Victoria and South Australia. New Zealand was as much a favourite
as any, and when the New Zealand Company proposed in 1841 to form a new
colony somewhere in that country to be called Nelson, nearly 100,000
acres were sold at thirty shillings an acre to men who did not know even
in which island of New Zealand the land was to be situated. In April of
the same year the pioneers of the new settlement started in the ships
_Whitby_ and _Will Watch_, with about eighty settlers, their wives,
families and servants. Captain Arthur Wakefield was the leader, and he
took the ships to Wellington, where they waited while he went out to
search for a suitable site. He chose a place at the head of Tasman Bay,
where, in a green hollow fringed by a beautiful beach and embosomed deep
in majestic hills, the settlers soon gathered in the pretty little town
of Nelson. The soil was black earth resting on great boulders; out of it
grew low bushes easily cleared away, and here and there stood a few
clumps of trees to give a grateful shade. The place was shut in by the
hills so as to be completely sheltered from the boisterous gales of Cook
Strait, and altogether it was a place of dreamy loveliness. Its
possession was claimed by Rauparaha, the warrior, on the ground of
conquest. With him and other chiefs the settlers had a conference, the
result of which was that a certain specified area round the head of the
bay was purchased. But the white men regarded themselves as having the
right of superior beings to go where they wished and do with the land
what they wished. Finding a seam of good coal at a place outside their
purchase they did not in any way scruple to send a vessel to carry it
off, in spite of the protests of the Maoris.

#13. Death of Governor Hobson.#--These things hinted at troubles which
were to come, but in 1842 all things looked promising for the colonies
of New Zealand. There were altogether about 12,000 white persons, most
of them being men who wore blue shirts and lived on pork and potatoes.
Auckland the capital had 3,000 but, Wellington was the largest town with
4,000 people. Next to that came Nelson with 2,500; New Plymouth and
Wanganui were much smaller but yet thriving places. They had no less
than nine newspapers, most of them little primitive sheets, but
wonderful in communities so young. In October, 1841, Dr. George Selwyn
was appointed to be Bishop of New Zealand; and he left England with a
number of clergymen who settl