ring justice
between fickle savages and white men who were in general so ruffianly as
those who then dwelt in New Zealand. The atrocities of the _Harriet_
episode did some good, however, for along with other circumstances they
stirred up the English Government to make some inquiries into the manner
in which Englishmen treated the natives of uncivilised countries. These
inquiries showed much injustice and sometimes wanton cruelty, and when a
petition came from the respectable people of Kororarika, asking that
some check should be put upon the licence of the low white men who
frequented that port, the English Government resolved to annex New
Zealand if the Maoris were willing to be received into the British
Empire. For that purpose they chose Captain Hobson, a worthy and upright
sea-captain, who in his ship of war, the _Rattlesnake_, had seen much of
Australia and New Zealand. It was he who had taken Sir Richard Bourke to
Port Phillip in 1837, and Hobson's Bay was named in his honour. After
that he had been sent by Bourke to the Bay of Islands to inquire into
the condition of things there, and when he had gone home to England he
had given evidence as to the disorder which prevailed in New Zealand. He
was sent in a war-ship, the _Druid_, with instructions to keep the white
men in order, and to ask the natives if they would like to become
subjects of Queen Victoria and live under her protection. If they agreed
to do so, he was to form New Zealand into an English colony and he was
to be its Lieutenant-Governor under the general control of the Governor
of New South Wales.

Hobson reached Sydney at the end of 1839 and conferred with Governor
Gipps, who helped him to draw up proclamations and regulations for the
work to be done. On leaving Sydney, Hobson took with him a treasurer and
a collector of customs for the new colony, a sergeant of police and four
mounted troopers of the New South Wales force, together with a police
magistrate to try offenders, and two clerks to assist in the work of
government. It was the 29th of January, 1840, when he landed at the Bay
of Islands. Next day, on the beach, he read several proclamations, one
of which asserted that all British subjects, even though resident in New
Zealand, were still bound to obey British laws; and another declared
that as white men were tricking the Maoris into selling vast tracts of
land for goods of little value, all such bargains made after that date
would be illegal,