Rewa was now the only chief of note present who still refused to sign, but after some time, being persuaded by some of his Native friends as well as by the members of the Church of England Mission, he came forward and signed the treaty, stating to the Governor that the Roman Catholic bishop had told him not to do so, and that he (the Roman Catholic bishop) had striven hard with him not to sign.
During the signing of the treaty a few chiefs arrived who were not present on the first day from not receiving their summoning letters in time and from the long distance they had to come—of course on foot. They, however, signed the document.
Forty-five chiefs signed the treaty at this second day of meeting. The greater part of them were from the Bay of Islands and its immediate vicinity. Among them, however, were not many chiefs of the first rank. In fact, there were none present from any distance save Tamati Waka Nene and his brother Patuone, from the Hokianga district; and Kauwata, Warau, and Ngere, from the Wangaruru district.
His Excellency appeared to be in good health and spirits, and to be much interested in the scenes before him. As each chief affixed his name or sign to the treaty the Governor shook him by the hand, saying (in Maori), ‘He iwi tahi tatou’ (We are [now] one people’), at which the Natives were greatly pleased. All that were disposed having signed, the Natives gave three cheers for the Governor.
His Excellency, on leaving, requested me to attend to the distributing of a bale of blankets and a cask of tobacco to the Natives, which occupied me till late, each chief who had signed the document getting two blankets and a quantity of tobacco. By dint of close and constant management the said distribution went off well without any mishap or hitch.
(1890)
From The Journal of Ensign Best
Thursday 4th [June 1840]. Before breakfast Smart and myself went on Shore to look about us and to hoist the Jack at Thorndon when we returned we found Mr Shortland in close confab with a certain Dr Evans one of the Members of the council and a leading person in the whole concern. The poor man was dreadfully down in the mouth when informed that the Council no longer existed but at the same time was loyal to the backbone denying the truth of everything that Mr Sinclair had said at the Bay of Islands and also declaring that the New Zealand Gazette did not express the sentiments of a single individual in the place. Altogether he was as pretty a specimen of a piece of humbug as you could meet in a days march. At Twelve we landed with the Mounted Police and in the presence of a large number of Settlers who had assembled some from the other side of the Bay Mr Shortland read the necessary papers and proclamations declaring the Sovereignty of the Queen in New Zealand. At the words God Save the Queen the multitude commenced cheering most violently English Radicals & Chartists, Canadian Rebels, Dogsmeat Field Officers vying with each other in testifying their loyalty by the loudness of their screeching. The Troops on board fired a feu de joie and some one of the various inhabitants of Port Nicholson fired a Royal Salute from a little brass Ships Gun. I think it right to mention that my men were all ready to land at a given signal had the people shewn any disposition to resist the Queens authority and that the blank Cartridge was only a substitute. We went back up to the house of Dr Evans and had some Luncheon and on our way back to the ship were met by a large body of Mauries headed by the principal Chiefs of the Place who first sang the Iremi and then danced their war dance after which the Chiefs shook hands & welcomed the Governor for so they styled Mr Shortland. All remainder of the evening it rained cats & dogs and blew great guns.
(1837–41)
Imagined Worlds
Edward Gibbon Wakefield, from A Letter from Sydney
Just before I embarked at Plymouth, I visited my grandmother, in order to take leave of her for ever. Poor old soul! she was already dead to the concerns of this life; my departure could make but a little difference in the time of our separation, and in the regard to her affection for me, it could be of no importance to her which of us should quit the other. My resolution however, revived for a day all her woman’s feelings. She shed an abundance of tears, and then became extremely curious to know every particular about the place to which I was going. I rubbed her spectacles while she wiped her eyes, and having placed before her a common English chart of the world, pointed out the situation of New Holland. She shook her head. ‘What displeases you, my dear Madam?’ said I. ‘Why,’ she answered, ‘it is terribly out of the way—down in the very right hand corner of the world.’ The chart being mine, I cut it in two through the meridian of Iceland, transposed the parts laterally, and turned them upside down. ‘Now,’ asked I, ‘where is England?’ ‘Ah! boy,’ she replied; ‘you may do what you like with the map; but you can’t twist the world about in that manner, though they are making sad changes in it.’
