ertile and healthy
Archipelago larger than Great Britain. The haste, the secrecy,
the sharp practice, of the New Zealand Company were forced on the
Wakefields by the mulish obstinacy of careless or irrational people.
Their land-purchasing might have taken place legally, leisurely,
and under proper Government supervision, had missionaries been
business-like, had Downing-Street officials known what colonizing
meant, and had Lord Glenelg been fitted to be anything much more
important than an irreproachable churchwarden.

Meanwhile the Company had been advertising, writing, canvassing, and
button-holing in England, had kept a newspaper on foot, and was able
to point to powerful friends in Parliament and in London mercantile
circles. By giving scrip supposed to represent plots and farms in its
New Zealand territory, it secured numbers of settlers, many of whom
were men of worth, education, and ability. The character of the
settlers which it then and afterwards gave New Zealand may well be
held to cover a multitude of the Company's sins. Towards the end of
1839 its preparations were complete, and, without even waiting to hear
how Colonel Wakefield had fared, the first batch of its settlers were
shipped to Port Nicholson. They landed there on January 22nd, 1840,
and that is the date of the true foundation of the colony. But for
some weeks after that New Zealand remained a foreign country. Not for
longer, however. In June, 1839, the Colonial Office had at length
given way. What between the active horde of land-sharks in New Zealand
itself--what between the menace of French interference, and the
pressure at home of the New Zealand Company, the official mind could
hold out no longer. Captain Hobson, of the Royal Navy, was directed
to go to the Bay of Islands, and was armed with a dormant commission
authorizing him, after annexing all or part of New Zealand, to govern
it in the name of Her Majesty. In Sydney a royal proclamation was
issued under which New Zealand was included within the political
boundary of the colony of New South Wales. Captain Hobson was to act
as Lieutenant-Governor, with the Governor of New South Wales as his
superior officer. On January 29th, 1840, therefore, he stepped on
shore at Kororareka, and was loyally received by the Alsatians. The
history of New Zealand as a portion of the British Empire now begins.

[Illustration]

Chapter X

IN THE CAUDINE FORKS

I would rather be governed by Nero o