“In that dread moment how the frantic soulRaves round the walls of her clay tenement,Runs to each avenue and shrieks for help,But shrieks in vain. How wistfully she looksOn all she is leaving; now no longer hers.A little longer, yet a little longer. Oh! might she stayTo wash away her crimes, and fit her for her passage.”
He then spoke on the plan of salvation and the grace offered by the gospel with great feeling.
The holiness and purity of God appeared at times to overwhelm his soul; contrasting it, as he did, with his own sinfulness, and viewing it in connexion with the fact that he must soon stand before his awful presence. Yet he speedily recovered his habitual peace, recalling the blessed truth that “there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” He was still on the whole a most cheerful Christian, joying and rejoicing in the hope of a blessed immortality. And as he drew near his journey’s end his prospects were still brighter and his peace increased.
State of New South Wales—The Aborigines—Cruelties practised upon them—Attempts to civilize and convert them—They fail—Mr. Marsden’s Seventh Visit to New Zealand—His Daughter’s Journal—Affection of the Natives—Progress of the Mission—Danger from European vices—Returns in H.M.S Rattlesnake to Sydney.
State of New South Wales—The Aborigines—Cruelties practised upon them—Attempts to civilize and convert them—They fail—Mr. Marsden’s Seventh Visit to New Zealand—His Daughter’s Journal—Affection of the Natives—Progress of the Mission—Danger from European vices—Returns in H.M.S Rattlesnake to Sydney.
History affords but few examples of a change such as New South Wales had undergone since Mr. Marsden landed from a convict ship in the penal settlement of Botany Bay in the year 1794. The gold fields had not yet disclosed their wealth, nor did he live to see the stupendous consequences which resulted from their discovery in 1851, the rush of European adventurers, and the sudden transformation of the dismal solitudes of Bendigo and Ballarat into the abode of thousands of restless, enterprising men, with all the attendant circumstances, both good and evil, of civilized life. But Australia was already a vast colony; in almost everything except the name, an empire, self-supporting, and with regard to its internal affairs, self governed, though still under the mild control, borne with loyalty and pride, of the English sovereign. The state of society was completely changed. For many years, the stream of emigration had carried to the fertile shores of Australia not the refuse of our jails, but some of the choicest of our population; the young, the intelligent, the enterprising, and the high principled, who sought for a wider field of action, or disdained to live at home, useless to society, and a burden to their relatives. Large towns such asSydney, Victoria, Geelong and Melbourne, with their spacious harbours crowded with shipping, were already in existence, and English settlers had covered with their flocks those inland plains which long after Mr. Marsden’s arrival still lay desolate and unexplored.
The religious condition of Australia was no less changed. All denominations were now represented by a ministry, and accommodated in places of worship not at all inferior to those at home. The Church of England had erected Sydney into a bishopric, of which the pious and energetic archdeacon Broughton was the first incumbent, and the number of the colonial clergy had been greatly increased; under all these influences the tone of social morality was improved, and real spiritual religion won its triumphs in many hearts. Mr. Marsden was now released from those official cares and duties as senior chaplain which once so heavily pressed upon him. Beyond his own parish of Paramatta his ministerial labours did not necessarily extend, and in his parish duties he had the efficient aid of his son-in-law and other coadjutors.
PARAMATTA CHURCHPARAMATTA CHURCH
The one spot on which no cheering ray seemed to fall, the sterile field which after years of laborious cultivation yielded no return, was the native population, the aborigines of New South Wales.
We have mentioned some of the many futile attempts made for their conversion; more might be added; for various missions were devised,—by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, aided by the colonial government; by the Wesleyan and the Church Missionary Societies; and by the London Missionary Society; but none of these met with much success, and we fear all have been in turn abandoned. The mission of Mr. Threlkeld, on the margin of lakeMacquarie deserves especial notice. It was continued for upwards of fourteen years; during the first six years at the charges of the London Missionary Society, but owing to the heavy expense, and the slow progress of the mission, they withdrew from it after an outlay of about three thousand pounds. Mr. Threlkeld was reluctant to give up the mission, and pursued it for some time from his own resources and those of his friends, with a small grant of a hundred and fifty pounds a-year from the British government, who also made over ten thousand acres of land to be held on trust on behalf of the natives. Mr. Threlkeld seems to have been admirably fitted for his work; he had been the fellow labourer of the martyr John Williams, of Erromanga, and left the Tahitian mission in consequence of heavy domestic afflictions. He had spent much time in acquiring a knowledge of the language of the “blacks” or aborigines, of which he drew up a grammar, besides translating some portions of Scripture, Watts’s hymns, and other suitable works. He had generally three or four tribes resident around him upon the land granted for their use. Occasionally he employed from twelve to sixty of them in burning off the timber and clearing the land, an employment which they liked best. At this they would continue for eight or ten days at a time, until some native custom, or the report of the hostile intention of some neighbouring tribe, called them off, perhaps never to return. Harmless as they seemed, their customs were ferocious; the tribes were constantly at war, and upon human life they set no value; they had no law against murder, and consequently no punishment for it. A man may murder his wife, or child, or any other relative with impunity; but if a person murder anotherwho is no way connected with him, the nearest of kin to the murdered person will sometimes avenge his death; though this seldom happens unless the delinquent and the sufferer are of different tribes. It is only as they become acquainted with the customs of Europeans that human life is regarded. In their native wilds they sport with the sufferings both of man and beast.
At different periods, Mr. Threlkeld erected huts, but in these they could not be induced to live, alleging the accumulation of vermin and the fear of other natives coming in the night and spearing them without a possibility of escape. On urging them to plant corn on a piece of ground he had prepared for them, they replied it would be useless, as the tribes from the neighbouring Sugar Loaf Mountain, although on friendly terms, would come down and take it away when ripe. Mr. Threlkeld attributed the failure of his mission partly to the want of funds, but still more to the influx of European settlers. He deeply deplored the want of legal protectors, both to prevent the ferocious attacks of the blacks upon each other, and to protect them from the white man’s atrocities. “I am firmly of opinion,” adds Mr. Threlkeld, in the annual report of his mission for the year 1836, “that a Protector of Aborigines will be fully employed in investigating cases of the cruelty of European settlers, which are both numerous and shocking to humanity, and in maintaining their civil rights.”
