10 ADVENITRE TS NEW ZEALAND. Ch\p. I. 
" would take all their lands and drive them inland, 
" and that their wives and children would die of stiirv- 
" ation and misery." So plausibly, however, did Mr. 
Matthews tell his story to the settlers, that they con- 
sulted and held meetings, and questioned and cross- 
examined me as to the process which I had adopted, till 
I at length lost patience, and told them at a meeting 
(at which Mr. Matthews had pointedly contradicted my 
assertions as to the negotiations at which I was present 
and he was not) that I was no longer Agent of the 
Company ; and that I had reported my proceedings at 
the end of my temporary agency in buying the place to 
the principal Agent in Wellington ; and I then left the 
room. 
JE Kuru took more direct notice of the insults 
thrown in his teeth. When some native reported that 
Mr. Matthews had called him a tutua, which may be 
fairly translated by the English " plebeian," he ran up 
to Mr. Matthews's house, and loudly reproved him be- 
fore a large crowd of natives. I was not present, ]}ut 
heard the scene described by sevenil bystanders. 
They described E Kuru as having arrived panting 
with indignation and anger, but carefully restraining 
his language. Across the fence of the garden he taxed 
the catechist with his evil tongue, in plain but not un- 
deserved terms. He accused him of carrying about lies, 
of defaming one who had done him no harm, and of 
kindling anger between the natives and their White 
friends ; and asked him whether that was the ritenga 
or " creed" of a missionary. Although knowing th.it 
Mr. Matthews had been of very inferior station in life,* 
the savage did not even retort this upon the Christian 
* He knew this from Captain Chaffers, who had seen Mr. 
Matthews at Kapiti, and recognized him as having been sent to 
Terra del Fuego, in H. M. S. Beagle, as a sort of missionary. He 
said he acted as gun-room cook on the voyage. 
