Trouble with Natives at Te Aro.

Since the arrival of the Government authorities the natives of the Te Aro and Pipitea Pas had become more and more suspicious and distant towards the colonists. It was on the 26th of August, 1840, that this feeling first produced any outbreak. Captain Edward Daniell, who had lived, up to the time of the selection, with his wife and family in a ragged but page 67

Fig. 27—Pipitea Pa 1841. Reference Numbers: 1. Native Chief's House; 2. British Flag (Proclamation read 4/6/1840); 3. N.Z. Coy's houses for Emigrants; 4. Bellsize (Pipitea) Point.

Fig. 28—Pipitea Point 1840.

Fig. 29—Britannia (Thorndon), 1840. From a sketch by Captain Stanley, H.M.S. Britomart, in the writer's collection.

page 68 on the beach at Thorndon, had begun to erect a wooden house on one of the town acres which he had chosen. As this happened to be on a deserted garden of the Te Aro people, they had obstructed his proceedings in some way, and a quarrel had ensued. A report got about that Captain Daniell had been struck down by a blow from a tomahawk; and all who heard the report rushed to the spot with their arms in readiness for any emergency. The difference was amicably settled soon after the muster of the settlers. Their readiness to support in his supposed danger, a member of the community, who was known as well for his kindness of heart as for his courage, appeared to alarm the Colonial Secretary, for on the 27th a printed notice was circulated about the setlement, couched in these terms:—

“Whereas certain persons residing at Port Nicholson, N.Z., part of the dominions of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, did, on the evening of yesterday, assemble with arms at a native pah named Tarinaki.

“Now, therefore, I Willoughby Shortland, a Magistrate and Colonial Secretary of N.Z., do caution all persons from assembling under arms on any pretence whatever, without being duly authorised so to do, upon the allegiance they owe to Her Majesty Queen Victoria.

“Given under my hand, at Port Nicholson, this 27th day of August, 1840.

Willoughby Shortland,

Colon. Sec. and Chief Magistrate.”

This, as well as other matters, did not serve to increase the Colonial Secretary's popularity, and the following extract from a letter written to England by one of the leading men of the Port, shows that Lieut. Shortland had not spared the attempt to injure the settlement more seriously.

Wakefield writes: — “Mr Shortland, during the short time he has been here, has made himself universally disliked by a sort of quarter-deck assumption of authority, which does not go down with the class of people residing here; but he is still more disliked on account of many covert attempts to entice away the labourers of this place. Thanks to our exertions and those of the Colonel, he has been almost entirely unsuccessful, except in one solitary instance.”