490 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND, Chap. XVUI. 
They were dismissed just as many of their well- 
digested plans were about to be brought into operation. 
Scarcely two months after the departure of the fri- 
gate as perfectly unnecessary, the consciousness of 
impunity had so increased among the natives, that a 
repetition of the " very trifling aflfair " of Mr. Clarke 
junior took place in the very same pa, under precisely 
similar circumstances, and with precisely the same 
performers. The Police Magistrate, apparently consi- 
dering himself the virtual Governor of the M'^hite 
inhabitants of Cook's Strait, thus familiarly excuses 
himseJf to the Governor of Auckland for having em- 
ployed the troops in enforcing British law upon one 
of those who considered themselves as only subject to 
-New Zealand chiefs: — 
" My dear Sir, " Wellington, 5th Dec. 1843. 
" As I have been obliged, much to my regret, to 
** call out the military in aid of the civil power, I take 
" advantage of the sailing of The Sisters to give you a 
" hasty sketch of the affair, lest a garbled account should 
** reach you ; but 1 shall forward it officially to your 
" Excellency by return of the brig, which we look for 
** hourly. On Thursday last, a constable, who was in 
" search of stolen goods, detected some of them in a box 
" belonging to or in charge of a young chief named 
" E TVuho ; and while endeavouring, with the assist- 
" ance of two other constables, to take him into custody 
*' they were not only resisted, but attacked, knocked 
'* down, and otherwise ill-treated, by all the natives who 
*' were in the pa at the time. I hastened to the spot 
** the moment the circumstance was reported to me ; and 
** as I found the prisoner and his party were still deter- 
" mined to set the law at detiance, and refused to yield 
*' to the civil force, I was reluctantly compelled to call 
" upon the military : their appearance, I am happy to 
