Not one white settler had been inconvenienced, much less injured. The contending parties, fearing lest one side or the other might be forced back upon the settlement, and so bring disaster upon its inhabitants, had by mutual agreement transferred the theatre of war to a spot too remote to allow of such a contingency.
After this, who shall say that the Maori were deficient in generosity, destitute of chivalry?
Note.—Mr. Augustus Earle, Draughtsman to H.M. Surveying Ship Beagle, in 1827, relates that the pagan Maori in the Bay of Islands used to rise at daybreak on Sunday to finish their canoe-building and other work before the whites were astir, thus showing their respect for the reverence in which the Pakeha held the Day. Mr. Earle adds: "It was more respect than we Europeans pay to any religious ceremony we do not understand. Even their tabooed grounds would not be so respected by us, if we were not quite certain they possessed the power instantly to revenge any affront offered to their sacred places."
FOOTNOTES:
[57] Maori proverb.
VARIOUS RULERS
These wars and rumours of wars had small effect in stopping immigration. Most of the settlers were British; for, though no systematic colonisation had as yet been attempted, the right of Great Britain's sovereignty over New Zealand had been recognised at the Peace of 1814.