Chap. XIIL DISPUTES AT TAURANGA, 323 
land (whom he had appointed Protector for that 
district, after he lost his place of Private Secretary at 
Captain Hobson's death), to Tauranga, and applied 
for restitution. The Tauranga people, being the 
weaker side, were easily persuaded to give up their 
boat ; but the Maketu natives, who were of the same 
tribe as the wild inhabitants of JLake Rotorua, only 
answered by insulting messages to the deputation of 
three Protectors and the acting Governor's Aide-de-camp, 
a Lieutenant of the detachment at Auckland. They 
sent back word, according to Lieutenant Shortland's 
despatches, that they were determined to persist in their 
practices of war, murder, and cannibalism. I was told 
by a European and by several natives who were on the 
spot, that one message, perhaps not reported to his 
Excellency, was, that " they had nothing but dry fern- 
" root to eat, and would much enjoy a slice of his fat 
" sides to moisten it." It remains on record, at any 
rate, that his Excellency became very irate on the 
return of the deputation with these free-spoken opinions 
instead of the boat; that he sent the brig back to 
Auckland for the whole of the troops and the Com- 
manding Officer, JMajor Bunbury ; wrote to the Com- 
mander-in-Chief, Governor, and Senior Naval Officer 
of the station in New South \^^ales, for all the re- 
inforcements which they could spare ; and flourished 
his pen for some time in the seven cuts of the broad- 
sword exercise. 
But, with Major Bunbury and the troops came 
a protest from the Chief Protector, Mr. Clarke, and 
a very pacifying letter from Mr. Attorney-General 
Swainson, raising doubts as to whether the whole of 
New Zealand was British territory, and whether the 
natives who had not signed the Treaty of TVaitangi 
were British subjects, and therefore within the 0|)era- 
y2 
