314 
HONGl. 
remonstrated with by the Missionaries, that he should not 
desist until he had subjected the entire island to his controul; 
that as England had but one King, so likewise there should 
only be one in New Zealand. But as there is a bound to all 
human glory, “ Hither shalt thou go and no further,” so it 
was with Hongi. He fulfilled the Scripture: “ He that 
taketh the sword, shall perish by the sword.” 
In 1827, he declared war against Tara, and the tribe which 
massacred the crew of the Boyd, making that an excuse for 
his ambitious designs. In the beginning of 1827 his men 
plundered and burned the Wesleyan Missionary Station, 
which had been commenced at Wangaroa a year or two 
before ; they told the Missionaries, “ Your Chiefs have fled; 
all the people have left the place, and you will be stripped of 
all your property before noon ; therefore, instantly begone ! ” 
It appears, however, as if this was to be the termination of 
his success. His only redeeming act had been the preservation 
of those who came to raise his countrymen;—immediately 
he put forth his hand to injure them, he fell! He killed or 
dispersed “ the man-eating tribes,” as he termed those who 
cut off the Boyd, although the epithet was, perhaps, far more 
applicable to himself, for he appears to have surpassed all 
who had gone before him in the number of victims he and 
his followers had consumed. Twenty only of these man-eaters 
escaped;—they glutted themselves with the slain, sparing 
neither woman, nor even suckling child. The remnant of his 
enemies fled to Hunahuna, a village near the Maungamuka, 
where they made a stand. Hongi, who had ensconced himself 
behind a tree, stepped forward to take aim, when a ball struck 
him: it broke his collar-bone, passed in an oblique direction 
through his right breast, and came out a little below his 
shoulder-blade, close to the spine. This terminated his fearful 
career; for though he lingered a full year, the wound never 
healed. When he breathed, the air escaped through the 
orifice with a hissing sound, which he made a subject of 
merriment. 
He received his wound in January, 1827. On the 6th of 
March, 1828, the life of this remarkable savage terminated. 