Enough of my grandmother.—But, notwithstanding the great increase in knowledge which she deplored, English people do generally consider New Holland ‘terribly out of the way’. Out of the way of what? Of England? Yes; but is every part of the world a pleasant or hateful residence, only according to its facilities of communication with England? Any people, no doubt, must be the better for communication with the most civilised people in the world; but the degree of intercourse is not entirely regulated by distance. Indeed, distance has very little to do with it, as appears by comparing the case of France and Spain, with that of England and India. Perhaps if there were no restrictions on trade, the greatest difference of temperature, which involves considerable distance, would cause the greatest degree of intercourse by means of the greatest difference of production, and the greatest motive for exchange. But, however this may be, I suspect that those who despise New Holland on account of its being out of the way of England would, if they could be forced to think on the subject, acknowledge that they do not mean exactly what they say. Comparing the inhabitants of Pest, for example, with those of Calcutta, they would see that wealth and civilisation are not measured by the longitude from Greenwich; and a glance at Loo Choo might convince them, if Captain Hall was not deceived, that happiness does not depend on geographical position with respect to England. But, without inquiry, a moment’s reflection would lead them to use other words. They do not mean, though they say so, out of the way with respect to England, but positively out of the way—that is, isolated and distant from the rest of the world—‘down in the corner’, as my grandmother said. This old woman’s notion appears to arise from a confusion of ideas. Because New Holland is more distant from England than some well-known distant places, the vulgar suppose that it must also be more distant from those places. Whereas the very contrary is the fact; the distance of those places from England placing them near to New Holland. There is a great difference, in short, between looking to a place and looking from it; and my grandmother thought there was no difference. Now the situation of a country is of importance to those who live in it, rather than those who do not; and the former also will, looking from the country, make the truest estimate of what good or evil may belong to its position with respect to other countries. Call upon your imagination therefore. Fancy yourself here. And for fear of my grandmother’s ‘down in the corner’, look at a globe, or divide a chart of the world, transposing all the parts laterally, but without turning them upside down.
Where is England? Up in the left-hand corner.—And New Holland? Let an English writer answer—‘In order to obtain a connected view of the loftiest and most extensive system of mountains upon the globe, we must suppose ourselves placed in New Holland with our faces turned towards the north. America will be then on the right, Asia and Africa on the left. From Cape Horn to Behring’s Strait, along the west coast of America, there is an almost uninterrupted range of the highest mountains; from Behring’s Strait again, succeeds an enormous line passing in a south-westerly direction through Asia, leaving China and Hindostan to the south, somewhat interrupted as it approaches Africa, but still to be looked upon as continuing its course in the mountains of Persia and Arabia Felix. From Cape Gardafui, in Africa, to the Cape of Good Hope, there
appears to be a chain which completes the view. The series of mountains which we have thus followed, is in the form of an immense irregular curve, which comprises within it the Pacific and Indian Oceans, with their innumerable islands, besides a portion of Asia, including China, the Burman dominions, and the Indian peninsula.’ The situation of New Holland with respect to his ‘immense irregular curve’, is like that of the frog of a horse’s foot to the outline of a shoe; the most favourable position imaginable for intercourse with all that the curve contains. Remark also, that Australasia has a territorial line of above eight thousand miles, immediately connected by water with those numerous countries, of which, again, nearly all the rivers flow towards the common centre, which is New Holland. Add to this, that those countries comprise not only every degree of latitude, north and south, as far as land extends, but the most fertile, and above all, the most populous regions of the earth. Thus it becomes evident that Australasia, instead of being positively ‘out of the way’, offers, all at once, better means and greater motives, for a more frequent intercourse with a greater variety of nations and a larger number of people, than any other country without exception.
(1829)
Isabella E. Aylmer, from Distant Homes; or the Graham Family in New Zealand
Lucy Graham was working very hard at a number of fancy bags and baskets, evidently intended for a Christmas tree, when her brother George entered the room.
