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Shortland's successor was on his way out, and there was reason in waiting for him. Now had come the result of Hobson's error in fixing the seat of government in Auckland, and in keeping the leading officials there. Had Wellington been the seat of government in 1843, the Wairau incident could hardly have occurred. Not the least of poor Mr. Shortland's troubles were financial.
Before this reached him he had drifted into the last and worst of his misfortunes, an unsuccessful war, the direct result of the defeat at the Wairau and the weakness shown thereafter. It was not that he and his missionary advisers did not try hard enough to avert any conflict with the Maoris. If conciliation pushed to the verge of submission could have kept the peace, it would have been kept.
It is hardly to be wondered at that the latter, in June, 1843, committed the very great mistake which led to the one misfortune from which the unhappy Colony had so far escaped war. In the north-east corner of the South Island lies the grassy valley of the Wairau.
If a Maori chief went to a white man's town, he was allowed to wander in the street; or if at all accosted it was with the condescension of a superior race to a race of servants. The Maori blood was firing up. The story of Wairau made them change their mind about the white man's courage. The whalers had been hearts of daring; these new-comers had run and bawled for their lives.
Opening from the harbour are sundry great estuaries, resembling the sea-lochs of Western Scotland. They are the Kaipara, the Hoteo, the Oruawharo, the Otamatea, the Wairau, the Arapaoa, and the Wairoa. Several of these have branches. Thus the Pahi, to which we are going, branches out of the Arapaoa. They are fed by creeks that is to say, by freshwater rivers, as one would call them at home.
A day or two after the massacre, a Wesleyan clergyman went out from Nelson to Wairau and reverently buried those ghastly bodies with the cloven skulls. Not one had been mangled, far less had there been any cannibalism.
Some thousands of acres between the Pahi and the Wairau had once grown their taro and kumera and hue, together with potatoes and other things introduced by Captain Cook. Marahemo Pa was the capital of the district. Its position, occupying the crest of a sugar-loaf hill, defended by earthworks and stockades, must have made it seem impregnable to people unacquainted with artillery.
Hence the land sales stopped; the Governor owed £20,000 more than he could pay, and so he was confronted with troubles from his very first arrival. Wairau Massacre.# Just before he came an incident had happened which deepened the trouble of the colony.
When they landed at the mouth of the Wairau River, Piraha, a Christian native, met them and begged them not to go on, as Rauparaha was ready to fight, but they paid no attention, and after marching eight miles up the pretty valley they saw the Maoris about 100 in number standing behind the stream, which though only waist-deep had a rushing current of chilly water.
Our loss had been thirty-one killed and wounded, and it was small consolation to know that, thanks to the ship's guns, the Maoris' had been three times as great. The disaster was a greater blow to the English Mana than even the Wairau Massacre. But the settlements showed spirit everywhere, and under the stress of the time the Governor forgot some of his prejudices.
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