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Updated: May 10, 2025
With his sons he was again at Russell, on the morrow, using his influence to keep some sort of order, until intoxication began among the victorious Maoris. Yet, even when they burnt the town, these "savages" were careful to save the churches and the parsonages; and a few days later Heke called on Williams at Paihia, and in the kindest tones begged him to move inland out of harm's way.
Hardly had Henry Williams returned to Paihia from his great journey through the heart of the island, when a warship arrived in the Bay, bearing Captain William Hobson with a commission from Queen Victoria, authorising him to annex the country to the British Crown. As a matter of fact, the captain could have done but little had he not secured the co-operation of this influential missionary.
The Wesleyans were panic-stricken and fled overland to Kerikeri. They were received there and at Paihia with brotherly welcome by men who felt that their own turn might soon come. "It is not easy," writes Bishop Williams, "to describe this breach which had been made upon the mission body."
The stations were not far apart, and constant brotherly intercourse was maintained between the occupants. When the Wesleyans fled from their homes in the turmoil of 1827, it was to Kerikeri and Paihia that they betook themselves in the first place, and it was Marsden's parsonage at Parramatta that sheltered them afterwards.
As a chief said at the unveiling of the monument which the Maori Church erected to his memory at Paihia: "This island was a very hard stone, and it was Archdeacon Williams who broke it." Within a few days of Henry Williams' death, Bishop Selwyn sailed for England, to attend the first meeting of bishops at Lambeth. While in England he was offered by the prime minister the bishopric of Lichfield.
Learning, teaching, and translating occupied the brotherhood at Paihia, while Davis was farming at Kerikeri or Waimate, and the Wesleyans were founding a station further north at Whangaroa. Outside these quiet spots there was still turmoil and bloodshed. The year 1827 was a particularly stormy period. Hongi raided Whangaroa and there received a dangerous wound.
Nor was it only the men who felt the power of his arm. A story is told of an encounter with some shameless women who had crossed from Kororareka to taunt his school-girls at Paihia. The missionaries were busy at a translation meeting, and at first sent some peaceful messengers to bid the "ship-girls" depart. The messengers came back discomfited, and the behaviour grew more wanton and defiant.
But before he could buy the land from its Maori possessors, he was disabled by a stroke of illness, and returned invalided to find nursing and medical attention at the mission station of Waimate. During the period of his convalescence he fixed his abode at Russell a house just opposite to Paihia and the Auckland scheme was left in abeyance.
Accordingly, the new missionary was placed at Paihia, a village whose open beach lay opposite to Kororareka, the great resort of European ships, from whose crews the Maoris were acquiring vices and diseases more hideous than their own. Its central situation gave to Paihia great advantages, and it soon became the real focus of the mission.
Outwardly the most striking achievements of these schools were the annual examinations which took place at the close of the years 1828 to 1830. Twice the scholars from Paihia and Rangihoua were taken by boat to Kerikeri, where the proceedings lasted for two or three days, and always finished with a generous feast.
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