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Updated: May 23, 2025
His manners had all the high-bred courtesy that marked the chief, and he was a noble-looking creature, full of native majesty and gentleness. Every hope was entertained of him, and he was sent, in 1820, to visit England, where he had an interview with George IV., and received presents of weapons from him. But the moral Hunghi brought home was, "There is but one king in England.
Marsden was in Australia, but he could hardly have prevented it. Probably the chief's ferocity, so long repressed, was in a state of reaction; for, though the missionaries were not molested, their efforts seemed lost. Hunghi declared that he wished his children to learn to fight, not to read; and the Maoris insisted on being paid for any service to the missionaries in fire-arms and powder.
Hunghi's head wife was working away with a wooden spade, though perfectly blind, and was delighted with the new instrument. Indeed, Hunghi was one of the most eager friends of the mission, though the splendidly tattooed heads of his enemies decorated his abode, and he defended cannibalism, on the ground that animals preyed upon one another, and that the gods devoured each other.
By the time he went again to New Zealand, in 1830, Hunghi had been killed in battle, and the nation was fast dwindling between war and a disease resembling the influenza.
Many had become true and sincere Christians, among them the widow and daughters of Hunghi. A Maori Christian woman was married by Mr. Marsden to an Englishman. She made all the responses in good English, and appeared in decent English clothes of her own sewing.
Leigh, the chief minister, very ill, offered him a passage to Sydney for advice, but this ship had scarcely weighed anchor before a great storm came on; the ship was lost, and the crew and passengers had to land in boats, and return for two months longer before a ship could be found to bring them home, and in this time he did all in his power to bring the Maories to agree to some settled form of government under a single chief; but though any chief, especially Hunghi, was quite willing to be that one, nobody would be anything secondary, and thus the project failed.
Duaterra, his uncle Hunghi, a very powerful chief, and five more, accepted an invitation to come and confer with Mr. Marsden, and the Active brought them back to New South Wales. They were very anxious for the benefits which they hoped to derive from intercourse with the whites, and readily undertook to secure Hall and King from all danger.
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