480 Transactions.— Miscellaneous, 
Two mistakes were made at the first establishment of the Mission ; the 
site chosen, and the mode of support. Ohi, close to Rahigihoua pa, was 
the beach from which all Ngapuhi war-parties setting forth southwards took 
their departure, and to which after their expedition they returned. On 
these occasions many hundred natives from various parts of the north were 
congregated together in a state of excitement and frenzy, subject to no con- 
trol; even the people of the place itself at such seasons became utterly 
wild. 
I have already said that the Church Missionary Society only voted £500 
a year for the maintenance of its youngest child. This obviously was too 
small a sum for maintaining three families, and for also providing means of 
communication with Sydney. To supplement the manifest deficiency, trade 
was to be resorted to. This would have been well enough had it been con- 
fined to merely purchasing for nails, fish-hooks, axes, blankets, ete., such 
pork and potatoes as were needful for local consumption; but Mr. Marsden's 
scheme went further: the missionaries were to employ their blacksmith in 
making implements as barter for flax and for pine logs, which the sawyers 
were to eut up. After the settlers’ own requirements had been satisfied, 
the remainder was to be shipped for sale, the profit made to go to the 
Mission funds. This procedure on the part of our friends rendered them 
obnoxious to masters of trading vessels bent upon a similar errand, who 
did their best or worst to depreciate them in the esteem of the Maoris, 
whilst the Maoris themselves, more eager to procure arms and ammunition 
than more useful goods, could not understand why people trading in one 
article would not deal in another. This clays of trade had been expressly 
prohibited by instructions from home. The profits made by this sort of 
business were so large that one of our three first settlers was tempted to 
enter into it surreptitiously on his own account, and being detected, was 
expelled from the Mission. Another cause tended after a time to make the 
party unpopular—their very properly inveighing against the immoralities 
practised by the crews of vessels frequenting the bay. Many of the chiefs 
derived large gains from this nefarious business. 
Although at first and for some months our settlers suffered no further 
annoyance than was caused by the inquisitiveness and filth of their visitors 
—their dwellings being thronged from daylight to dark by guests who left 
too much insect life behind them—yet matters soon grew worse. Natives 
coveted some of the pakeha's possessions, and when begging failed, occa- 
sionally foree was resorted to, though sometimes successfully resisted. 
Then their place was made tapu, and no one could deal with them, so 
that they were nearly starved out; once being rescued from this fate by the 
accidental arrival of a ship. Mr. King has been obliged to barricade his 
