d they made friends with the Maoris of the district. A Pakeha Maori
named Barrett acted as interpreter. The natives went on board the
_Tory_, were shown 239 muskets, 300 blankets, 160 tomahawks and axes,
276 shirts, together with a quantity of looking-glasses, scissors,
razors, jackets, pots, and scores of other things, with eighty-one kegs
of gunpowder, two casks of cartridges and more than a ton of tobacco.
They were asked if they would sell all the land that could be seen from
the ship in return for these things. They agreed, signed some papers and
took the goods on shore, where they at once began to use the muskets in
a grand fight among themselves for the division of the property. It was
soon discovered that the site of the town was too much exposed to
westerly gales, and the majority of the settlers crossed Port Nicholson
to a narrow strip of grassy land between a pretty beach and some steep
hills. Here was founded the town called Wellington, after the famous
duke.

By this time the settlers were arriving thick and fast. The first came
in the _Aurora_, which reached the settlement on 22nd January, 1840;
other ships came at short intervals, till there were twelve at anchor in
Port Nicholson. The settlers were pleased with the country; they landed
in good spirits and set to work to make themselves houses. All was
activity--surveyors, carpenters, bricklayers, blacksmiths, every one
busy, and rapidly a smart little town of some hundred houses rose behind
the beach. The Maoris came and helped in the work, getting three or four
shillings a day for their services, and proving themselves very handy in
many ways. All were in sanguine spirits, when word came from Governor
Hobson at Auckland that, in accordance with his proclamation, all
purchases of land from the natives were illegal, he having come to
protect the Maoris from imposition.

#9. The Land Question.#--Now Colonel Wakefield had fancied that he had
bought 20,000,000 acres for less than L9,000 worth of goods, and he was
assigning it as fast as he could to people who had paid L1 an acre to
the company in England. Here was a sad fix. The Governor sent down his
chief officer, Mr. Shortland, who rode across the island with the
mounted police, and told the settlers not to fancy the land theirs, as
he would ere long have to turn them off. Disputes arose, for it seemed
absurd that fifty-eight Maori chiefs should sell the land on which many
thousands of people dwelt, th