The Life and Labours of the Rev. Samuel Marsden Part 2

Mr. Marsden continued to be through life the confidential adviser of the London Missionary Society, and the warm friend and, as they pa.s.sed to and fro upon their voyages, the kind host of their missionaries.

His character was now established. The colony was rapidly increasing in importance; and yet no change had been made in its government, which was still committed to the absolute direction of a single mind, that of the colonial governor. He too was a military officer, and not always one of high position and large capacity, or even of the purest morals; for by such men the governorship of his Majesty's territory in New South Wales would have then been disdained. Mr. Marsden had done much, but much more remained to be accomplished. There were mischiefs that lay far beyond his reach, and spurned control. On the first establishment of the colony all the military officers were forbidden to take their wives with them--the governor and chaplains were the only exceptions--and there is one instance of a lady whose love to her husband led her to steal across the ocean in the disguise of a sailor, who was actually sent home again by Governor Phillip without being permitted to land. Our readers may antic.i.p.ate the consequences which followed in an almost universal licentiousness. The most abandoned females often appeared fearlessly before the magistrates, well knowing that they would have impunity even for the greatest crimes; and male offenders used their influence to obtain a judgment in their favour. Expostulation, remonstrance, and entreaty Mr. Marsden had tried in vain. "Of all existing spots in New South Wales the court of judicature at Sydney," it was publicly affirmed, "was the most iniquitous and abandoned;" and at length a rebellious spirit broke out, and the authority of the governor, even in his military capacity, was at an end. The efforts of the faithful chaplain were now thwarted at the fountain head, and his life was not unfrequently in danger. Mr. Marsden's sagacity fastened the conviction on his mind that a crisis was at hand, which could only be averted by the interference of the government at home. He therefore asked for, and obtained, permission to revisit England. His fears were just; he had already a.s.sisted in quelling one rebellion, and another of a more serious nature broke out soon after he embarked, which drove the governor from the colony, and ended in his recall, and the establishment of a new order of things. The spiritual fruit of Mr. Marsden's labours had not yet been great, but already the foundations had been laid for extensive usefulness. On the eve of his departure, he was presented with a gratifying address, bearing the signatures of three hundred and two persons, "the holders of landed estates, public offices, and other princ.i.p.al inhabitants of the large and extensive settlements of Hawkesbury, Nepean, and Portland-Head, and adjacent parts of New South Wales," conveying "their grateful thanks for his pious, humane, and exemplary conduct throughout this whole colony, in the various and arduous situations held by him as a minister of the gospel, superintendent magistrate, inspector of public, orphan, and charity schools, and in other offices." They thank him too for "his attention and cares in the improvement of stock, agriculture, and in all other beneficial and useful arts, for the general good of the colony, and for his unremitting exertions for its prosperity," and conclude thus:--"Your sanct.i.ty, philanthropy, and disinterestedness of character, will ever remain an example to future ministers; and that G.o.d, whom we serve, may pour down his blessings upon you and yours to the latest posterity, is the sincere prayer of those who sign this address."

CHAPTER IV.

Various measures devised for the benefit of New South Wales--The establishment of Missions in New Zealand--Friendship with Dr.

Mason Good.

Mr. Marsden returned home in His Majesty's ship Buffalo, after an absence of fourteen years. On the voyage he had one of those hair-breadth deliverances in which devout Christians recognise the hand of G.o.d. The Buffalo was leaky when she sailed, and a heavy gale threatening, it was proposed that the pa.s.sengers should quit the ship and take refuge in a stauncher vessel which formed one of the fleet. Mr.

Marsden objected, Mrs. Marsden being unwilling to leave Mrs. King, the wife of Governor King, who was returning in the same vessel, and who was at the time an invalid. In the night, the expected storm came on. In the morning, the eyes of all on board the crazy Buffalo were strained in vain to discover their companion. She was never heard of more, and no doubt had foundered in the hurricane.

