SLAVERY. 
120 
party more powerful than themselves. They well 
know, that destruction would be their inevitable 
fate. Woe be to those that are conquered by 
the New Zealanders ! They who are not killed 
and eaten, are made for ever slaves : and the 
burden of slavery bears heavily on him on whom 
it is laid. Obliged at all times to follow the 
beck of his master ; subject to every imaginable 
indignity ; liable, at any moment, to be killed, 
as a payment for the death of any person of 
consequence, or for the slightest breach of law, 
though that law be broken by another ; obliged 
to bear with the caprice of all above himself in 
rank and fortune — slavery in New Zealand is 
no light yoke. Yet I have known some slaves 
of a bold and daring spirit, who have thrown off 
the yoke, and have assumed an authority which 
their possessors dared not to repel. Some masters 
are peculiarly kind to their captives, and allow 
them, in almost every thing, to have their own 
way ; and in no instance, nor under any circum- 
stances, have I known a case where a slave has 
been afraid freely to enter into conversation with 
a cliief, or to treat him with the utmost freedom 
and unconcern ; even when that chief has been 
his master, and has borne the character of a fiery 
and a cruel man. When working for another 
person, for which they receive occasional or stated 
wages, they are allowed to choose their own re- 
ward ; and the master is well satisfied if he now 
and then receives a portion as a present ; for he 