He had but too much reason to express himself thus. The cases of oppression which he himself describes, are most revolting. In one instance, a stockman, or herdsman, boasted to his master of having killed six or seven black men with his own hands, when in pursuit of them with his companions; forthey were hunted down in mere wantonness and sport. He was merely dismissed from his employer’s service. In another, a party of stockmen went out, some depredation having been committed by the blacks in spearing their cattle, took a black prisoner, tied his arms, and then fastened him to the stirrup of a stockman on horseback to drag him along. When the party arrived near their respective stations they separated, leaving the stockman to conduct the prisoner to his own hut. The black, when he found they were alone, was reluctant to proceed, and struggled to get free, when the stockman took his knife from his pocket, coolly stuck the black in the throat, and left him for dead. The poor fellow crawled to the house of a gentleman dwelling on the plains, told his tale, and died.
These are but specimens of cruelties, too numerous and too horrible to relate. The blacks, of course, retaliated, and military parties were sent out against them. On the 31st October, 1828, the executive council of the colony declared in their minutes, “that the outrages of the aboriginal natives amount to a complete declaration of hostilities against the settlers generally,” but they forgot to add that these hostilities had been provoked in every instance by the wanton aggression of the Europeans. Martial law was again proclaimed in October, 1830, against the natives, and the governor at length determined to call upon the inhabitants to take up arms, and join the troops in forming a military cordon, by means of which he proposed to drive the aborigines into Tasman’s Peninsula. The inhabitants responded to the call, and an armed force of between two and three thousand men were in the field from the 4th October till the 26th November; but the attempt entirely failed.
Mr. Marsden lived to see the beginnings of a better system, though from his advanced age he was now no longer able to take an active part in the formation of new institutions. Before his death, a society had been formed in the colony for the protection of the aborigines, and government had also appointed protectors to defend them against wanton outrage. This was a great advance in a colony where, Lieutenant Sadleir (who had the charge of the school at Paramatta for the aborigines) tells us, that on his first tour up the country he saw the skull of a celebrated native, in which was visible the hole where the ball had penetrated the forehead, placed over a gentleman’s bookcase in his sitting-room; “a trophy,” he says, “which he prized very much, of his success in one of those exterminating excursions then sometimes undertaken, when the natives were hunted down like beasts of prey to be destroyed.” But it was not till the year 1839 that an act was passed by the legislative council giving extensive powers to certain “commissioners of lands,” who were also magistrates of the territory, to put a stop to the atrocities so extensively committed beyond the boundaries, both by the aborigines and the European settlers. The governor drew attention to this act in a proclamation worthy of his high office. “As human beings,” he remarks, “partaking of our common nature, as the aboriginal possessors of the soil from which the wealth of the country has been principally derived, and as subjects of the queen, whose authority extends over every part of New Holland, the natives of the colony have an equal right with the people of European origin to the protection and assistance of the law of England.
“His excellency thinks it right further to informthe public that each succeeding despatch from the secretary of state marks in an increasing degree the importance which her Majesty’s government, and no less the parliament and the people of Great Britain, attach to the just and humane treatment of the aborigines of this country, and to declare most earnestly and solemnly his deep conviction that there is no subject or matter whatsoever in which the interests as well as the honour of the colonists are more essentially concerned.”
His excellency was soon called upon to bring his professions of impartial justice to the test. A few weeks only after the date of the proclamation, seven monsters in human shape, convicts who had been assigned as stockmen to some of the settlers in the interior, influenced, it would seem, by no other motive than a fiendish determination to exterminate the unhappy natives, set out on horseback in pursuit of their victims. One Charles Kilmaister was their leader. They were traced in their progress, inquiring after blacks, and at last it appeared they arrived at a hut near the Orawaldo, commonly called the Big River, beyond Liverpool Plains. Here they discovered a little tribe of about thirty natives, men, women, and children, including babes at their mothers’ breasts, assembled in the bush, unsuspicious of danger, and unconscious of offence. It was on Sunday. They immediately approached their victims, who, terrified at their manner, ran into Kilmaister’s hut, crying for protection; but they appealed to hearts of stone. The bandits having caught them as it were in a trap, dismounted and followed them into the hut, and, despite of their entreaties, tied them together with a rope. When all were thus secured, one end of the rope wastied round the body of the foremost of the murderers, who, having mounted his horse, led the way, dragging the terrified group after him, while his infamous companions guarded them on all sides. Onward they were dragged till a fitting place in the bush was reached, when the work of slaughter commenced, and unresisting, these hapless wretches, one after the other, were brutally butchered. Fathers, and mothers, and children, fell before the previously sharpened swords of their executioners, till all lay together a lifeless mass, clinging to each other even in death, as with the throes of natural affection. But one shot was fired, so that it was presumed one only perished by fire-arms. The precise number thus immolated has not been accurately ascertained, but it is computed not less than thirty lay stretched on their own native soil. The demon butchers then placed the bodies in a heap, kindled an immense fire over them, and so endeavoured to destroy the evidence of their unheard-of brutality. The eye of providence, however, was not to be thus blinded; and although for a time the miscreants imagined they had effectually disguised their horrible work, circumstances led to their apprehension. Birds of prey were seen hovering about the spot where the unconsumed remains yet rotted on the ground. Stockmen in search of their strayed cattle were attracted to the place, supposing they should find their carcasses. In this way it was that the ribs, jaw-bones, half-burned skulls, and other portions of human skeletons were found, while symptoms of the conflagration in the vicinity were likewise discovered. This led to inquiry, and ultimately to the discovery of the horrible truth. The place was fifty miles from the nearest police station. The whole of the villainswere apprehended, and their own admissions and conduct, both previous and subsequent to the atrocious deed, added to a chain of circumstantial evidence, left no doubt of their guilt. It chanced that the night previous to the murders a heavy rain had fallen, and traces were thus discovered of horses feet, as well as of the naked feet of the wretched natives, on the way to the field of death. The chief witness, a respectable man, scarce dared, however, to return to the district, so strong was the sympathy expressed towards these miscreants, even by persons of influence, some of whom were magistrates. All possible pains were taken to save them from condign punishment; subscriptions were made for their defence, and counsel retained, but in vain; their guilt was established beyond a doubt, and Sir George Gipps, the governor, suffered the law to take its righteous course.
