Chap. IV. SANGUINE PROSPECTS. 101 
vinced, by the numerous accounts which we had ga- 
thered from White adventurers as well as natives, that 
this was the only harbour accessible to large shipping 
between Manukau on the west side of the North Island 
and the Thames on the opposite coast ; and that the 
shipping and trade of that extensive coast-line must be 
sure to centre here. 
But a far more satisfactory circumstance was the pe- 
culiarly agreeable way in which we felt sure of dealing 
with the native population. Their contentment and 
thorough appreciation of our good intentions in their 
favour, their spontaneous approbation of the whole 
transaction, which gave it more force and solemnity in 
our eyes than the most binding legal forms, and their 
pleasing eagerness for the arrival of our companions, 
all combined to induce in us great hopes of success. 
We felt how fortunate we had been in finding a popu- 
lation so uncontaminated by the vices of irregular coloni- 
zation, so free from any prejudice for or against any 
class of strangers. We were therefore sanguine in our 
hopes that the colonists would be happy among a people 
so well disposed to greet them, and that the warm 
feelings of benevolence which we knew to be enter- 
tained by the principal intending settlers would be exer- 
cised upon a genial soil, when they should encourage 
the natives to co-operation with them in measures con- 
ducive to their own benefit and improvement. We 
relied much on the fact that this people acknowledged 
the powerful influence of one or two chiefs ; and we 
hoped, by maintaining these latter, as persons entitled 
to respect and authority among their own people as 
well as among the emigrants, to work, through them, 
a beneficial change and speedy amelioration of the 
moral and physical condition of the natives. 
U this inferior race were to be raised to our own level, 
