414 Essays. 



Tliere can be little doubt tbat the numbers killed by the ISTew Zealanders, in 

 tbeir many sanguinary battles and surprises during this period of forty years 

 tbrougbout all the New Zealand Islands, together with those who also 

 perished in consequence thereof, far exceed 60,000 persons. Nothing is 

 more erroneous than to suppose that the introduction of firearms made their 

 wars less sanguinary. Such a view is a very partial and mistaken one, and 

 only made by those who have not had the opportunities of knowing the truth. 

 During the last three years, however, of this period there was very much less 

 fighting than in any three previous years of the same ; and missionaries and 

 instruction, commerce and trade, became daily more valuable in their eyes. 

 Several New Zealanders early became very good sawyers and carpenters. In 

 1836 a few made excellent window-sashes, dove-tailed boxes, and even cedar 

 writing desks, while at least one, whom the writer knew, was in 1835 the 

 mate of a whaler, and was very much liked as an officer. 



61. From a.d. 1840 to the i^esent time, 1865. — During this quarter of a 

 century the natives as a race have become nominally Christian. Erom 1840 

 to 1852 they eagerly sought for Christian and other instruction, often sub- 

 mitting to great privations and hardships in seeking after it. They also 

 cultivated wheat, &c., very largely, increasing in quantity every year, 

 although in 1845, and again in 1846, small portions of them were fighting 

 against the Grovernment. Hitherto, however, they have been written of as 

 they ivere : now they will have to be considered as they are. They have 

 sought for and obtained everything the European could bring ; but while 

 they became rich in foreign they became poor in domestic wealth, — yearly 

 more and more idle and discontented, and careless in Christian observances, 

 in schools and in morals. In 1854 they formed an anti-land-selHng league, 

 and soon after set up one of themselves as " King ! " Their houses are now 

 wretched huts ; their canoes are almost entirely gone ; their far-famed and 

 useful nets they have ceased to make ; and their cultivations, even of their 

 own esteemed roots, are not of one-eighth the extent they formerly were. 

 Their few children (baptized) are growing up in idleness, without being 

 taught to read and write, though mostly clothed and sometimes gaudily 

 dressed in European costume. Their drunkenness, idleness, and greediness 

 are painfully increasing, and many bad habits, formerly unknown, have been 

 acquired, and, like the introduced weeds, grow luxuriantly. It cannot be 

 denied that in many places the savage has been spoiled, and the civilized man 

 is not yet formed. And how to do this is a very difficult task, seeing that 

 from the very beginning the New Zealanders have ever had the fatal quality 

 or fatality of turning honey into gall — of drawing ill from every good thing. 

 Many of them are now engaged in a murderous war against their best friends, 

 the colonists ; in which war, begun in 1860, upwards of 1,000 have already 



