Wherever the venerable man appeared, he was received by the converted natives with Christian salutations and tears of joy; the heathen population welcomed him with the firing of muskets and their rude war dances. Wherever he went, he was greeted with acclamations as the friend and father of the New Zealanders. One chieftain sat down upon the ground before him gazing upon him in silence, without moving a limb or uttering a single word for several hours. He was gently reproved by Mr. Williams for what seemed a rudeness. “Let me alone,” said he, “let me take a last look; I shall never see him again.” “One principal chief,” writes Mr. Marsden, “who had embraced the gospel and been baptized, accompanied us all the way. We had to travel about forty miles, by land and water. He told me he was so unhappy at Hokianga that he could not get to converse with me from the crowds that attended, and that he had come to Waimaté to speak with me. I found him to be a very intelligent man, and anxious to know the way to heaven.” While at Kaitai he held a constant levée, sitting in an arm-chair, in an open field, before the mission house; it was attended by upwards of a thousand Maories, who poured in from every quarter; many coming a distance of twenty or thirty miles, contented to sit down and gaze on his venerable features; and so they continued to come and go till his departure. With his characteristic kindness and good nature he presented each with a pipe and fig of tobacco; and when he was to embark at last, they carried him to the ship, a distance of six miles.
Before leaving New Zealand, he wrote to the Church Missionary Society an account which glows with pious exultation, describing the success with which the Head of the church had at length been pleased to bless the labours of his faithful servants. Since his arrival, he says, he had visited many of the stations within the compass of a hundred miles. It was his intention to have visited all of them, from the North to the East Cape; but from the disturbed state of the country “it was not considered prudent for him to go to the south,” where he still contemplated further efforts “when the country should be more settled in its political affairs.” He had “observed a wonderful change: those portions of the sacred Scriptures which had been printed have had a most astonishing effect; they are read by the natives in every place where I have been; the natives teach one another, and find great pleasure in the word of God, and carry that sacred treasure with them wherever they go. Great numbers have been baptized, both chiefs and their people.” He had met with some very pious chiefs, who had refused to share in the present war, and avowed their resolution to fight no more. One of them, at his own cost, had built a chapel, or place of public worship, which was visited by the missionaries; in this he himself taught a school, assisted by his son. “Waimaté, once the most warlike district in the island, is now,” he says, “the most orderly and moral place I was ever in. My own mind has been exceedingly gratified by what I have seen and heard.” Old age, it seems, is not always querulous; its retrospects are not always in favour of the past; the aged Christian walks with a more elastic step as he sees the fruit of his labour, and anticipates his own great reward. “Mine eyes,” he concludes, “are dim with age like Isaac’s; it is with some difficulty I can see to write.”
Nor had the weakness and credulity of advancing years led him to take for granted, as in second childhood old age is wont to do, the truth of first impressions, or the accuracy of every man’s reports. He still gave to every subject connected with missions the closest attention, penetrated beneath the surface, and formed his own conclusions. While in New Zealand, for instance, he addresses the following queries to Mr. Matthews, one of the missionaries, on the subject of education:—
“April, 1837.
“... I will thank you to return me what number of native young men there are employed from your station on the sabbath in visiting the natives, I mean the numbers who occasionally visit their countrymen and instruct them. What schools there are at the station, and who are the teachers? Have you an infant school, or a school for men and boys? a school for women? What do they learn? Do they learn to read and write? Do they understand figures? Have they renounced generally their former superstitions? At what period of the day do they attend school? Have they any meeting in the week-days for prayer and religious instruction? Do they appear to have any views of the Lord Jesus Christ as a Saviour? Any information you can give me, along with your brethren, will be very acceptable to the lovers of the gospel in New South Wales.”
“Samuel Marsden.”
On one point only he met with no success. He had not yet quite abandoned the pleasing dream of a Maori nation, united under one chief; a Christian people, governed by a code of native law. Tahiti naturally encouraged these bright visions, and seemed to show how easily they might be realized. There, for ten years past, under king Pomare, the wondrous spectacle had been presented to the world of a whole people, under the guidance of their king, rejecting idolatry, and with it all the base usages of savage life, and working out their own national regeneration; framing a Tahitian code of law on the sound principles of Christian jurisprudence, and cordially adopting it. Why should not a similar state of things be brought about in New Zealand? The instrumental agency in both islands was the same; namely, that of Christian missionaries, chiefly, if not entirely, English Christians, who carried with them, it might be supposed, to both islands the same reverence for order, and with it the same love of liberty. Were the Maories an inferior race, compared with the aborigines of the Tahitian group? On the contrary, the difference was rather in favour of the Maori; he was the more athletic, and consequently the more vigorous in his mental development; indeed, upon the whole, he stands unapproached by any other tribe of man uncivilized and in a state of nature; unless we go back to the heroic ages and find his equal amongst ancient Greeks at the dawning of their somewhat fabulous history.
