Queen Charlotte's
Sound, Colonel Wakefield enlisted Dicky Barrett's services, and,
passing on to Port Nicholson, entered into a series of negotiations
with the Maori chiefs, which led to extensive land purchases.
Ultimately Colonel Wakefield claimed that he had bought twenty
millions of acres--nearly the whole of what are now the provincial
districts of Wellington and Taranaki, and a large slice of Nelson.
It is quite probable that he believed he had. It is certain that the
Maoris, for their part, never had the least notion of selling the
greater portion of this immense area. It is equally probable that such
chiefs as Rauparaha and Rangihaeata, who were parties to the bargain,
knew that Wakefield thought he was buying the country. Fifty-eight
chiefs in all signed the deeds of sale. Even if they un