Armed with this authority Sir Everard Home returned to Porirua, where, after lying at anchor all day on Sunday, he landed on the following day, and made a formal demand for the return of the boat. At first, Te Rangihaeata was inclined to resist the request, but, on receipt of a private message from Te Rauparaha that a refusal might mean trouble, he yielded the point, and the boat was ultimately handed over with "the greatest good-humour."
During the interview at Waikanae, Te Rauparaha had given the most profuse assurances that he, relying upon the promise that there would be no reprisals until the facts surrounding the massacre had been investigated, was employing his best endeavours to pacify his people. But his efforts, he said, were often nullified by the disturbing rumours which reached them of armings and drillings[170] by the settlers at Wellington, which seemed to portend war rather than peace. But the seeds of irritation and mistrust had already been sown much further afield than Waikanae and Otaki; for the natives, on leaving the Wairau, had taken with them, as well as the boat, the handcuffs and leg-irons which had been foolishly brought down by Mr. Maling to ensure Rauparaha's capture. These were sent from one pa to another, and wherever they were exhibited, the enemies of the pakeha were not slow to insinuate that, when the English became numerous in the land, they would provide leg-irons for the whole of the natives. The sight of these manacles, and the dark hints with which they were everywhere accompanied, created bitterness and resentment against settlers, with whom the Maoris had always lived in perfect harmony; so that before many weeks had passed away it only required a single spark of indiscretion to set the whole colony in a blaze of war. At no period of her history has New Zealand stood so much in need of firm, discreet and conciliatory guidance as in this critical juncture;[171] and fortunately the hand of authority was strong enough to prevent the spark being kindled. Acting-Governor Shortland, taking a bold but unpopular initiative, on July 12, 1843, issued the following proclamation:—
"Whereas it is essential to the well-being of this Colony that confidence and good feeling should continue to exist between the two races of its inhabitants, and that the native owners of the soil should have no reason to doubt the good faith of Her Majesty's solemn assurance that their territorial rights should be recognised and respected. Now, therefore, I, the officer administering the Government, do hereby publicly warn all persons claiming land in this Colony, in all cases where the claim is denied or disputed by the original native owners, from exercising rights of ownership thereon, or otherwise prejudicing the question of title to the same, until the question of ownership shall have been heard and determined by one of Her Majesty's Commissioners appointed to investigate claims to land in New Zealand."
The wisdom of thus holding the hands of the settlers until the title to their lands had been settled by a constitutional course was not at first apparent to the pioneers, who treated the proclamation with scant respect, and roundly abused it and its author in the public press.
"If," said one writer, "it had been the desire of its framer to hound a troop of excited savages upon a peaceable and scattered population, to destroy the remains of friendly feeling existing between the two races, to imbrue in blood the hands of both, and lead to the extermination of one or the other, such a proclamation might have served its purpose."
This style of exaggerated invective will serve to show the unreasoning pitch to which even the better class of colonists had allowed themselves to be worked by the news of the catastrophe. Nor were they content with merely upbraiding the authorities in the press and at public meetings; deputations waited upon the Acting-Governor at Auckland, urging him to take immediate steps to avenge the death of Captain Wakefield. The Nelson deputation consisted of Dr. Monro and Mr. A. Domett, and the essence of their petition was contained in the following paragraph:—
"We have no hesitation in stating that it is the general opinion of the settlers at Nelson that our countrymen who were killed at Wairau Plain lost their lives in endeavouring to discharge their duties as magistrates and British subjects, obedient to British law, and that the persons by whom they were killed are murderers in the eyes of common sense and justice."
They therefore hoped that impartial justice would be done, and that the penalties of the law would certainly overtake those whom its verdicts pronounced to be guilty. But to this and all other petitions of a similar tone Mr. Shortland staunchly refused to accede. In his reply to Dr. Monro and Mr. Domett he clearly set forth the error under which the settlers were labouring, when they ascribed the disaster to the performance of duty on the part of the magistrates, and pointed out that it might be more fairly attributed to an excess of duty on the part of those officials, in attempting to annex land which had never been legally purchased. After dwelling upon the criminality of those who were responsible for the final conflict, he proceeded:—
"But whatever may be the crime, and whoever may be the criminals, it is but too clear that the event we must all deplore has arisen from several parties of surveyors, without the concurrence of the local Government, proceeding to take possession of and to survey a tract of land in opposition to the original native owners, who had uniformly denied its sale. His Excellency therefore deems it proper to inform you that the New Zealand Company has not selected any block of land in the valley of the Wairau, nor has the local Government yet received any intimation that it is the intention of the Company to select a block in that district."
To say that the Englishmen were trespassers is the mildest way in which the case against them can be stated, especially in view of the forceful opinion expressed by Mr. Swainson, the Attorney-General, who described their conduct as "illegal in its inception and in every step of its execution, unjustifiable in the magistrate and four constables, and criminal in the last degree on the part of the attacking party." Writing from Port Nicholson ten days after the massacre, Mr. Spain confirmed Mr. Swainson's condemnation of their conduct, which he declared to be "an attempt to set British law at defiance and to obtain, by force, possession of a tract of land, the title of which was disputed, and then under the consideration of a commissioner specially appointed to investigate and report upon it." From the information he had been able to collect, Mr. Spain arrived at the conclusion that at the commencement of the affair the natives exhibited the greatest forbearance, and the utmost repugnance to fight with the Europeans. His views were cordially endorsed by Mr. Clarke, the Protector of the aborigines, who reported to the Acting-Governor that he was "satisfied that such an unhappy affair as that of the Wairau could never have occurred had not the natives been urged to it by extreme provocation." These emphatic opinions from men who were not only capable of arriving at a judicial conclusion, but were impartial in the sense that they were not concerned in the catastrophe, together with the decision of the Attorney-General that no act of felony had been committed by the natives in burning the huts, fortified His Excellency in ignoring the violent clamour of the settlers for revenge. They induced him even to go further, and prohibit the military displays which they were beginning to organise amongst themselves under the plea that they were in imminent danger of being attacked by the natives. This prohibition was to their excited minds the crowning injustice of all; and in October, when H.M.S. North Star arrived at Port Nicholson, the Wellington and Nelson settlements were practically in a state of open rebellion. When Sir Everard Home was applied to by the colonists to execute a warrant against Rauparaha and Rangihaeata for murder, he was compelled to "decline the honour," and admit candidly that he did not consider a force so necessary to put a check upon the natives as to keep in subjection the irate settlers themselves. The settlers further memorialised Sir Eardley Wilmot, Governor of Tasmania, for assistance, and he immediately sent a battleship to their aid. But he took the precaution to warn Captain Nicholson not to land his troops unless the natives and Europeans were in actual conflict; and this not being the case when the ship arrived, she soon after took her departure. In their extremity the settlers then turned to a French frigate which was lying in New Zealand waters; but Major Richmond, on hearing of the proposal to call upon her captain for aid, indignantly vetoed it as being "a stain upon British arms."