We have gone through the history of his home troubles before entering on
the part that concerned his missionary labours. It is a painful picture,
but the staunch firmness that never failed to "boldly rebuke vice," is
too essential a part of the picture to be passed over. The Apostle of
New Zealand was the Baptist of the Herods of Australia. We return to the
year 1816, when, after some months' training in agriculture at Mr.
Marsden's farm, Duaterra had sailed for his home, but only again to
suffer from the perfidy of the master of the ship. The ordinary English
mind seemed incapable of perceiving that any faith need be kept with a
dark-coloured man, and Duaterra was defrauded of his share of the oil
procured from the whales he had helped to catch, carried past his own
shores, only two miles from the _pah_ where the master had engaged to
land him, and turned adrift in the then uninhabited Norfolk Island, where
a whaler picked him up almost starved, and brought him back to Australia.
However, Mr. Marsden found another ship, which did fulfil its
engagements, and Duaterra was at last set ashore in the Bay of Islands,
close to the northern point of New Zealand, with a supply of wheat which
Mr. Marsden had given him.

Two years had passed, and Mr. Marsden had been trying to procure from the
Society at home a mission ship to carry teachers to the islands, visit
them, and supply their wants there, but he had not as yet succeeded, and
he therefore decided on purchasing a small one from Australia at his own
expense. This was the _Active_, the first of the mission vessels that
now bear the Cross in several quarters of the globe. In her Hall and
King sailed, and Mr. Marsden would have accompanied them but for the
express prohibition of Governor Macquarie, who, little as he loved his
senior chaplain, did not choose to lose him on what he regarded as a
scheme of almost fanatic folly. The two teachers were not to settle on
shore, nor even to sleep there, but they were to visit Duaterra,
reconnoitre the ground, and see whether it would be possible to settle
there as they had at first proposed.

To their delight, Duaterra came eagerly to meet them, very anxious for
their assistance with his corn. He had shown it to his tribe, telling
them that hence came the bread and biscuit they had eaten in English
ships, and great had been their disappointment when neither the ear nor
the root of the wheat proved at all like these articles.