78 adventuhe in new Zealand. chap. ni. 
the prospect that these alone would enable men of cou- 
rage and energy to struggle through the political diffi- 
culties imposed upon them by a clique of men, who were 
certainly unworthy to tie the latchet of their shoe, in 
regard to their fitness for founding a colony, 
i For one allowance was perhaps due, and was by 
many people made, for the hostile and ruinous policy 
of the Governor. It was clear that he had never 
recovered the unimpaired use of his faculties, since 
his unfortunate attack of paralysis, soon after he 
first arrived at the Bay of Islands. His appearance 
in walking was that of extreme bodily infirmity ; and 
his manner and speech were full of the whimsical ob- 
stinacy and crotchety churlishness of an irritable and 
debilitated mind. In this state, it was not wonderful 
that he became the tool of the very inferior men by 
whom he had surrounded himself; and the Govern- 
ment was described by settlers to the north, who had 
better and longer opportunities of observation than our- 
selves, to have been carried on from the first by Lieu- 
tenant Shortland and Mr. Clarke. As far as education 
and mental capacity are concerned, I have already had 
occasion to dwell on the utter unfitness of both these 
gentlemen for their respective situations. It remains to 
be added, that they were both more or less concerned in 
land speculations in the northern part of the island, 
which could not but have caused them to make very 
strenuous exertions for confirming the Governor in his 
original choice, against all demonstration and argument. 
A Mr. Brodie, who wjis residing at the Bay of Islands 
when Lieutenant Shortland assumed his office, says, in 
a publication which he dedicated to Lord Stanley, that, 
not many weeks after Lieutenant Shortland had been 
in New Zealand, " he, together with Mr. G. Cooper,* 
* Colonial Treasurer, Collector of Customs, and ex officio Mem- 
ber of the Legislative Council. 
