64 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. IIT. 
> He might as well have advocated their remaining 
permanently in one of the low courts out of the Old 
Bailey, if removed bodily into the centre of Wapping. 
But any extended views for the benefit of the abori- 
ginal race may easily be supposed to have been far be- 
yond the conception of such a mind as Mr. Clarke's. 
His official Report of this visit to Port Nicholson 
shows clearly that he considered it his duty only to 
collect the existing complaints of the natives, and to en- 
courage them in maintaining their stationary condition 
amidst the inevitable progress of a highly civilized com- 
munity. He only speaks of present injustice done to 
them, and does not pretend to ponder whether greater 
benefits might not have been produced by the amicable 
concurrence of the natives in large and statesmanlike 
views for their gradual advancement and ultimate pros- 
perity. He seems to have thought the reserves beyond 
his province, or unworthy of his notice ; as neither did 
he take pains to make the natives acquainted with their 
existence or value, nor does he introduce in his official 
Report of this visit any plan for their comprehensive 
management, or even any acknowledgment of their 
importance. 
When this document, too, had made the round of 
the world, it appeared that much in answer to Mr. 
Clarke's attacks upon the disposition of the settlers, and 
much qualification of his gloomy account of the dis- 
content of the natives, with its causes, might have gone 
home at the same time, had an equal opportunity been 
afforded to both sides of the question at once. 
A scene at which I assisted, and which is mentioned 
by Mr. Clarke in a manner not very complimentary to 
my veracity, will best exemplify the extent to which 
designing parties had been able to affect the natives, 
even previously to. the arrival of the Governor. The 
