54 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. 111. 
surgeon ; and being of great rank, was joyfully ex- 
changed by his tril)e for Mrs. Guard and her child. 
Negotiations were now entered into for the recovery of 
the little boy. The natives insisted upon having utu ; 
and at one of the villages, a lieutenant was waiting 
with a boat just outside the surf for the boy, whom 
they had promised to bring to him, when a musket-ball 
was fired by a native from the cliff close over his head. 
He returned on board and reported the circumstance, 
when the guns of the frigate were brought to bear on the 
pa, and several canoes and some of the houses were de- 
stroyed. At a subsequent period a large body of men were 
landed at Waimate pa, and drawn up in a command- 
ing position on the cliff, while the officers, with a party 
of sailors on the beach below, treated for the surrender 
of the boy. He was at length brought on the shoulders 
of a native ; who was in the act of running away with 
him again, on payment being refused, when one of the 
sailors cut him out of the mat which bound him to the 
native's back ; — another shot the native ; — the soldiers 
hearing the shot, fired at once ; and Guard picked up 
his boy and swam off with him to one of the boats. 
The soldiers and sailors drove the natives into the inte- 
rior, after some little resistance, killing and wounding 
twenty or thirty of them. At the end of three days, 
during which the surf had been too heavy to allow 
them to re-embark, they burned the pas and returned 
on board. 
Mr. Busby, the British Resident at the Bay of 
Islands, and Mr. Williams and the other Missionaries 
and residents there, afterwards expressed their opinion 
to Captain Lambert, " that the example set these people 
'*■ would be most beneficial ;" and that " it was the 
" happiest circumstance that could have occurred for 
" establishing them in safety u|)on the island." And 
