CHAPTER V.

FOOTNOTES:[F]To Avison Terry, Esq., Hull.[G]Eclectic Review, vol. v. pp. 988-995.[H]See Life of Dr. Mason Good, by Dr. Olinthus Gregory.

FOOTNOTES:

[F]To Avison Terry, Esq., Hull.

[G]Eclectic Review, vol. v. pp. 988-995.

[H]See Life of Dr. Mason Good, by Dr. Olinthus Gregory.

Return to the Colony—Duaterra—His strange adventures—Mr. Marsden’s Labours in New South Wales—Aborigines—Their Habits—Plans for their Civilization.

Mr. Marsden took what proved to be his last leave of his native land in August 1809. Resolute as he was, and nerved for danger, a shade of depression passed across him. “The ship, I understand,” he writes to Mrs. Mason Good, “is nearly ready. This land in which we live is polluted, and cannot, on account of sin, give rest to any of its inhabitants. Those who have (sought) and still do seek their happiness in anything it can give, will meet nothing but disappointment, vexation, and sorrow. If we have only a common share of human happiness, we cannot have or hope for more.” A few weeks afterwards he addresses the same Christian lady thus:—

“Cambridge, August 1, 1809.“Yesterday I assisted my much esteemed friend, Mr. Simeon, but here I shall have no continuing city. The signal will soon be given, the anchor weighed, and the sails spread, and the ship compelled to enter the mighty ocean to seek for distant lands. I was determined to take another peep at Cambridge, though conscious I could but enjoy those beautiful scenes for a moment. In a few days we shall set off for Portsmouth. All this turning and wheeling about from place, to place, and from nation to nation, I trust is our right way to the heavenly Canaan. I am happy in the conclusion, to inform you that I have got allmy business settled in London much to my satisfaction, both with government and in other respects. The object of my mission has been answered, far beyond my expectations. I believe that God has gracious designs towards New South Wales, and that his gospel will take root there, and spread amongst the heathen nations to the glory of his grace.“I have the honour to be, dear madam,“Yours, in every Christian bond,“Samuel Marsden.”

“Cambridge, August 1, 1809.

“Yesterday I assisted my much esteemed friend, Mr. Simeon, but here I shall have no continuing city. The signal will soon be given, the anchor weighed, and the sails spread, and the ship compelled to enter the mighty ocean to seek for distant lands. I was determined to take another peep at Cambridge, though conscious I could but enjoy those beautiful scenes for a moment. In a few days we shall set off for Portsmouth. All this turning and wheeling about from place, to place, and from nation to nation, I trust is our right way to the heavenly Canaan. I am happy in the conclusion, to inform you that I have got allmy business settled in London much to my satisfaction, both with government and in other respects. The object of my mission has been answered, far beyond my expectations. I believe that God has gracious designs towards New South Wales, and that his gospel will take root there, and spread amongst the heathen nations to the glory of his grace.

“I have the honour to be, dear madam,“Yours, in every Christian bond,“Samuel Marsden.”

His prayers and devout aspirations for New Zealand had been heard on high, and “the way of the Lord” was “preparing” in a manner far beyond his expectations, ardent as they seem. The ship Ann, in which he sailed, by order of the government, for New South Wales, carried with her one whom Providence had raised up to act a part, only less important than his own, in the conversion of that benighted land.

The ship had been some time at sea before Mr. Marsden observed on the forecastle, amongst the common sailors, a man whose darker skin and wretched appearance awakened his sympathy. He was wrapped in an old great coat, very sick and weak, had a violent cough, accompanied with profuse bleeding. He was much dejected, and appeared as though a few days would close his life. This was Duaterra, a New Zealand chieftain, whose story, as related by Mr. Marsden himself, is almost too strange for fiction. And as “this young chief became,” as he tells us, “one of the principal instruments in preparing the way for the introduction of the arts of civilization and the knowledge of Christianity into his native country,” a brief sketch of his marvellous adventures will not be out of place.

When the existence of New Zealand was yet scarcely known to Europeans, it was occasionally visited by a South Sea whaler distressed for provisions, or in want of water. One of these, the Argo, put into the Bay of Islands in 1805, and Duaterra, fired with the spirit of adventure, embarked on board with two of his companions. The Argo remained on the New Zealand coast for above five months, and then sailed for Port Jackson, the modern Sydney of Australia, Duaterra sailing with her. She then went to fish on the coast of New Holland for six months, again returning to Port Jackson. Duaterra had been six months on board, working in general as a common sailor, and passionately fond of this roving life. He then experienced that unkindness and foul play of which the New Zealander has always had sad reason to complain. He was left on shore without a friend and without the slightest remuneration.

He now shipped himself on board the Albion whaler, Captain Richardson, whose name deserves honourable mention; he behaved very kindly to Duaterra, repaid him for his services in various European articles, and after six months cruising on the fisheries, put him on shore in the Bay of Islands, where his tribe dwelt. Here he remained six months, when the Santa Anna anchored in the bay, on her way to Norfolk Island and other islets of the South Sea in quest of seal skins. The restless Duaterra again embarked; he was put on shore on Norfolk Island at the head of a party of fourteen sailors, provided with a very scanty supply of water, bread, and salt provisions, to kill seals, while the ship sailed, intending to be absent but a short time, to procure potatoes and pork in New Zealand. On her return she was blown off the coast in a storm, and did not make the land for a month. The sealing party were now in the greatest distress, and accustomed as he was to hardship, Duaterra often spoke of the extreme suffering which he and his party had endured, while, for upwards of three months, they existed on a desert island with no other food than seals and sea fowls, and no water except when a shower of rain happened to fall. Three of his companions, two Europeans and one Tahitian, died under these distresses.

At length the Santa Anna returned, having procured a valuable cargo of seal skins, and prepared to take her departure homewards. Duaterra had now an opportunity of gratifying an ardent desire he had for some time entertained of visiting that remote country from which so many vast ships were sent, and to see with his own eyes the great chief of so wonderful a people. He willingly risked the voyage, as a common sailor, to visit England and see king George. The Santa Anna arrived in the river Thames about July 1809, and Duaterra now requested that the captain would make good his promise, and indulge him with at least a sight of the king. Again he had a sad proof of the perfidiousness of Europeans. Sometimes he was told that no one was allowed to see king George; sometimes that his house could not be found. This distressed him exceedingly; he saw little of London, was ill-used, and seldom permitted to go on shore. In about fifteen days, the vessel had discharged her cargo, when the captain told him that he should put him on board the Ann, which had been taken up by government to convey convicts to New South Wales. The Ann had already dropped down to Gravesend, and Duaterra asked the master of the Santa Anna for some wages and clothing. He refused to give him any, telling him that the owners at Port Jackson would pay him in two muskets for his services on his arrival there; but even these he never received.

Mr. Marsden was at this time in London, quite ignorant of the fact that the son of a New Zealand chief, in circumstances so pitiable, lay on board a South Sea whaler near London bridge. Their first meeting was on board the Ann, as we have stated, when she had been some days at sea. His sympathies were at once roused, and his indignation too; for it was always ill for the oppressor when he fell within the power of his stern rebuke. “I inquired,” he says, “of the master where he met with him, and also of Duaterra what had brought him to England, and how he came to be so wretched and miserable. He told me that the hardships and wrongs which he had endured on board the Santa Anna were exceedingly great, and that the English sailors had beaten him very much, which was the cause of his spitting blood, and that the master had defrauded him of all his wages, and prevented his seeing the king. I should have been very happy, if there had been time, to call the master of the Santa Anna to account for his conduct, but it was too late. I endeavoured to soothe his afflictions, and assured him that he should be protected from insults, and that his wants should be supplied.”

