234 
Wild Life in Southern Seas. 
increased on the New Zealand coast, and in 
March, 1821, thirteen whalers had on board 
between them 6,960 barrels of oil. The increase 
of whaling soon led to complications with the 
Maoris, and quarrels ending in massacres begin 
to figure in the records. There is a tradition 
among the Maoris that the first Maori war 
arose owing to a dispute between two tribes, 
over some whales which were cast ashore on 
the coast. 
In July, 1827, the Australian Whale Fishery 
Company was floated, and a year or two later, 
shore whaling began in Cook’s Strait, and was 
soon followed in many of the bays on the New 
Zealand coast; while on the New South Wales 
coast, at Twofold Bay, a whaling station was a 
few years later established, and some little shore 
whaling is still carried on there to this day. 
Benjamin Boyd, a Scotchman of good family, 
came out to Sydney in 1840 to take charge of 
some banking business, and in addition to many 
other speculations he went in largely for whaling, 
making Twofold Bay the rendezvous for his 
whaleships, and establishing a settlement known 
as Boyd Town. He was the first, or among 
the first, to employ South Sea Islanders, although, 
