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He also succumbed to outside pressure. If we enquire further, we come upon the ugly serpent of sectarian jealousy. Taranaki was in the Wesleyan sphere of influence: Te Rangitaake was a churchman.
At any rate the old warrior gave a warm welcome to the young missionary, Hadfield, and insisted that he should live at Otaki under his protection. A meeting of a different character was that between Williams and his old scholar, Ripahau. This man had married a daughter of Rangitaake, or Wiremu Kingi, head chief of Waikanae, and had become a person of great influence in the tribe.
Who can judge in such a case, especially when the tangled skein is still further complicated by the action of an astute Maori whose affections had been wounded by a damsel who deserted him in order to become the daughter-in-law of Te Rangitaake?
Governor Gore-Browne, upon whom lay the direct responsibility in native matters, was an honourable man and the brother of a highly-respected English bishop; but, Ahab-like, he was brought to regard Te Rangitaake as a "rebel" and "an infamous character." And who was the Jezebel in this case?
Hadfield's staunch ally, Wiremu Kingi te Rangitaake, had, in 1848, carried his tribe back to Taranaki, where his ancestral possessions lay, and he too kept aloof from the movement.
Yet this minister thought himself in the right, and could at least point to a murder which had been committed, not by Rangitaake himself, but by another Maori with whom this chief had formed an alliance.
Patriotism and religion formed a continually strengthening bond. "It was this that disquieted the heart of Te Rangitaake," wrote Tamihana, "his church being burnt with fire." His own heart was disquieted also; and though he would not yet adopt Rangitaake's cause, he could not prevent some of the hot-heads of his tribe from going south to join in the Taranaki war.
Tamihana was touched by this appeal, and made another attempt to induce Rangitaake to submit his claim to arbitration. The chief refused, and the king-maker was driven to the conviction that his power was beginning to decline. It was passing into the hands of the more violent Rewi, who longed for war with the pakeha as keenly as some of the Taranaki settlers longed for war with the Maori.
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