By the kindness of those on board, Duaterra recovered, and was ever after truly grateful for the attention shown him. On their arrival at Sydney, Mr. Marsden took him into his house for six months, during which time he applied himself to agriculture; he then wished to return home, and embarked for New Zealand; but further perils and adventures were in prospect, and we shall have occasion to advert to them hereafter. For the present we leave him on his voyage to his island home.

The Ann touched on her passage out at Rio Janeiro, and Mr. Marsden spent a short time on shore, where his active mind, already, one would suppose, burthened with cares and projects, discovered a new field of labour. The ignorance and superstition of a popish city stirred his spirit, like that of Paul at Athens. He wrote home to entreat the Church Missionary Society, if possible, to send them teachers; but this lay not within their province. From a letter of Sir George Grey’s, addressed to himself, it appears that he had interested some members of the English government upon the subject, and that while at Rio he had been active in distributing the Scriptures.

But he was now to resume his labours in Australia, where he arrived in safety, fondly calculating upon a long season of peaceful toil in his heavenly Master’s service. His mind was occupied with various projects, both for the good of the colony and of the heathen round about. His own letters, simply and hastily thrown off in all the confidence of friendship, will show how eagerly he plunged, and with what a total absence of selfish considerations, into the work before him:

“Paramatta, October 26, 1810.“To John Terry, Esq.“Dear Sir.—I received your kind and affectionate letter, also a bottle of wheat, with the Hull papers, from your brother; for all of which I feel much indebted. We had a very fine passage, and I found my affairs much better than I had any reason to expect.The revolution had caused much distress to many families, and the settlement has been thrown much back by this event. My wishes for the general welfare of the colony have been more successful than I expected they would be. The rising generation are now under education in almost all parts of the country. The Catholic priests have all left us, so that we have now the whole field to ourselves. I trust much good will be done; some amongst us are turning to the Lord. Our churches are well attended, which is promising and encouraging to us. My colleagues are men of piety and four of the schoolmasters. This will become a great country in time, it is much favoured in its soil and climate. I am very anxious for the instruction of the New Zealanders; they are a noble race, vastly superior in understanding to anything you can imagine a savage nation could attain. Mr. Hall, who was in Hull, and came out with us with an intention to proceed to New Zealand as a missionary, has not yet proceeded, in consequence of a melancholy difference between the natives of that island and the crew of a ship called the ‘Boyd.’ The ship was burnt, and all the crew murdered; our people, it appears, were the first aggressors, and dearly paid for their conduct towards the natives by the loss of their lives and ship. I do not think that this awful event will prevent the establishment of a mission at New Zealand. Time must be allowed for the difference to be made up, and for confidence to be restored. I wrote a letter to Mr. Hardcastle, and another to Rev. J. Pratt, Secretary to the Society for Missions to Africa and the East, and have pointed out to them the necessity of having a ship constantly employed in visiting the islands in the South Seas, for the convenience, safety, and protectionof the missionaries, either at Otaheite and New Zealand, or at any other island upon which they may reside....“Your’s respectfully,“(Signed)Samuel Marsden.”

“Paramatta, October 26, 1810.

“To John Terry, Esq.

“Dear Sir.—I received your kind and affectionate letter, also a bottle of wheat, with the Hull papers, from your brother; for all of which I feel much indebted. We had a very fine passage, and I found my affairs much better than I had any reason to expect.The revolution had caused much distress to many families, and the settlement has been thrown much back by this event. My wishes for the general welfare of the colony have been more successful than I expected they would be. The rising generation are now under education in almost all parts of the country. The Catholic priests have all left us, so that we have now the whole field to ourselves. I trust much good will be done; some amongst us are turning to the Lord. Our churches are well attended, which is promising and encouraging to us. My colleagues are men of piety and four of the schoolmasters. This will become a great country in time, it is much favoured in its soil and climate. I am very anxious for the instruction of the New Zealanders; they are a noble race, vastly superior in understanding to anything you can imagine a savage nation could attain. Mr. Hall, who was in Hull, and came out with us with an intention to proceed to New Zealand as a missionary, has not yet proceeded, in consequence of a melancholy difference between the natives of that island and the crew of a ship called the ‘Boyd.’ The ship was burnt, and all the crew murdered; our people, it appears, were the first aggressors, and dearly paid for their conduct towards the natives by the loss of their lives and ship. I do not think that this awful event will prevent the establishment of a mission at New Zealand. Time must be allowed for the difference to be made up, and for confidence to be restored. I wrote a letter to Mr. Hardcastle, and another to Rev. J. Pratt, Secretary to the Society for Missions to Africa and the East, and have pointed out to them the necessity of having a ship constantly employed in visiting the islands in the South Seas, for the convenience, safety, and protectionof the missionaries, either at Otaheite and New Zealand, or at any other island upon which they may reside....

“Your’s respectfully,“(Signed)Samuel Marsden.”

Great projects are not to be accomplished without many disappointments. The first attempt is seldom the successful one. In spiritual things, this may be regarded as the established rule, or law, in accordance to which the Head of the church controls while he purifies his servants’ zeal. They are made to feel their weakness. Where they expect honour they meet with opposition, perhaps with scorn. Their favourite plans are those which bring, for a time, the least success and the greatest anxiety. Thus they are taught the great lesson of their own weakness, and the only less important one of the insignificance of others in whom they trusted. And thus, too, in the painful but salutary school of adversity, they learn that the highest wisdom is, after all, simply to accept the cross of Christ, and to cast themselves on the unerring guidance of the Holy Spirit; and, in a word, “to cease from man.”

The new governor, General Macquarie, had arrived out a few months before Mr. Marsden. He was an able commander, and had the good of the colony much at heart; and he had a task of no little difficulty to perform, in reducing what was still a penal colony, just recovering from a state of insurrection, into order and obedience. His powers were great; he considered them absolute. Mr. Marsden, too, was justly tenacious of public morality and virtue, and still more so of the spiritual independence of the ministerial character. It seems that the rights of the governor on the one side, and those of the ministers of religion on the other, had not been accurately defined by the government at home, and thus a collision between two minds so firm and so resolute as those of the governor and Mr. Marsden, was inevitable. Occasions of difference soon arose; the governor anxious, we doubt not, to raise their character and elevate their position, with a view to the future welfare of the colony, placed several of the convicts on the magisterial bench, treated them with respect, and even invited them to his table. With these men, Mr. Marsden refused, as a magistrate, to act, or to meet them in society on equal terms. Some of them were notoriously persons of a bad and vicious life; while none of them, he thought, could, without gross impropriety, punish others judicially for the infraction of that law which they themselves had broken. He would gladly have resigned his magisterial office, but the governor knew the worth of his services, and refused to accept his resignation, which was repeatedly tendered. The new magistrates were of course offended, and became his bitter foes; and some of them harassed him for twenty years with slanders and libellous insults, until at length an appeal to the laws of his country vindicated his reputation and silenced his opponents. Differences of opinion may exist as to the wisdom of Governor Macquarie’s conduct in these civil affairs, and many will perhaps justify his proceedings; but every right-minded man will condemn without hesitation the attempts which he made to lord it over the consciences of the established clergy and other Christian ministers in the colony, in the discharge of their purely ministerial work. He wishedto dictate even to the pulpit. Mr. Marsden relates that he once sent for him to the Government-house, and commanded him to produce the manuscript of a sermon which he had preached nearly a year before: he did so; when the governor severely commented upon it, and returned it with the remark that one sentence, which it is more than probable he did not understand, was “almost downright blasphemy.” The junior clergy were of course still more exposed to the same despotic interference. The governor wished to prescribe the hymns they should sing, as well as the doctrines they should teach; and he repeatedly insisted on their giving out, during divine service, secular notices of so improper a character, that the military officers in attendance expressed their disgust. Happy it was for the colony of New South Wales that he met with an opponent firm and fearless, and at the same time sound in the faith, such as the senior chaplain. On him menaces and flattery were lost. The governor, at one time, even threatened him with a court-martial; nor was the threat altogether an empty one, for he actually brought one of the junior chaplains, Mr. Vale, before a court-martial, and had him dismissed the colony. These are painful facts, and such as, at this distance of time, we should gladly pass over in silence; but, in that case, what could the reader know of the trials through which Mr. Marsden passed?

