PROTECTION OF EUROPEANS BEFORE 1840

BEFORE the colonisation of New Zealand the Maori had long been known to the world both as a warlike race and as a highly intelligent and gifted people. By the eighteen-thirties white traders had established peaceful relations with many tribes in different parts of the country, and the days when every ship trading to New Zealand had to be equipped with boarding nets (fitted to the sides) to prevent Maori warriors surprising the crew were gone for ever. Nevertheless, there were occasional threats to the safety of British subjects resident in New Zealand. British war­ships were from time to time ordered to New Zealand for the purpose of making an impression on the native mind and inducing a more respectful attitude to European residents and callers.

Although there were earlier visits of warships to collect timber or to deposit such passengers as the Rev. Samuel Marsden, probably the first war­ship to call with the definite mission of protecting British subjects was H.M.S. Zebra, which in 1832 visited Taranaki after rumours of attacks on flax-traders by Waikato tribes had reached Sydney. In 1833 H.M.S. Imogene brought James Busby to New Zealand and gave him thunderous salutes of guns at the Bay of Islands. Next year H.M.S. Alligator came to the Bay ‘to bring the native chiefs a choice of designs for a national flag and generally to make an impression. Later in the same year the Alligator returned, this time to the coast of Taranaki, to make a very different impression. Some sailors and Jack Guard’s wife and children, wrecked on the coast in the Harriet, were held captive by the Maori. These prisoners were recovered, but some of the English behaved with considerable brutality as well as bad faith. In 1837, when news of fierce inter-tribal warfare reached Australia, H.M.S. Rattlesnake was ordered to New Zealand to protect missionaries and settlers. William Hobson, who commanded her, was soon to return to New Zealand on a more important mission