Yet the progress of humanity and righteousness was very slow, and Mr. Marsden did not live to see equal justice, not to speak of gospel truth or English liberty, carried to the aborigines. In the very year of his death, an effort was made by the attorney-general of the colony to pass a bill to enable the courts of justice to receive the evidence of the blacks, hitherto inadmissible. The chief justice of Australia gave his sanction to the measure. In laying this bill before the council, as the law officer of the crown, the attorney-general gave some painful instances of its necessity. There was then, he said, lying in his office a very remarkable case, in which there was no doubt a considerable number of blacks had been shot, but in consequence of not being able to take the evidence of the blacks who witnessed the transaction, it was impossible to prosecute, although there was proof thatcertain parties went into the bush in a certain direction with fire-arms, and that shots were heard. The dead bodies of blacks were afterwards found there, the skulls of some of them being marked with bullets. On the other hand five blacks were convicted of a larceny, and could be convicted of no higher offence, although those who heard the case must have been convinced that they had murdered two white men; but, because the blacks, who knew how the murder was committed, could not be heard as witnesses, it was impossible to prosecute them for the murder. The bill only went so far as to allow the blacks to be heard,—“to allow them to tell their own story; the jury might believe them or not as their evidence was corroborated circumstantially, or by other witnesses.” Yet this simple instalment of justice was denied, and the bill was rejected by the legislative council. Such are some of the crimes through which even England, just and generous England, has ascended her dazzling throne of colonial empire. When we tear aside the veil of national pride, how gloomy are the recesses of our colonial history; how large the amends which Britain owes to every native population which God has intrusted to her care!
Mr. Marsden was now seventy-two years of age. On every side the friends of his youth were falling, and he was bowed down with bodily infirmities, the natural consequence of a life of toil. He often pointed to an aged tree which grew in sight of his windows, as an emblem of himself. It had once stood in the middle of a thick wood, surrounded on all sides with fine timber; which the waste of years and the ruthless axe had levelled; now it stood alone, exposed to every blast, its branches broken off, its trunkdecayed and its days numbered. Yet he resolved to pay another, his seventh, and, as it proved, his last visit to New Zealand. It was thought by his friends, that he would never live to return. His age and infirmities seemed to unfit him for any great exertion of either mind or body; but having formed the resolution, nothing could now deter him, or divert him from it. He sailed on the 9th February, 1837, in the Pyramus, accompanied by his youngest daughter, and he seemed to be cheered by the reflection that if he should die upon his voyage he should die in his harness and upon the battle field on which God had chosen him to be a leader.
And yet his sturdy spirit scarcely bowed itself to such misgivings. As on former visits, he had no sooner landed than his whole soul was invigorated by scenes from which most others would have shrunk. He landed on the southern side of the island, at the river Hokianga, and remained amongst the Wesleyan missionaries for about a fortnight; after which he crossed over to the Bay of Islands, carried all the way in a litter by the natives. In this way he visited the whole of the missionary stations in the neighbourhood of the Bay of Islands, as well as Kaitaia, a station at the North Cape. On the arrival of H. M. S. Rattlesnake, he accompanied Captain Hobson (afterwards governor of New Zealand), to the river Thames, and the East Cape, returning at length to Sydney in that ship, where he arrived on the 27th of July after an absence of five months. When entering the heads of Port Jackson, one of the officers of the ship observed, “I think Mr. M. you may look upon this as your last visit to New Zealand;” upon which he replied, “No I don’t, for I intend to be off again in about sixweeks, the people in the colony are becoming too fine for me now. I am too old to preach before them, but I can talk to the New Zealanders.”
Of this, his last visit, we must give some account. Captain Livesay of the Pyramus, in a valuable letter to Mr. Nicholas, has given some interesting reminiscences of his passenger:—
“Devonport, November 29, 1837.“My dear Sir,— ... I looked forward to meeting you with inexpressible delight, to talk about our much esteemed friend Mr. Marsden, and compare notes about New Zealand; but we are born to disappointment, although I shall still look forward to have that pleasure on my return to England.“From the last account I had of Mr. Marsden, previous to my quitting New Zealand, I was informed that the trip had done him much good. When he left the ship, and indeed when I last saw him, which was a month afterwards, he used to walk with a great stoop; he was then able to walk upright, and take considerable exercise. The dear old man! it used to do my heart good to see his pious zeal in his Master’s cause. Nothing ever seemed a trouble to him. He was always calm and cheerful, even under intense bodily suffering, which was the case sometimes from the gravel, which caused him great distress. His daughter Martha was a very great comfort to him; she was constantly with him, and very affectionate in her attentions. I did hope my next voyage would have been to New South Wales, that I might have the pleasure of seeing him once more, should God have spared him so long; but that thought must now be given up.” ...
“Devonport, November 29, 1837.
“My dear Sir,— ... I looked forward to meeting you with inexpressible delight, to talk about our much esteemed friend Mr. Marsden, and compare notes about New Zealand; but we are born to disappointment, although I shall still look forward to have that pleasure on my return to England.
“From the last account I had of Mr. Marsden, previous to my quitting New Zealand, I was informed that the trip had done him much good. When he left the ship, and indeed when I last saw him, which was a month afterwards, he used to walk with a great stoop; he was then able to walk upright, and take considerable exercise. The dear old man! it used to do my heart good to see his pious zeal in his Master’s cause. Nothing ever seemed a trouble to him. He was always calm and cheerful, even under intense bodily suffering, which was the case sometimes from the gravel, which caused him great distress. His daughter Martha was a very great comfort to him; she was constantly with him, and very affectionate in her attentions. I did hope my next voyage would have been to New South Wales, that I might have the pleasure of seeing him once more, should God have spared him so long; but that thought must now be given up.” ...
The remainder of the letter has reference to thestate and prospects of New Zealand. The sentiments are honourable to a British sailor. How happy it would have been for the Maori race, had all English captains who visited the Bay of Islands, been such men as Captain Livesay!
