ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO

Opotiki News, Volume II, Issue 247, 16 October 1939, Page 4

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO

EARLY SCOTTISH INTEREST IN N.Z. “BMNCAL ‘MERCHANT” SAILS LOR. COOK STRAIT A TROUBLKU) VOYAGE, ; Some of us remember that the “Bengal Merchant,” one of . the first five ships t<>, carry emigrants to the Ne>v Zealand Company ' settlement- at Port Nicholson, sailed from the Clyde and carried entirely Scottish settlers.; But it is generally overlooked that there was .a strong interest in the settlement of New Zealand in the Scotland of one hundred years ago several 'years before the . colonisation . of Otago. There was actually an -attempt to lb nil d ‘wi tli Scott i sli. ea pital an dl peoi>le a. rival to the New Zealand' Company.* - . :.<• A Scots Company. ' ,'V A certain Patrick Matthew took a leading phrb in the attempt to fdipid a Scots New Zealand Company, in contrast to the well-defined class-divisions upheld by Wakefield’s 'New Zealand .Company; Matthew’s company was democratic and co-operative. The emigrants were to )n.iy'£oO' shares to cover their passages, food for a . year and land in New Zealand. The- Scots company came to nothing, though the “New' Zealand, Waitemata and Mima-

kau Company” inherited some, of it's aspirations. This company late in 184.0 exported at few. families from Greenock to the neighbourhood of Auckland and then after " laying out the town of Cornwallis left them more or less to their own devices*. 1 Governor, Fitzroy came to their rescue arid gave* them Government land to the extent of a quarter o>f their claims on >; ..their elusive company. The company itself was awarded some 1,900 acres, but see ins to have been too lazy ever to have taken possession of them. Patrick Matthew’s Idealism. It was unfortunate that failure should have overtaken an enterprise inspired by the idealism of Patrick Mqtthew. He was a strenuous advocate of working-class aspirations. He wrote in 1838: “The working-men see that the means of moral improvement and rational human enjoyment are now within v 'their reach. The capability of man for nappine.ss, and for moral advancement, has hitherto been suffered to run to waste. The elements of a new condition of tilings are all procured, and there is only awanting a proper arrangement and social organisation to afford a sufficiency of all that reiidleis life delightful) and innocent toi the whole, human family—a conditio#*of things which causes the heart to'swell and beat within, us.” All these benefits he expected to secure foT working 1 men in the new countries they were to .settle on the other side ql . the world.

The “Bengal Merchant” Farewelled. . The New Zealand Company, in sjiite of the competition of native Scots companies, succeeded in filling .the “Bengal Merchant” with ldO emigrants. There were only nineteen of these in the cabin, including JLtev. John Macfarlane, a minister of the Olnueh of Scotland who had undertaken a special three years’ charge at Port Nicholson. Macfarlane had been a minister iu Paisley, and another . member of the Paisley Presbytery, a Maefarlan without an E, preached a sermon fareweliing the party, indeed they were well and truly farewelled, as a meeting was held in ‘the Glasgow Trades Hall where local notables called down blessings on the enterprise. The ship had been fitted out at Gravesend, then had gone north to pick up its passengers. it- sailed from the Clyde on 31st. October 1839. Squabbling, on the Water. Alexander Marjoribanks, a cabin passenger, has left us a lively account of the voyage, but be did not tell the whole story. He remarked that there occurred during the voyage one death, one birth, one baptism, and one marriage, omitting to state that / the marriage was his own. In spite of the ministrations of Rev. John Macfarlane sonic very unchristian quarrelling broke cut among the cabin passengers and their wives. The twq doctors employed by the Company did not ogrec, and the captain sided first with one and then the other. But the .steerage passengers had the most substantial cause for complaint, since late in the voyage it came out that they had never feeeived the full rations allotted to them. The “Bengal Merchant” sighted New Zealand on 10th. February 1840, but it was another .ten days before it entered Port Nicholson. Scots Saltiers at Pert Nicholson For a considerable 'time tlie Church of Scotland’s minister was the only ordained clergyman at Port Nicholson, and.he was in great request to marry, to baptise, and to bury Protestants of every shade of doctrine. Rev. John Macfarlane found a similar state of affairs when lie visited Nelson. He estimated that there were about six hundred people of the Presbyterian faith in Port Nicholson in 1841, about one quarter of the population at that time. Several prominent Presbyterians who came to Port Nicholson first —Hay, Sinclair, and Deans—had taken, .-their families south to begin the settlement of the Canterbury Plains. Altogether Scotland played a considerable part in the earliest organised migration to 'New Zealand. HOKIANGA BEFORE 1810 The Bay of Islands is so well known as a resort of whaling, and other ships in the roaring days before the establishment of British rule in New Zealand in 1840 that the economically important settlement of the banks of the Hokianga River - is sometimes overlooked. This settlement was certainly scatteicd, but every few miles there was a flourishing group of white sawyers, living under the protection of a Maori chief and exporting the magnieout timber to which the deep river gave them access.* Unlike the Ivororareka settlers, wliq lived chiefly on European ships, they.maintained themselves hy hard and regular work. Characters like Lieutenant McDonnell, wlio exported timber for the British Admiralty from his home at To Horekc, and F. E. Mailing, well known jy later years as the author of “Old Now Zealand”, stands out among the white settlers. It was .on the Hokianga River that Baron do Thierry had hoped to found his little kingdom.- The Maori population under those two worthy chiefs, Patuonq and Waaka None, was far less spoiled than that of the Bay of Islands hy European contacts, because the difficult bar at the mouth of the river made it unsuitable as a port of call simply for refreshment. A pilot, Boh Martin, lived near the Heads, lie had published! a set of warning flags which lie would fly to- show shipping whether or not the bar was in a fitstate to take. SOUTHERN WHALERS In 1813 when Edward .Shortland visited Waikouaiti on official business, lie found that whaling settlement in nourishing cendrtifin. lit had been bought in 1838 by that cel.ebr.ated '.self-made man, Johnny Jones,' uflm had begun life as a hand in the South Island sealing trade and had vorkedi himself up to a position of such importance that lie could- enjoy the luxury of going bankrupt*. He failed in liis consider- i able . Sydney ventures, and thereafter

--- - j ( . concentrated on liis New Zealand whaling station. But-lie wa s still able to live in some style—“on my arrival at this, the then ‘ultima tliule’ of the colony, my ears were astonished at the sounds of a piano, .and niy eyes at the back ‘cutaway’ and riding-whip of a young gentleman, lately of Emmanuel College, Cantab., but now acting tutor to Mr. J—’s son and lieir.” Shortland dlid not think many, of the employees at Waikouaiti would rise in the world. They were mostly content to receive the payment for .their dangerous work in rum and ever-valued goods. But one man, Stephen Smith, had saving habits. He, had a fenced garden of two or three acres, and possessed'.seven cattle, a,s well as a Maori wife. He was an example of the new spirit of colonisation. In contrast to Smith's habits of industry was the hand-to-mouth but contented life of a solitary whaler, living at* Purakanui, whom Shortland called! upon. “This man welcomed mo with the hospitality of liis' class, although lie possessed little but the mud and sticks of his hut, an old musket, and the clothes which covered him. He sot himself to work to shoot some pigeons for mv dinner; but as lie used small stones for shot, I was.obliged to be very careful in eating, to avoid breaking my teeth. My bed was made from the slender branches of ‘manuka’, which are both soft and fragrant-. I never had a better.” Next morning Shortland was awakened! by. a deafen-ing-chorus of bellbirds.