ers." He adhered to his purpose,
and his daughter, Martha, who had been with him on his last voyage,
accompanied him again in this. There had been some quarrels with the
crews of ships, but the natives always separated Mr. Marsden from the
misdeeds of his people, and the old chiefs were delighted to see him.
"Stay with us and learn our language," one of them said: "become our
father and our friend, and we will build you a house." "No," replied
another, "we cannot build a house good enough, but we will hire Europeans
to do it for us."

Wherever he went, he was hailed as the friend of the Maori, and he made a
progress through all the mission stations, which were growing up
numerously, and whence Christianity was fast spreading by the agency of
the Maories themselves. A chief named Koromona, made captive in Hunghi's
great war, who had become blind, had been converted by Mr. William
Williams, and soon learnt the whole Liturgy, with many chapters of the
Bible, and hymns, by heart, and was fit to be sent as a teacher among the
other tribes. Sunday was generally observed, cannibalism and polygamy
were retreating into the more remote and heathenish regions, and there
was every token that the noble Apostle of New Zealand had verily
conquered a country and people for the Church of God. Terrible wars
among the tribes, provoking all the old ferocities, still were liable to
arise, and the whaling crews, among whom might be found some of the most
unscrupulous, licentious, and violent of mankind, continued to take
advantage of there being no regular jurisdiction to commit outrages,
which spread corruption or provoked retaliation, and for this there was
no remedy but annexation to the British crown, which the influence of the
mission was leading the natives themselves to desire, though this was not
carried out till after Mr. Marsden's death.

This last visit took place in 1837. By that time the persecutions and
troubles of Mr. Marsden's colonial life had been outlived,--though even
as late as 1828, he writes about a pamphlet which actually charged him
with inflicting torture to extract confession! But his character
outweighed all such absurd charges, and as a more respectable class of
settlers flowed into the colony he was better appreciated. What the tone
must have been may be guessed from the fact that when, in 1825, Governor
Darling began regularly to attend church with his wife and family, it was
regarded as an unexampled