Yet amidst all these distractions his letters testify that he possessed his soul in peace, and that “no root of bitterness, troubled” him. He speaks with respect of the governor, gives him credit for good intentions, and acknowledges the many benefits he conferred upon the colony; and when at length he was on the eve ofreturning home, Governor Macquarie himself bore testimony to the piety, integrity, and invaluable services of the only man who had dared patiently yet firmly to contend with him during a long course of years.

The records of ministerial life offer little variety, but to pious minds they are not without interest. Mr. Marsden rose early, generally at four o’clock during the summer; and the morning hours were spent in his study. To a Christian minister a few hours of retirement in the morning are indispensable, or the mind is distracted and the day is lost. Very early rising is a question of health and constitution as well as of conscience, and we lay no burden upon those who cannot practise it. To those who can, the habit is invaluable. Three friends of Mr. Marsden present us with different examples in this matter. Simeon’s twenty volumes of Horæ Homilicæ, or outlines of sermons, were all written between five and eight o’clock in the morning. Thomas Scott, the commentator, seldom had more than three hours a-day in his study and those three were early ones. Wilberforce on the other hand laments that he could do nothing till he had had his “full dose of sleep.” Those who cannot rise early may still make the day long by turning to account the fragments of time and vacant half-hours which are so recklessly permitted by most men, especially strong men, to run to waste.

In the early days of the colony, Mr. Marsden used to officiate in the morning at St. Philip’s, Sydney. Roads were bad and conveyances scarce, and he often walked a distance of fifteen miles to Paramatta, where he conducted another service and preached again. His preaching is described as very plain, full of goodsense and manly thought, and treating chiefly of the great foundation truths of the gospel. Man a lost sinner and needing conversion, Christ an Almighty Saviour pardoning sin, the Holy Ghost an all-sufficient sanctifier, guide, and comforter, carrying on the work of grace within the soul. Those who came to hear a great preacher went away disappointed; those who came to pass a listless hour were sometimes grievously disturbed. The authenticity of the following anecdote has been assured to us by Mr. Marsden’s surviving friends.

He was one day walking by the banks of the river, when a convict as he passed plunged into the water. Mr. Marsden threw off his coat, and in an instant plunged in after him and endeavoured to bring the man to land. He contrived however to get Mr. Marsden’s head under the water, and a desperate struggle for life ensued between them; till Mr. Marsden, being the stronger of the two, not only succeeded in getting safe to shore but in dragging the man with him. The poor fellow, struck with remorse, confessed his intention. He had resolved to have his revenge on the senior chaplain, whose offence was that he had preached a sermon which had stung him to the quick; and he believed, as a sinner exasperated by the reflection of his own vices does frequently believe, that the preacher had meant to hold him up to the scorn of the congregation. He knew too that the sight of a drowning fellow-creature would draw out the instant help of one who never knew what fear was in the discharge of duty; and he threw himself into the stream confident of drowning Mr. Marsden, and then of making good his own escape. He became very penitent, was a useful member of society, andgreatly attached to his deliverer, who afterwards took him into his own service, where he remained for some years. We cannot give a more painful illustration of the malignity with which he was pursued, than to state that the current version of this story in the colony was, that the convict had been unjustly punished by Mr. Marsden as a magistrate, and took this method of revenge.

He made the most, too, of his opportunities. At a time when there were very few churches or clergymen, and the settlers were widely scattered over large tracts, he frequently made an itinerating ministerial visit amongst them. He was everywhere received with the greatest cordiality and respect. On arriving at a farm, a man on horseback was immediately dispatched to all the neighbours within ten or twelve miles to collect them for public worship. The settlers gladly availed themselves of these opportunities, and assembled, in numbers varying from sixty to eighty, when Divine service was conducted in a vacant barn or under the shade of a verandah. The next day, he proceeded twenty or twenty-five miles further on in the wilds, and again collected a congregation. These tours would often extend over ten days or a fortnight, and were repeated as his more settled duties permitted. Thus his name became a household word, pronounced with love and gratitude far beyond the limits of his parish, or even of the colony; and probably he found some of his most willing hearers amongst those to whom he thus carried in their solitude the glad tidings of a salvation which when offered to them week by week at home they had neglected or despised.

Yet his duties as principal chaplain were not neglected. From a general government order, datedSeptember, 1810, it appears that amongst them were those of an overseer, or chief pastor of the church. “The assistant chaplains are directed to consider themselves at all times under the immediate control and superintendence of the principal chaplain, and are to make such occasional reports to him respecting their clerical duties as he may think proper to require or call for.” A high tribute to his worth under the circumstances in which he was placed by his opposition to the governor. The chaplains frequently sought his protection against arbitrary power, and he willingly fought their battles and his own in defence of liberty of conscience and the right of conducting God’s worship undisturbed. His connexion with his clerical brethren seems to have been uniformly happy, and the same remark is true of the missionaries of various denominations, not a few in number, who, during a period of twenty years, were virtually under his control. He had undoubtedly the rare power of governing others in a very high degree, and it was done noiselessly and with a gentle hand; for the men who govern well seldom obtrude their authority in an offensive manner, or worry those they should control with a petty interference. He had the same kind of influence, and probably from the same cause, over the very horses in his carriage. He used, in driving from Sydney to Paramatta, to throw the reins behind the dash-board, take up his book, and leave them to themselves, his maxim being “that the horse that could not keep itself up was not worth driving.” One of the pair was almost unmanageable in other hands, but it was remarked that “Captain” always conducted himself well when his master drove, and never had an accident.

Amongst his strictly pastoral cares, two schools for orphans had a foremost place. A female orphan school was first proposed, and Mr. Marsden undertook the direction of the work, and became treasurer to the institution. From its formation in 1800 to the year 1821, two hundred children were admitted. It may be a question whether the children of living parents, however ignorant or even dissolute they may be, should be totally withdrawn from parental sympathies. The presence of a child may restrain, and its artless remonstrances are often known to touch, a vicious father or mother whom no other influence can reach; and Dr. Guthrie’s recent experiment in Edinburgh seems to show us that the best method of Christianizing both child and parent is to instruct the former well by day, and to send him home at night a little missionary to his parents, where other teaching would be scorned. But in the case of orphans no such questions occur, and we must look upon an orphan school with unmixed satisfaction. A male orphan school followed in due course, in which the boys were instructed in some trade and then apprenticed. In both schools the moral and religious training was the chief consideration; yet Mr. Marsden’s connexion with them was attributed by his enemies to a sordid motive, and even those in power, who should have known him better, gave public currency to these injurious reports.

The fact was that when the institutions were founded the treasurer was allowed a small per centage upon the receipts, as a clerical fee or stipend; this he allowed to accumulate until he resigned the office, when he presented the whole sum to the institution. The committee absolutely refusing to accept it, he purchased cattle from the government to the fullamount, and made a present of them to the orphan schools. Soon after his return from England it became necessary to erect new schools. The work was long and tedious, and owing to the want of labour in the colony, and the idle and drunken habits of the labourers, nearly ten years elapsed before they were completed, and the work too was often at a stand for want of funds. These, however, Mr. Marsden—whom no pecuniary obstacles could daunt—supplied, in a great measure, out of his own purse, till his advances amounted to nearly 900l.; and his disinterested conduct in the end occasioned him very considerable loss. To the latest period he never ceased to take the warmest interest in the prosperity of these institutions.

