Cooped up in their narrow plots by the sea, Colonel Wakefield and his settlers established a provisional Government. Captain Hobson, hearing probably some very exaggerated account of this, sent down his Lieutenant, Mr. Willoughby Shortland, in a Government vessel, with sailors and marines, to put down this act of insubordination. Mr. Shortland, who suffered from the not uncommon failing of a desire to magnify his office made the process as ridiculous as possible. He began by stealthily sending a scout on shore at daybreak to haul down the Company's flag in Wellington and hoist the Union Jack instead. Then he landed amongst the settlers, who had gathered to welcome him, in the fashion of a royal commander sent to suppress a rebellion. The settlers consoled themselves by laughing at him. Apart from one circular visit occupying two months, Captain Hobson himself kept sedulously away from the southern settlements, and stayed in the north, then a longer journey away from Wellington than Australia is now. Under the rather high-sounding title of Chief Protector of the Aborigines, Mr. Clarke, a missionary, was appointed to be the Governor's adviser on native matters; yet Mr. Clarke, the settlers complained, was a larger land claimant than any of themselves. It is not to be wondered at if a feeling grew up among the New Zealand settlers directed against both officials and missionaries, which at times intensified to great bitterness, and which took many years to die down. Even now its faint relics may be observed in a vague feeling of dislike and contempt for the Colonial Office.
The New Zealand Company, however, cannot be acquitted of blame in more respects than one. The foundation of the Wakefield theory rested on a secure supply of useful land. This not available, the bottom dropped out of the whole scheme. When in New Zealand the Company's estate was put into chancery, the Wakefield system could not, of course, work. Not only were the Company's purchases such as could not be sustained, not only did the directors hurry out thousands of settlers without proper knowledge or consideration, but they also committed a capital error in their choice of localities for settlements. Wellington, with its central position and magnificent harbour, is undeniably the key of New Zealand. It was in after years very properly made the seat of government, and is always likely to remain so. But it was an almost criminal error on the part of the Company to plump down its settlers in districts that were occupied and certain to be stubbornly held by warlike natives. Nearly the whole of the South Island had no human occupants. Shut off by the Kaikoura mountains from the more dangerous tribes, the east and south-east of that island lay open to the first comer. Moreover, the country there was not only fertile, but in large part treeless, and therefore singularly suited for rapid and profitable settlement. It is quite easy to see now that had the New Zealand Company begun its first operations there, a host of failures and troubles would have been avoided. The settlement of the North Island should not have been begun until after an understanding had been come to with the Imperial authorities and missionaries, and on a proper and legal system of land purchase. This and other things the Company might have found out if it had taken early steps to do so. The truth is that the first occupation of New Zealand was rushed, and, like everything else that is done in a hurry, it was in part done very badly.
So little was known or thought of the South Island that sovereignty was not proclaimed over it until four months after the Governor's arrival in the north, and even then the royal flag was not hoisted there. The consequence was a narrow escape from an attempt by the French to plant a colony at Akaroa in Banks Peninsula. The French frigate L'Aube put in at the Bay of Islands in July, 1840, bound for the south. Her captain, hospitably entertained by Hobson, let fall some incautious words about the object of his voyage. Hobson took the alarm, and promptly dispatched the Britomart to hoist the English flag at Akaroa. Thanks to bad weather, the Britomart only reached the threatened port a few days before the Frenchmen. Then it was found that an emigrant ship, with a number of French settlers, was coming with all the constituent parts of a small colony. The captain of L'Aube, finding himself forestalled, good-humouredly made the best of it. A number of the immigrants did indeed land. Some of them were afterwards taken away to the Marquesas Islands in the South Seas: others remained permanently settled at Akaroa. There around a bay, still called French Bay, they planted vineyards and built cottages in a fashion having some pathetic reminiscences of rural France. There they used to be visited from time to time by French men-of-war; but they gave no trouble to any one, and their children, by removal or intermarriage, became blended with the English population which in later days surrounded them.
Captain Hobson had to choose a capital. After throwing away much good money at Russell in the Bay of Islands, he saw that he must come further south. A broader-minded man might have gone at once to Wellington, and planted himself boldly amongst the English settlers. But the prejudice of the officials and the advice of the missionaries combined with Hobson's own peculiar views of the Cook's Straits colonists, to keep him in the north. From his despatches it is clear that he regarded the immigrants in the south—one of the finest bodies of settlers that ever left England—as dangerous malcontents of anarchical tendencies. As he would not go to Wellington and take his natural position at the head of the main English colony and at the centre of New Zealand, he did the next best thing in going to Auckland. In pitching upon the Waitemata isthmus he made so good a choice that his name is likely to be remembered therefore as long as New Zealand lasts. By founding the city of Auckland he not only took up a strategic position which cut the Maori tribes almost in half, but selected a very fine natural trading centre. The narrow neck of land on which Auckland stands between the winding Waitemata on the east and the broader Manu-kau Harbour on the west, will, before many years, be overspread from side to side by a great mercantile city. The unerring eye of Captain Cook had, seventy years before, noted the Hauraki Gulf as an admirable position. Hobson's advisers, in choosing it as his seat of Government, are said to have been the missionary, Henry Williams, and Captain Symonds, a surveyor. As the capital of New Zealand it was the wrong place from the first. From every other standpoint the selection was a master-stroke. Twenty-four years later Auckland ceased to be the capital of the Colony; but though in this she had to yield to the superior claims of Wellington, she could afford to lose the privilege. First in size and beauty, she is to-day second to no other New Zealand city in prosperity and progress.
In 1841, however, by way of making as bad a start as possible, little Auckland began with a land boom. Forty-four acres were sold at auction by the Government for £24,275. Small suburban lots a few months later fetched £45 an acre, and cultivation lots £8 an acre. For one or two picked city frontages as much as £7 10s. a foot was paid. The hanging up of the northern land claims, and the inability of the Government to buy native land while it refused to let private persons do so, joined, with a trade collapse in Australia, to make the condition of the Auckland settlers soon almost as unenviable as that of their fellow-colonists in the Company's settlements.
Governor Hobson died at Auckland after ruling New Zealand for a little less than three years. His best monument is the city which he founded, and the most memorable verdict on his life is written in a letter addressed by a Maori chief to the Queen. "Let not," said this petition, "the new Governor be a boy or one puffed up. Let not a troubler come amongst us. Let him be a good man like this Governor who has just died." When these words were written, the judgment of the English in New Zealand would have been very different. But time has vindicated Hobson's honesty and courage, and in some important respects even his discernment. He anticipated the French, baffled the land-sharks, kept the peace, was generous to the Maori, and founded Auckland. No bad record this for the harassed, dying sailor, sent to stand between his own countrymen and savages at the very end of the earth, and left almost without men or money! If under him the colonists found their lot almost unbearable, the fault was chiefly that of his masters. Most of his impolicy came from Downing Street; most of his good deeds were his own. It must be remembered that he was sent to New Zealand, not to push on settlement, but to protect the natives and assert the Queen's authority. These duties he never forgot.
Chapter XI
THROUGH WEAKNESS INTO WAR
"Awhile he makes some false way, undebarred
By thwarting signs, and braves