New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK'S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Wednesday, March 20, 1850.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 483, 20 March 1850, Page 2

New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK'S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Wednesday, March 20, 1850.

We are glad to see that public attention has been called to the state of the sandal wood and beche le mer trade which is now carried on between our colonies acd the islands of -the New Hebrides and New Caledonia. Owing indeed, in a great measure, to the traders themselves, who are unwilling to see this commerce thrown open to general competition, and who therefore, for this as well as for other reasons, preserve great secrecy with respect to all their proceedings among these islands, much ignorance prevails even at Sydney on the whole subject. It is only when some atrocities worse than usual are committed by the natives against our seamen that an account of them finds its way into the papers, and as only one side of the story is told, as all mention of provocation previously given is of course Uarefully suppressed, the indignation of the public is naturally enough roused, and calls are made upon our naval officers to avenge the murders of their countrymen, and protect our traders in their operations. A writer in the Sydney Morning Herald of the 29th January, in alluding to an account published in that journal a few days previously, actually treats the affair of Mr. Fitzgerald as having happened in the Feejee Islands, instead of the neighbourhood of Balade in New Caledonia, although it will be seen by perusing the account in question, .which we have republished, that the only Feejeeans implicated in the matter were acting as the servants and defenders of the white men who had brought them from their own islands to assist in forming an establishment in another country. Whether this occupation of New Caledonia took place with or without the concurrence of the chiefs and people of that country we cannot yet pretend to say; but if (as appears probable) no previous consent were obtained, it is clear that the blame of the whole affray, and of "tibie murder of the Mary's crew, which vessel was connected with the intruders, does not altogether lie with the natives of New Caledonia, but in some degree rests with those who improperly forced themselves into an illegal position. With respect to the murders at Erromango we must also reserve tmr opinion until something more is known of the conduct of the unhappy men belonging to the Rover's Bride, who have fallen victims on that occasion.

It would occupy too much space to give even a sketch of the history of the sandal wood trade since its commencement or revival about 1840, at which time sandal wood was accidentally discovered at the Isle of Pines by a seaman belonging to a Missionary vessel, who endeavoured for a time to keep his discovery secret. As soon as the fact became known, several armed vessels were fitted out at Sydney to engage in this very lucrative traffic, and soon a series of atrocities began, in which (with the single exception of cannibalism) the so-called civilized white men were not a whit behind their black fellow beings. About December 1 842 a regular expedition was undertaken by three British vessels with a band of armed Tongese, for the purpose of cutting wood at Erromango and Sandwich Island. We scarcely venture to state the number of natives said to have been killed on this occasion (the white men having filled their vessels, and lost one man of Tonga), but it was very considerable. It is not to be wondered at that foreigners should not be particularly well received afterwards, either at Sandwich Island or Erromango ; accordingly we hear, after the lapse of some years, of nearly the whole crews of shipwrecked British ships having been killed at the former place. The last, the British Sovereign, waa wrecked, and nearly thirty of her crew put to death, in April 1847. At Erromango,. where sandal wood seems to be more plentiful than at any of the other islands, all kinds of atrocities have been committed, the balance of loss being certainly not against the English crews, who always carry firearms, and are ready enough to make use of them . A native of this island might set off against the massacre of several of the Elizabeth's crew in 1847, and of the Terror's in 1848, the fact of a British vessel, whose name with that of the master i 3 well known, having in 1848 sailed down the coast firing at every native who shewed himself, for the purpose of spoiling a rival's market, and of another in the same year having made fast and shot a friendly chief in the water, in - revenge for some trickeries practised on him. in the disposal of the wood. The principal question however, now, is the providing a remedy in future for practices which seriously affect the British character in the Pacific. That a little regulation is all that is ngcessary to render the trade not only lucrative but honorable, it> evident from what has been done by the upright dealing of two Englishmen, Messrs. Paddon and Lewis, who conduct establishments at Aneiteum (or Anatam) and the Isle of Pines. At both these places the natives are become rapidly civilized, acquiring a taste for European clothing, and learning the English language. At the Isle of Pines, once the most notorious of any for the savage nature of the inhabitants, and for the murders committed by them (for instance the attacks upon the Star and Catherine of Sydney in 1842 and 1843), a white man may walk over the whole island unarmed without the slightest apprehension. The Bishop of New Zealand did so on his late visit, and was kindly and hospitably treated by Uasumu, one of the principal chiefs. Even at Erromango, whither his Lordship went in his schooner the Undine, with a crew of four men and without a single musket on board, the dignified simplicity of his bearing extorted the respect of these usually termed bloodthirsty cannibals. No assistance of physical force for " avenging the blood of the murdered," or "asserting the supremacy of our power," has ever been afforded to either of the gentlemen above mentioned, nor, had it been so, would they have been in the position they now hold. It will not be irrelevant to show the impression produced on our illustrious circumnavigator by his intercourse with these islanders. Speaking of his visit to Tanna in , August 1774, Captain Cook says,—- " Thus we found these people hospitable, civil and good-natured, when not prompted to a contrary conduct by jealousy; a conduct I,cannot tell how to blame them for, especially when I consider the light in which they must view us. It was impossible for them to know our real designs, we enter their ports without their daring to oppose ; we endeavour to land in their

