Chap. XH. RESULTS OF COMMERCE ON NATIVES. 289 
the heathen native and the brutal beach-comber, as 
well as of the grateful converts and the colonists of 
education. 
Mr. Hadfield thoroughly appreciated the advantage 
of introducing among the natives a more permanent 
and profitable employment than their rude cultivation 
of potatoes and the rearing of pigs, in both which pur- 
suits they would soon be outrun by the White settlers 
themselves, and both which tended to supply a market 
very fleeting and uncertain in its demand. He had early 
taught them how to cultivate wheat ; and he gladly 
used his best endeavours to support the establishment 
of the flax-trade. Such was the revolution produced by 
it in a few months, that the natives would no longer 
drive pigs to Wellington or sell them at a low price 
to traders who travelled the coast for them. They 
soon found how great a share of the luxuries of the 
Europeans they could receive at their own doors by a 
moderate but steady toil with the muscle-shell ; and 
I fre(|uently saw at OlaJd, what I had never seen be- 
fore except on occasions of especial festival, the natives 
killing pigs, cleanly as they had seen it done by the 
butchers at Wellington, for their own consumption. 
New and improved wants were also introduced : they 
talked of exchanging the produce of their now well- 
paid labour for horses, sheep, and cattle ; hand-mills 
for grinding their corn ; spades, carpenter's tools ; 
rice, sugar, flour, and European clothes. They found 
that they could not only arm and blanket themselves 
and smoke, but feed and dress better, and afford to 
learn many new tastes, while constantly emj)loyed in 
the production of an article for which the demand at 
a good price seemed inexhaustible. For I had care- 
fully explained to them, when they asked me what 
could be done with so much muka, that millions of 
VOL. n. u 