On his arrival in London he waited on the under secretary of state to report his return, and learned from him that his worst fears had been realized, and that the colony was already in a state of open insurrection, headed by the "New South Wales Corps," who were leagued with several of the wealthier traders. The insurrection was, however, suppressed, and Lieut.-colonel Macquarie was sent out with his regiment to a.s.sume the government. Lord Castlereagh, the colonial minister, was quick to perceive the value of such an adviser on the affairs of Australia as Mr. Marsden, and encouraged him to lay before the government a full statement of his views. Seldom has it happened to a private individual to be charged with weightier or more various affairs, never perhaps with schemes involving more magnificent results. As the obscure chaplain from Botany Bay paced the Strand, from the colonial office at Whitehall to the chambers in the city where a few pious men were laying plans for Christian missions in the southern hemisphere, he was in fact charged with projects upon which not only the civilization, but the eternal welfare, of future nations were suspended. Nor was he unconscious of the greatness of the task. With a total absence of romance or enthusiasm--for his mind was wanting in the imaginative faculty on which enthusiasm feeds--he was yet fully alive to the possible consequences of his visit to his native sh.o.r.es, and intensely interested in his work. He aimed at nothing less than to see Australia a great country; and, with a yet firmer faith, he expected the conversion of the cannibal tribes of New Zealand and the Society Islands; and this at a time when even statesmen had only learned to think of New South Wales as a national prison, and when the conversion of New Zealanders was regarded as a hopeless task, even by the majority of Christian men, and treated by the world with indifference or scorn. In fact, during this short visit he may be said to have planned, perhaps unconsciously, the labours of his whole life, and to have laid the foundation for all the good of which he was to be the instrument.

Let us first turn to the efforts he made for the settlements in New South Wales. The improvement of the convict population was his primary object, and his more immediate duty. He had observed that by far the greater number of reformed criminals consisted of those who had intermarried, or whose wives had been able to purchase their pa.s.sage over, and he suggested that those of the convicts' wives who chose to do so should be permitted to accompany their husbands even at the public expense. This was refused, and it was almost the only point upon which his representations failed; but, as a compromise, the wives of the officers and soldiers were permitted to accompany their husbands, and not less than three hundred immediately went with a single regiment. To encourage honesty and industry he recommended not only remission of the sentence to the well conducted convict, but a grant of land to a certain extent; with which the government complied. But he had no weak and foolish sympathy with crime, and long after the period at which we are now writing, he continued to incur the hatred of a certain cla.s.s by protesting, as he never ceased to do, against the monstrous impropriety of placing men, however wealthy, who had themselves been convicts, on the magisterial bench. Amongst the convicts he had observed that the greater number were acquainted with some branch of mechanics or manufactures; at present, they were unemployed, or occupied in labour for which they were unfit, and which was therefore irksome to themselves and of no advantage to the colony. He therefore suggested that one or two practical mechanics with small salaries, and one or two general manufacturers, should be sent out to instruct the convicts. But here a serious obstacle presented itself; for this was the age of commercial prohibitions, and it was objected that the manufacturers of the mother country would be injured by such a step. Mr. Marsden met the objection at once. If the government would but accede to the proposal, "he would undertake that the enormous expense at which the country was for clothing the convicts should entirely cease within a certain period."

The wool of the government flocks and the flesh of the wild cattle was already sufficient to provide both food and raiment for the convicts without any expense to the parent state, and all he prayed for was, the opportunity of turning those advantages to the best account. These requests were granted, and on the same night, and at his own cost, he set off by the mail for Warwickshire and Yorkshire in search of four artisans and manufacturers, who were soon upon their way to the scene of their future operations.

The vast importance of Australia as the source on which the English manufacturer must at some future day depend for his supplies of wool, had already occupied his thoughts. He found that within three years his own stock without any care on his part, (for his farm was entirely managed in his absence by a trusty bailiff who had been a convict,) had upon an average been doubled in number and value. With the energy which was natural to him, he carried some of his own wool to Leeds, where he had it manufactured, and he had the satisfaction to learn that it was considered equal, if not superior, to that of Saxony or France. His private letters abound with intimations that ere long Australia must become the great wool-producing country to which the English manufacturer would look. He was introduced to king George the Third, and took the liberty, through Sir Joseph Banks, of praying for a couple of Merino sheep, His Majesty's property, to improve the breed; and his last letter from England, dated from the Cowes Roads, mentions their reception on board. We antic.i.p.ate a little, but must quote the letter, were it only to let the reader see how possible it is to be at once diligent in business and fervent in spirit. "We are this moment getting under weigh, and soon expect to be upon the ocean. I have received a present of five Spanish sheep from the king's flock, which are all on board; if I am so fortunate as to get them out they will be a most valuable acquisition to the colony. I leave England with much satisfaction, having obtained so fully the object of my mission. It is the good hand of our G.o.d that hath done these things for us. I have the prospect of getting another pious minister. I am writing to him on the subject this morning, and I hope he will soon follow us.... On Sunday I stood on the long boat and preached from Ezekiel xviii. 27: 'When the wicked man turneth away,' etc. It was a solemn time, many of the convicts were affected. We sang the Hundredth Psalm in the midst of a large fleet. The number of souls on board is more than four hundred. G.o.d may be gracious to some of them; though exiled from their country and friends, they may cry unto him in a foreign land, when they come like the Jews of old to hang their harps upon the willows, and weep when they remember Zion, or rather when they remember England."[F]