"country as friend^ and it is veil if this succeeds * we land: nevertheless and mauitanf the footing we have got by the superiority of our fire-arms. Under such circumstances, what opinion, are they to form of us? Is it not as reasonable/or them to think that we come to insmde their country as to pay them a friendly visit t .Time and some acquaintance with us can only convince them of the latter, "~&c. And (in September 1774,) he says of the natives of Balade, in the very neighbourhood of the late affray, — " I found we were to expect nothing from these people but the privilege of visiting their •country undisturbed. For it was easy to see they had little else than good nature to bestow. In this they exceeded all the natives toe had yet met with, and although it did not satisfy the demands of nature, it at once pleased, and left our minds at ease." The following passage from one of the latest works (1847) published on the South Seas, is remarkable in its bearing on the general question. The author, an American of the name of Melville, who spent some years in the South Seas as a common sailor on board different whalers and visited most of the islands, cannot be suspected of any undue bias towards the aborigines, while his work is remarkable for the candid and dispassionate spirit in which it is written :—: — _ " The enormitiesperpetrated in the South Seas upon some of the inoffensive islanders well nigh pass belief. These things are seldom proclaimed at home; they happen at the very ends of the earth; they are done in a corner, jand there "are Jione'toteveal them. - But theve'Ts, TOflifetheless, many a petty trader that has navigated the Pacific whose course from island to island might be traced by a series of cold-blooded robberies, kidnappings, and murders, the iniquity of which might be considered almost sufficient to sink, her guilty timbers to the bottom of the sea. Sometimes vague accounts of such things reach our firesides, and we coolly censure them its wrong, impolitic, needlessly severe, and dangerous to the crews of other vessels. How different is our tone when we read the highlywrought description of the massacre of the crew ofiheHoiomai by theFeejees; how we sympathise for the unhappy viotims, and with what -horror do we regard the diabolical heathens, who, after all, have but avenged the unprovoked injuries which they have received.- We breathe nothing but vengeance, and equip .armed vessels to traverse', thousands of miles of ocean in order to execute summary punishment iipon the offenders. On arriving at their destination, they burn, slaughter, and destroy, according to the tenor of written instructions, and sailing away from the scene of devastation, call upon ali Christendom to applaud their courage and their justice.' W3&»*- «p.^2?^- ~— r ~-*-~ It is very certain that the presence of a ship of war, however unacceptable her appearance would undoubtedly be to some of the British vessels engaged in the sandal-wood traffic among the islands, would greatly conduce to regulate the mode of carrying it on, and put a stop to all the enormities alluded to ; not, however, by indiscriminately slaughtering in revenge (equally abhorrent both to our religion and our politics) ignorant men who might be guiltless of the crimes committed by their fellow-countrymen, but by obliging British subjects to put in practice (in some degree at least) those principles which we boast of as distinguishing us from the savage, and of showing them the advantage, to say nothing . of a higher view, of what we pre-eminently . calLGhristian^virtues. — - -»~- ~*-~-i -teM

In the Independent of last Saturday ia a statement to the effect that the Custom House authorities were "compelling the master of the American whaler Orion ■to land his oil for guaging instead of placing it at once on board the Cornelia or Woodstock," and they are accused of taking an "ungenerous and unbecoming advantage" of the Captain's position. The statement, as far as regards the Custom House authorities/ is wholly without foundation : We understand tHat no objection has been made by them to the transhipment, and that the portion of Oil landed by Captain Ray for the purpose of being guaged, has been landed at the suggestion of his Agents, and with a view of consulting his own interest.

H.M.S. Fly, Captain Oliver, sailed yesterday for Auckland, whence after staying a few days we believe she will proceed on a cruise to New Caledonia and the adjacent islands.

PftOGKAMMx of the performance of the Band ofthe 65th. Regt., at Thorndon Flat, on Wednesday, March 20th :—: — 1. OTerirare— Marguerite d'Anjon Meyerbeer fk Daetto — Conte Conte Prendi — 1 _„. . Norm* jßellmt 3. Real Scotch Quadrillei Jullien - 4..Cayatina— Tntto 'c Sciolto— So- 1 D „. . nambtda j-SeKmi 5. La Valse 'A Deux Temps Jullien 6. French Polonaise •Breptant 7. German Galop Waleh 8. Royal Polka , Jullien