EARLY AUSSIE SLEDGING AND PUT DOWN
We are currently celebrating the 174thAnniversary of the Founding of Wellington. The New Zealand Company’s first settler ship, the Aurora, anchored at Petone in Wellington Harbour on 22 January 1840, marking the settlement that would later become Wellington. The new town was named in honour of Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington.
As was often the case with the New Zealand Company, there was a substantial difference between theory and reality. One settler recalled that when his ship entered Wellington Harbour, ‘disappointment was visible on the countenance of everyone’.
The problems associated with settling among steep hills and swampy valleys were compounded by: floods which led to the movement of the site of the city [initially named Britannia] from the Hutt Valley to its present location in Te Aro; disputes as to the extent of the land purchased from Maori; and confusion and conflict on land titling among the colonists.
By the end of the year, 1,200 settlers had arrived in Wellington. The Colony’s Promoter Edward Gibbon Wakefield had hoped to make the settlement the capital of New Zealand. He was to be disappointed when Governor William Hobson chose Auckland instead (although Wellington did become the capital when Parliament was moved to the city in 1865).
The Crown also began an ex post investigation of the New Zealand Company’s land purchases. This uncertainty and fighting with Māori in the Hutt Valley and Porirua contributed to Wellington’s slow growth in the 1840s. In 1850 the so-called ‘model settlement’ had a population of 5,479, while the virtually unplanned town of Auckland was home to 8,301 settlers.
And it wasn’t more than a month after the first landing in 1840 that the Australians were sledging the Kiwis in what has become a longstanding mutual chiack.
It seems that a certain Captain Pearson, of the ship Integrity, who was a resident of New South Wales, was violently arrested and put in irons in early 1840 at Port Nicholson, on a charge of piracy, preferred against him by his charterer, because he would not land his cattle until he had either paid, or given security to pay the freight. Captain Pearson challenged the authority, and protested against the jurisdiction of the Court convened by the New Zealand colonists.
The NSW Newspaper ‘The Colonist’ took up Pearson’s case calling the court ‘a trumpery that was got up, without Her Majesty's commission, to try him’ and claiming that the court derived its authority from thin air and that its functionaries were 'nothing more than grave and potent seignors of a rebel Council, with a bogus sovereign President at its head'!
'FLATTERING THEMSELVES ON THE SOVEREIGNTY OF SAVAGE CHIEFS'
The Main Text from ‘The Colonist’, Sydney, New South Wales, Saturday 9 May 1840:
'By the arrival of the Tory from Port Nicholson we are put in possession of the second number of The New Zealand Gazette, the first newspaper ever published in that territory. The first number of this Gazette was published in London, as a feu de joie, prior to the departure of the first expedition. The number which we have now before us was published on the 18th ultimo, at Port Nicholson, and promulgates certain manifestoes in which the Provisional Constitution of the new settlement is defined, and on which its Local Government professes to found its powers and jurisdiction within the limits of its territory.
As there is something in our opinion rather extraordinary and unprecedented in this experiment of the New Zealand Company, we have thought it necessary to quote, in another part of this day's paper, all the documents and intelligence respecting the Government and proceedings of this new Colony, which have been published in the second number of The New Zealand Gazette, in order that our readers may the better judge of the nature of these proceedings, and of the validity of the strictures which we are disposed to make upon them.
After having perused the documents we have referred to, we presume that no intelligent person, who understands the true principles of the British Constitution, will hesitate to coincide with us in the opinion, that the experiment of the Port Nicholson Land Company is not only novel and unparalleled in the history of modern colonization at least, but anomalous and fallacious as regards the fundamental principles on which its constitution is based, and the source from which its functionaries profess to derive their authority.
When the colonists at Port Nicholson set out on their enterprise, they did not obtain a Royal Charter from the Crown to which they owe allegiance to authorize them to erect a government of their own, and to invest their functionaries with constitutional powers. But in order to remedy as much as possible the want of a Charter, and to provide for the maintenance of social order, the emigrants previous to their departure from England entered into one common compact, for the erection of a Provisional Government, according to a specific form of Constitution, whereby they bound themselves to recognize certain authorities, and submit to be governed by them agreeably to the Laws of England.
This was all very well so far as the parties to this compact were concerned; but in order to render the jurisdiction of the provisional government effectual. in its application to persons who might come among them, but who had not been parties to the original compact, the colonists of Port Nicholson seem to have felt the necessity of investing their Constitution with the sanction of sovereign authority, in order that their Government might have paramount jurisdiction within the' limits of the colony’; or, in other words, 'that their Government, in its administration of the laws of the community, might be competent to exercise supreme authority and territorial dominion.
There are only three ways in which this end could be accomplished by this new colony. First, by obtaining a Charter from the British Crown; second, by assuming and maintaining sovereignty in itself, as an independent state; or third, by obtaining the sanction and recognition of Native Chiefs, and incorporating, as it were, their territorial sovereignty as an element in its political constitution.
With respect to the first of these ways, we a have only to remark, that it is the most legitimate and effectual mode of founding a colony, and of establishing within it the institutions of Government on a competent basis. On that basis, however, the Government of Port Nicholson does not profess to found its authority.
With respect to the second mode of establishing a new colony, we believe it cannot apply to Port Nicholson; in as much as it is legally incompetent for British subjects to organize themselves into a distinct community, and assume an independent sovereignty of their own. This requires no elucidation - it is obvious in itself. Such a proceeding as we now suppose would be incompatible with the personal allegiance which British subjects owe to their Sovereign - which allegiance is so absolute and permanent in its obligation as to be incapable of dissolution by removal from the Empire, or by deliberate renunciation on the part of the subject.
