TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 261 



pose chiefly of cultivating flax and of collecting various kinds of 

 valuable timber. "With this view the ship " Eosanna " was 

 sent out under Captain James Herd, with seventy people on 

 board — stonemasons, carpenters, flaxdressers, shipwrights, and 

 brickniakers — who proposed establishing themselves in some 

 suitable part of New Zealand. Owing to the ferocity of the 

 Natives the expedition proved a failure, and entailed a loss of 

 £20,000 upon its originators. Most of those who accompanied 

 it went to Sydney. A bold and scattered remnant remained, 

 making their way to Horeke, one of the uppermost reaches of 

 the Hokianga, where they established what they were pleased 

 to call a dockyard, giving it the name of Deptford. Almost the 

 last vestige of this ill-fated undertaking is to be found on the 

 map under the name of Herd's Point. But Captain Herd did 

 good service. He very accurately laid down the geographical 

 positions of fifty places he visited whilst voyaging up the east 

 coast of the three Islands, through C^ok Strait, and a small 

 portion of the north-west coast. He gives an excellent descrip- 

 tion of Wanganui-a-te-ra or Port Nicholson Harbour, where, as 

 he says, "all the navies of Europe might ride in perfect 

 security; at the entrance there is 11 and 12 fathoms water." 

 He also carefully surveyed the entrance to the Hokianga Eiver 

 —this time called by the comical name of Jokeehangar — a 

 chart of which he published. Its course for more than twenty 

 miles upwards is also laid down. 



At this time the Wesleyan mission-station which had been 

 founded in 1823 at Whangaroa was burnt to the ground by the 

 turbulent Natives ; the missionaries were stripped of every- 

 thing they possessed, and had to fly for their lives. In this 

 terrible juncture they were hospitably received by Captain 

 Herd, who was about to sail for Sydney, and wdio oli'ered them 

 a passage on his vessel. 



Since the time of Marion du Fresne's sad massacre with 

 that of his sailors in 1772, New Zealand had always possessed 

 a mournful interest for his countrymen. In 1821 Lieutenant 

 Duperrey, commanding the French vessel " La Coquille," 

 visited the scene of this catastrophe. By M. de Blosseville, 

 one of his officers, is first recorded our knowledge of Milford 

 Haven, and of " Eoto Doua " in the hot-lake district. 



In 1827 the celebrated navigator Dumont d'Urville spent 

 three months on the coast of New Zealand in his voyage of dis- 

 covery round the world. He had previously sailed under 

 Duperrey in the " Coquille," and now he commanded the same 

 vessel, which had been rechristened the "Astrolabe." His 

 expedition was absent from France four years, and on his 

 return its results were published by the French Government in 

 one of the most splendid and elaborate works of travel ever 

 issued. The portion devoted to New Zealand is very extensive, 



