favoured and protected by HONGI. 175 
over ; namely, the manner in which the place was 
identified, in the minds of all the natives, with 
Hongi. In any time of danger, he was always 
present to restrain the fury of the people, and to 
prevent, if it lay within his power so to do, insult 
being offered, or injury done, to the Missionaries 
or their property. On rumours of invasion from 
other tribes, Hongi was first at his post : by day 
and night he watched for the welfare of the 
Europeans. But, with all the energy of his mind 
— and, for a New Zealander, his was a mighty 
mind — he often found it impossible to check the 
fury of his countrymen. No doubt, however, can 
be entertained, that the Kerikeri, in many in- 
stances, has owed its safety to his interference ; 
and at his death, had not the whole country 
changed, as it were, its character, and had not a 
general understanding been established — that, let 
whatever would happen, the Missionaries were 
not to be molested — his removal might have been 
fatal to this settlement. I believe that nearly his 
last words, in the presence of all his friends, were 
— “ Let the Missionaries sit in peace : they have 
done good; but they have done no harm.’" From 
the date of his death, the members of the Kerikeri 
ceased to bar their gates, and bolt their doors 
whenever a strange party arrived : they seemed 
to enjoy a peace and a security, to which they 
had previously been strangers. 