‘Mamma wants you, Loo; go to her dressing-room, and then back to me. Look sharp like a good girl, I want you very much.’
‘All serene, Master,’ exclaimed his sister.
‘Miss Graham, where did you learn such a vulgar expression?’ cried the governess, who happened to be passing, and stood in the doorway, looking the very picture of outraged propriety.
‘From Papa,’ was Lucy’s answer, as she ran past the horror-stricken lady, and looking back made a face, for George’s edification; he, however, was hunting through a large Atlas, and lost this exhibition of his sister’s wit. An hour elapsed; at first it went very slowly, but getting interested in a book he was comparing with the map, the boy did not notice the length of time, nor did he hear his sister return, which she did very softly and with a very much altered countenance. Stealing up to George, she put her arms round his neck, and whispered.
‘What is it all for, Georgy? Why need we go so far away? You’re looking at the map, please tell me everything, dear. Mamma was crying so, Papa sent me away.’
‘Poor Mamma!’ said George. ‘You see, Lucy, Mamma thinks it is her blame, for it was all her fortune that was in the bank when it broke, and the people claimed so much money, Papa was obliged to sell all he could.’
‘He never told me,’ exclaimed Lucy, looking angry.
‘You were at school you know; but let me go on; well, it might not have been so bad after all, but old Mr Crossly had lost his money too it seems; and when he died the other day, Mamma only got £2,000, so they have decided to sell this house and go to New Zealand.’
‘But, are not you going,’ asked Lucy, remarking her brother said ‘they’.
‘No dear, not yet. I am to stay at college all next year, and when I’ve taken my degree, I’ll follow.’
‘Oh, George! what use is there in taking a degree to go out and settle among savages; surely, you don’t really mean it. Papa never said anything, except that I was to practise as hard as I could; I should like to know what use it is. Who ever heard of pianos in New Zealand.’
Her brother smiled, but kept a little lecture he just then thought of for another time, merely saying ‘he would bring a piano out with him’.
‘Let me see the place we are going to George, oh! what is the name?’
‘The Canterbury Settlement.’
‘Ah, that will sound almost like home; only think of there being a Canterbury among the savages; I wonder if there’s a bishop and a cathedral?’
‘Of course there is, Miss Wisdom,’ exclaimed a loud voice. The speaker, a boy of fourteen, and just a year older than Lucy, was flattening his nose against the window, having much to his own delight accomplished the feat of sitting cross-legged upon the narrow stone ledge outside; ‘of course there is, Miss Wisdom, and Cannibals too.
‘Hoky, Poky, Wankum Wun,
How do you like your enemy done,
Roast or boiled, or fried in the sun—
The king of the Cannibal Islands.’
‘You’ll sing a different tune if you don’t look out,’ said George, laughing, ‘and that will be—
‘Roley Poley sat on a wall,
Roley Poley got a great fall,
Three score men, and double three score,
Couldn’t put Roley Poley up any more.’
Lucy rushed to the window just in time to see Tom turn a summersault off the ledge, and after standing upon his head on the grass for a second or two, finished off his performance by a clever imitation of a clown he had seen at Astley’s. Lucy laughed, and clapped her hands with delight, for Tom was her favourite; and as they only met during the holidays, they were, when together, nick-named, ‘The Siamese Twins’.
Tom having performed long enough to satisfy himself, walked gravely into the house, and straight up to the sitting room.
‘What were you two saying about New Zealand?’ he asked, throwing himself into a large chair by the fire, ‘is Miss Wisdom going to convert the savages, and teach the monkeys?’
‘There are no monkeys in New Zealand, Tom,’ answered Lucy in a tone of rebuke.
‘Ain’t there, then I can tell you, Mam, you don’t know anything about it; there’s monkeys in all out-landish places.’
‘But I tell you, Tom, there’s not,’ retorted his sister. ‘You’ll soon see, we are going there.’
