Chap. VI. A COLONIST WHO HAS BECOME AN OFFICIAL, 157 
early colonization. He appears to become tainted by the 
touch of the Auckland dross : he no longer revives old 
associations, or excites a feeling of sympathy in the 
minds of his independent fellow-settlers. His very 
dinner acquaintances are of a new class, widely differ- 
ent from those to whose society and intercourse he 
has been for many years accustomed ; and the selfish 
vulgarity of their welcome on his accession to their 
rank must ring in his ears harsh and revolting, as the 
low slang with which a band of pickpockets would 
celebrate the introduction among them of a young 
and unpractised offender. 
But few of the members of such young and frank 
communities as the Cook's Strait settlements will 
stoop to conceal their disgust by an outward show of 
politeness. They revere the motto that " union is 
strength ;" and the deserter from the bundle of sticks 
becomes, almost at once, a virtual outcast from good 
society. Though he may still be invited to large balls 
and dinner-parties, he seldom afterwards finds himself 
at the more familiar and friendly pic-nics, and im- 
promptu dances, and pot-luck dinners. In such inti- 
mate society he would be an undoubted wet blanket ; 
for some better man would probably leave the room 
when he came in, without attempting to disguise his 
aversion. He hardly walks along the beach but some 
two or three former friends gallop past him with an 
open sneer on their faces ; and any one who does speak 
to him, of whatever rank, does it coldly and carefully, 
as though he dreaded that his words should be taken 
down and twisted into disaffection at the head-quarters 
of official enmity. 
Wellington was still without a clergyman of the 
Established Church. The news, received through 
Sydney, of the appointment and expected arrival of 
