[105] Rev. Canon Stack.
[106] The Sydney Gazette, in referring to the case, remarked that its peculiarity lay in the fact that it involved "the question of the liability of British subjects for offences committed against the natives of New Zealand." The point was never tested, but it is doubtful whether the Imperial Statute constituting the Supreme Court of the Colony of New South Wales (9 Geo. IV., cap. 83) gave express power to deal with such offences as that of Stewart. An amendment of the law in the following year (June 7, 1832) made the position more explicit.
[107] Captain Sturt afterwards did valuable work as an explorer in Australia, but received no suitable recognition from the Imperial Government. Sir George Grey vainly endeavoured to procure for him the honour of knighthood.
[108] There is not much doubt that, had the case gone to trial, counsel for the defence would have endeavoured to prove that Stewart was compelled by the natives to do what he did; for the Australian, a paper controlled by Dr. Wardell, argued that it "could not divine the justice of denouncing Stewart as amenable to laws which, however strict and necessary under certain circumstances, were not applicable to savage broils and unintentional acts of homicide, to which he must have been an unwilling party, and over which he could not possibly exercise the slightest control."
[109] It will be charitable, and perhaps just, to suppose that this feeling arose more from personal antipathy to the Governor than from any inherent sympathy with crime. Governor Darling had succeeded in making himself exceedingly unpopular with a large section of the Sydney community, which resulted in his recall in 1831.
[110] The expedition probably started about the end of January or beginning of February.
[111] Now Lyttelton Harbour.
[112] His pa was in the vicinity of what is now the city of Dunedin.
[113] The Rev. Canon Stack relates how one of the Ngai-Tahu men, Te Ata-o-tu, was carrying his infant son on his back during this march. When they approached the pa, some of his companions, seeing how closely it was invested, whispered to him to strangle the child, lest it might cry at a critical moment and betray them. The father, however, could not find it in his heart to take this extreme step, but he wrapped the boy tightly in a thick mat, and, strapping him across his broad shoulders, carried him safely through the dangers of that terrible night. The child, however, was only spared to be drowned in the waters of the swamp as his mother vainly endeavoured to escape a few months later, when the pa fell.
[114] A storehouse erected upon a high central pole, to protect the food from the depredations of rats.