“I am sure,” says his daughter, “my father’s parish was not neglected. He was well known to all his parishioners, as he was in the habit of constantly calling upon them. He was very attentive to the sick, whether at their own homes or at the government hospital. He also took great interest in the education of the young. It was through his instrumentality that many schools were established. His Sunday school, at the time of which I speak, was in a more efficient state than any I have since seen; but this my brother-in-law, the Rev. T. Hassell, had a great deal to do with, as he was then acting as my father’s curate. The factory for the reception of female convicts was built entirely by his suggestion, and to their religious and moral improvement he devoted a good deal of his time. It was principally owing to his endeavours to get this and other institutions in good order that much of his discomfort with his fellow-magistrates and government officers arose.”

The aborigines of Australia were, even when thecolony was first settled, comparatively few in number; and in painful conformity with universal experience, they have wasted away before the white man, and will probably disappear in time from the face of the earth. If the New Zealander stands highest in the scale of savage nature, the native Australian occupies perhaps the lowest place. So low, indeed, was their intellect rated, that when the phrenological system of Drs. Gall and Spurzheim began to occupy attention, some forty years ago, the skulls of several of them were sent over to England to be submitted to the manipulations of its professors, with a view of ascertaining whether the Creator had not thrust into existence a whole race of idiots—men who had neither reason to guide them on the one hand, nor well-developed instinct on the other. They are supposed to be a mixture of the Malay and negro races, but they have nothing of the muscular strength of the negro, nor of his mental pliancy, and both in body and mind are far below the pure Malay. In the infancy of the colony they rambled into the town of Port Jackson in a state of nudity, and when blankets were presented to them they were thrown aside as an incumbrance. They seemed to have no wants beyond those which the dart or spear—never out of their hands—could instantly supply. Their food was the opossum, but when this was not to be found they were by no means delicate; grubs, snakes, putrid whales, and even vermin were eagerly devoured, though fish and oysters were preferred. They are a nomad or wandering people, always moving from place to place in search of food, or from the mere love of change. During the winter, they erect a hut, resembling a beehive, of rude wicker-work besmeared with clay; but in general a mere hurdle, such as we use in England forpenning sheep, placed to windward in the ground, is all their shelter; under this they lie with a fire kindled in the front of it. Our English stragglers have made themselves well acquainted with their habits, frequently living amongst them for weeks together in the bush. These all agree in admiration of the skill with which they throw the dart, which seldom misses, even from a child’s hand, to strike its prey. They are peaceable and inoffensive to strangers, and kind to their “gins,” or wives, and to their children, unless their savage natures are aroused, when they become horribly brutal and vindictive. Few savage tribes have been found whose ideas on religion are less distinct. They believe in a good spirit,Royan, and a bad one,Potoyan; but like all savages—like all men, we may say, either savage or civilized, who know not God—they dread the evil spirit far more than they love the good one. They offer no prayer, and have no worship or sacrifices. Civil government is unknown; authority in the tribe depends on personal strength or cunning. A wandering life with abundance of provisions, amongst their native woods, shores, and mountains, is the sum of all the little happiness they know or seek.

Some efforts were made in the early period of the colony on their behalf. A district near Port Jackson was assigned them, and they were encouraged to reside in it; but it was very soon deserted. The roving habits of the aborigines made any settled residence irksome; and their wants were so few that they would neither engage in trade, nor submit to labour for the sake of wages. It retained the name of the Black Town for many years; but the black men have long since deserted it. Governor Macquarie, after consulting with Mr. Marsden, then attempted a farm, and, in connexion with it, a kind of reformatory school at Paramatta, where they were to be civilized and cured of their migratory habits, and instructed in the Christian religion. Mr. Marsden took a warm interest in the scheme, as he did in everything that concerned the welfare of the aborigines. Still it failed; for it was founded, as experience has shown, upon wrong principles. Mr. Marsden, however, is not to be blamed for this; since Governor Macquarie, having now conceived a violent prejudice against him, omitted his name from the committee of management, although the institution was placed in his own parish, introducing those of two junior chaplains; and it was not till the governor’s retirement that he took an active part in its affairs. But the character of the institution was then fixed, and its approaching failure was evident.

Two faults were interwoven with it, either of which must have proved fatal. In the first place, the attempt to confine a nomad, wandering tribe within the precincts of a farm, or to bring them to endure, except it had been by force, the discipline of lads in an English workhouse, was upon the very face of it absurd. These, we must remember, were the early days of English philanthropy amongst wild black men. She had yet to make her blunders and learn her first lessons. Why should a nomad race be settled upon the workhouse plan, or even confined to an English farm? Why should they not rather be encouraged to dwell in tents, carry civilization with them into their own woods and mountains, and, roam, free and fearless, over those vast regions which God had given them to possess, until at last they themselves shall wish to adopt the settled habits of European Christians? A roving life in the wilderness is not of necessity an idle or a barbarous one. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were highly civilized, and eminently devout. “Arabians” and “dwellers in Mesopotamia,” wanderers of the desert, heard the word with gladness, and received the Holy Ghost upon the day of Pentecost. But we do not read that they were required to live in cities, and abandon the long-cherished wilderness, with all its solemn associations and grand delights. And we have not so mean an opinion of Christianity as to believe that it can thrive only in towns well paved and lighted, or in farms neatly fenced and artificially cultivated. The true missionary must track the wandering savage into the desert, and there make himself his guide and friend; and teach him that the gospel of Jesus Christ is indeed of God, inasmuch as it is fitted, as no human contrivance can be fitted, for man, whatever his outward circumstances or his mode of life; that it knows no difference between the dweller in the tent, and in “cities, tall and fenced up to heaven.” “Barbarian, Scythian, bond or free,” are all alike welcome to its blessings; and we can see no good reason why there should not be Christian tribes in the wilderness, as there were patriarchal churches in the plains of the Euphrates, long before the law was given on Mount Sinai.

The other mistake was the same which has tainted other missions in their infancy, and to which we have made some allusion. It was thought necessary to prepare the savage mind for Christianity, by the preliminary discipline of a civilizing process. This is inverting the order in which God proceeds: “The entrance of thy word giveth light.” When the voice of God speaks within, and not before, the demoniacquits “his dwelling amongst the tombs;” no longer “tears off his raiment” like a brute beast, unconscious of shame; ceases to be “exceeding fierce,” and is now found “sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind.” A few efforts upon this, the right evangelical principle as we conceive, have been made from time to time amongst these degraded aborigines; but the success has not been great. A wide field still remains, thinly peopled and spiritually uncultivated. If these lines should be read by our Christian friends in Australia, to them we would venture to commend the glorious enterprise. Let there be one colony at least in which the aborigines shall share the intruder’s prosperity. Let the vast centre of the Australian continent one day rejoice in its thronging tribes of Christian aborigines.

Mr. Marsden’s view of the native character may be gathered from the following statement, which he published in self-defence when charged with indifference as to their conversion. “More than twenty years ago, a native lived with me at Paramatta, and for a while I thought I could make something of him; but at length he got tired, and no inducement could prevail upon him to continue in my house; he took to the bush again, where he has continued ever since. One of my colleagues, the Rev. R. Johnstone, took two native girls into his house, for the express purpose of educating them; they were fed and clothed like Europeans; but in a short time they went into the woods again. Another native, named Daniel, was taken when a boy into the family of Mrs. C.; he was taken to England; mixed there with the best society, and could speak English well; but on his return from England he reverted to his former wild pursuits.” Inreply to the inquiries made by Mr. Marsden, who once met Daniel after he returned to his savage state, he said; “The natives universally prefer a free and independent life, with all its privations, to the least restraint.” Without multiplying instances quoted by Mr. Marsden, the trial he made with an infant shows that his heart was not unfriendly towards these people. “One of my boys, whom I attempted to civilize, was taken from its mother’s breast, and brought up with my own children for twelve years; but he retained his instinctive taste for native food; and he wanted that attachment to me and my family that we had just reason to look for; and always seemed deficient in those feelings of affection which are the very bonds of social life.” This boy ran away at Rio from Mr. Marsden, when returning from England in 1810, but was brought back to the colony by Captain Piper; and died in the Sydney hospital, exhibiting Christian faith and penitence. “I mentioned to the governor,” he adds, “some of these circumstances, but not with any view to create difficulties; so far from it, that I informed him that I was authorized by the Church Missionary Society to assist any plan with pecuniary aid, that was likely to benefit the natives of the colony.” A mission was in fact set on foot by this Society; but from various causes, it failed, and was abandoned.

