My dear brother, I have made up five cases of plants
containing new things that was worth sending one container variegated
flax (the small long narrow one marked with a cross cut on both
ends) the finest flower in this country called kowai ngata kaka
or Cockatoo beak flower it grows straggling like a vine and i think
should be trained over something it will show at perfection over
a considerable space and is entirely covered with large handsome
flowers. I send a good many young plants with roots and some cuttings
i think it is sure to grow. there is also a plant of a species of
the Kawa which grows to a very handsome shrub that you will know
by its leaves of a heart like shape there is also a number of young
plants of a tree called Nikau or neecow it is a sort of cabbage
palm i think and is very handsome any New Zealander will describe
to you the other things and tell you their names. I have not got
them on board yet there is a strong fair wind blowing and this is
the day the Oudora ??? was to sail ..........
Letter to Archibald Maning 21 August 1844
My dear brother, I send by the Nimrod 200 flax plants
the freight is paid in consequence of the trip having been detained
longer than was expected. They have been out of the ground.....
should have been but I think they should live up it, would have
been impossible to send a great number in this ship as there is
no room and they would take up a great space if packed in cases
with earth but by this experiment we can see if live up without
packing in mould which would be a great thing to know the best time
for flax them is approaching................................ the
plants are one of the kind not found wild but cultivated by the
natives...........
Letter 15 March 1845
Pakeha Maori opposition to British rule was particularly
vocal when Hobson met with the Hokianga chiefs. Among the more notable
Pakeha Maori opponents of European law and order was Frederick Maning
who had settled in the district to escape ‘the straps and
strings of civilisation’. His opposition, like that of Jacky
Marmon, was founded on materialism, not idealism. By 1840, Maning
was prospering in the kauri timber trade and feared the imposition
of regulations. Maning’s lifestyle and his atheism alienated
him from the missionaries and more respectable settlers but he was
content to remain outside European society. His book Old New
Zealand laments the passing of the freedom of action enjoyed
by the Pakeha Maori. ‘But those were the times!-“the
good old times” before Governors were invested, and law and
justice and all that. When everyone did as he liked except when
his neighbours would not let him, (the more shame for them)-when
there were no taxes or duties, or public works, or public to require
them.”’
During the Treaty debates attended by more than
2000 Maori and sixty chiefs, Maning translated for the chiefs and
vociferously opposed their signing the document. He bluntly told
Hobson that he had advised the Maori to resist British overtures
because he thought that European colonisation would degrade them.
Maning also considered it inadvisable to apply British law to Maori.
Hobson believed, incorrectly, that Maori opposition at the Hokianga
was traceable to the influence of the Catholic Bishop Pompallier.
Hobson said of Maning, ‘He is the active agent of the Bishop.”
Hobson was closer to the truth in his assumption that Maori opposition
was also traceable to the influence ‘of a set of escaped convicts
and other low ruffians who have congregated on this river in considerable
numbers.’
Trevor Bentley Pakeha Maori: the extraordinary
story of the Europeans who lives as Maori in early New Zealand
Auckland: Penguin, 1999, pp. 132-33
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