Chap. XVII. CONFUSION PRODUCED IN NATIVE MINDS. 467 
like TVero TVero or Rauperaha, he seemed likely to 
become a thorn in the side of the young colony, and 
shone forth as one of those turbulent spirits whom, 
under the proposed institutions, the united races would 
have branded with shame and dishonour, and excluded 
ignominiously' from the homage due to worth and 
excellence, he was straightway exalted as a king, and 
let loose from all law or subordination upon the 
" disappointed settlers " of Cook's Strait. 
Disappointed they were, indeed, when all their 
bright visions of sharing a happy home with the grate- 
ful objects of an overflowing benevolence faded into 
one fearful nightmare, in which the unhappy native, 
taught to believe that he was robbed, cheated, and op- 
pressed, proposed to dispute every inch of a soil which 
he had only just learned to consider as of inordinate 
value, against what rankled in his poisoned mind as 
the intrusion of a ruthless invader. 
It was matter of notoriety, that every one of the 
agents in thus corrupting the gratitude of the natives 
into jealousy and suspicion towards the honest colo- 
nists, had a personal interest in the success of the ex- 
perimental metropolis in the north, and therefore a 
corresponding leaning to injure and deteriorate the 
settlements of Cook's Strait. 
The unfortunate native appeared at his last gasp, and 
as though it would be almost impossible to save him 
from utter disorganization of body and mind, as atten- 
dant on the conflicting effects of these contradictory 
and rival systems and caprices. He became like a child 
of ten years old, who should be tormented by the can- 
vassing of three or four candidates of different shades 
of political opinion, all completely above his under- 
standing, to vote for them at a Parliamentary election. 
One might recommend the Thirty-nine Articles, and 
2h2 
