Chap. XII. MR. BUSBY. US 
as it formed a portion of the coast of a very frequented 
part of the Bay of Islands, and lay at the mouth of one 
of the rivers which flow into that harbour. 
Thus, Mr. Busby complained, that he was not only 
ousted from his place by the Lieutenant-Governor 
over nothing, but was deprived of a property which 
he had long previously acquired by the free consent of 
the court whose independence had been recognized at 
the same time as his own official existence. For, al- 
though virtually accredited to the Church missionaries, 
he had been nominally accredited to the New Zealand 
nation, represented by the thirteen chiefs of the Bay 
of Islands. On the appointment of Mr. Busby, and 
the subsequent selection of a flag by some of the thir- 
teen chiefs or their relations out of a dozen offered for 
their choice by the captain of some man-of-war which 
once anchored in the Bay of Islands, had been founded 
the theory that Great Britain had recognized the New 
Zealanders as an independent nation: and, although 
neither Busby nor the flag had ever been heard of by 
any natives residing beyond the extreme North end of 
the North Island, the negotiations between the British 
Government and the New Zealand Association, and 
the proceedings of Lieutenant-Governor Hobson, had 
recognized this somewhat fanciful theory. It was in a 
tent erected on the land which Mr. Busby had acquired 
from the chiefs while independent, that Lieutenant- 
Governor Hobson, by obtaining a cession of their sove- 
reignty, had first acquired the dominion as well as the 
name of a Governor. And six months after this very 
cession, Mr. Busby saw himself deprived, by Lieute- 
nant-Governor Hobson's commanding officer, of his 
valuable acquisition, on the ground that those very 
chiefs had at no time, even before Captain Cook's visits 
to New Zealand, been independent to such a degree as 
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