Hocken. — Early New Zealand Literature. 105 



us some of it for love and money united, we shall be infinitely 

 obliged. We are not very particular as to the price, but 

 treacle we must have, or not only the Examiner, but bills, 

 cheques, and the laws of the benefit society must remain for 

 ever unbedevilled." It is satisfactory to know that a supply 

 was forthcoming, inasmuch as the following number of the 

 paper appeared on its due date. The old Otago Witness ap- 

 pealed at least once to its readers for paper of any kind, other- 

 wise it would cease to appear ; and cease to appear it did. 

 This must surely have been at the time when the grocers 

 requested their customers who required tea and sugar and 

 suchlike incoherent articles to bring their own paper with 

 them. 



The Bay of Islands and the earliest Auckland newspapers 

 come next in order, and they present quite a family re- 

 semblance in their poorness of paper and printing and meagre 

 contents. The earliest of them — the Neiv Zealand Advertiser 

 and Bay of Islands Gazette — first appeared on the 15th June, 

 1810, just six months after the institution of British govern- 

 ment in these islands, and two months after the birth of its 

 contemporary, the Neiv Zealand Gazette, at Wellington. It 

 has thus the distinction of being the second paper issued in 

 New Zealand. It was published at Kororareka, which ad- 

 joined the infant Township of Bussell, where Governor Hob- 

 son had selected his seat, and it thus became the organ in 

 which were published the first official notices and Proclama- 

 tions. The Bev. B. Quaife was editor — a Congregational 

 minister, and a gentleman who, in addition to his editorial 

 functions, combined those of preacher and instructor of the 

 young. Whilst the contents of his paper were, as might be 

 expected, eminently respectable, they were undoubtedly poor. 

 The burning question of the hour was the land-claims, which 

 bore a somewhat different aspect from the same question 

 amongst the settlers at Wellington. But in both instances 

 the common ground of complaint was that the Government 

 refused to recognise the validity of any purchase of land from 

 the natives until official inquiry had been made and a Govern- 

 ment grant issued — a tedious and expensive process indeed. 

 Whilst this grievance was attacked in the distant south with 

 the utmost vigour and acerbity, in the north it was ap- 

 proached with great circumspection, for there the Government 

 was close by, and its iron hand was felt at once. The two 

 classes of settlers represented, moreover, different types — one 

 whose leaders were of a superior class, accustomed to all 

 the advantages of responsible government and free institutions, 

 which they had but just left, and who in emigrating recog- 

 nised the true heroism of colonisation ; the other who flocked 

 <lown in numbers from New South Wales, ready to seize any 