Mr. Marsden’s correspondence with the London Missionary Society—Buys the brig Active—His first Voyage to New Zealand—Journal of Events.

Richard Baxter, after describing his ministerial labours at Kidderminster in preaching and visiting from house to house, has these remarkable words: “But all these, my labours, even preaching and preparing for it, were but my recreations, and, as it were, the work of my spare hours; for my writings were my chiefest daily labour.” Mr. Marsden had his recreations, too. Amidst the anxieties of his colonial chaplaincy he found or made opportunities to conduct a work which of itself would have been sufficient to exhaust the energies and to immortalize the memory of any other man. We devote this chapter to a short, and, of necessity, imperfect sketch of these hisrecreationsin the missionary field.

On his return from England in 1810, he found disastrous tidings of the Tahitian mission awaiting his arrival. Disheartened by their utter want of success, divided amongst themselves, distracted with fears of danger from the natives, several of the missionaries had fled from their posts, and taken refuge in New South Wales. The work appeared to be on the eve of ruin, and it was owing in no small measure to the firmness and wise conduct of Mr. Marsden that it was not, for a time at least, abandoned. “Sooner,” he exclaims, in one of his letters to the Society at home, “thanthatshall be the case, Iwill give up my chaplaincy, and go myself and live at Otaheite.” Yet it was no easy task to inspire others with his own courage, or to impart his hopeful spirit to a desponding band of men. He felt the difficulty, and acted towards them in the most considerate manner. Instead of at once insisting on their return, he received them into his family, where it is scarcely necessary to say they were treated with that patriarchal hospitality for which the parsonage of Paramatta was famed. When a few months had passed, and their spirits were cheered and their health restored, the question of their return to Tahiti was introduced and quietly discussed. Their kind and pious host had never for an instant doubted of their ultimate success. We have perused numerous letters addressed by him to the London Missionary Society, and to various friends in England; but in not one of them is the shadow of a doubt expressed as to the triumph of the gospel in Tahiti and the Society Islands; and we may extend the remark to the New Zealand mission, as shown by his correspondence with the Church Missionary Society a few years later. About this period a reaction had taken place in England amongst religious people. The fond hopes they had unwisely entertained of seeing vast results wherever the gospel was introduced among the heathen and upon the first proclamation of it, had been grievously disturbed; and now the tide ran in the opposite direction. Nothing appears to have given Mr. Marsden more uneasiness than the general lukewarmness of the church of Christ at home, and their despondency as to the success of missions. He speaks of his “anxious days and sleepless nights.” But his own courage never failed; and this high undoubting faith, it is beautifulto observe, rests always on the same foundation. It was not, much as he respected them, his confidence either in the Societies at home, or in their missionaries abroad, but simply in the promises of God, in the power of the gospel, and in the unchanging love of Christ for his “inheritance” among the heathen. Thus the missionaries were induced to return to their deserted posts; and not only so, but to resume their work in a higher spirit of faith and cheerfulness. It was not long before hopeful signs broke out, and within ten years Pomare the sovereign became a Christian king, and the island of Tahiti a Christian land.

The distance of these missions from Australia, and the difficulty of communicating with them, suggested to Mr. Marsden the advantage of employing a vessel entirely on missionary service. When his mind was once made up he lost no time; the consent of the Societies in England could not all at once be gained; so he resolved, at his own cost, to purchase a missionary ship, the first probably that ever floated on the deep, and bought the Active, a brig of a hundred tons burden, for the service of the two great missions on which his heart was fixed. The following letter, addressed to the Rev. George Burder, though written two years later, is introduced here to complete our summary of the re-establishment of the Tahitian mission:

“Paramatta, June 9, 1815.“Rev. and dear Sir,—I received a short letter from you by the late arrivals, and found you had not got any very interesting accounts from the brethren at Otaheite. The last account I had from them, they were going on exceedingly well, and the Lord was owning and blessing their labours. You will hear I lately visited New Zealand, and also my views of thatisland. Finding that the Societies in London could not make up their minds, neither as a body nor as individuals, to send out a vessel, I at last determined to purchase one for the purpose on my own account. The various expenses attending it have created me some little pecuniary difficulties; but they are only known to myself, and not such as will be attended with any serious consequence. I hope in a little time I shall be able to surmount them; whether I shall keep the vessel in my own hands or not, I am not certain as yet. I cannot do it without some assistance at the first; if I could, I certainly would not trouble any of my friends. The vessel has been twice at New Zealand, and is gone a third time. When she returns I intend her to visit the brethren at Otaheite. It is my intention that she should sail in August next to Otaheite. The brethren there have been labouring hard to build a vessel for themselves, which is almost completed. I have agreed to take a share with them in her. During the time the brethren have been building their vessel, the work of the Lord appears to have prospered very much, far beyond all expectation.”

“Paramatta, June 9, 1815.

“Rev. and dear Sir,—I received a short letter from you by the late arrivals, and found you had not got any very interesting accounts from the brethren at Otaheite. The last account I had from them, they were going on exceedingly well, and the Lord was owning and blessing their labours. You will hear I lately visited New Zealand, and also my views of thatisland. Finding that the Societies in London could not make up their minds, neither as a body nor as individuals, to send out a vessel, I at last determined to purchase one for the purpose on my own account. The various expenses attending it have created me some little pecuniary difficulties; but they are only known to myself, and not such as will be attended with any serious consequence. I hope in a little time I shall be able to surmount them; whether I shall keep the vessel in my own hands or not, I am not certain as yet. I cannot do it without some assistance at the first; if I could, I certainly would not trouble any of my friends. The vessel has been twice at New Zealand, and is gone a third time. When she returns I intend her to visit the brethren at Otaheite. It is my intention that she should sail in August next to Otaheite. The brethren there have been labouring hard to build a vessel for themselves, which is almost completed. I have agreed to take a share with them in her. During the time the brethren have been building their vessel, the work of the Lord appears to have prospered very much, far beyond all expectation.”

He adds, “I estimate the expenses of the vessel at 1500l.per annum, and I think, if I am not mistaken in my views, that her returns will not be less than 1000l.per annum, and perhaps more. I may venture to say I should not call on the two Societies for more than the sum I have stated, namely, 500l.per annum from this time. I will not demand anything if the returns cover the expenses for the use of the vessel.” These returns were to be obtained by “freighting the Active with the produce of the industry of the natives, and trading with them in return.” This would “stimulate their exertions, correct their vagrantminds, and enrich them with the comforts and conveniences of civil life.” The letter closes with suggesting yet another mission; for the large heart of the writer saw in the approaching triumph of the gospel in his favourite missions only a call to fresh exertions. Even as Paul, when he had “fully preached from Jerusalem round about unto Illyricum,” sighed after fresh labours, and still remoter conquests for his Lord. “I wish to mention to you that it would be a great object if the Society would turn their thoughts a little to the Friendly Islands. New Zealand being on one side, and the Society Islands on the other, with labourers now upon them, the Friendly Islands ought not to be left destitute. These islands are very populous, and as the London Missionary Society first began the work there, I think they should renew their attempt. I cannot recommend any establishment upon any of the islands in the South Seas, unless commerce is more or less attended to, in order to call forth the industry of the natives. Provided the Society as a body will not consent to have anything to do with commerce, I see no reason why a few pious friends might not, who wish to aid the missionary cause. You cannot form a nation without commerce and the civil arts. A person of information who is well acquainted with the Friendly Islands informed me that the labour of a hundred thousand men might be brought into action upon these islands in producing sugar, cordage, cotton, etc.... A hundred thousand men will never form themselves into any regular society, and enjoy the productions of their country without commerce. Should the Society have any doubts upon the point, let them authorize an inquiry into the state of these islands, when there isan opportunity to examine them, and a report of their inhabitants and their productions laid out before them.” Mr. Marsden then describes the openings at New Zealand, and concludes a long letter thus: “I have stated my sentiments with great haste. You will excuse the hasty scrawl. I can assure you my sincere wish and prayer to the great Head of the church is that all may prosper that love him. I am, dear sir, yours affectionately,S. Marsden.”