He says, “It affords me great satisfaction to find that a committee are forming for the colonization of New Zealand, on the scale you intimate. It is very much to be desired indeed; as the poor natives are becoming a prey and a sacrifice to a set of dissolute wretches who do all in their power to sink the savage into the perfect brute, or by design and craft to cheat them out of all their possessions. Even those who call themselves respectable, are amongst this number, and one or two, to my certain knowledge, have purchased an immense extent of land for a mere song, depriving the rising generation of all their claims. The New Zealanders are upon the whole, a fine and intelligent race, capable of much if well directed. They are accused of low cunning, and covetousness in their dealings with the Europeans. Let the question be asked, who taught them to be so? Why, the Europeans themselves. They are said to be ferocious. I maintain that they are not half so much so as our own ancestors in the barbarous times of Britain; and where Christianity has been properly introduced, they are quite a different race of beings. Let but the ill weeds that have taken root there be torn up, and the wholesome plant of industry and sobriety, with the spirit of the gospel, sown in its place, and all the savage will soon cease to be.”
The “ill weeds” were springing up apace, and, as a consequence, the missionary cause was once more in peril.
An English barque had lately been wrecked upon the coast, but fortunately Mr. Guard the captain, his wife, two children, and the crew, twenty-eight in all, escaped to land. At first, according to the statement of the captain, the natives treated them with kindness, which they soon exchanged, under what pretext, or in consequence of what provocations on either side, it would be useless to ask, for open hostilities. A quarrel was got up between two native tribes, and an engagement followed, in which twelve Europeans, and about forty Maories fell. Guard and his party were taken prisoners. It shows how great an improvement had taken place amongst the natives, that they were not massacred and devoured; but, on condition of returning with a cask of powder as a ransom for himself and the rest, Guard and five of his men were allowed to proceed, without further molestation, to Sydney; where he laid the matter before Sir Richard Bourke the governor. Relying on the accuracy of Guard’s narrative, the governor, with the advice of the executive council, requested Captain Lambert to proceed with H.M.S. Alligator, which happened to be lying in Port Jackson, to obtain the restoration of the British subjects, then in the hands of the New Zealanders. He was instructed to abstain from any act of retaliation, and to obtain the restoration of the captives by amicable means; and Guard and his five men returned in the same ship.
Soon after the arrival of the party at New Zealand, Guard recognised the chief who was now the proprietor of the shipwrecked woman and children; and the unsuspicious native rubbed noses with him in token of amity, at the same time expressing his readiness to give up his prisoners on receiving the“payment” guaranteed to him. This, however was not the way in which the affair was to be settled; Guard and his sailors seized him as a prisoner, and dragged him into the whale boat in which the party had gone ashore. The cruelty practised towards this unfortunate man, and the fearful havoc committed by the English, we gladly pass over. Such iniquitous transactions reflect but little credit on us as a Christian or a civilized people; and they were, moreover, in direct opposition to the benevolent instructions of Sir Richard Bourke. The British subjects were restored; as indeed they might have been without the loss of a single life, through the intervention of the missionaries, and of the British resident at the Bay of Islands, and the expedition having gained its object by force and stratagem, returned to Sydney with the troops and the liberated captives.
This painful affair, as well as other acts of outrage, on the part of the natives, which were its natural consequence, made a deep impression at the time, and were a source of great uneasiness to Mr. Marsden. He saw at once the danger to which they exposed the missionaries and their cause, and felt, no doubt, a just reliance on himself. Unarmed and unprotected, had he been upon the spot, he would have accomplished more in his own person than all those warlike measures had effected, which anew embittered the Maori race against the Europeans.
His record of his farewell visit was probably not kept with his former accuracy; but the chasm is well supplied by the interesting journal of his daughter, some extracts from which the reader will peruse with pleasure. We have the whole scene placed before us by her graceful pen, and we gain some glimpse intoher father’s character, which we should certainly not have gathered from his own modest, self-forgetting, memoranda.
“February 12, Sunday.—Had service on deck. The Rev. Mr. Wilkinson read prayers, and my father preached. The sailors were very attentive; the service was truly interesting from its novelty and the impressiveness of the scene; nothing around us but the wide waste of waters.“13th.—At the suggestion of Captain L——, reading in the evenings was introduced. We began the History of Columbus, by Washington Irving, and the arrangement is that we are to read by turns.”The weather proved boisterous, and it was not before the 21st they made the land.“22nd.—Up early on deck to view the land, which presented a very bold and romantic appearance.“Not being able to obtain a pilot, the captain determined, lest he should lose the tide, Hokianga being a bar harbour, to take the vessel in himself. The dead lights were put in, and every arrangement made as we approached the bar. Not a voice was heard but that of the captain and the two men in the chains, heaving the lead. Every sailor was at his station, and the anchors in readiness to let go at a moment’s warning. We sounded as shallow as ‘a quarter less four,’ when the ladies became alarmed, though we were obliged to keep our fears to ourselves, as the gentlemen very politely left us. The wind being light, the fear was the breakers would have overtaken the ship, thrown her upon her beam ends, and rendered her unmanageable; but providence guided and preserved us.“I seldom remember a more beautiful scene; the moon is near its full, and the banks of the river arevery high, covered with the most luxuriant foliage. We were so delighted with the scenery that we would willingly have stayed up all night. As we proceeded up, the mountains appeared to lessen into hills. Several native hamlets, and two or three residences of Europeans, show that the busy hand of man has been engaged in the work of redeeming the wilderness from the wild dominion of nature. Anchored near the Wesleyan mission station, where we were kindly welcomed by Mr. and Mrs. Turner. The mission here has been established nearly nine years; they have a neat chapel and one or two comfortable houses, and are about to form an additional station. The missionaries related several instances of the melancholy death of various New Zealanders who have opposed the progress of the mission. One chief became so incensed against the ‘Atua,’ for the death of his child, that he formed a circle of gunpowder, placed himself in the centre, and fired it. The explosion did not immediately destroy him; he lingered a few weeks in dreadful agony, and then died.“Saturday.—The natives are coming in great numbers to attend divine worship. Mr. Turner preached, and afterwards my father addressed them. They listened with earnest attention, and were much pleased. Many of the old chiefs were delighted to see my father, and offered to build him a house, if he would remain. One said, ‘Stay with us and learn our language, and then you will become our father and our friend, and we will build you a house.’ ‘No,’ replied another, ‘we cannot build a house good enough, but we will hire Europeans to do it for us.’“The whole congregation joined in the responses and singing, and though they have not the mostpleasing voices, yet it was delightful to hear them sing one of the hymns commencing ‘From Egypt lately come.’”
“February 12, Sunday.—Had service on deck. The Rev. Mr. Wilkinson read prayers, and my father preached. The sailors were very attentive; the service was truly interesting from its novelty and the impressiveness of the scene; nothing around us but the wide waste of waters.
