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was no regiment under the Crown like them-men that would not take a word, when drinking in tap-rooms, from any soldier, but in an instant up and box him-men that reckoned it their pride to conquer or die: and this was the day that was to try them.' Their loss was no less than 27 officers and 414 privates in killed and wounded.

• On the third day, the head-surgeon came and looked at our wounds, and told us, hospitals were getting ready for us in Toulouse, and that peace had been made before the battle was fought. I cannot tell how this news affected me; I was sick and wounded, and I thought on the thousands who had fallen a few days before. My period of service was up, and I cast my eyes on my native land; but all was dark and disheartening. Ten years, the best of my life, had been spent among the lowest of the army ; my habits were fixed, I thought, and a soldier I must continue. I had, in that time, lost all my family but one brother : still he was my brother, affectionate and kind ; and my country was dear to me even in this poor and miserable plight I now lay in. Darkness fell upon me, as a thousand schemes engaged my thoughts : at length sleep stole my senses, and I had some dozing, dreaming naps ;-the visions of by-gone days, battles, places, home, my wound, poor, friendless, and maimed, perhaps for life these were

my dreams.

And this is War! We will not trouble our readers with reflections, but cordially recommend the poor Soldier's artless narrative to their special notice; while, to what we have said of the Officer's volume, we need only add, that, waiving the false sentiment, its author is a very agreeable traveller, and seems not an unamiable man. To his Recollections of the Peninsula, this one should be added, that it has all ended in the setting up of Ferdinand and the Monks !

Art. VI. Journal of a Ten Months' Residence in New Zealand. By

Richard A. Cruise, Esq. Captain in the 84th Reg. Foot. 8vo.

pp. 322. Price 10s. 6d. London, 1823. THE object

of this Ten Months' detention in New Zealand, was, to obtain a cargo of timber fit for masts of large ships. The cowry-tree, which affords it, is described as having a leaf not unlike that of our box-tree, but much larger; it produces a cone, and yields abundance of resin : it rises frequently a hundred feet without shooting out a branch, and then spreads into a head almost as umbrageous as the lime.

Among the natives with whom they were brought into frequent contact was George, the leader in the massacre of the crew of the Boyd. When passing by the wreck of that ship, in company with some of the British officers, he pointed at it, and

in his broken English said, That's my ship; she is very sorry;

she is crying. But in no instance, adds Captain C., did he express any compunction for the horrible crime. Could this be rationally expected, when the provocation which led to this act of revenge, must, to the mind of a savage, have justified its atrocity? George persists in declaring, that Captain Thompson twice inflicted corporal punishment upon him, for having refused to work in common with the other sailors during the voyage; after which, it appears to have been madness to put conti dence in the natives. In almost every instance of similar outrage on the part of savage nations, the Europeans have proved to have been the aggressors. Incalculable is the obstruction which the wanton misconduct of sailors and traders has created, to the progress of civilization. Barbarians who have never had any previous intercourse with the whites, are almost universally friendly. It is true, that sometimes offence may be unwittingly given through ignorance of their customs and manners. Permission ought in all cases to be obtained by suitable presents, before entering upon a chieftain's territory. Through neglect of this precaution, a neglect which is considered in the light of an injury as well as an insult, many a life has been sacrificed, when an axe, or a few nails, might have purchased the good-will and won the confidence of the people. Those who have first come in contact with savages, have been apt to trust too much to the effect of fear, and to their own superior physical force. But the first impression of fear soon wears off, and treachery is generally, sooner or later, a match for strength. Kroko, a New Zealander, pointed out the place where Captain Cook had been attacked by the natives, and gave a minute detail of the maşsacre of part of the crew of Morion's ship.

• He said that the natives, exasperated against the French captain for having burned two of their villages, determined on revenge ; and, concealing every hostile disposition towards him and his people, pointed out a place to haul the seine, and offered to assist the sailors in doing so. The arrangement of the plot accorded with the treachery of the proffered kindness. Next to every white man was placed a New Zea. lander; and when all hands were busy pulling the net, a sudden' and furious attack was made upon the unsuspecting and defenceless Europeans, and every one of them was murdered.

After such an act as this, the fear of retaliation forms an almost insuperable obstacle to re-establishing a confidential intercourse, Captain Cruise states, however, that the mild and friendly manner of the soldiers succeeded in removing the distrust and prejudices of the natives.

• The exercise of troops was at all times a spectacle highly gratify

p. 164.

ing to them. They were astonished that so many men could execute, with such precision, the different movements at the same instant; and they observed of the firing, “ that all the soldiers were the same as one man." As their dress and duties were different from those of any white people whom they had before seen, the New Zealanders could not be persuaded that they belonged to the same tribe as the rest of the crew; and when they occasionally went on shore to amuse themselves in the neighbouring villages, the people collected all their muskets for them to perform their firelock exercise ; an exhibition with which they were so pleased, that they often rewarded it with some acts of kindness or generosity.' p. 146.

• If, on our arrival, the people felt a friendly disposition towards us, it was now considerably increased : mutual confidence was perfectly established. To the hut of the New Zealander and to his humble fare the white man was ever welcome, and, as a guest, his. property was sacred from violation. It is, perhaps, right to observe, that .a moderate liberality was always exercised in the distribution of presents, and it was an established rule, not to receive any thing in return; but certainly, that liberality was otherwise well repaid, and we had the satisfaction to think, that not only a high degree of respect for the British character was excited among the natives, but that we carried with us, at our departure, their general good wishes, and the sincere and disinterested regret of many individuals.'

