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Adventurous and inquiring as he was intelligent and good-natured, Ruatara spent nearly nine years of his life away from his native land. At London his captain refused to pay him his wages or to help him to see King George, and solitary, defrauded, and disappointed, the young wanderer fell sick nigh unto death.
Thus was the life of this staunch ally a life which might have been of the first value to the Maori race thrown away. Though the missionary's friend, Ruatara died a heathen, and his head wife hung herself in customary Maori form. Such was the setting up of the first mission station. Its founders were sterling men. Kendall had been a London schoolmaster in good circumstances.
The brig did not enter this dreaded haven, but, seeing an armed force on the coast to the south, Marsden resolved to land and to attempt to conciliate these hostile people. Ruatara and Hongi acted as intermediaries, and friendly relations were soon established between the missionaries and the cannibals.
They will meet again next year in the parsonage of Parramatta, and then the results of their separate courses will begin to show themselves. Hongi, though less definitely favourable to the mission than had been his nephew Ruatara, had hitherto always stood its friend.
Ruatara received them with open arms, and they returned to Sydney after a peaceful visit, bringing with them not only their enthusiastic host, but two other chiefs Koro Koro and Hongi, the last-named fated to become the scourge and destroyer of his race. At last Marsden was permitted to sail to New Zealand.
These were Ruatara and his employer who had robbed him of his wages and had now no further use for him. "Will you take him back to Australia?" said the heartless master. "Not unless you find him some clothes," said the captain of the Ann. The clothes were procured, and the Maori was allowed to go below. There he lay sick in body and mind.
Ruatara was very much pleased that he had been able to make all necessary preparations for the performance of divine worship in so short a time, and we felt much obliged to him for his attention. He was extremely anxious to convince us that he would do everything in his power, and that the good of his country was his principal consideration.
How this resolve was carried out makes one of the pleasantest pages of New Zealand history. The first step was his rescue of Ruatara. In 1809 a roaming Maori sailor had worked his passage to London, in the hope of seeing the great city and greatest sight of all King George III. The sailor was Ruatara, a Bay of Islands chief.
Together they talked of the savage islands, which one longed to see and the other to regain. Nor did their friendship end with the voyage. More adventures and disappointments awaited Ruatara before he at last reached home. Once in a whale ship he actually sighted the well-beloved headlands of the Bay of Islands, and brought up all his goods and precious presents ready to go on shore.
It might seem at first as though the explanation of Maori Christianity were a fairly simple matter. Yet such a conclusion would be very far removed from the truth. Undoubtedly the prestige of the white man's civilisation gave a valuable leverage at first, as in the notable case of Ruatara.
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