“13th.—At the suggestion of Captain L——, reading in the evenings was introduced. We began the History of Columbus, by Washington Irving, and the arrangement is that we are to read by turns.”
The weather proved boisterous, and it was not before the 21st they made the land.
“22nd.—Up early on deck to view the land, which presented a very bold and romantic appearance.
“Not being able to obtain a pilot, the captain determined, lest he should lose the tide, Hokianga being a bar harbour, to take the vessel in himself. The dead lights were put in, and every arrangement made as we approached the bar. Not a voice was heard but that of the captain and the two men in the chains, heaving the lead. Every sailor was at his station, and the anchors in readiness to let go at a moment’s warning. We sounded as shallow as ‘a quarter less four,’ when the ladies became alarmed, though we were obliged to keep our fears to ourselves, as the gentlemen very politely left us. The wind being light, the fear was the breakers would have overtaken the ship, thrown her upon her beam ends, and rendered her unmanageable; but providence guided and preserved us.
“I seldom remember a more beautiful scene; the moon is near its full, and the banks of the river arevery high, covered with the most luxuriant foliage. We were so delighted with the scenery that we would willingly have stayed up all night. As we proceeded up, the mountains appeared to lessen into hills. Several native hamlets, and two or three residences of Europeans, show that the busy hand of man has been engaged in the work of redeeming the wilderness from the wild dominion of nature. Anchored near the Wesleyan mission station, where we were kindly welcomed by Mr. and Mrs. Turner. The mission here has been established nearly nine years; they have a neat chapel and one or two comfortable houses, and are about to form an additional station. The missionaries related several instances of the melancholy death of various New Zealanders who have opposed the progress of the mission. One chief became so incensed against the ‘Atua,’ for the death of his child, that he formed a circle of gunpowder, placed himself in the centre, and fired it. The explosion did not immediately destroy him; he lingered a few weeks in dreadful agony, and then died.
“Saturday.—The natives are coming in great numbers to attend divine worship. Mr. Turner preached, and afterwards my father addressed them. They listened with earnest attention, and were much pleased. Many of the old chiefs were delighted to see my father, and offered to build him a house, if he would remain. One said, ‘Stay with us and learn our language, and then you will become our father and our friend, and we will build you a house.’ ‘No,’ replied another, ‘we cannot build a house good enough, but we will hire Europeans to do it for us.’
“The whole congregation joined in the responses and singing, and though they have not the mostpleasing voices, yet it was delightful to hear them sing one of the hymns commencing ‘From Egypt lately come.’”
The journey across from Hokianga to the Waimaté, as described by Miss Martha Marsden, shows, in the absence of railroads and steam carriages, an agreeable if not expeditious mode of conveyance. “Took leave of Mrs. Turner; and, mounted in a chair on the shoulders of two New Zealanders, I headed the procession. My father, Mr. Wilkinson, and the two children, were carried in ‘kaw-shores,’ or native biers, on which they carry their sick. We entered a forest of five miles, then stopped to dine. The natives soon cooked their potatoes, corn, etc., in their ovens, which they scoop in the sand, and after heating a number of stones, the potatoes are put in, covered with grass and leaves, and a quantity of water poured upon them; they were exquisitely steamed. As I approached one of the groups sitting at dinner, I was much affected by seeing one of them get up and ask a blessing over the basket of potatoes.
“Five miles from Waimaté I left my chair, mounted on horseback, and reached Waimaté for breakfast. Old Nini accompanied us the whole way, and told my father if he attempted to ride he would leave him. The natives carried him the whole way with the greatest cheerfulness, and brought him through the most difficult places with the greatest ease. The distance they carried him was about twenty miles.”
The state of all the missions with regard to their spiritual work was now full of hope. Of the Wesleyan mission Mr. Marsden himself reports, “I found that many were inquiring after the Saviour, and that a large number attended public worship. The prospectof success to the Church of England Mission is very great. Since my arrival at the missionary station I have not heard one oath spoken by European or native; the schools and church are well attended, and the greatest order is observed among all classes. I met with many wherever I went, who were anxious after the knowledge of God. Wherever I went I found some who could read and write. They are all fond of reading, and there are many who never had an opportunity of attending the schools who, nevertheless, can read. They teach one another in all parts of the country, from the North to the East Cape.”
The native tribes were still at war with each other, and with the European settlers—the miserable effect of Captain Guard’s rash conduct. From the missionary station at Pahia Mr. Marsden’s daughter counted one morning twenty-one canoes passing up the bay. A battle followed, which she witnessed at a distance, and the Europeans all around fled to the missionary station. In the engagement three chiefs fell; a second fight occurred soon afterwards. “We have heard firing all day,” she writes; “many have been killed; we saw the canoes pass down the river containing the bodies of the slain.” Mr. Marsden himself was absent on a visit to the southward, or his presence might possibly have prevented these scenes of blood.
Wherever the venerable man appeared, he was received by the converted natives with Christian salutations and tears of joy; the heathen population welcomed him with the firing of muskets and their rude war dances. Wherever he went, he was greeted with acclamations as the friend and father of the New Zealanders. One chieftain sat down upon the ground before him gazing upon him in silence, without movinga limb or uttering a single word for several hours. He was gently reproved by Mr. Williams for what seemed a rudeness. “Let me alone,” said he, “let me take a last look; I shall never see him again.” “One principal chief,” writes Mr. Marsden, “who had embraced the gospel and been baptized, accompanied us all the way. We had to travel about forty miles, by land and water. He told me he was so unhappy at Hokianga that he could not get to converse with me from the crowds that attended, and that he had come to Waimaté to speak with me. I found him to be a very intelligent man, and anxious to know the way to heaven.” While at Kaitai he held a constant levée, sitting in an arm-chair, in an open field, before the mission house; it was attended by upwards of a thousand Maories, who poured in from every quarter; many coming a distance of twenty or thirty miles, contented to sit down and gaze on his venerable features; and so they continued to come and go till his departure. With his characteristic kindness and good nature he presented each with a pipe and fig of tobacco; and when he was to embark at last, they carried him to the ship, a distance of six miles.
