REVIEW. SCHOOL HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 425, 4 December 1889, Page 5

REVIEW. SCHOOL HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND.

By Frederick J. Moss, M.H.R.

The need of a school history for advanced pupils has for some time been felt. That need is now most satisfactorily supplied. Miss Bourkes "little history" has been found useful to teachets, and will be supplemented by Mr Moss's larger book now betoro us. The author has long been a caretul reader of the innumerable books written about New Zealand, and brings to bear upon his work the experience gained during a long residence and active participation in the political life of the colony. Teeming, as the book does, with incident and stirring episodes, selection is difficult. The reader will find his attention fixed fiom the beginning to the end of the 254 pages which lorm the body ot the work. The first chapters give a succinct but complete account ot the Maori traditions as to their arrival in New Zealand, of their manners and customs at that time, of their fights, and of the rude trade carried on between the coast Maoris and those living further in the interior. But, says Mr Moss, " While the Maori was thus isolated in Ao-tea-roa, events were happening in other parts of the world by which he was to be seriously aflected. Columbus discoveied America in 1492. Twenty years later De Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and discovered to the world the existence of the great Pacific Ocqan, till-then unknown. . . Magellan came in 1521, sailing into the great South Sea through the Stormy Strait which he discovered with infinite pain, hardship and heroism. The two great oceans, the Atlantic and the Pacific, were henceforth one." The story is then told of the gradual opening of the Pacific by other nations resisting the arrogant and exclusive claims of Spain, the attacks of buccaneers upon her treasure ships, and the supplanting of the buccaneers by national ships of war. Ocean tracks were thus laid down, but with worm eaten hulls and scurvy-stricken crews, the vessels of those days could not deviate from known courses. They followed the beaten track for many years without discovering the innumerable islands that fleck the wide waters of the ocean, whose floor is strewn with the bones of the thousands of brave men that have perished in it by shipwreck or disease. The transition is easy from these adventurers to the voyages of exploration and science which marked the last half of the eighteenth century. With a short account ot the visita of Cook, De Sui'ville and others, we are brought to the gieat event of the time, the settlement of Australia in 1788. Small whaling and sealing vessels soon left Sydney for the coasts of New Zealand. Others followed from England, America and France. Among the more romantic of these early visitors, we are told of the Rev. T. Fysshe Palmer, who, in the year 1800, sailed up the Hauraki Gulf, in quest of timber, in a crazy craft that he had bought in Sydney on the expiration ot his sentence as an Australian convict. Mr Palmer's oft'ence was having the audacity to assert that " common people " had political rights and ought to possess them. This was preaching sedition, and breaking the law, and he and hia brilliant young friend Muir were sent as convicts to Botany Bay. Palmer died of dysentery, a prisoner of war in the far-away Spanish Islands, and Muir an exile in Bordeaux. The reguar intercourse of the Maori with civilised man now began. Many were the quarrels, the adventurous voyages, and the massacres that followed. The worst of these, the massacre in 1809 of the crew and passengers of the Boyd, the first ship that loaded with a cargo of Australian produce and passengers direct from Sydney to London, is graphically told. So are the stories of the few pakeha Maoris of that olden time, and of the notable Maoris who visited Sydney and Loudon in the opening years ot the present century. This brings us to Ruatara, wandering penniless and friendless in the streets of London in the year 1808, and to his being succoured by the Rev. Samuel Marsden, colonial chaplain of New South Wales, who was his fellow-passenger in the convict ship Ann, trom London to Sydney. From this incident there followed Mr Marsden's connection with New Zealand and the founding by him of the first Christian mission at the Bay of Islands on the 24th December, 1814. "On that morning," says Mr Moss, " which ushered in both Christmas Day and Sunday, only the captain and one man remained on board the Active. All the rest, with the wives of the missionaries and their children, were gathered together before the rude reading-desk on the hillside at Rangihou. The Maoris were arrayed in their best, some with military uniforms given to them in Sydney, and others with the best mat 9, or most choice barbaric finery on which they could lay hand. Throughout the service the heathen crowd behaved with good propriety, following the movements of the pakeha, and listening attentively to a Maori who attempted to explain the sermon which Mr* Marsden preached to them. , . Mr Marsden saw clearly the difficulties before him, but his brave heart was not dismayed, and he humbly returned thanks to Almighty God for having been permitted to open up the mission, so hopefully, among that wild and cannibal people. . . Thus was the first mission founded. With it ends the history of Ao-tea-roa. The current of Maori life had begun to turn, and the history of New Zealand now begins." From these — th 6 opening scenes — Mr Moss carries us through the intricate story of the subsequent difficulties between Maoiiand missionary, and of the various attempts at colonisation, which culminated in the famous New Zealand Company o\ 1839 and the annexation of the colony in 1840. After that, the various political changes and the stirring incidents" of the unhappy wara between Maori and colony are well told, and will be eagerly perused

