Chap. I. ABSUKDITIES. 11 
" and acting under the authority of laws regularly 
" enacted by them in Congress assembled." 
So little were these or any other chiefs of New 
Zealand capable of performing such an act as the 
document describes, that their own language wanted 
the most important words expressive of its purport, 
such as independence, sovereignty, government, con- 
federation, legislative, and even a name for the country 
over which their new authority purported to extend. 
At the instance of the missionaries, however, this 
mockery was recognized by the British Government ; 
and the captain of a man-of-war, acting on behalf of 
William the Fourth, requested the chiefs in question 
to select from a number of flags the one which they 
should prefer as an emblem of national independence. 
The new government was found so unreal, that no 
meeting of the confederated chiefs ever took place ; nor 
was either the confederation, or the declaration of 
independence, or the national flag, even known to any 
of the native tribes out of the small peninsula which 
forms about a twelfth part of the country. 
Various representations were now made to the 
British Government, setting forth the evils of a con- 
tinued anarchy in New Zealand. The merchants of 
London joined in a memorial signed by the principal 
houses engaged in the South Sea trade, A petition 
from the more respectable of the White settlers in New 
Zealand, including the principal members of the Church 
Mission, was sent to England. But, through some 
influence at the Colonial Ofiice, every application was 
disregarded ; and it seemed the fixed purpose of the 
Government to leave undisturbed the experiment of 
training up a native Levitical republic under mis- 
sionary control, directed by a religious society in 
England. 