[F] To Avison Terry, Esq., Hull.

The spiritual wants of the colony were not forgotten. He induced the government to send out three additional clergymen and three schoolmasters; and happily the selection was intrusted to his own judgment. A disciple in the school of Venn and Milner, he knew that the ordinances of the church, though administered by a moral and virtuous man, or by a zealous philanthropist, were not enough. He sought for men who were "renewed in the spirit of their minds;" who uttered no mere words of course when they said at their ordination that they "believed themselves moved thereto by the Holy Ghost." But here again his task was difficult; clergymen of such a stamp were but few; the spirit of missionary enterprise was almost unfelt; and, to say the truth, there was a missionary field at home, dark and barbarous, and far too wide for the few such labourers of this cla.s.s whom the Lord had yet "sent forth into his harvest." Mr. Marsden, however, nothing daunted, went from parish to parish till he met with two admirable men, the Rev. Mr. Cowper and the Rev. Robert Cartwright, who, with their families, accompanied him on his return. His choice was eminently successful. In a short account of Mr. Marsden, published in Australia in 1844, they are spoken of as still living, pious and exemplary clergymen, the fathers of families occupying some of the most important posts in the colony, and, "notwithstanding their advancing years and increasing infirmities," it is added, "there are few young men in the colony so zealous in preaching the gospel, and in promoting the interests of the church of England."

The schoolmasters too, we believe, did honour to his choice. He had already established two public free-schools for children of both s.e.xes, and he was now able to impart the elements of a pious education, and to train them in habits of industry and virtue. Into all these plans the archbishop of Canterbury cordially entered, and wisely and liberally left it to the able founder to select his agents and a.s.sociates.

Mr. Marsden likewise urged upon the home administration the necessity of a female Penitentiary; and obtained a promise that a building should be provided. That he was deeply alive to the importance of an inst.i.tution of this kind, is manifest in his own description of the state of the female prisoners in the earlier years of the colony, and the deplorable picture he draws of their immorality and wretchedness. "When I returned to England in 1807," he says, "there were upwards of fourteen hundred women in the colony; more than one thousand were unmarried, and nearly all convicts: many of them were exposed to the most dangerous temptations, privations and sufferings; and no suitable asylum had been provided for the female convicts since the establishment of the colony.

On my arrival in London in 1808, I drew up two memorials on their behalf, stating how much they suffered from want of a proper barrack--a building for their reception. One of these memorials I presented to the under secretary of state, and the other to his grace the archbishop of Canterbury. They both expressed their readiness to promote the object."

Years, however, pa.s.sed before the consent of the colonial governor could be gained; and Mr. Marsden's benevolent exertions on behalf of these outcast women were for some time frustrated.

The variety of his engagements at this time was equal to their importance. He had returned home charged with an almost infinite multiplicity of business. He was the agent of almost every poor person in the colony who had, or thought he had, important business at home.

Penny-postages lay in the same dim future with electric telegraphs and steam-frigates, and he was often burdened with letters from Ireland and other remote parts (so wrote a friend, who published at the time a sketch of his proceedings in the "Eclectic Review,") the postage of which, for a single day, has amounted to a guinea; which he cheerfully paid, from the feeling that, although many of these letters were of no use whatever, they were written with a good intention, and under a belief that they were of real value. He had already been saluted, like the Roman generals of old, with the t.i.tle of common father of his adopted country; and one of his last acts before he quitted England, was to procure, by public contributions and donations of books, "what he called a lending library" (so writes the reviewer,[G] and the expression seems to have amused him from its novelty), "consisting of books on religion, morals, mechanics, agriculture, and general history, to be lent out under his own control and that of his colleagues, to soldiers, free settlers, convicts, and others who had time to read." In this, too, he succeeded, and took over with him a library of the value of between three and four hundred pounds.