Before leaving New Zealand, he wrote to the Church Missionary Society an account which glows with pious exultation, describing the success with which the Head of the church had at length been pleased to bless the labours of his faithful servants. Since his arrival, he says, he had visited many of the stations within the compass of a hundred miles. It was his intention to have visited all of them, from the North to the East Cape; but from the disturbed state of the country “it was not considered prudent for him to go to thesouth,” where he still contemplated further efforts “when the country should be more settled in its political affairs.” He had “observed a wonderful change: those portions of the sacred Scriptures which had been printed have had a most astonishing effect; they are read by the natives in every place where I have been; the natives teach one another, and find great pleasure in the word of God, and carry that sacred treasure with them wherever they go. Great numbers have been baptized, both chiefs and their people.” He had met with some very pious chiefs, who had refused to share in the present war, and avowed their resolution to fight no more. One of them, at his own cost, had built a chapel, or place of public worship, which was visited by the missionaries; in this he himself taught a school, assisted by his son. “Waimaté, once the most warlike district in the island, is now,” he says, “the most orderly and moral place I was ever in. My own mind has been exceedingly gratified by what I have seen and heard.” Old age, it seems, is not always querulous; its retrospects are not always in favour of the past; the aged Christian walks with a more elastic step as he sees the fruit of his labour, and anticipates his own great reward. “Mine eyes,” he concludes, “are dim with age like Isaac’s; it is with some difficulty I can see to write.”
Nor had the weakness and credulity of advancing years led him to take for granted, as in second childhood old age is wont to do, the truth of first impressions, or the accuracy of every man’s reports. He still gave to every subject connected with missions the closest attention, penetrated beneath the surface, and formed his own conclusions. While in New Zealand,for instance, he addresses the following queries to Mr. Matthews, one of the missionaries, on the subject of education:—
“April, 1837.“... I will thank you to return me what number of native young men there are employed from your station on the sabbath in visiting the natives, I mean the numbers who occasionally visit their countrymen and instruct them. What schools there are at the station, and who are the teachers? Have you an infant school, or a school for men and boys? a school for women? What do they learn? Do they learn to read and write? Do they understand figures? Have they renounced generally their former superstitions? At what period of the day do they attend school? Have they any meeting in the week-days for prayer and religious instruction? Do they appear to have any views of the Lord Jesus Christ as a Saviour? Any information you can give me, along with your brethren, will be very acceptable to the lovers of the gospel in New South Wales.”“Samuel Marsden.”
“April, 1837.
“... I will thank you to return me what number of native young men there are employed from your station on the sabbath in visiting the natives, I mean the numbers who occasionally visit their countrymen and instruct them. What schools there are at the station, and who are the teachers? Have you an infant school, or a school for men and boys? a school for women? What do they learn? Do they learn to read and write? Do they understand figures? Have they renounced generally their former superstitions? At what period of the day do they attend school? Have they any meeting in the week-days for prayer and religious instruction? Do they appear to have any views of the Lord Jesus Christ as a Saviour? Any information you can give me, along with your brethren, will be very acceptable to the lovers of the gospel in New South Wales.”
“Samuel Marsden.”
On one point only he met with no success. He had not yet quite abandoned the pleasing dream of a Maori nation, united under one chief; a Christian people, governed by a code of native law. Tahiti naturally encouraged these bright visions, and seemed to show how easily they might be realized. There, for ten years past, under king Pomare, the wondrous spectacle had been presented to the world of a whole people, under the guidance of their king, rejecting idolatry, and with it all the base usages of savage life, and working out their own national regeneration; framing a Tahitian code of law on the sound principles of Christian jurisprudence, and cordially adopting it. Why should not a similar state of things be broughtabout in New Zealand? The instrumental agency in both islands was the same; namely, that of Christian missionaries, chiefly, if not entirely, English Christians, who carried with them, it might be supposed, to both islands the same reverence for order, and with it the same love of liberty. Were the Maories an inferior race, compared with the aborigines of the Tahitian group? On the contrary, the difference was rather in favour of the Maori; he was the more athletic, and consequently the more vigorous in his mental development; indeed, upon the whole, he stands unapproached by any other tribe of man uncivilized and in a state of nature; unless we go back to the heroic ages and find his equal amongst ancient Greeks at the dawning of their somewhat fabulous history.
Yet the project failed; and Mr. Marsden was now obliged mournfully to admit that New Zealand’s only hope lay in her annexation to the British crown. The two causes of the failure of these otherwise reasonable expectations are to be found, no doubt, first, in the circumstances of the Maori tribes, and secondly, in the pernicious effects produced by European traders and settlers.
Tahiti was happy in possessing one sovereign. New Zealand was unfortunate in its multitude of petty chieftains. When the heart of king Pomare was gained, the confidence of a loyal and devoted people was at once won over. There was no rival to foment rebellion, or to seize the occasion of a religious festival, when he and his people were unarmed, to make inroads on his territory. With the assistance of his council, and under the advice of the faithful missonaries, a code of law was easily prepared, suited for all his subjects, and adapted to every part of his little kingdom.In New Zealand, on the contrary, the chiefs, each of whom claimed to be perfectly independent of the rest, were constantly at enmity with each other. The violent passions of civil war never slept—hatred, revenge, and jealousy. The missionaries, if cherished by Shunghie, were hated or feared by Shunghie’s opponent. Their direct influence in the politics of the Maories was therefore, of necessity, slight. But the chief hindrance arose from the mutual animosities of the chiefs, and the want of confidence in each other which universally prevailed, both among chiefs and people.
And it must be confessed with sorrow, that the evil example of the Europeans provoked the natives to fresh crimes, and indisposed them to all the restraints of civil government. The Polynesian Islands had, up to this period, known neither commerce nor colonization. Except a chance visit from a man-of-war, a European ship was scarcely ever seen; or the few which came and went were connected with the missions, and were manned by decent if not religious crews. The polluting influence of a debauched and drunken body of seamen, rolling in constant succession to its shores, had not yet tainted the moral atmosphere of Tahiti and its neighbouring group. And colonization had not even been attempted; the natives were left in full possession of their soil, no man making them afraid. In New Zealand all this was reversed. Wicked seamen infected even savages with new vices; and lawless settlers set an example of injustice, shocking even to New Zealanders. For these evils it was evident there was but one remedy, the strong hand of British rule. Take the following sketch from the pen of Mr. Marsden. After describing the happy state of the Christian settlement at Waimaté, he goes on tosay: “On the opposite side of the harbour, a number of Europeans have settled along with the natives. Several keep public-houses, and encourage every kind of crime. Here drunkenness, adultery, murder, etc. are committed. There are no laws, judges, nor magistrates; so that Satan maintains his dominion without molestation. Some civilized government must take New Zealand under its protection, or the most dreadful evils will be committed by runaway convicts, sailors and publicans. There are no laws here to punish crimes. When I return to New South Wales, I purpose to lay the state of New Zealand before the colonial government, to see if anything can be done to remedy these public evils.” “I hope in time,” he says again, in a letter, dated May 16th, 1837, from Pahaia, to the Rev. James Matthews, “the chiefs will get a governor. I shall inform the Europeans in authority how much they are distressed in New Zealand for want of a governor with power to punish crime. The Bay of Islands is now in a dreadful state.... It is my intention to return to New South Wales by the first opportunity.”
