I00 8 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



landed at Auckland, the seat of his diocese, on the 2Qth of May, 1842. He soon 

 proved an important factor in the spiritual and temporal affairs of the country. 



Having lawyers of remarkable ability associated with him, the Governor was able 

 to report that Ordinances had been passed to establish a Supreme and County Courts ; 

 for the constitution of juries ; for regulating the practice of petty sessions ; for estab- 

 lishing municipalities ; for promoting religion ; for regulating postage ; for registration of 

 deeds and instruments affecting real property, and for facilitating its transfer ; to render 

 certain marriages valid ; for regulating the sale of liquor ; for licensing auctioneers ; for 

 securing copyright in books ; and for repealing the Ordinance which gave force in New 

 Zealand to the laws of New South Wales. 



Captain Hobson died on the loth of September, 1842, from a paralytic seizure, at 

 the age of forty-nine years. Few British Governors have had to peacefully acquire the 

 countries they governed. His Treaty of Waitangi was " a Christian mode of commencing 

 the colonization of the colony." "His justice," said Swainson, his Attorney-General, "was 

 inflexible." The Maori opinion of his merits was noted in a letter to the Queen from 

 Te W-herowhero, the future Maori King, which said : " Mother Victoria : My subject is 

 a Governor for the Maori and Pakeha in this Island. Let him be a good man. Look 

 out for a good man. A man of judgment. Let not a troubler come here. Let not a 

 boy come here, or one puffed up. Let him be a good man as the Governor who has 

 just died." Captain Hobson's monument is the city of Auckland, where he died. 



THE WAIRAU MASSACRE. 



Lieutenant Shortland, the Colonial Secretary, assumed the duties of Governor on the 

 death of Captain Hobson, and continued acting until December, 1843, the period of the 

 arrival of Captain Fitzroy, who was appointed Captain Hobson's successor. The Acting- 

 Governor ruled by proclamation, with the aid of laws already enacted, and avoided 

 calling the Legislative Council together. During his rule there occurred what was known 

 as the " Wairau Massacre," when Captain Wakefield, the brother of the Company's principal 

 agent, and nineteen of the settlers imported by the Company, were killed in the Wairau 

 Valley. The Company claimed to have purchased the land, but the natives asserted 

 that they had not sold it. Surveyors were, however, sent to survey the Valley, and the 

 natives considering their action as preliminary to occupation, burned clown the surveyors' 

 hut by way of protest, after first taking care to scrupulously remove all the property 

 the structure contained. The claim of the Company to the Wairau Valley was of a 

 twofold character. It assumed direct purchase from Rauparaha and the Ngatitoa, who, 

 however, constantly denied ever having sold it. There is no reason to doubt but that, 

 through imperfect translation, Colonel Wakefield had been misinformed as to the 

 boundaries of the lands the natives agreed to sell, and that the native contention was 

 in accordance with fact. 



The other claim of the Company to the Valley was the purchase of the rights of 

 a woman in 1839, who claimed to be the wife of a Captain Blunkinsopp. It appears 

 that some time in the year 1831 Blunkinsopp had been whaling in Cook Strait, and 

 during the time of his visit, according to whaling custom, the daughter of Te Pehi, a 

 kinsman of Rauparaha, lived with him as his wife. As payment for her, and the privilege 