A postscript adds:—

“Since writing this letter, I have determined to keep the Active in my own hands.”

Let us now turn to the New Zealand mission, which occupied, from this time, so large a portion of Mr. Marsden’s public life.

We have mentioned the designation of two laymen, Messrs. Hall and King, for this mission by the Church Missionary Society in 1808. They sailed from England, with Mr. Marsden, in 1810, and were soon after followed by Mr. Kendall, and the three assembled at New South Wales, intending to sail thence without delay for the scene of their future work. But here fresh difficulties arose. Mr. Marsden’s intention was to accompany them, and in person to meet the first dangers, and lay, as it were, the first stone. But this the new governor absolutely forbade. To him, and in fact to most men in his circumstances, the whole scheme seemed utterly preposterous. The idea of converting the savages of New Zealand was the chimera of a pious enthusiast—a good and useful man in his way, but one who was not to be allowed thus idly to squander the lives of others, to say nothing of his own. Nor in truth were the governor’s objections altogether without foundation. The last news fromNew Zealand was that an English ship, the Boyd, had been seized and burned by the cannibals in the Bay of Islands, and every soul on board, seventy in all, killed and eaten. The report was true, save only that, out of the whole of the ship’s company, two women and a boy had been spared to live in slavery with the savages. A New Zealand chief had sailed on board, as it afterwards appeared, and had been treated with brutal indignities similar to those which Duaterra suffered from the captain of the Santa Anna. He smothered his resentment, and, waiting the return of the Boyd to the Bay of Islands, summoned his tribe, who, on various pretences, crowded the deck of the ship, and at a given signal rushed upon the crew, dispatched them with their clubs and hatchets, and then gorged themselves and their followers on the horrible repast. All then that Mr. Marsden could obtain at present was permission to charter a vessel, if a captain could be found sufficiently courageous to risk his life and ship in such an enterprise, and to send out the three missionaries as pioneers; with a reluctant promise from the governor that if on the ship’s return, all had turned out well, he should not be hindered from following. For some time no such adventurous captain could be found. At length, for the sum of 600l.for a single voyage, an offer was made, but Mr. Marsden looked upon the sum as far too much; and this, with other considerations, induced him to purchase his own missionary brig, the Active, in which Messrs. Hall and Kendall finally set sail for the Bay of Islands. They carried a message to Duaterra, entreating him to receive them kindly, and inviting him, too, to return with them to Paramatta, bringing along with him two or three friendly chiefs.

Duaterra, after his visit to Mr. Marsden, on his way from England, had again suffered great hardships from the perfidy of the master of the Frederick, with whom he had embarked from New South Wales under an express engagement to be set on shore at the Bay of Islands, where his tribe dwelt. He was carried to Norfolk Island, and there left; and, to aggravate his wrongs and sorrows, the vessel passed within two miles of his own shores and in sight of his long lost home. He was defrauded too of his share of the oil he had procured with his companions, worth 100l. A whaler found him on Norfolk Island, almost naked and in the last stage of want, and brought him once more to Australia and to his friend and patron Mr. Marsden. A short stay sufficed; he sailed again from Sydney, and soon found himself, to his great joy, amongst his friends in New Zealand. On the arrival of the Active with its missionaries—the first messengers of Christ who landed on its shores—he was there to greet them, and to repay, a thousandfold, the kindness of his friend the minister of Paramatta, in the welcome he secured for these defenceless strangers. They carried with them too a present which, trifling as it may seem, was not without its share of influence in the great work; the story is suggestive, and may serve a higher purpose than merely to amuse the reader.

Duaterra had been provided by Mr. Marsden with a supply of wheat for sowing on his return to New Zealand. No such thing as a field of grain of any kind had yet waved its golden ears on that fertile soil. To this accomplished savage the honour belongs of first introducing agriculture into an island destined, within forty years, to rival the best farms of Englandboth in the value of its crops and the variety of its produce. The neighbouring chiefs and their tribes viewed with wonder first the green ears and then the growing corn. The wild potato, the fern, and a few other roots were the only produce of the earth they were yet acquainted with, and when Duaterra assured them that his field of wheat was to yield the flour out of which the bread and biscuits they had tasted on English ships were made, they tore up several plants, expecting to find something resembling their own potato at the root. That the ears themselves should furnish the materials for a loaf was not to be believed. Duaterra meant to impose upon them, or else he had been duped himself, but they were not to be cajoled with the tales of a traveller. The field was reaped and the corn threshed out, when Duaterra was mortified with the discovery that he was not provided with a mill. He made several attempts to grind his corn with the help of a coffee-mill borrowed from a trading-ship, but without success; and now, like the inventor of steam navigation, and other benefactors of their species nearer home, he was laughed at for his simplicity. It is strange that the ancient Romanquern, a hollow stone in which the grain was pounded, the rudest form in fact of the pestle and mortar, should not have occurred to him; but the total want of invention is an invariable characteristic of savage nature. At length the Active brought the important present of a hand-mill for grinding corn. Duaterra’s friends assembled to watch the experiment, still incredulous of the promised result; but when the meal began to stream out beneath the machine their astonishment was unbounded; and when a cake was produced, hastily baked in a frying-pan, they shoutedand danced for joy, Duaterra was now to be trusted when he told them that the missionaries were good men. And thus the first favourable impression was made upon the savage Maories, whose race was in the next generation to become a civilized and Christian people.

Messrs Hall and Kendall, having introduced themselves and their mission in New Zealand, now, in obedience to their instructions, returned to Sydney accompanied by Duaterra and six other chiefs, amongst whom was Duaterra’s uncle the famous Shunghie, or Hongi, the most powerful of New Zealand chieftains; such was the confidence which Mr. Marsden’s name, together with the good conduct of the missionaries, had now inspired. The Active reached New South Wales on the 22nd of August, 1814. Nothing could exceed the joy which Mr. Marsden experienced on the successful termination of the voyage, and being filled with an earnest desire to promote the dissemination of the gospel amongst the New Zealanders, and having obtained the governor’s permission, he determined to accompany the missionaries on their return to the Bay of Islands. To his friend, Avison Terry, Esq., he wrote just before he sailed, Oct. 7, 1814—“It is my intention to visit New Zealand and see what can be done to promote the eternal welfare of the inhabitants of that island. I have now several of the chiefs living with me at Paramatta. They are as noble a race of men as are to be met with in any part of the world. I trust I shall be able, in some measure, to put a stop to those dreadful murders which have been committed upon the island for some years past, both by the Europeans and the natives. They are a much injured people, notwithstanding all that has been advancedagainst them. The time is now come, in my opinion, for them to be favoured with the everlasting gospel; and I trust to hear the joyful sound in those dark and dreary regions of sin and spiritual bondage. I have long had the most ardent wish to visit these poor heathen, but have never till the present time obtained permission. I have submitted my views to the Church Missionary Society, and solicited their aid. The expense of establishing a mission here will at first be very considerable.” ... [Here he mentions his purchase of the Active, etc.] “Should the Society approve of my views, no doubt they will give their support, but if they cannot enter into them in the manner I do, I cannot expect that assistance from them which may be required. My own means will enable me to set the mission on foot in the first instance, and I have little doubt but it will succeed.” Zeal such as this, tempered with discretion and guided by the “wisdom which cometh from above,” in answer to many believing prayers, could scarcely fail of its sure reward.

