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Extract from a letter from Baron Charles de Thierry to the Sydney Gazette, 17 December, 1837

The Wesleyan missionaries had purchased a portion of my lands over me, and Mr. Russell and Mr. White had also purchased, in full knowledge of my previous claims.… Nene (now called Thomas Walker) at length agreed to give me possession of a district, part of which had been repurchased by Captain Young, who acceded to the arrangement on condition of receiving £100 to withdraw his pretensions.

[Note added by Robin Hyde:]

(This, by the way, Charles, not having the cash in his pockets at the time, paid off in negro-head tobacco, a fact out of which the historians have had some fun. But no doubt Captain Young turned his profit.)

page 113

In my absence from Mr. McDonnell's place, he began the most diabolical tissue of false representations, and seduced the greater part of my emigrants from me. He offered to find them in provisions for twelve months, to build them good residences, to give them lands and furnish them with oxen to plough them.… Each individual was to have repaid me his passage money and that of his wife and childen if he left my employ before the expiration of twelve months, but McDonnell told them that they might snap their fingers at me, for there was no law in New Zealand. He employed my boat-builder to repair his boats, my painter in repainting his long-boats, my tailor in making clothes, and without permission or compunction appropriated to his service all those I had brought at such heavy cost for my own.… Thanks to this plausible man, I have been left without carpenters to build my houses, without blacksmiths to work the iron I had brought with me, and am reduced to the necessity of employing my farming men as carpenters. McDonnell's aim was the frustration of my expedition, but he has failed. I have a few men remaining who are faithful, and have already gained the confidence and affection of the natives, whom I treat in all respects as white men. I have a sufficiency of labourers. My white farming men have already broken up and dressed several acres, ready now to receive corn and potatoes. I have cleared a road upwards of a mile long, and have made other smaller roads. We have a house and outbuildings. I have sunk a deep well and given to this previously wild place an appearance of civilisation.…

Good as my opinion has always been of the New Zealanders, it is greatly improved by a closer connection with them. They are mere children, it is true, but they are gifted with kind and friendly feelings and I find them both intelligent and trustworthy, and that they are willing to work cannot be better illustrated than by the great portion of labour which in a few weeks has been done on this place.

The greatest bar to their improvement is the blanket, which they prefer to other garments because they are poor and unprotected, and it serves them for clothing by day and covering by night. If properly paid and receiving a fair remuneration for their labours, they would soon be supplied with coverings for the night, and proper clothing for their persons. It is their incessant aim, and I find that those who possess a few articles of dress wear them until they no longer hold together.

The country abounds with natural resources. The timber is magnificent, and I am surrounded by thousands of acres ready for page 114 the plough. On my own lands, I have shell for lime, abundance of fine timber, stone enough to erect houses for centuries to come, fine gravel for roads, river sand for mortar, clay for bricks and earthenware, potters' clay, abundance of clear and delicious water. ….