[G] Eclectic Review, vol. v. pp. 988-995.

It was during this two-years'-visit to his native land, that Mr. Marsden laid the foundation of the Church of England mission to New Zealand. In its consequences, civil and religious, this has already proved one of the most extraordinary and most successful of those achievements, which are the glory of the churches in these later times. This was the great enterprise of his life: he is known already, and will be remembered while the church on earth endures, as the apostle of New Zealand. Not that we claim for him the exclusive honour of being the only one although we believe he was, in point of time, the first who began, about this period, to project a mission to New Zealand. The Wesleyans were early in the same field. The Rev. Samuel Leigh, a man whose history and natural character bore a marked resemblance to those of Mr. Marsden, was the pioneer of Methodism, and proved himself a worthy herald of the cross amongst the New Zealanders. A warm friendship existed between the two. On his pa.s.sage homewards he was a guest at Paramatta; and no tinge of jealousy ever appears to have shaded their intercourse, each rejoicing in the triumphs of the other. Still, Mr. Marsden's position afforded him peculiar facilities, and having once undertaken it, the superintendence of the New Zealand mission became, without design on his part, the great business of his life.

He had formed a high, we do not think an exaggerated, estimate of the Maori or New Zealand tribes. "They are a n.o.ble race," he writes to his friend John Terry, Esq., of Hull, "vastly superior in understanding to anything you can imagine in a savage nation." This was before the mission was begun. But he did not speak merely from hearsay: several of their chieftains and enterprising warriors had visited Australia, and they ever found a welcome at the hospitable parsonage at Paramatta.

Sometimes, it is true, they were but awkward guests, as the following anecdote will show; which we present to the reader, as it has been kindly furnished to us, in the words of one of Mr. Marsden's daughters.

"My father had sometimes as many as thirty New Zealanders staying at the parsonage. He possessed extraordinary influence over them. On one occasion, a young lad, the nephew of a chief, died, and his uncle immediately made preparations to sacrifice a slave to attend his spirit into the other world. Mr. M. was from home at the moment, and his family were only able to preserve the life of the young New Zealander by hiding him in one of the rooms. Mr. M. no sooner returned and reasoned with the chief, than he consented to spare his life. No further attempt was made upon it, though the uncle frequently deplored that his nephew had no attendant in the next world, and seemed afraid to return to New Zealand, lest the father of the young man should reproach him for having given up this, to them, important point."

The Church Missionary Society, which had now been established about seven years, seemed fully disposed to co-operate with him; and at their request he drew up a memorial on the subject of a New Zealand mission, not less important than that we have already mentioned, to the London Missionary Society, on the subject of their Polynesian missions. He still lays great stress upon the necessity of civilization going first as the pioneer of the gospel; "commerce and the arts having a natural tendency to inculcate industrious and moral habits, open a way for the introduction of the gospel, and lay the foundation for its continuance when once received" "... Nothing, in my opinion, can pave the way for the introduction of the gospel but civilization." ... "The missionaries," he thought, "might employ a certain portion of their time in manual labour, and that this neither would nor ought to prevent them from constantly endeavouring to instruct the natives in the great doctrines of the gospel." ... "The arts and religion should go together.

I do not mean a native should learn to build a hut or make an axe before he should be told anything of man's fall and redemption, but that these grand subjects should be introduced at every favourable opportunity, while the natives are learning any of the simple arts." He adds that "four qualifications are absolutely necessary for a missionary--piety, industry, prudence, and patience. Without sound piety, nothing can be expected. A man must feel a lively interest in the eternal welfare of the heathen to spur him on to the discharge of his duty." On the three other qualifications, he enlarges with great wisdom and practical good sense; but the paper has been frequently printed, and we must not transfer it to these pages.

