76 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. III. 
these unprofitably short terms. And Mr. Halswell, 
too, like Colonel Wakefield, was ignorant for a long 
while of the writt-en instructions, as to moving from the 
pas, which had been left with his proteges by his supe- 
rior in office. j 
Thus was the great boon to the natives, — the only 
real payment to them proj)osed by the system on which 
the Company wished to provide for their permanent 
benefit and easy amalgamation with the white settlers, — 
stifled in the bud by the author of a rival scheme of 
colonization, who seemed jealous of allowing others to 
do that good to the natives, for which he had forgotten 
to provide in the distribution of his own cities and 
districts of country. And when, long afterwards, the 
Native Reserves produced no beneficial results, because 
shamefully neglected by the Government at whose 
absolute disposal they had been from the beginning, it 
was common for supporters of the local Government to 
make this a reproach to the persons who had devised 
the institution, though they had possessed no control 
or influence over its guidance. *' Look ! " they would 
say, " what good has been done by the Native Reserves, 
" which you so loudly boasted to be the real compensa- 
" tion to the natives for ceding their actual residences 
*' and cultivations ? " 
Captain Hobson must have left Wellington, deeply 
mortified at the manly independence of the settlers. 
Sensibly alive to the gross injustice of his conduct 
towards them, they had recorded their opinion in a 
manner which must have convinced him that they pos- 
sessed enough self-respect to resent an injury. No 
Governor, perhaps, ever witnessed the disapprobation of 
a community so palpably expressed, so temperately re- 
strained to decent expression, or so calmly and firmly 
maintained. He must have become aware that such a 
I 
