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Some of these may have been what Mr. Rusden acidly styles them all "dissipated Pakeha-Maoris living with Maori Delilahs." But they were Englishmen, and had four old ship's guns. They decided to make a fight of it for their women and children and their trade. They got their carronades ready, and laboured to infuse a little order and system into the excitable mob around them.
Where is there in the elaborate histories of Rusden, Lang, Blair, and Flanagan, or in any of the numerous books of sketches and reminiscences written by persons who have visited or temporarily resided in Australia, a view of the picturesque variety, colour, and splendid energy of the great first race for gold to compare with that given in the second volume of The Miner's Right, or with the memorable account of what Starlight and the Marstons saw at Turon during their temporary retirement from the highway?
Rusden, in which the former, who has been native minister in the Government, recovered £5000 damages against the defendant, the author of a History of New Zealand.
But Swainson's is the fairest and most careful account of the time from the official, philo-Maori and anti-Company side, and may be taken as a safe antidote to Jerningham Wakefield, Sir W.T. Power, Hursthouse, and others. A comparison with Rusden, when the two are on the same ground, shows Swainson to be the better writer all round.
Rusden speaks no more than the truth when he declares that "Henry Williams had but to raise his finger, and his mana would have weighed more with the Maoris than the devices of Colonel Wakefield or the office of Hobson."
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