It is no dishonour done to Mr. Marsden if we say that, in mature spiritual wisdom, the venerable men who had founded the Church Missionary Society, and still managed its affairs, were at this time his superiors. Strange indeed it would have been had the case been otherwise. They listened gratefully and with deep respect to the opinion of one so well ent.i.tled to advise; they determined on the mission, and they gave a high proof of their confidence, both in the practical wisdom and sterling piety of their friend, in consulting him in the choice of their first agents. But they did not adopt his views with regard to the importance of civilization as the necessary pioneer to the gospel. So long ago as the year 1815, they thought it necessary to publish a statement of the principles upon which their mission was established.

"It has been stated," they say, "that the mission was originally established, and for a long time systematically conducted, on the principle of first civilizing and then christianizing the natives. This is wholly a mistake. The agents employed in establishing the mission were laymen, because clergymen could not be had; and the instructions given to them necessarily correspond with their lay character. The foremost object of the mission has, from the first, been to bring the natives, by the use of all suitable means, under the saving influences of the grace of the gospel, adding indeed the communication to them of such useful arts and knowledge as might improve their social condition."

The committee's instructions to their first agents in the mission abundantly sustain these a.s.sertions. Mr. William Hall and Mr. John King were the two single-hearted laymen to whom, in the providence of G.o.d, the distinguished honour was committed of first making known the gospel in New Zealand. They bore with them these instructions, ere they embarked in the same vessel in which their friend and guide Mr. Marsden himself returned to Australia:--"Ever bear in mind that the only object of the Society, in sending you to New Zealand, is to introduce the knowledge of Christ among the natives, and in order to this, the arts of civilized life."

Then after directing Messrs. Hall and King "to respect the sabbath day,"

to "establish family worship," at any favourable opportunity to "converse with the natives on the great subject of religion," and to "instruct their children in the knowledge of Christianity," the instructions add--"Thus in your religious conduct you must observe the sabbath and keep it holy, attend regularly to family worship, talk to the natives about religion when you walk by the way, when you labour in the field, and on all occasions when you can gain their attention, and lay yourselves out for the education of the young."

Mr. Thomas Kendall followed; a third layman, for no ordained clergyman of the church of England could yet be found. The same instructions were repeated, and in December, 1815, when the Rev. John Butler, their first clerical missionary, entered on his labours in New Zealand, he and his companions were exhorted thus--"The committee would observe that they wish, in all the missions of the Society, that the missionaries should give their time as much as possible, and wholly if practicable, first to the acquisition of the native language, and then to the constant and faithful preaching to the natives." It is subsequently added--"Do not mistake civilization for conversion. Do not imagine when heathens are raised in intellect, in the knowledge of the arts and outward decencies, above their fellow-countrymen, that they are Christians, and therefore rest content as if your proper work were accomplished. Our great aim is far higher; it is to make them children of G.o.d and heirs of his glory.

Let this be your desire, and prayer, and labour among them. And while you rejoice in communicating every other good, think little or nothing done till you see those who were dead in trespa.s.ses and sins, quickened together with Christ." These pa.s.sages fully exhibit the views of the committee of this evangelical Society with regard, not only to the New Zealand, but to all their other missions. Nor do they stand alone; every missionary a.s.sociation, taught in many instances by bitter disappointment, has long since discovered that the arts and sciences do not prepare the way of the Lord amongst the heathen abroad; just as they leave unsanctified our civilized heathendom at home.

But we must return from our digression, which its great importance must excuse.

Before he left England, Mr. Marsden formed or renewed an acquaintance with many great and good men, Mr. Wilberforce, Sir George Grey, the Rev.

Daniel Wilson, late Bishop of Calcutta, the Rev. Charles Simeon, the Rev. Josiah Pratt, Dr. Olinthus Gregory, and others whose names are dear to the church of Christ. But we must particularly notice the friendship which he formed with Dr. Mason Good as productive of the highest blessings to his friend, and of much advantage to himself.

The life of this excellent and accomplished person was published by Dr.

Olinthus Gregory, soon after his death, in 1828. He tells us that Dr.