On the 19th of November, 1814, he embarked on his great mission, with a motley crew, such as (except perhaps on some other missionary ship) has seldom sailed in one small vessel—savages and Christian teachers and enterprising mechanics, their wives and children, besides cattle and horses. Of this strangely assorted company he gives the following description: “The number of persons on board the Active, including women and children, was thirty-five; the master, his wife and son, Messrs. Kendall, Hall, and King, with their wives and children, eight New Zealanders, (including Duaterra and his uncle the great warrior Shunghie or Hongi) two Otaheitans, and four Europeans belonging to the vessel, besides Mr. JohnLydiard Nicholas and myself; there were also two sawyers, one smith, and a runaway convict whom we afterwards found on board, a horse and two mares, one bull and two cows, with a few sheep and poultry. The bull and cows have been presented by Governor Macquarie from his Majesty’s herd.” On the 15th December, they were in sight of land; the next day, the chiefs were sent on shore, and a friendly communication was at once opened with the natives. But even before they had landed “a canoe came alongside the Active, with plenty of fish, and shortly afterwards a chief followed from the shore, who immediately came on board.” Mr. Marsden’s fame, as the friend of the New Zealanders, had arrived before him. “I told them my name, with which they were all well acquainted.... We were now quite free from all fear, as the natives seemed desirous to show us attention by every possible means in their power.” The Active dropped her anchor a few days after at Wangaroa, near the Bay of Islands, the scene of the massacre of the Boyd’s crew, and there amongst the very cannibals by whose hands their countrymen had fallen so recently the first Christian mission to New Zealand was opened. A fierce and unholy revenge had been taken, in the murder of Tippahee, a native chieftain, and all his family, by an English crew who had visited Wangaroa after the Boyd’s destruction, and Tippahee, as Mr. Marsden always maintained, suffered unjustly, having had no share in the dreadful massacre. But thus it was; and amongst a people so exasperated did these servants of the most high God venture forth as the heralds of the gospel. Seldom since the words of the prophet were first uttered have they had, in reference to missionaries, a more significant, or a more correctappropriation than they now received. “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation.”

Mr. Marsden’s journal of this his first visit to New Zealand is a document of singular interest, and when published at the time in England, it made a deep impression. It is written in plain and forcible language, and is characterized by that vein of good sense and practical wisdom which so distinguished him. There is no display of his own sufferings, trials and privations, no affectation of laboured and studied expression, no highly coloured and partial representation of the savage condition of the natives. All his aim is to lay the truth before the Society and the friends of missions, and in doing so he has written with a degree of accuracy and honest feeling, which while they inform the understanding at once reach the heart. From this unpretending record, a few selections will be laid before the reader. And here, too, we would, once for all, acknowledge our obligations to his “companion in travel,” J. L. Nicholas, Esq., to whose manuscript journal of the visit to New Zealand, as well indeed as for other communications of great interest on the subject of Mr. Marsden’s life and labours, we shall be much indebted through the future pages of our work.

Duaterra and Shunghie had often told of the bloody war, arising out of the affair of the Boyd, that was raging, while they were at Paramatta, between the people of Wangaroa (the tribe of Tippahee) and the inhabitants of the Bay of Islands, who were their own friends and followers; the Wangaroans accusing the people of the Bay of Islands of having conspired with the English in the murder of Tippahee. When theActive arrived, several desperate battles had been fought, and the war was likely to continue.

Mr. Marsden was determined to establish peace amongst these contending tribes. He was known already as the friend of Duaterra and Shunghie; he now felt that he must convince the other party of his good intentions. He did not come amongst them as an ally of either, but as the friend of both; he resolved therefore to pass some time with the Wangaroans; and with a degree of intrepidity truly astonishing even in him, not only ventured on shore, but actually passed the night, accompanied by his friend Mr. Nicholas alone, with the very savages who had killed and eaten his countrymen. After a supper of fish and potatoes in the camp of Shunghie, they walked over to the hostile camp distant about a mile. They received the two white strangers very cordially. “We sat down amongst them, and the chiefs surrounded us.” Mr. Marsden then introduced the subject of his embassy, explained the object of the missionaries in coming to live amongst them, and showed how much peace would conduce in every way to the welfare of all parties. A chief, to whom the Europeans gave the name of George, acted as interpreter; he had sailed on board an English ship, and spoke English well. Mr. Marsden tells us how the first night was passed: “As the evening advanced the people began to retire to rest in different groups. About eleven o’clock Mr. Nicholas and I wrapped ourselves in our great coats, and prepared for rest. George directed me to lie by his side. His wife and child lay on the right hand, and Mr. Nicholas close by. The night was clear; the stars shone bright, and the sea in our front was smooth; around us were innumerable spears stuckupright in the ground, and groups of natives lying in all directions, like a flock of sheep upon the grass, as there were neither tents nor huts to cover them. I viewed our present situation with sensations and feelings that I cannot express, surrounded by cannibals who had massacred and devoured our countrymen. I wondered much at the mysteries of providence, and how these things could be. Never did I behold the blessed advantage of civilization in a more grateful light than now. I did not sleep much during the night. My mind was too seriously occupied by the present scene, and the new and strange ideas it naturally excited. About three in the morning I rose and walked about the camp, surveying the different groups of natives. When the morning light returned we beheld men, women, and children, asleep in all directions like the beasts of the field. I had ordered the boat to come on shore for us at daylight; and soon after Duaterra arrived in the camp.”

In the morning he gave an invitation to the chiefs to breakfast on board the Active, which they readily accepted. “At first I entertained doubts whether the chiefs would trust themselves with us or not, on account of the Boyd, lest we should detain them when we had them in our power; but they showed no signs of fear, and went on board with apparent confidence. The axes, billhooks, prints, etc., I intended to give them were all got ready after breakfast; the chiefs were seated in the cabin in great form to receive the presents, I sat on the one side, and they on the other side of the table; Duaterra stood and handed me each article separately that I was to give them. Messrs. Kendall, Hall, and King, with the master of the Active and his son, were all one after the other introduced to the chiefs. The chiefs were at the same time informed what duty each of the three persons were appointed to do. Mr. Kendall to instruct their children, Mr. Hall to build houses, boats, etc., Mr. King to make fishing lines, and Mr. Hanson to command the Active, which would be employed in bringing axes and such things as were wanted from Sydney, to enable them to cultivate their lands and improve their country. When these ceremonies were over, I expressed my hope that they would have no more wars, but from that time would be reconciled to each other. Duaterra, Shunghie, and Koro Koro shook hands with the chiefs of Wangaroa, and saluted each other as a token of reconciliation by joining their noses together. I was much gratified to see these men at amity once more.”

The chieftains now took their leave, much pleased with the attention of Mr. Marsden, and still more so with his presents; and they promised for the future to protect the missionaries and never to injure the European traders. Some of the presents excited no little wonder; no New Zealander, except the few who like Duaterra had been on foreign travel, had ever seen either cows or horses, for the largest quadruped yet naturalized in the island was the pig, and even that had been introduced but recently. Duaterra had often told his wondering countrymen of the horse and its rider, and in return was always laughed at; but when the horses were now landed and Mr. Marsden actually mounted one of them, they stood in crowds and gazed in mute astonishment. These traits of infant civilization are not without their use to those who may hereafter be cast among barbarous tribes, or may attempt their improvement.

