186 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. VU. 
SO ably soothe and encourage the emigrant who was 
at tirst startled by the wildness of the country, and 
the early hardships of housing and sheltering his 
family, were as energetic, as brave of heart, and as 
sanguine in the great cause of the colony, as the highest 
and haughtiest blood could have made them. Here 
was the same panting enthusiasm of youth, which 
leads its possessor into the first flight across country 
after the hounds or some less reputable notoriety in 
England, applied to a grander and more lofty object 
at the antipodes. It was the ambition to found a nation, 
instead of that of being known for a daring horseman 
or for the boldest of midnight revellers. It was the 
same necessary excitement, founded on a greater emu- 
lation, and calculated for more permanent utility to 
mankind. 
Their gallant ranks have been cruelly thinned by 
misfortune, and principally by the crowning catas- 
trophe at JVairau. But, in future days, the citizens of 
Nelson will always remember with pride and sorrow 
the names of William Curling Young, George Ryecroft 
Richardson, Patchett, Cotterell, and others now no 
more, who assisted the tirst steps of the infant settle- 
ment with their manly energies. 
If I speak of my own lamented uncle, Arthur Wake- 
field, to say that he watched over their united efforts 
and guided their expanding strength as though they 
had been one family and he their father or their elder 
brother, it is because I feel sure of being supported to 
the whole extent of the statement by every colonist who 
was under his care. He seemed to work all things 
among them according to his own vrill, by wielding a 
gentle parental authority ; and they to follow his ad- 
vice and suggestions, through a feeling of filial respect 
and love. When I relate that to this happy art of 