That opportunity soon appeared, and the venerable founder of its missions, the advocate of its native population, the friend of all that concerned its present or spiritual welfare, took his last leave of the shores of New Zealand. Preparations were made for his reception on board H. M. S. Rattlesnake. The signal gun was fired, and all the friends from Waimaté and Keri-Keri arrived to accompany their revered father to the beach, “Where,” says one of them who was present, “like Paul at Miletus, we parted with many benedictions: sorrowing most of all that we should see his face again no more. Many could not bid him adieu. The parting was with many tears.”
His happy temperament always diffused pleasure and conciliated friendship. On board the Rattlesnake he was welcomed with warm, affectionate, respect. Captain Hobson, who was afterwards for a time governor of New Zealand, knew his worth, and felt honoured by his company; and Mr. Marsden fully appreciated the high character and courtesy of the commander, whose widow retains a handsome piece of plate presented to her husband by his grateful passenger, as a memorial of the happiness he enjoyed on this his last voyage homewards.
The chaplain of the Rattlesnake noted down an affecting conversation with the aged minister upon his voyage, which we are permitted to insert:—
“We enjoyed a most lovely evening. I had a long conversation with Mr. Marsden on deck. He spoke of almost all his old friends having preceded him to the eternal world; Romaine, Newton, the Milners, Scott, Atkinson, Robinson, Buchanan, Mason Good, Thomason, Rowland Hill, Legh Richmond, Simeon, and others. He then alluded in a very touching manner to his late wife; they had passed, he observed, more than forty years of their pilgrimage through this wilderness in company, and he felt their separation the more severely as the months rolled on. I remarked that their separation would be but for a short period longer. ‘God grant it,’ was his reply; then lifting his eyes towards the moon, which was peacefully shedding her beams on the sails of our gallant bark, he exclaimed with intense feeling.
‘Prepare me, Lord, for thy right hand,Then come the joyful day.’”
Mr. Marsden’s ministerial pursuits and journeys—Love of the Country and of Patriarchal story—His Old Age—Its mental features—Anecdotes—Love of Children—Bishop Broughton—His reverence for Mr. Marsden’s character—Mr. Marsden’s views of Death, etc.—His Habits of Prayer—His Illness and Death.
Mr. Marsden’s ministerial pursuits and journeys—Love of the Country and of Patriarchal story—His Old Age—Its mental features—Anecdotes—Love of Children—Bishop Broughton—His reverence for Mr. Marsden’s character—Mr. Marsden’s views of Death, etc.—His Habits of Prayer—His Illness and Death.
Mr. Marsden had now passed the allotted span of human life, though his days were not yet “labour and sorrow.” Entering upon his seventy-second year with stooping gait and failing eyesight and a decaying memory, he had otherwise few of the mental infirmities of age. He was still a perfect stranger to fear, as well as to that nervous restlessness and susceptibility which wears the appearance of it, though often found, as may be daily observed, in connexion with the truest courage. After his return home from his last voyage he was attacked, when driving with his youngest daughter, upon one of his excursions in the bush, by two famous bush rangers Wormley and Webber, part of a gang who for a period of two years kept the whole country in a state of terror. One of the ruffians presented a loaded pistol at his breast and another at his daughter’s, threatening with horrid imprecations to shoot them both, if they said a word, and bidding his daughter to empty her father’s pockets into their hands. Perfectly undismayed, Mr. Marsden remonstrated with them on their wicked course of life, telling them at last that he should soon see them again, he had no doubt, on the gallows. At parting, though charged, with the usual threats, not to look behind him,he turned round, and continued, while they were in sight, to warn them in the same strain of the certain consequences of a life of crime. His admonition was soon verified; the wretched men were apprehended for other outrages and sentenced to death, and he himself attended them from the condemned cell to the place of execution.
These excursions into the country around Paramatta, where he had gone about for a period of nearly forty years doing the work of an evangelist or home missionary, were continued to the last. To wind through devious paths in the bush in his one horse chaise, where his good horseMajorseemed as if trained to penetrate, gave him the highest pleasure. The way was often trackless, and he was obliged to ask his companion whether the trace of a cartwheel could be seen. Yet there was an instinctive feeling of safety in his company, and a refreshment in his conversation, which always made the vacant seat in the gig prized by those who knew and loved him. “As he drove along,” says a Christian lady, the wife of Captain B—— who was his companion on some of his last journeys, “wherever he went there was always to be found some testimony to that goodness and mercy which had followed him all the days of his life. Some Ebenezer he could raise where helped perhaps in an encounter with a bushranger, having only the sword of the Spirit with which to defend himself and disarm his foe, or some Bethel, it might be, where like Jacob he had been enabled to wrestle and prevail. With such a companion no one could be a loser. On these excursions, no matter to what distance, he seemed to think preparations needless, he would travel miles and miles without any previous consideration for his owncomfort or convenience. Even a carpet-bag was an encumbrance. He had been too long accustomed to make his toilet with the New Zealander, and take with him his meal of fern-root, to be particular, or to take thought, what he should eat, or wherewithal should he be clothed.”
