Incredible all this sounded in face of that pleasant month of dalliance; yet the proof was there in that terrified wretch, and incredulity gave way to wrath and sentiments of vengeance. The prolonged absence of the commander now took on a sinister aspect, and Crozet, too, with sixty men, was gone inland to procure a kauri-pine. With such a force he could defy attack; but he must be advised of what had happened.
A boat crowded with armed men was pulled ashore, and the march began to the spot where Crozet was making a road for the hauling of the giant pine. One can imagine his feelings when his comrades arrived with their intelligence—the ghastly certainty, the terrible hypothesis.
Sorrowful, but grim, the company marched back to the boats, unmolested by the mob of natives who shouted the dreadful news that Marion du Fresne and his escort of sixteen had all been killed and eaten.
Not a word said Crozet until he reached the beach. Then, as the dusky crowd surged forward, he drew a line upon the sand with the butt of a musket. "Cross that and die!" he cried. No Maori dared to brave the dreaded "fire-tubes," and the Frenchmen embarked and pulled out from the beach.
Then began Crozet's revenge. Safe now from attack, he poured volley after volley into the mob of Islanders, until the last of them had fled, shrieking, beyond range. This was not enough. Day followed day and Maori were shot and villages burned, until Crozet, his vengeance only partially satisfied, turned in wrath and disgust from the land he had begun to love.
It all sounds very dreadful. It seems an act of atrocious treachery on the part of the Maori to have masked their hideous design under an appearance of friendship; and this was Crozet's view. But was it the correct view?
The sign which he and his unfortunate commander had failed to read was this: the Maori, after a month of uninterrupted intercourse, suddenly ceased to visit the ships. It was equivalent to the withdrawal of an ambassador before the declaration of war. Captain Cook, if he had not understood, would at least have noticed the sign and been on his guard.
Crozet professed to know of no cause of quarrel, yet the Maori had found one, though not until many years later did the truth come out. The French, both officers and men, had carelessly—in some cases wantonly—intruded upon sacred places, destroyed sacred objects, treated with disrespect certain sacred persons. In other words, they had violated tapu, and the Maori of that day viewed such behaviour as unpardonable and only to be atoned for by death. Bad as the horrid business was at the best, it is well to remember the old advice, "Hear the other side."
Crozet's utterances against the Maori were charged with such bitter execration, that for decades no French ship ventured near the island homes of those fierce and terrible cannibals. More, the lurid story spread across the Channel, effectually checking any desire on the part of the British for closer acquaintance with the wild men of the south. The reputation of the Maori still had power nearly ten years later to scare off all but the boldest intruders. Even the worst of criminals were held undeserving of so outrageous a fate as exposure to the chance of being devoured by cannibals; and a motion to establish convict settlements in New Zealand was strongly denounced in the House of Commons and defeated.
So New Zealand, fortunately for herself, never knew the convict stain, and rogues were packed off to Australia with leave to reform if they could. Some, perhaps, did. Others, pestilential ruffians who could not be tamed even by five hundred lashes on the bare back, were weeded out and sent to Norfolk Island, another of Captain Cook's discoveries, lying some three days' sail to the north of New Zealand.