Specimens of Native Orations. 103 



spectacle you saw in peace, and no man ventured or even 

 tliouglit of lifting the hand against 3^ou ! Yet had you come 

 among us at the period of which I spoke, our arm would 

 have been raised to inflict the deadly blow upon you, or your 

 hand, which I have just pressed, would have been striking at 

 me to compass my destruction ! You have seen many lands, 

 many perhaps fairer than this island of ours ; but here there 

 is nothing to injure us or to make us wish to live in other 

 countries. The laws of England shield us from the hand of 

 the aggressor, we live happy and at peace, and rejoice to wel- 

 come those who, like you, come to us on a mission of good 

 will ! " 



This speech and the two following, the Commodore re- 

 sponded to in English, in terms of warm cordial thanks, and 

 enlarged on the material and intellectual progress of the 

 aborigines, all which was duly translated by Mr. Baker to the 

 Maories. 



After this Cruera Patuoni of Awataha, an elder brother of 

 Tamati-Waka-Neni, advanced and said: ''Welcome! wel- 

 come ! The young men have welcomed you, and I, an old 

 man, a friend of the Europeans from the earliest days in 

 which they planted foot in New Zealand, I also bid you wel- 

 come ! What can I say more ? You have heard what we were, 

 — you see now what we are ! It needs not that I should add 

 to what has been said by those who spoke before me. Wel- 

 come then to the land of the Maories, friends of the white 

 man." 