Such renunciation would infer treason; and hence, if - any number-of British subjects organize themselves into a distinct community, and erect themselves into an independent state, irrespectively of the supremacy of the British Crown, then unquestionably they incur the political guilt of treason, and are liable to be coerced into subjection as rebels, or punished as traitors.
With a view to avoid this illegal position, and to compensate in the mean time for the want of a Royal Charter, the Colonists of Port Nicholson had recourse to the manoeuuvre of obtaining the ratifying assent of the Native Chiefs to their Provisional Constitution, and of thereby investing it, as they suppose, with the high sanction of Sovereign authority within the limits of their territory.
This arrangement we have characterized as a political experiment, not only of an extra ordinary and uncommon description, but, in our opinion, of a no less anomalous and fallacious kind. It is altogether unprecedented in the history of British Colonization, for an Association of British subjects to establish a colony in any savage country, and to erect an independent government with political supremacy and territorial jurisdiction, founded on the sanction and derived from the sovereignty of Savage Chiefs.
Such a manoeuvre is really too shallow and fallacious not to be seen through and scouted by men not given to visionary projects and theoretical chimeras; and our candid opinion of this novel experiment at Port Nicholson is that it is a mere juggling trick of state - a coup d'etat, attempted by set of scheming adventurers of a republican spirit, to give colour to their position and proceedings, which are both very questionable indeed.
The illegality of their Government, so far as it asserts its supremacy over any portion of New Zealand, we maintain is obvious; inasmuch as Her Majesty the Queen of England has proclaimed it to be her royal will and intention to extend her sovereignty over the whole of New Zealand and one of the primary and most obvious effects of that proclamation was to render it illegal for any of her subjects in that territory to act irrespectively of her supremacy.
The authority of the British Crown was thence forth paramount in New Zealand; and the colonists of Port Nicholson need not, therefore, flatter themselves with the idea, that the sovereignty of savage chiefs, whose sanction they pretend to have obtained, will give validity to their Government, or legality to their proceedings. They are, to all intents and purposes, within the limits of Her Majesty's empire, and within the sphere of her sovereignty.
It is, therefore, incompatible with their allegiance, for any of her subjects in any part of New Zealand to organize a Government, or to exercise magisterial jurisdiction, without her sanction and authority.
This, then, is precisely the position of the colonists of Port Nicholson. The fact that the Queen of England is negotiating for the surrender of their territory, and also for the recognition of her own sovereignty, by the natives of New Zealand, affords no pretext - although the Port Nicholson colonists allege to the contrary - for their negotiating either directly for the land, or indirectly for the sovereignty, of the natives in any portion of the territory. Such negotiations on the part of subjects in competition with their lawful Sovereign, and in defiance of her proclamations, can bear no other construction in the strict interpretation of the law, than that of treasonable practices; and as such, therefore, they are illegal and nugatory in themselves.
The Port Nicholson Government dispenses with the most sacred functions of the British Crown; it usurps the prerogative of creating magistrates of its own, and assumes jurisdiction over British subjects who do not recognize its authority, or the legality of its administration. And when the jurisdiction of its authorities is protested against, and appealed from to the only legitimate and competent authorities for the administration of English Law on British subjects in New Zealand - to wit, the constituted functionaries at the Bay of Islands, under Her Majesty's Representative, Lieutenant Governor HOBSON, - they insolently spurn the appeal, and show their respect for the authority appealed to by committing the appellant to prison, and treating him like a condemned felon.
What! Talk of the Queen of England's sovereignty to them, and of Governor HOBSON's constituted authorities within their territory, and in the face of that Sovereignty which they have already derived from the Native Chiefs! Who dares doubt the authority of their government, or question the legitimacy of their jurisdiction? Talk of the Law of England and the British Constitution! Why, is it not the boast of the one, that it can be administered only by authorities constituted by the Crown, - that it holds a man innocent until he is proved to be guilty, - and reserves even to the guilty the sacred privilege of trial by jury! And is it not the peculiar characteristic of the other, that it admit of an imperium in imperio?
If so; then we hesitate not to denounce the self-constituted Government of Port Nicholson as a monstrous and audacious usurpation - an anomalous and unwarrantable experiment, which ought to be put down'.
NOTE
In a previous article, I have characterized New Zealand, somewhat acerbically, as ‘the only country in the world founded by real estate agents'. But it seems the Australians have a somewhat more romantic view that our founders were a bunch of lawless pirates. You can pay your money and take your choice.
I note though that the H.M.S. Herald set sail from Sydney on 18 December 1843 with the following passengers onboard: Captain Hobson, Lieutenant-Governor of New Zealand, and family, Mr. Felton Mathew, Dr. Johnson, and Mr. Hustler. Hobson landed at the Bay of Islands on 30 January 1840 to read his proclamation of appointment and arranged for a meeting at British Resident James Busby's house on 5 February, while the Treaty of Waitangi between Maori and the Crown was being drafted.
‘On the following day, 6 February, as the chiefs came forward to sign he greeted each of them with the words 'He iwi tahi tatou' (We are all one people). At the end of 1840, New Zealand ceased to be a protectorate of New South Wales and became a colony in its own right, with Hobson as Governor and Auckland as its capital city. The administration was short of cash and had frequent conflict with settlers, who were hungry for land and wanted control of the colony's government’.
It seems that Hobson’s posse cut the rustlers off at the Pass - or was this just another underhanded turn down?
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