Chap. XII. OPPOSITION OF RAUPERAHA. 291 
to enable the great body of the natives to advance in 
habits, desires, and refinement of ideas. The intimate 
friendships which I formed vrith the various chiefs, 
and the kind of feudal attachment vrhich I have already 
described to be secured by their means from their fol- 
lowers, was especially pleasing to me. I hoped that I 
was serving both natives and colonists on a large scale ; 
and in this hope I was indifferent to the loss of a con- 
siderable sum of money consequent on the confined 
knowledge which I had of mercantile transactions. 
I had always availed myself of the friendship and 
persuasion of the chiefs to work my object ; and 
TVatanui, E Ahu, E Puki, and the other heads of 
the Ngatiraukawa, were my principal co-operators. 
I only met with serious opposition from Rauperaha 
and Rangihaeata ; who resolutely set their faces 
against a trade which seemed so well calculated to 
knit the Maori and the White people in a strong bond 
of mutual confidence and frequent intercourse. They 
refused to allow a store to be built on Kapiti for the 
deposit of the goods and flax, although they had very 
fairly sold the proposed site to the man from whom my 
partner wanted to rent it. They tried to prevent my 
sawyers from cutting plank for a barge to carry goods 
across, although they were authorized to do so by the 
chief to whom the wood belonged ; and they always 
sneered at the possibility of such a traffic being for the 
good of any but the White people. They feared, in 
fact, for the destruction of their own pernicious 
authority, only of great weight in warlike and quar- 
relsome circumstances, by the introduction of so 
peaceable and civilizing an occupation. They hated 
the very yearning for new wants ; as they could foresee 
that a population with civilized habits and desires must 
necessarily be linked in a friendly commerce with their 
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