Chap. XIX. INTERVIEW WITH HIS EXCELLENCY. 511 
said that such a course was calculated to encourage dis- 
trust and suspicion among the natives, and was, more- 
over, mere childish bravado ; and that he should " not 
" be surprised if on some future occasion they should 
" take my sword from me and beat me with the flat 
" of it, or duck me in a pond, by way of joke." 
He then censured, in most unmeasured terms, my 
letters in the paper, reporting Rauperaha^ statements ; 
and added, that he was surprised Mr. Clarke should 
have been foolish enough to allow himself to be drawn 
into any such correspondence. He rated me for at- 
tempting by this means to excite the feelings of the 
Europeans against the natives ; and ridiculed the idea 
of " hunting about for foolish stories of skulls in one 
" place and bones in another, in order to alarm people 
" who had not sense enough to treat such reports as 
" they deserved." 
He begged me to consider in what position I should 
have been placed had he chosen to instruct the Attor- 
ney-General to file a criminal information against me 
for defaming the character of the natives alluded to in 
that letter. He " wished me to know, that if I, or any 
" other person, should write a similar letter, he would 
" not be allowed to profit by a friendly warning, but 
" would first hear from an officer of the Supreme 
" Court." 
All this was accompanied with the most overbear- 
ing gesture, the most arrogant expression of coun- 
tenance, and the most dictatorial tone. Even if its 
substance had been true, I could hardly have endured 
the quarter-deck manner of the lecture from my own 
father. It gave me the idea that Captain Fitzroy was 
taking advantage of his high station to lay aside all the 
feeling and demeanour of a gentleman. 
And at the end of the violent attack he rose, and 