• It has appeared in the pages of this journal, that during a stay of ten months in New Zealand, a constant intercourse took place between the people of the ship and the natives; and that distant excursions were made by different individuals into the interior and along the coast, without any unfortunate consequences. From personal experience it is but justice to the New Zealanders, to add a particular testimony to their character. Two officers' of the detachment of the 84th regiment, being provided with a private boat, rowed by two soldiers, and having fewer avocations to detain them on board than the generality of persons belonging to the Dromedary, went on various shooting or other excursions into the country, which brought them in daily contact with the natives, whose assistance was always at their command. When badness of weather or other circumstances obliged us to seek food or shelter among them, an appeal to their hospitality was never made in vain. Perpetually at their mercy, if they chose to misuse us, not a single insult was ever offered to one of our little party; the most trifing article was never stolen ; and we often experienced acts of generosity and disinterestedness from them, which would have done honour to a civilized people.' pp. 303, 4.

Capt. Cruise states, that though the New Zealanders make no scruple of thieving any thing they can conceal, when they come on board our ships, • still, when the European goes

among them, and commits himself and his property to their * protection, he may place implicit confidence in their honesty

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and honour. On their visit to Wevere, the brother of Tetoro, one of the most civilized and enlightened of the chiefs, their baggage was immediately put under the verandah of the storehouse, and tabbooed. And, says the Writer,

though our guns and powder-flasks, which to them were the greatest temptation in the world, lay at the mercy of the natives, not a single article was lost, nor did any one of them attempt to enter our tent without permission.' p. 29.

It is not, however, quite clear in this case, whether the property would have remained untouched, had it not been consecrated or tabbooed. Superstition here came to the aid of I honesty. But the hospitality of the chiefs was honourably manifested in taking this method of securing the baggage of their guests. The power of the tabboo was very usefully manifested on another occasion. When the Prince Regent schooner anchored in the river of Shukehanga, so many war canoes, filled with men, surrounded her, that the commander, whose crew consisted only of nine persons, was not a little alarmed at his unprotected situation.'

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But his apprehensions were soon removed by a chief named Moodooi, who came upon deck, and tabboord the vessel, or made it a crime for any one to ascend the side without permission. The injunction was strictly attended to during her stay in the harbour; while Mowhenna, the chief of the tribe in the immediate neighbourhood of the Heads, daily presented the people with several baskets of potatoes, and extended the same liberality to the boats of the Dromedary, when they accidentally went on shore.' p. 88.

The people of Shukehanga are represented as apparently of more industrious habits, milder manners, and far more under the control of their chiefs, than those at the Bay of Islands.

During the stay of Capt. Cruise in the Island, the Rey. Mr. Marsden made an excursion in a canoe up the Wydematta, intending, after navigating that river as far as possible, to walk to the Bay of Islands. He arrived safe at Parro Bay, having been twenty-three days upon his journey from the river Thames to the Bay of Islands. During that time he had suffered much fatigue and many privations, but had been 'universally well received by the different tribes he encountered." The protection which the Missionaries enjoyed was nevertheless considered by our Author as very precarious, being maintained at the expense of much forbearance and humiliation. This opinion, subsequent events have in part justified; yet still, they have been able hitherto to stand their ground, and some of the natives are stated in the recent VOL. XXI. N. S. N

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accounts, to manifest a very favourable disposition. An interesting anecdote is given in the notes to the present volume, of fidelity in a native domestic. Mr. Hall, une of the settlers sent out by the Church Missionary Society, had resided on the banks of the Wytangy about six months, when some of the natives one evening suddenly rushed into his house, knocked down both him and his wife, plundered him of every thing they could lay hold of, and then departed. The cause of this outrage does not appear.

• When he had sufficiently recovered his senses to see the extent of his calamity, his infant and only child was missing. A native girl was nursing it at the time the house was attacked, and, alarmed for the safety of her charge, she covered it with her mat, and crossing the Wytangy in a canoe, concealed herself in the woods. At the end of two days, when every thing was quiet, she brought back the child in perfect safety. She still lives with Mr. Hall, and when Europeans visit his house, they generally testify their sense of her fidelity by making her some trifling present.' p. 311.

Two years and a half after this, the settlement at Kiddeekiddee appears to have remained undisturbed, and Mr. Leigh, a missionary sent out by the Wesleyan Society, found good wheat, barley, oats, beans, peas, and vegetables of all kinds bere in abundance. Capt. Cruise gives a very favourable character of one of the natives, named Wheety, of whose steady fidelity they had repeated proof. When the ship got under weigh, Wheety came upon deck, and took leave individually of almost every one in the ship.

• He had been so general a favourite, that there were few from whom he had not received a present ; and now, rich in his own estimation and that of his countrymen, he expressed his intention of going back to Shukehanga, of building himself a house as much like the Europeans as he could, and of living in their manner. He had long laid aside his native customs and prejudices, and often remarked that New Zealand would one day be the White mens' country.' pp. 275, 6,

If the present unpretending volume has not added much to our information respecting the inhabitants of New Zealand, yet, we are not inclined to depreciate any work which gives us, as this does, the result of personal observation. At the same time, had the metereological observations been thrown into a table at the end, the substance of the Journal might have been comprised, without lessening either its value or interest, in a volume of half the dimensions.

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