Yet the project failed; and Mr. Marsden was now obliged mournfully to admit that New Zealand’s only hope lay in her annexation to the British crown. The two causes of the failure of these otherwise reasonable expectations are to be found, no doubt, first, in the circumstances of the Maori tribes, and secondly, in the pernicious effects produced by European traders and settlers.
Tahiti was happy in possessing one sovereign. New Zealand was unfortunate in its multitude of petty chieftains. When the heart of king Pomare was gained, the confidence of a loyal and devoted people was at once won over. There was no rival to foment rebellion, or to seize the occasion of a religious festival, when he and his people were unarmed, to make inroads on his territory. With the assistance of his council, and under the advice of the faithful missonaries, a code of law was easily prepared, suited for all his subjects, and adapted to every part of his little kingdom. In New Zealand, on the contrary, the chiefs, each of whom claimed to be perfectly independent of the rest, were constantly at enmity with each other. The violent passions of civil war never slept—hatred, revenge, and jealousy. The missionaries, if cherished by Shunghie, were hated or feared by Shunghie’s opponent. Their direct influence in the politics of the Maories was therefore, of necessity, slight. But the chief hindrance arose from the mutual animosities of the chiefs, and the want of confidence in each other which universally prevailed, both among chiefs and people.
And it must be confessed with sorrow, that the evil example of the Europeans provoked the natives to fresh crimes, and indisposed them to all the restraints of civil government. The Polynesian Islands had, up to this period, known neither commerce nor colonization. Except a chance visit from a man-of-war, a European ship was scarcely ever seen; or the few which came and went were connected with the missions, and were manned by decent if not religious crews. The polluting influence of a debauched and drunken body of seamen, rolling in constant succession to its shores, had not yet tainted the moral atmosphere of Tahiti and its neighbouring group. And colonization had not even been attempted; the natives were left in full possession of their soil, no man making them afraid. In New Zealand all this was reversed. Wicked seamen infected even savages with new vices; and lawless settlers set an example of injustice, shocking even to New Zealanders. For these evils it was evident there was but one remedy, the strong hand of British rule. Take the following sketch from the pen of Mr. Marsden. After describing the happy state of the Christian settlement at Waimaté, he goes on to say: “On the opposite side of the harbour, a number of Europeans have settled along with the natives. Several keep public-houses, and encourage every kind of crime. Here drunkenness, adultery, murder, etc. are committed. There are no laws, judges, nor magistrates; so that Satan maintains his dominion without molestation. Some civilized government must take New Zealand under its protection, or the most dreadful evils will be committed by runaway convicts, sailors and publicans. There are no laws here to punish crimes. When I return to New South Wales, I purpose to lay the state of New Zealand before the colonial government, to see if anything can be done to remedy these public evils.” “I hope in time,” he says again, in a letter, dated May 16th, 1837, from Pahaia, to the Rev. James Matthews, “the chiefs will get a governor. I shall inform the Europeans in authority how much they are distressed in New Zealand for want of a governor with power to punish crime. The Bay of Islands is now in a dreadful state.... It is my intention to return to New South Wales by the first opportunity.”
That opportunity soon appeared, and the venerable founder of its missions, the advocate of its native population, the friend of all that concerned its present or spiritual welfare, took his last leave of the shores of New Zealand. Preparations were made for his reception on board H. M. S. Rattlesnake. The signal gun was fired, and all the friends from Waimaté and Keri-Keri arrived to accompany their revered father to the beach, “Where,” says one of them who was present, “like Paul at Miletus, we parted with many benedictions: sorrowing most of all that we should see his face again no more. Many could not bid him adieu. The parting was with many tears.”
His happy temperament always diffused pleasure and conciliated friendship. On board the Rattlesnake he was welcomed with warm, affectionate, respect. Captain Hobson, who was afterwards for a time governor of New Zealand, knew his worth, and felt honoured by his company; and Mr. Marsden fully appreciated the high character and courtesy of the commander, whose widow retains a handsome piece of plate presented to her husband by his grateful passenger, as a memorial of the happiness he enjoyed on this his last voyage homewards.