The first Sunday on which the one true God was worshipped in New Zealand since the creation, will be for ever memorable in her annals. It was also Christmas-day, the 25th of December, 1815, “a day much to be remembered.” Mr. Marsden thus describes it: “Duaterra passed the remaining part of the previous day in preparing for the sabbath. He inclosed about half an acre of land with a fence, erected a pulpit and reading desk in the centre, and covered the whole either with black native cloth or some duck which he had brought with him from Port Jackson. He also procured some bottoms of old canoes, and fixed them up as seats on each side of the pulpit, for the Europeans to sit upon; intending to have divine service performed there the next day. These preparations he made of his own accord; and in the evening informed me that everything was ready for divine service. I was much pleased with this singular mark of his attention. The reading-desk was about three feet from the ground, and the pulpit about six feet. The black cloth covered the top of the pulpit, and hung over the sides; the bottom of the pulpit, as well as the reading-desk, was part of a canoe. The whole was becoming, and had a solemn appearance. He had also erected a flagstaff on the highest hill in the village, which had a very commanding view.

“On Sunday morning, when I was upon deck, I saw the English flag flying, which was a pleasing sight in New Zealand. I considered it as the signal and the dawn of civilization, liberty and religion, in that dark and benighted land. I never viewed the British colours with more gratification; and flattered myself they would never be removed, till the natives of that island enjoyed all the happiness of British subjects.

“About ten o’clock we prepared to go ashore, to publish for the first time the glad tidings of the gospel. I was under no apprehension for the safety of the vessel; and, therefore, ordered all on board to go on shore to attend divine service, except the master and one man. When we landed, we found Koro Koro, Duaterra, and Shunghie, dressed in regimentals, which Governor Macquarie had given them, with their men drawn up, ready to be marched into the inclosure to attend divine service. They had their swords by their sides, and switches in their hands. We entered the inclosure, and were placed on the seats on each side of the pulpit. Koro Koro marched his men, and placed them on my right hand, in the rear of the Europeans: and Duaterra placed his men on the left. The inhabitants of the town, with the women and children, and a number of other chiefs, formed a circle round the whole. A very solemn silence prevailed—the sight was truly impressive. I rose up and began the service with singing the Old Hundredth Psalm; and felt my very soul melt within me when I viewed my congregation, and considered the state they were in. After reading the service, during which the natives stood up and sat down at the signals given by Koro Koro’s switch, which was regulated by the movements of the Europeans, it being Christmas day, I preached from the second chapter of St. Luke’s gospel and tenth verse, ‘Behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy,” etc. The natives told Duaterra that they could not understand what I meant. He replied, that they were not to mind that now, for they would understand by-and-by; and that he would explain my meaning as far as he could. When I had done preaching, he informed them what I had been talking about. Duaterra wasvery much pleased that he had been able to make all the necessary preparations for the performance of divine worship in so short a time, and we felt much obliged to him for his attention. He was extremely anxious to convince us that he would do everything in his power, and that the good of his country was his principal consideration.

“In this manner, the gospel has been introduced into New Zealand; and I fervently pray that the glory of it may never depart from its inhabitants till time shall be no more.”

The confidence of the natives in Mr. Marsden was now unbounded, and scarcely less was the confidence he reposed in them; and he resolved upon a short coasting voyage, with the view of exploring their different harbours, and making arrangements for the future extension of the mission. Many of the chiefs and warriors, led by Duaterra, wished to sail with him, and without the slightest misgiving, twenty-eight savages, fully armed after the fashion of their country, were invited on board the Active, manned as she was by only seven Europeans. “I do not believe,” Mr. Nicholas observes, “that a similar instance can be shown of such unlimited confidence placed in a race of savages known to be cannibals. We are wholly in their power, and what is there to hinder them from abusing it? Next to the overruling providence of God, there is nothing but the character of the ship, which seems to have something almost sacred in their eyes, and the influence of Mr. Marsden’s name, which acts as a talisman amongst them. They feel convinced that he is sacrificing his own ease and comfort to promote their welfare.”

Their leave of absence having nearly expired, Mr.Marsden and his companions were now obliged to prepare for their voyage homeward. They had laid the foundations of a great work—how great, none of them could tell. But they were full of faith in God, while, as patriots, they exulted in the prospect of extending the renown of dear old England. Mr. Marsden, in his conversations with the natives, explained to them the nature of our government, and the form of trial by jury; he discoursed with them upon the evils of polygamy, and showed his marked abhorrence of their darling vices—theft and lying. A chisel being lost from the Active a boat was sent on shore, manned by Duaterra and other chieftains, to demand restitution; the culprit was not found, nor the implement restored; but a whole village was aroused from its slumbers at midnight, and the inhabitants literally trembled with fear of the consequences when they saw the angry chieftains, though no harm was permitted to ensue. An example of high integrity was always set. Mr. Marsden might, for instance, have obtained land, or timber, or, in short, whatever he required in exchange for ammunition and muskets; but he sternly interdicted the sale or barter of these articles upon any terms whatever, and to this resolution he always adhered. Again and again does he express his determination, as well in this its earliest stage as in later periods of the mission, rather to abandon the whole work, which was far dearer to him than life itself, than to suffer it to be tainted by what he considered so nefarious a barter. “I further told them,” he says, “that the smith should make axes or hoes, or any other tools they wanted; but that he was on no account to repair any pistols or muskets, or make any warlike instruments, no not even for thegreatest chiefs upon the island.” And he “took an opportunity, upon all occasions, to impress upon their minds the horrors their cannibalism excited; how much their nation was disgraced by it, and dreaded on this account.”

One thing still remained to be done. The missionaries possessed no land, and were liable, after his departure, to be removed or driven out at the mere caprice of the tribes amongst whom they settled. He therefore determined, if possible, to purchase for them a small estate. It consisted of about two hundred acres; and the first plot of ground to which England can lay claim in New Zealand was formally made over in a deed, of which Mr. Nicholas has fortunately preserved a transcript. It was executed in the presence of a number of chiefs, who were assembled to take leave of the Active on the day before she sailed, and ran as follows:—

“Know all men to whom these presents shall come, that I, Anodee O Gunna, king of Rangheehoo, in the island of New Zealand, have, in consideration of twelve axes to me in hand now paid and delivered by the Reverend Samuel Marsden of Paramatta, in the territory of New South Wales, given, granted, bargained, and sold; and by this present instrument do give, grant, bargain, and sell unto the committee of the Church Missionary Society for Africa and the East, instituted in London, in the kingdom of Great Britain, and to their heirs and successors, all that piece and parcel of land situate in the district of Hoshee, in the island of New Zealand, bounded on the south side by the bay of Lippouna and the town of Rangheehoo, on the north side by a creek of fresh water, and on the west by a public road into theinterior, together with all the rights, members, privileges, and appurtenances thereto belonging; to have and to hold to the aforesaid committee of the Church Missionary Society for Africa and the East, instituted in London, in the kingdom of Great Britain, their heirs, successors, and assigns, for ever, clear and freed from all taxes, charges, impositions, and contributions whatsoever, as and for their own absolute and proper estate for ever.“In testimony whereof I have to these presents, thus done and given, set my hand at Hoshee, in the island of New Zealand, this twenty-fourth day of February, in the year of Christ, one thousand eight hundred and fifteen.(Signatures to the grant.) “Thomas Kendall.“J. L. Nicholas.”

“In testimony whereof I have to these presents, thus done and given, set my hand at Hoshee, in the island of New Zealand, this twenty-fourth day of February, in the year of Christ, one thousand eight hundred and fifteen.

(Signatures to the grant.) “Thomas Kendall.“J. L. Nicholas.”

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