190 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. VKI. 
capital, who had arrived from England in one of the 
last ships, took a lease of four sections in the Porirua 
district, about eight miles from town by the bridle- 
road. They intended to clear and cultivate a portion 
of the land, and to erect a saw-mill on the banks of 
the river. After they had carried on their operations 
for some time, in the midst of the hitherto unoccupied 
forest, a body of thirty natives had come and ordered 
them off. They came to Port Nicholson for advice. 
The Police Magistrate, on the application of the 
agents who had let the land, despatched his chief 
constable to pacify the natives ; and the settlers pro- 
ceeded peaceably with their work for another week. 
But then Rangihaeata in person came, with a train 
of fifty men, armed with guns, horse-pistols, and toma- 
hawks. They remonstrated with him for some time, 
but he became too violent to reason. He then com- 
menced the work of destruction, and cut the whole 
buildings to the ground. The sufferers stated their 
loss at upwards of 50/., including some pounds of nails 
stolen by the marauders. 
It was evident that the Police Magistrate had no 
means of arresting the disturbers of the peace, even 
had he been so inclined ; and the meeting expressed 
the readiness of the inhabitants of Wellington as a 
body to support the authority of the Magistrate in any 
way that he should require. A faint attempt to throw 
the blame on Colonel Wakefield was made by Mr. 
Hanson and some of his party ; but the Company's 
Agent repelled the charge in person, by reading copies 
of letters, which proved that he had written to the 
Police Magistrate and to the Company as early as 
June of the last year, predicting the evil consequences 
of allowing the outrages of the natives, in obstructing 
the Porirua road, to go unrepressed. 