‘Don’t try to deceive me,’ said Tom, ‘you and George have been looking up some rigmarole story; I only wish we were going, I’d get away from school, and hunt Caffirs and elephants, like Gordon Cumming; but you don’t know anything about him, it’s a boy’s book, girls only read sentimental trash, and cookery books.’
‘Why, Tom, I never read a cookery book in my life.’
‘Oh! you’re an exception,’ replied Tom, ‘and exceptions make the rule, don’t they, George.’
But George was sitting with his head leaning upon his hands, poring over a large book, and perfectly deaf to all that was going on. Tom did not attempt to interrupt him; but beckoning Lucy to come to him, asked:—
‘Now, really, Loo, I’m in earnest, are we going to New Zealand? Tell me like a good girl, or I’ll be off to Beatrice, she’ll not deceive me.’
‘Well, Tom,’ answered Lucy, becoming very grave, ‘it is true; I’ve just been to the dressing room, and Mamma told me, herself; isn’t it a dreadful thing.’
‘Whoop, Hurrah! New Zealand for ever!’ shouted Tom, kicking up his legs until he got red in the face, and had to stop from sheer fatigue, ‘Hurrah! no more Latin and Greek on Mondays, from old Crossbones. Oh! Lucy, you goose, what are you looking that way for, ain’t you glad, ain’t you happy; I am, I can tell you, and I won’t call you my sister if you don’t say so too.’
‘Oh! Tom.’
‘Oh! fiddlestick.’
‘But Tom, listen.’
‘I won’t listen. The idea of looking that way, because you’re going to lead a jolly life; we’ll live in a tent like the soldiers, and shoot for dinner. I’ll have a gun I can tell you, Miss; there now, sit down, and tell me all about it. When are we going?’
‘In February, I believe; but here is Papa coming, he’ll tell you all about it.’
‘Oh! Papa,’ exclaimed Tom, jumping up, and throwing his arms round his father, ‘when are we going to New Zealand? I’m so glad.’
Capt. Graham looked down into the bright handsome face turned up to his; it was really almost the first ray of comfort he had met since he had made up his mind to leave England; and the joyous gaze of Tom’s bright blue eyes shone like a gleam of sunshine upon the future.
‘So yo
u like it, my boy,’ said his father stroking his curly head, ‘I’m afraid nobody else does.’
Lucy here threw her arms round her father’s neck, and exclaimed eagerly:—
‘I do, Papa, indeed I do, and so does George; won’t you sit down and tell us what kind of place it is. George is working so hard I cannot ask him; please tell us all about the country and people. Are the people cannibals or not?’
‘They were a short time ago, Lucy, there’s no doubt of that; but lately there has been a great change, and there are very few natives in the Canterbury district at all; and all that are there, have become Christians, in name at least. The settlement of Canterbury was founded by a large party of gentlemen belonging to the Church of England; and it has now a Bishop, Clergy, and College. A friend of mine who has been living out there for three years, says there is no place like it; and that nobody going there, would ever wish to live in England again.’
‘Of course not,’ said Tom, nodding his head approvingly. ‘But are there wild horses and buffaloes, Papa?’
‘No, Tom.’
‘Lions, then; or tigers?’
‘No, neither; nor are there any animals natural to the country; but cats, rats, and dogs there are plenty of.’
Tom was evidently disappointed, and asked:—
‘Then how do people live, if there is nothing to hunt and shoot?’
‘Cannot they make the ground keep them, Tom?’ asked George, now joining in the conversation. ‘You were always wishing to be a sailor; you’ll have a first-rate chance of trying it now. And you, Lucy, will have your wish of milking cows gratified. Won’t Lucy have to be dairymaid, Papa?’
‘To be sure! and Beatrice henwife,’ answered Captain Graham, as his second daughter entered the room, leading little Aps (as Arthur was called) by the hand.
‘Hallo! Beatrice!’ shouted Tom, starting up; ‘only fancy! we are all going to New Zealand, and Lucy is going to be a savage, and you are going to be a henwife.’
The Auckland University Press Anthology of New Zealand Literature Page 9