[Footnote B: Transactions New Zealand Institute, volume xxiii., page
453.]

[Footnote C: "Journal of the Polynesian Society," volume x., page 35.]




JOHN RUTHERFORD

THE WHITE CHIEF.




CHAPTER I.


John Rutherford, according to his own account, was born at Manchester
about the year 1796. He went to sea, he states, when he was hardly more
than ten years of age, having up to that time been employed as a piecer
in a cotton factory in his native town; and after that he appears to
have been but little in England, or even on shore, for many years.

He served for a considerable time on board a man-of-war off the coast of
Brazil; and was afterwards at the storming of San Sebastian, in August,
1813. On coming home from Spain, he entered himself on board another
king's ship, bound for Madras, in which he afterwards proceeded to China
by the east passage, and lay for about a year at Macao.