NEW ZEALAND IN 1805
SAVAGE’S ACCOUNT OF NEW ZEALAND IN 1805. Edited by A. D. Me Kinlay. L. T. Watkins Ltd. 7/6. John Savage was a naval surgeon whose account of New Zealand was the first written by a European after that of Captain. Cook. It is doubtful whether his short stay off the coast enabled him to collect all the information about the Maoris that he retails, and he may have expanded his meagre first-hand knowledge with the statements of the worthy Moyhanger, the young Maori he took with him to England, and whose reactions to civilisation form the most amusing part of the book. Moyhanger ran miles after a man on a horse on the island of St. Helena to make sure he was real. In London his noble and outlandish bearing always gathered a crowd, and Savage was so embarrassed by his part of bear-leader to probably the first Maori to. visit England that he sent him home as ‘soon as he conveniently could. But this was not before he had had Moyhanger presented at Court and in noblemen’s drawing-rooms. With Savage’s account A. D. McKinlay reprints two other documents bearing. on early New Zealand history-an anonymous " Address on the Colonization of New Zealand," published first in 1824, and the "Plan for Benefiting Distant Unprovided Countries" by Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Dalrymple, brought out in 1771, when the news of Cook’s amazing discoveries was just circulating. Poor Dalrymple, Cook’s rival, was quite sure there was a great Southern Continent floating somewhere between Australia and South America. Robbed of. this by Cook’s work, he consoled himself with a scheme to civilise the Maoris. The 1824 project bore some fruit in the first New Zealand Company’s ridiculous expedition of 1826-7 which, incidentally, first charted Wellington Harbour. It was enterprising and original to reprint in one volume three historical documents of such significance, now unobtainable except in reference libraries. Mr. McKinlay adds value to the book by some helpful notes. . This book was the subject of a recent talk from 2YA by D. O. W. Hall, M.A.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 10, 1 September 1939, Page 37
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347NEW ZEALAND IN 1805 New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 10, 1 September 1939, Page 37
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