His love of the country and of rural scenes gave a strong colouring, and great originality to his preaching as well as to his own religious character. He called his estate “The plains of Mamre.” This property we may remind the reader had been presented to Mr. Marsden in the early days of the colony, when land uncleared was absolutely worthless, to eke out his insufficient stipend. It had now become valuable, and he was exposed both in the colony and in England to many unjust remarks, even from those who should have known him better, on the score of his reputed wealth. His own justification of himself is more than sufficient. Being told that he was charged with avarice, “Why,” said he, “they might as well find fault with Abraham whose flocks and herds multiplied. Abraham never took any trouble about it, nor do I. I can’t help their increasing;” and he added, a remark so true and of such pregnant import that it ought for ever to have put to silence this miserable carping; “It was not for myself, but for the benefit of this colony and New Zealand, that I ever tried to promote agriculture or the improvement in sheep or cattle.” Had he done nothing else for Australia, his introduction of Merino sheep with a view to the growth of wool would have marked him down upon the roll of her greatest benefactors.
Through life his choicest topics in the pulpit had been the patriarchs, their lives and charactersbut as he grew old, he seemed unconsciously to rank amongst their number; to fall into and become one of their own body; himself a Christian patriarch. It was the frequent remark of his friends that he spoke of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, just as if he had lived in their times, heard their conversations, and been well acquainted with them. It is much to be regretted that more full and accurate reports of his sermons and conversations should not have been kept. The truth and originality of his remarks would have made them invaluable. When seated in his chair upon the lawn before his house, surrounded by his family and friends, his conversations took the prevailing turn of his mind, and he used to dwell on the incidents of patriarchal life with a depth of feeling and a power of picturesque description of which one would be glad that the memorials should not have been allowed to perish.
At an examination of the King’s School at Sydney, the headmaster having requested him to ask the boys some questions upon Scripture history, forgetting the business in hand, he broke out into a long and interesting address on patriarchal life and manners. The end contemplated by the headmaster was of course frustrated, “but we dare say,” says the colonial journalist who tells the story, “there are many young persons now growing up into manhood, who, to this day remember the pious and excellent observations of the venerable man.”
His old age exhibited some traits not always to be found, even in good men, after a long life passed among scenes of danger or amidst the hardening warfare of personal animosities. Though to the last bold in reproving sin his real character was that of gentleness and the warmest social affection. None but thebad were ever afraid of him; on the contrary, his presence diffused a genial light and warmth in every company. Cruel savages and little children loved him alike; the wisest men gathered instruction from his lips, while they found pleasure in his simple courtesy and manly open heartedness. He brought home with him in the Rattlesnake from New Zealand, several Maori youths; “they seemed to love and respect theirMatua, as they called him, more than any one, or anything, besides. They used to run after his gig like joyous children, and to attempt to catch his eye as if to bask in the sunshine of his benevolent countenance.” “They delighted;” says Mrs. B——, to whose manuscript of Mr. Marsden’s last years of life we are again indebted, “to come to our barrack apartments with him, always making their way to the bookcase first, take out a book and point upwards, as if everybody who had anything to do with ‘Matua’ must have all their books leading to heaven. Pictures pleased them next; when they would direct each others’ attention to what they considered worthy of notice, with extraordinary intelligence; but when the boiled rice and sweets made their appearance, digging their elbows into each others’ sides, with gesticulations of all sorts, and knowing looks, putting their fingers to their mouths, and laughing with greedy joy, Mr. Marsden all the time watching their movements, and expressive faces, as a kind nurse would the gambols and frolics of her playful charge, saying with restrained, but grateful emotion, ‘Yes, sir, nothing like bringing the gospel at once to the heathen. If “music charms the savage breast,” sir, why should not the sweetest sounds that ever met man’s ear do more? Why, sir, the gospel turns a worse than savage into a man, ay, and into awoman too.’ He then related to us the anecdote of a New Zealand woman who, for the last remaining years of her life preached the gospel among her own sex, having acknowledged to him, that before he had brought the word of God to New Zealand, and the Spirit applied it to her heart, she had killed and eaten nineteen children.”
His last communication to the Church Missionary Society, dated December 10th, 1837, and received after his death, is full of hope for his beloved New Zealanders. “I am happy to say the mission goes on well amidst every difficulty. I visited many places in my last voyage from the North Cape to Cloudy Bay. The gospel has made a deep impression upon many of the natives, who now lead godly lives.” The letter, which is written in a large and straggling hand, as though the pen were no longer under its usual firm control, concludes with these touching words: “I am now very feeble. My eyes are dim, and my memory fails me. I have done no duty on the sabbath for some weeks through weakness. When I review all the way the Lord has led me through this wilderness I am constrained to say,Bless the Lord, O my soul, etc,
“Yours very affectionately,“Samuel Marsden.”
The innocent games of children pleased him to the last. When such meetings were more rare than they have now become, the children of the Paramatta school once a year assembled on his lawn, and then his happiness was almost equal to their own. In his own family, and amongst the children of his friends, he would even take his share in their youthful gambols, and join the merry party at blind man’s buff. Though, as he said of himself, he “never sang a song in hislife, for he learned to sing hymns when ten years old, and never sang anything else,” yet he was charmed with the sweet and hearty voices of children joining in some innocent little song, and it pleased him better still if it finished off with a noisy chorus. Yet all this was consistent with his character as a grave, wise old man. Though mirthful, he was never frivolous; in a moment, if occasion called for it, he was ready to discuss the most serious subjects, or to give his opinion upon matters of importance; and he had the enviable talent of mingling even pious conversation with the sports of children.
It was observed that though always unembarrassed in the presence of strangers whatever their rank or importance might be, he never seemed completely happy but in the company of persons of true piety. He does not appear to have spoken very freely in ordinary society on the subject of personal religion, still less on the subject of his own experience; but his emotions were deep, and out of the fulness of the heart his lips would speak, in the midst of such a circle, of the loving-kindness of the Lord. The sense of his own unworthiness seems to have been always present. Of all God’s servants he might have been, as he verily thought himself to be, the most unprofitable; and when any circumstance occurred which led him to contrast the justice of God to others who were left to die impenitent, with the mercy shown to himself, he spoke with a humiliation deeply affecting. With scenes of vice and human depravity few living men were more conversant than he, yet to the last such was the delicacy of his conscience that the presence of vice shocked him as much as if the sight were new. “Riding down to the barracks one morning,” says thelady whose narrative we have already quoted, “to invite Captain B—— and myself that day to dinner to meet the bishop, he had passed what, alas! used to be too frequent an object, a man lying insensible and intoxicated in the road. His usually cheerful countenance was saddened, and after telling us his errand, we could not but ask the cause of his distress. He gave us the unhappy cause, and turning his horse’s head round to leave us, he uttered with deep emotion—