,212- ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. Ym. 
the two offices performed by Mr. Clarke junior, had 
appeared in the Wellington newspaper at about the 
same time as the meeting was held. 
But a letter from the Crown Prosecutor, demanding 
the author and threatening an action for libel, had 
been the only eflPect of this demonstration on the part 
of the popular organ. 
If such was the impression produced upon the 
Europeans by this lingering burlesque of a Court of 
Equity, by its very imperious and opinionated judge, 
by its childish interpreter protecting the aborigines on 
his left hand, by its squabbling lawyers, by its absurd 
pretensions to great etiquette and formality, by its 
quantity of writing and accumulating documents, and 
by its positive loss of any importance or interest ; the 
natives, who had also failed to receive any impression 
of the dignity, weight, or influence of the institution, 
proved more and more how mischievous were the prin- 
ciples enforced by its operation. Daily new obstruction 
was made to the peaceable progress of the settlers ; 
new claims started up on all sides, in places which 
would probably not be adjudicated upon by the Com- 
missioner for many months to come ; and by the end 
of July, before a single case had been brought to a 
close, no settler attempted to occupy land, whether 
waste or not, except in the immediate neighbourhood 
of the town, or in the valley of the Hutt. Even in 
these cases, if the natives discovered the settler soon 
after his first labours, they commenced their system of 
annoyance, and told him that " Spain and Clarke" — 
for these two gentlemen were always associated together 
by the Maori — would tell him that the land had not 
been paid for. 
A few other slighter negligences of the Government 
were complained of during these three months. 
