HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAXJ). 



1029 



chief it has become known as " Heke's War." It was the immediate consequence of local 

 discontents arising out of the removal of the seat of Government from Kororareka, 

 coupled with an impatience of the restraints incidental to the assertion of civilized 

 authority among- a warlike and high-spirited people. Coincidental!)' with the rise of Auck- 

 land, trade began to decline rapidly at the older settlement. The imposition of customs 

 duties, by still further discouraging trade, intensified the depression. But native sensi- 

 bilities were wounded more deeply by the interdiction of free traffic in land, and the 

 promulgation of the Crown's right of pre-emption. 

 These enactments carried to their minds the first 

 direct intimation that they were in a subservient 

 position, and that the paramount power of their own 

 chiefs had been superseded. To cap all, the foreign 

 demand for the staple products of timber, flax and 

 kauri-gum fell off very materially. Money became 

 scarce, tobacco, blankets and ammunition were hard 

 to procure, and the Government that forbade the 

 sale of Maori lands to private persons had not the 

 means of purchasing much itself. Finally, the passion 

 of tribal jealousy was stirred into activity in the breasts 

 of the malcontents. They perceived with chagrin 

 that the trade which was now so rapidly disappearing 

 from them had commenced to enrich their bitterest 

 enemies the Waikato and Ngatiwhatua tribes who 

 were settled in the neighbourhood of Auckland. 



A crisis was fast approaching, and with the hour 

 came the man. Hone Heke, though not a chief of 

 the highest rank, had won a position for himself 

 among the martial and Ngapuhi tribe by his marriage 

 with the daughter of the celebrated Hongi the 

 Napoleon of early New Zealand and also by his 

 own masterful talents. Deeply imbued with patriotic 

 feeling, emulous of the fame of his great relation, 

 and of a pragmatical turn of mind, he gradually 

 acquired considerable influence with both Maoris and 



Europeans. Baptized a Christian, and appointed a lay reader of the Church of England, 

 his intellectual ability and love of argument led him to contest after a time some of 

 the tenets he had embraced, and he soon came to be regarded as an apostate from 

 the faith. Superadded to his other qualifications, he was possessed of a faculty for 

 diplomacy and a spirit of indomitable courage that eminently fitted him to act as a 

 leader of his tribe. As early as 1841, he had gathered round him a party of followers, 

 chiefly young men, who yielded him implicit obedience. Backed up by these, he consti- 

 tuted himself a kind of champion for the redress, of Maori grievances; and, in some 

 instances, acted as arbitrator between Europeans in their private quarrels. It was but 

 natural, therefore, that such a man should take deeply to heart the declining prosperity 



HONE HEKK. 