by the youth, for whom they are mainly written. Here is the closing scene of the great fight at Rangiriri on the 20fch of November, 1863 :—: — " One hundred and thirty- two of our men had fallen ; but the Maoris also suffered heavily, and saw that permanent resistance was impossible. During the night many of them escaped, the remainder keeping up an occasional musketry fire, and uttering shouts of defiance to cover the flight. At daybreak the white flag was hoisted on the pa. The chiefs, Te Oriori (who had acted so well to Gorst) and Te Piori, surrendered unconditionally with 183 men. Then followed one of the noblest episodes in the record of this or, perhaps, cf any other war. The soldiers, moved by the gallantry and fine bearing of the Maoris, rushed into the surrendered pa, shook hands warmly with the conquered enemy, and praised them loudly for the gallant stand they had made. . It was nobly done. The same generous spirit in the Legislature would have been worth to the colony a thousand paltry confiscations, and have saved it from years of trouble, of which the indirect result is felt severely even at the present day." One more memorable incident of the war must be taken from the many which Mr Moss has gathered in the small but comprehensive volume now before us. He is describing the linal scene at the capture of the Orakau Pa. Tor three days the shot and shell bad been pouring on the devoted fortress of the Maori. The sap was nearing the parapet, and the General in vain summoned the defenders to surrender. Again he sent, asking them at least to send out the women and children before the final assault was made. His messengers were invited to hear what the women themselves had to say. Their reply was unani* mous : — "If our husbands are to die, we and the children will die wiDh them." Then Kewi sent to the General the answer which has become historical, "Friend," he wrote, " this is the word of the Maori. They will fight on Ake, Ake, Ake (for ever, for ever, for ever)." This was on the morning of April 2nd, 1864. The remainder we give in Mr Moss's own words. " Reluctantly the General re-opened fire. The sap was now within a yard of the parapet, and hand grenades were thrown into the pa. Suddenly a few soldiers, who had been left to guard a path that seemed of little moment, heard, the rush of men through the tall, thick fern. The Maoris in a compact, wedge-shaped mass, .were making their escape. They rose before the astonished guard, who gave the alarm and fired upon them. The Maoris dared not return the fire, for they would need all their scanty ammunition when the swamp was to be crossed. Chaunting their old heathen war songs, the brave band moved steadily on, disregarding the bullets which fell thick among them. Many dropped, but comrades took their place and olosed up the ranks. In this gallant order they reached the swamp to which they looked for safety. The Mounted Defence force was there before them, and at last they were.forced to break their compact array. Of surrender, none appeared even then to dream. One hundred and twenty of -the grand, heroic little garrison of Orakau, were found dead in that swamp and in the pa, and thirty-three, wounded and unwounded, were taken prisoners. General Cameron wrote : *It was impossible not to admire their heroic courage and devotion, and the troops were loud in their admiration.'" The book is full of thrilling episodes, and it traces, with great clearness, the political and constitutional changes that mark the short but eventful history of the colony. The index is so full and so complete astoadd materially to the worth of the book, which cannot fail to be of lasting value to the youth of -New Zealand, and a monument of the labour which Mr Moss must have devoted to it. With his closing sentences we cordially agree, and with him we hope that New Zealand, " emerging from her trials, will march, with proud step and new vigour in the only path to true national greatness and to a healthy national life — the path that leads to the diffusion of wealth and comfort among a free, educated, and industrous people." The ability and the evidently impartial spirit with which the history is written will make it not only a reading-book of exceeding 1 interest, but excite a patriotic spirit and be a valuable means of preparing the youth of New Zealand for the careers before them. Nor can it fail to excite in older readers a keener interest in the past and a desire to make themselves more fully and thoroughly conversant with the history of their adopted and beautiful country, " The sea cast round her like a mantle, Th-i sea cloud like a crown."