Chap. XIV. SUSPICIOUS DEATH OF MR. WILTON. 899 
only a device to support the story of their being acci- 
dentally drowned. iC- *'. i.v ■ 
After beating about for two days between the mouth 
of Port Underwood and the Te-awa-iti entrance of 
Queen Charlotte's Sound, baffled by the violent squalls 
which a north-west gale sent whirling over the rugged- 
looking mountains of this coast, we at length anchored 
in Jackson's Bay. A vessel from Sydney, which had 
been loading oil from the station, was also lying here. 
This was the same vessel which had been sent from 
Sydney to Kapiti on a vain attempt to rival us in 
buying land; and Captain Rhodes, who now com- 
manded her, was the same agent who had been in- 
trusted with the duty. But he had long abandoned 
his enmity to the Company and their settlers, and was 
now engaged in establishing a mercantile house on the 
shores of Lambton Harbour. As he was going to visit 
Port Nicholson immediately, I despatched by him an 
account of the suspicious occurrences at U^airau to 
Colonel Wakefield and to Mr. Murphy. 
The north-west gale still continuing unabated, I took 
advantage of the sheltered water to stretch as far to wind- 
ward as Ship Cove, through Queen Charlotte's Sound. 
This, by beating to windward during the flood and an- 
choring during the ebb-tide, may be effected during the 
most stormy weather by even a sluggish vessel. And then, 
watching a day when the gale was steady and well to 
the westward of north, I fetched the north end of Kapiti 
with a flood-tide, and ran down the landward side of the 
island to the inner anchorage among the islets at its 
south end. During the weather that had prevailed, no 
sailing-vessel could have reached this point by keeping 
the open Straits, as a short, angry, toppling sea runs 
there during stormy weather, and the tide ebbs to the 
south two hours longer than it flows to the north. 
