06 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEAIAND. Chap. HI. 
M The Governor then briefly admonished Hiko that he 
would not allow the road to be obstructed, as that had 
nothing to do with the land question ; and the false 
chief, after promising to remove the trees which had 
been felled across it, returned to his grog-shop. I 
afterwards reproached him with his falsehood, having 
at one time held him in much respect ; but he jier- 
sisted in a firm denial : and I told him he had behaved 
like a slave, and I could never be his friend again. 
Long before the opening of the Court of Land 
Claims, many of the vendors had l)ecome equally de- 
void of honesty and veracity. The pas had been gra- 
dually increased in extent and more substantially 
fenced, and numerous new cultivations had been cleared, 
for which the natives claimed the protection of the 
Governor's decree, as well as for those which they had 
cropped and abandoned. Every delay and indulgence 
served but to confirm them in attachment to their pig- 
sties, and in fresh encroachments on the land unoccu- 
pied at the time of the Governor's very indefinite re- 
striction, and unclaimed at the time when Mr. Clarke 
rushed into condemning the Company's claim without 
investigation. 
Mr. Murphy had requested me to put in writing a 
description which I had made to him of the wretched 
" the Governor, the Chief Justice, Colonel Wakefield, the Rev. O. 
" Hadfield, and other gentlemen, he could not be induced to ac- 
" knowledge the place ever having been alienated ; and according 
*'^to the Company's interpreter, who could speak a little of the lan- 
** guage, his (Hiko's) consent waa not obtained willingly, but he 
" denied ever having signed the deed produced by Colonel Wake- 
" field, while, on the other hand, a nephew of Colonel Wakefield 
" aflfinned he had. One thing, however, appeared evident, that 
" such was the purport of the document produced, that it was cal- 
*' culated to mislead the natives, who were altogether incompetent 
" to trace its designs." 
