[178] Vide his letter to Archdeacon Henry Williams, November 11, 1845.
[179] Governor Hobson died at 12.15 A.M. on September 10, 1842, at Auckland. Amongst a large section of the Northern Maoris the belief was current that he had been makutaed (bewitched) by an old tohunga (priest) at a banquet, the tohunga being instigated by the section of natives who were opposed to the treaty.
[180] In the previous debate Sir Robert had said: "If ever there was a case where the stronger party was obliged by its position to respect the demands of the weaker it was the engagements contracted under such circumstances with these native chiefs."
[181] Vide his Ordinance of March 26, 1844. For an able justification of this measure the reader is referred to Mr. George Clarke's Final Report, 1846, the manuscript of which is in the Hocken Collection at Dunedin. The pre-emptive right was finally abrogated in the Native Land Act of 1862.
[182] Vide his Despatch to Lord Stanley, December 10, 1845.
[183] In this he was further assisted by the fact that Mr. Hawes, who had been prominent with him in the interests of the New Zealand Company, became his Under-Secretary, and Mr. Buller became Lord-Advocate.
[184] For a critical analysis of Earl Grey's policy at this period, the reader is referred to L. A. Chamerovzow's work, The New Zealand Question, 1848.
[185] One writer declared that, "by Earl Grey's Constitution the humbug Treaty of Waitangi is very properly laid on the shelf." Another referred to it as "sweeping away all the Treaty of Waitangi nonsense."
[186] Te Wherowhero, who had refused to sign the Treaty of Waitangi, was greatly influenced by Governor Grey, and this petition is interesting as showing that the chief was beginning to recognise the sovereignty of the Queen as the accepted order of things.
[187] "As was anticipated, the chiefs would not enter into the treaty without the advice of their religious instructors. The Wesleyan chiefs said, in effect, to their Missionaries: 'We do not know the Queen of England, but we know you, and can trust you. If you say that the British Government speaks true about the land, we will believe you, for we know you will not deceive us.' The Society's Missionaries, understanding that the primary object of the British Government was to throw the shield of protection over the New Zealand people, and believing that the measure proposed was the best for preserving the natives from the evils by which they were threatened, could not hesitate to assure their people, that, when once the faith of the British Government was pledged, it would be maintained inviolate."—Vide Wesleyan Mission Committee's Letter to Earl Grey, 1848.