Mason Good, when he became acquainted with Mr. Marsden, had long professed Socinian principles, but of these had recently begun to doubt, while he had not yet embraced the gospel of Christ so as to derive either comfort or strength from it. He was anxious and inquiring; his father had been an orthodox dissenting minister, and he himself a constant student and indeed a critical expositor of the Bible. He had published a translation of the book of Job, with notes, and also a translation of Solomon's Song of Songs. He saw in the latter a sublime and mystic allegory, and in the former a poem, than which nothing can be purer in its morality, nothing sublimer in its philosophy, nothing more majestic in its creed. He had given beautiful translations of many of the Psalms; but with all this he had not yet perceived that Christ is the great theme of the Old Testament, nor did he understand the salvation of which "David in the Psalms, and all the prophets," as well as Job the patriarch "did speak." His introduction to Mr. Marsden, in such a state of mind, was surely providential. He saw, and wondered at, his self-denial; he admired the true sublimity of his humble, una.s.suming, but unquestionable and active piety. "The first time I saw Mr. Marsden," says his biographer, "was in January, 1808; he had just returned from Hull, and had travelled nearly the whole journey on the outside of a coach in a heavy fall of snow, being unable to secure an inside place. He seemed scarcely conscious of the inclemency of the season, and declared that he felt no inconvenience from the journey. He had accomplished his object, and that was enough. And what was that object, which could raise him above the exhaustion of fatigue and the sense of severe cold? He had engaged a rope-maker who was willing, at his (Mr. Marsden's) own expense, to go and teach his art to the New Zealanders." So writes Dr. Olinthus Gregory.

As a philosopher who loved to trace phenomena to their causes, Dr. Mason Good endeavoured to ascertain the principles from which these unremitting exertions sprang; and, as he often a.s.sured his friend, Dr.

Gregory, he could trace them only to the elevating influence of Divine grace. He could find no other clue; and he often repeated the wish that his own motives were as pure, and his own conduct as exemplary as those of Mr. Marsden. Thus light broke in, and at length he received the gospel "as a little child," and began to adorn it by his conduct. For several years he was an efficient member of the committee of the Bible Society, and of that of the Church Missionary Society. To the latter especially he devoted himself with the utmost activity and ardour, and at his death, which occurred in 1827, the committee transmitted to Mrs.

Good a resolution expressive of the very high value they set on his services, and of the heavy loss they were conscious they sustained by that event. The resolution was accompanied by a letter of cordial sympathy from the pen of the Rev. Edward Bickersteth, the secretary.

When dying he was, heard, without any suggestion or leading remark from those around him, to repeat with quivering lips the text, "All the promises of G.o.d in him (Christ Jesus) are Yea, and in him Amen." "What words," said he, "for a dying man to rest upon!"[H]

[H] See Life of Dr. Mason Good, by Dr. Olinthus Gregory.

CHAPTER V.

Return to the Colony--Duaterra--His strange adventures--Mr.

Marsden's Labours in New South Wales--Aborigines--Their Habits--Plans for their Civilization.

Mr. Marsden took what proved to be his last leave of his native land in August 1809. Resolute as he was, and nerved for danger, a shade of depression pa.s.sed across him. "The ship, I understand," he writes to Mrs. Mason Good, "is nearly ready. This land in which we live is polluted, and cannot, on account of sin, give rest to any of its inhabitants. Those who have (sought) and still do seek their happiness in anything it can give, will meet nothing but disappointment, vexation, and sorrow. If we have only a common share of human happiness, we cannot have or hope for more." A few weeks afterwards he addresses the same Christian lady thus:--

"Cambridge, August 1, 1809.

"Yesterday I a.s.sisted my much esteemed friend, Mr. Simeon, but here I shall have no continuing city. The signal will soon be given, the anchor weighed, and the sails spread, and the ship compelled to enter the mighty ocean to seek for distant lands. I was determined to take another peep at Cambridge, though conscious I could but enjoy those beautiful scenes for a moment. In a few days we shall set off for Portsmouth. All this turning and wheeling about from place, to place, and from nation to nation, I trust is our right way to the heavenly Canaan. I am happy in the conclusion, to inform you that I have got all my business settled in London much to my satisfaction, both with government and in other respects. The object of my mission has been answered, far beyond my expectations. I believe that G.o.d has gracious designs towards New South Wales, and that his gospel will take root there, and spread amongst the heathen nations to the glory of his grace.

"I have the honour to be, dear madam, "Yours, in every Christian bond, "SAMUEL MARSDEN."

