taera (Methuselah), better known
as Tawhiao, a dull, heavy, sullen-looking fool, who afterwards became
a sot. They disclaimed hostility to the Queen, but would sell no land,
and would allow no Whites to settle among them except a few mechanics
whose skill they wished to use. They even expelled from their villages
white men who had married Maori wives, and who now had to leave their
families behind. They would not allow the Queen's writ to run beyond
their _aukati_ or frontier, or let boats and steamers come up their
rivers. Amongst themselves the more violent talked of driving the
_Pakeha_ into the sea. Space will not permit of any sketch of the
discussions and negotiations by which attempts were made to deal with
the King Movement. Various mistakes were made. Thompson, while still
open to conciliation, visited Auckland to see the Governor and ask for
a small loan to aid his tribe in erecting a flour-mill. Governor Grey
would have granted both the interview and the money with good grace.
Governor Browne refused both, and the Waikato chief departed deeply
incensed. A much graver error was the virtual repeal of the ordinance
forbidding the sale of arms to the natives. Because a certain amount
of smuggling went on in spite of it, the insane course was adopted
of greatly relaxing its provisions instead of spending money and
vigilance in enforcing them. The result was a rapid increase of the
guns and powder sold to the disaffected tribes, who are said to have
spent L50,000 in buying them between 1857 and 1860. Between July,
1857, and April, 1858, at any rate, 7,849 lbs. of gunpowder, 311
double-barrelled guns, and 441 single-barrelled guns were openly sold
to Maoris.

Finally, in 1860, came the Waitara land purchase--the spark which set
all ablaze. The name Waitara has been extended from a river both to
a little seaport and to the surrounding district in Taranaki, the
province where, as already said, feeling on the land difficulty had
always been most acute. Enough land had been purchased, chiefly by
Grey, to enable the settlement to expand into a strip of about twenty
miles along the seashore, with an average depth of about seven miles.
During a visit to the district, Governor Browne invited the Ngatiawa
natives to sell land. A chief, Teira, and his friends at once offered
to part with six hundred acres which they were occupying. The head
of their tribe, however, Wiremu Kingi, vetoed the sale. The Native
Department and the