The result of this marvellous conversion was the visit of the two cousins to the Bay of Islands. They asked for a white teacher to come and live among them. The call was an urgent one, and Henry Williams volunteered to go himself. But his brethren and converts, fearing the removal of his great influence, voted against the proposal, and there was no other volunteer. The chiefs retired to their cabin in utter despair: "Oh! dark, very dark, our hearts were." A fortnight they stayed in their cabin, when a sailor announced that the missionary's boat was approaching. Henry Williams called out from it, "Friends, do not be angry with me any more; here is your missionary." It was the slight and consumptive Hadfield. This young recruit had not been able to understand the language of the visitors, but after they had gone he asked the purport of their errand. "I will go with them," he exclaimed; "as well die there as here." The older men were loth to let him make the venture, but he would not be kept back. It was at length resolved that Henry Williams should accompany him to the south, and help him to settle among the Ngatitoas. "We were all very happy that day," wrote Tamihana; "our hearts cried, we were very happy!"
This southward journey of Williams and Hadfield, which began on October 21st, 1839, was like that to the Thames six years before, in that it inaugurated a great step forward in the work of the mission, and led the missionaries into regions which they had only dimly known before. Yet its fateful significance, both for New Zealand and for the individual travellers, could hardly be even guessed at the time by the two men themselves. To the one it was to bring life; to the other, troubles almost worse than death.
After ten days' voyage down the eastern coast, the schooner which conveyed Henry Williams, Hadfield, and their Maori retinue rounded Cape Palliser; but, meeting there the full force of the west wind through the straits, was unable to make direct for Kapiti, and took shelter in a harbour which opened out on their starboard bow. "Very different from what is represented in the map of Captain Cook," remarked Williams, thus showing how little had hitherto been known about this magnificent inlet of Port Nicholson. But once inside its capacious recesses, he found that others had just discovered its value before him. Two Wesleyan missionaries had been there during the year, and had left a native teacher behind them; while a still more important visitor had arrived even more lately in the person of Colonel Wakefield, advance agent for the New Zealand Company, whose emigrant ships were every day expected.
Much to Williams' displeasure he learned that Wakefield was claiming possession of the shores of the harbour—thus leaving to the Maori inhabitants no place of their own for the future. This information came from one of his old Paihia boys, Reihana, who had secured a passage with the Wesleyan expedition, and was now engaged in teaching his own fellow tribesmen. Reihana complained that he with others had opposed the sale of their lands, but that the Europeans would take no account of their rights, and insisted on having the whole.
Henry Williams was not opposed to colonisation if rightly undertaken, but his blood began to boil at this story; nor did he feel happier when he found that a savage quarrel had arisen between two parties of Maoris over some of the land in question, and that during the last fortnight many men had been killed. No protest could be made at the moment, as Wakefield had left for the north; but, finding Reihana anxious to leave a place where his property was thus in jeopardy, Williams bought of him the land for a mission station. The Society at Home, however, decided not to form a station in the place, and the section (which comprised about 60 acres of what is now the heart of Wellington) remained in Williams' hands. The Maoris would never allow it to be pegged out by the Company's surveyors until Henry Williams himself, on his next visit, presented all but one acre to the Company in consideration of their undertaking to make reserves for the benefit of the natives. The one acre he afterwards sold, and devoted the proceeds to the endowment of a church at Pakaraka. This is the real history of a transaction which, by frequent misrepresentation, has brought undeserved obloquy upon a generous man.
After distributing Prayer Books amongst the pas around the harbour, the travellers made another attempt to continue their voyage. Again they were blown back to the Port, and eventually decided to walk to their destination overland, leaving the schooner to follow when the wind should change. Hadfield was extremely unwell, but pluckily resolved to follow his chief, and together they set off on the morning of Nov. 14 over the steep hills upon which the suburbs of Wellington now stand.
Four days of hard walking brought them to Waikanae. At many places on the road the people came out to give them welcome, for the name of Wiremu was familiar to all. At every place, too, he was urged to tell them about religion, and at the pa of Waikanae the people "kept me in conversation till I could talk no more."
Next day a ceremonious visit was paid to Rauparaha in his island fortress: "The old man told me that now he had seen my eyes and heard my words, he would lay aside his evil ways and turn to the Book." How far this change was sincere may be doubted; it seems to have been partly caused by his fear of Col. Wakefield's ship, which was mistaken for a man-of-war. At any rate the old warrior gave a warm welcome to the young missionary, Hadfield, and insisted that he should live at Otaki under his protection.
A meeting of a different character was that between Williams and his old scholar, Ripahau. This man had married a daughter of Rangitaake, or Wiremu Kingi, head chief of Waikanae, and had become a person of great influence in the tribe. "He has taught many to read," writes Williams, "and has instructed numbers, as far as he is able, in the truths of the Gospel; so that many tribes, for some distance around, call themselves Believers, keep the Lord's Day, assemble for worship, and use the Liturgy of the Church of England. The schools also are numerous." A fortnight later, just as he was about to leave the district, Williams baptised this remarkable young teacher by the appropriate name of Joseph, for of him too it might be said:
But he had sent a man before them,
Even Joseph, who was sold to be a bond-servant,
That he might inform his princes after his will
And teach his senators wisdom.