56 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Cuap. 111. 
whalers in the port, and various other matters of the 
highest importance to the settlement. On these occa- 
sions the leading colonists did not hesitate to overcome 
their repugnance to meeting the Governor, and boldly 
stated all their grievances, earnestly urging the most 
prompt and efficacious redress. I was present at one of 
these scenes. The Governor and his suite were at one 
end of the long table in the large room at Barrett's 
hotel. Pressing close round the table were settlers 
of various classes, who took the occasion to mention 
many subjects foreign to that on which they had 
obtained an interview. Perfectly unanimous in their 
sentiments, one after the other spoke in firm but 
urgent tones. They made their complaints of past 
occurrences, or questioned the Governor on his future 
int-entions. 
The whole audience was struck with the uncollected 
jjearing of Captain Hobson. He looked timidly from 
one to the other of the speakers, and hesitated, and 
stammered, and gave vague unmeaning answers. When 
repeatedly pressed to explain himself, he tried in vain 
to " clothe himself with the power and dignity which 
" became his station :" and, throughout the interview, 
he reminded me of an offending school-boy who should 
have been ])rought up to be reproved before an assemblage 
of scolding parents and teachers, unable to utter any 
rt^monstrance, or too humiliated and broken-spirited 
even to defend himself. To many in the room the 
exhibition was positively painful. I remember expe- 
riencing the same nervous feeling as though I were 
listening to the failure of a maiden speech, or the 
])reak-down of a middling singer in trying to execute a 
difficult passage. 
• ) On one point only was Captain Hobson firm, — in 
defending his Colonial Se<*retary, and approving of 
