Ill ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. XVI. 
ing, in the strongest terms, the unconstitutional and 
murderous proceeding of the Police Magistrate and his 
colleagues, in attacking an inoflPensive people, killing 
three, and obliging the remainder, in self-defence, to 
attack in turn their assailants ; which terminated, as 
you will perceive by reference to the enclosed report, 
in the destruction of 19 Europeans, and which more- 
over threatens to bring about a general collision with 
the aborigines of this colony. 
" The desire manifested by the natives to await the 
decision of the Land Commissioner, as expressed to the 
Company's Agent and Surveyors, and reiterated to the 
Police Magistrate on his arrival with an armed force 
to arrest two of their principal chiefs, shows that they 
had no wish to quarrel with the Europeans ; and their 
subsequent conduct, in passing through unprotected 
European settlements without molesting the residents, 
fully substantiates the same fact. 
" I cannot say I am surprised at what has taken 
place ; I rather wonder at the long forbearance of the 
natives in the vicinity of the Company's settlements, 
receiving as they have such deep provocation in the 
forcible occupancy of lands which they never alienated ; 
and I can only account for this forbearance upon the 
principle of the pledge given them by the late Governor, 
Captain Hobson, that they should not be forced off 
land they had not alienated, nor be disturbed in their 
pas Jlnd cultivations. 
*' I am satisfied that such an unhappy affair as that 
of Te Tf^airau could never have occurred had not the 
natives been urged to it by extreme provocation. It is 
a principle with the natives, in all cases of extremity 
'between themselves and the Europeans, to act only 
on the defensive. ' We will not.' say they, * fire 
* a gun at a European, until we see our people first 
* murdered.' 