His prayers and devout aspirations for New Zealand had been heard on high, and "the way of the Lord" was "preparing" in a manner far beyond his expectations, ardent as they seem. The ship Ann, in which he sailed, by order of the government, for New South Wales, carried with her one whom Providence had raised up to act a part, only less important than his own, in the conversion of that benighted land.

The ship had been some time at sea before Mr. Marsden observed on the forecastle, amongst the common sailors, a man whose darker skin and wretched appearance awakened his sympathy. He was wrapped in an old great coat, very sick and weak, had a violent cough, accompanied with profuse bleeding. He was much dejected, and appeared as though a few days would close his life. This was Duaterra, a New Zealand chieftain, whose story, as related by Mr. Marsden himself, is almost too strange for fiction. And as "this young chief became," as he tells us, "one of the princ.i.p.al instruments in preparing the way for the introduction of the arts of civilization and the knowledge of Christianity into his native country," a brief sketch of his marvellous adventures will not be out of place.

When the existence of New Zealand was yet scarcely known to Europeans, it was occasionally visited by a South Sea whaler distressed for provisions, or in want of water. One of these, the Argo, put into the Bay of Islands in 1805, and Duaterra, fired with the spirit of adventure, embarked on board with two of his companions. The Argo remained on the New Zealand coast for above five months, and then sailed for Port Jackson, the modern Sydney of Australia, Duaterra sailing with her. She then went to fish on the coast of New Holland for six months, again returning to Port Jackson. Duaterra had been six months on board, working in general as a common sailor, and pa.s.sionately fond of this roving life. He then experienced that unkindness and foul play of which the New Zealander has always had sad reason to complain. He was left on sh.o.r.e without a friend and without the slightest remuneration.

He now shipped himself on board the Albion whaler, Captain Richardson, whose name deserves honourable mention; he behaved very kindly to Duaterra, repaid him for his services in various European articles, and after six months cruising on the fisheries, put him on sh.o.r.e in the Bay of Islands, where his tribe dwelt. Here he remained six months, when the Santa Anna anch.o.r.ed in the bay, on her way to Norfolk Island and other islets of the South Sea in quest of seal skins. The restless Duaterra again embarked; he was put on sh.o.r.e on Norfolk Island at the head of a party of fourteen sailors, provided with a very scanty supply of water, bread, and salt provisions, to kill seals, while the ship sailed, intending to be absent but a short time, to procure potatoes and pork in New Zealand. On her return she was blown off the coast in a storm, and did not make the land for a month. The sealing party were now in the greatest distress, and accustomed as he was to hardship, Duaterra often spoke of the extreme suffering which he and his party had endured, while, for upwards of three months, they existed on a desert island with no other food than seals and sea fowls, and no water except when a shower of rain happened to fall. Three of his companions, two Europeans and one Tahitian, died under these distresses.

At length the Santa Anna returned, having procured a valuable cargo of seal skins, and prepared to take her departure homewards. Duaterra had now an opportunity of gratifying an ardent desire he had for some time entertained of visiting that remote country from which so many vast ships were sent, and to see with his own eyes the great chief of so wonderful a people. He willingly risked the voyage, as a common sailor, to visit England and see king George. The Santa Anna arrived in the river Thames about July 1809, and Duaterra now requested that the captain would make good his promise, and indulge him with at least a sight of the king. Again he had a sad proof of the perfidiousness of Europeans. Sometimes he was told that no one was allowed to see king George; sometimes that his house could not be found. This distressed him exceedingly; he saw little of London, was ill-used, and seldom permitted to go on sh.o.r.e. In about fifteen days, the vessel had discharged her cargo, when the captain told him that he should put him on board the Ann, which had been taken up by government to convey convicts to New South Wales. The Ann had already dropped down to Gravesend, and Duaterra asked the master of the Santa Anna for some wages and clothing. He refused to give him any, telling him that the owners at Port Jackson would pay him in two muskets for his services on his arrival there; but even these he never received.

Mr. Marsden was at this time in London, quite ignorant of the fact that the son of a New Zealand chief, in circ.u.mstances so pitiable, lay on board a South Sea whaler near London bridge. Their first meeting was on board the Ann, as we have stated, when she had been some days at sea.