even for conjecturing; unless we are to suppose that their vindictive
feelings were called forth by the manner in which their pilfering may
have been resented or punished, about which, however, nothing is said in
the account. But perhaps, after all, it is not necessary to refer
their hostility to any immediate cause of this kind. These savages had
probably many old injuries, sustained from former European visitors, yet
unrevenged; and, according to their notions, therefore, they had reason
enough to hold every ship that approached their coast an enemy, and a
fair subject for spoliation. It is lamentable that the conduct of
Europeans should have offered them an excuse for such conduct.

[Illustration: _Christchurch Museum_.

1. Club (_patu_) of wood, inlaid with _paua_ shell and carved.
2. Greenstone club (_mere pounanu_).
3. Club (_onewa_) of stone.
4. _Kotiate_ of wood or bone.]

The wanton cruelties committed upon these people by the commanders and
crews of many of the vessels that have been of late years in the habit
of resorting to their shores, are testified to, by too many evidences,
to allow us to doubt the enormous extent to which they have been
carried; and they are, at the same time, too much in the spirit of that
systematic aggression and violence, which even British sailors are apt
to conceive themselves entitled to practise upon naked and unarmed
savages, to make the fact of their perpetration a matter of surprise to
us. We must refer to Mr. Nicholas's book[H] for many specific instances
of such atrocities; but we may merely mention here that the conduct in
question is distinctly noticed and denounced in the strongest terms,
both in a proclamation by Governor Macquarie, dated the 9th of November,