444 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. XVII. 
it proves that the influence of the missionaries was 
great, they would seem on this occasion to have 
exerted it to a somewhat uncharitable end : — 
" The English missionaries at the Bay of Islands 
" exhibit neither the charity which all the ministers of 
" religion profess, nor the generosity for which their 
" countrymen are remarkable towards strangers. My 
" offers and my solicitudes to obtain from them refresh- 
" ment for our sick were alike in vain ; and I am con- 
" vinced myself, that these preachers of the Gospel, sus- 
" pecting me of political purposes, endeavoured to dis- 
" turb the harmony that existed between me and the 
" natives, by insinuating to them I meant to take pos- 
" session of the bay, and revenge the massacre of 
*' Marion."* (A French Captain, massacred with many 
" of his crew some years before.) 
Various causes combined to nullify, to a considerable 
degree, the good effects of the venerable Marsden's 
plans. He was himself restricted by his duties in New 
South Wales to an occasional supervision only of 
the manner in which his principles were carried out. 
Some fearful instances occurred in which the most 
baneful examples were set to the natives by back- 
sliders among the missionaries themselves. What an 
impression must have been produced among the pupils 
by the sight of drunkenness, in one of their head 
teachers, as great as in the ruffians whose conduct they 
came to discourage ! How strong must be our disgust 
when we know that another head of the mission had to 
be expelled by the Society for still more dreadful crimes, 
which even those ruffians would have condemned ! The 
selection of men to carry on the great work had 
evidently not been made with sufficient care. 
The very provision, too, of men of mechanical and 
* Voyage de la Favorite, tome iv. page 35. 
