When the Maoris were plundering the _Boyd’s_ cargo, they came upon some boxes of seed, which was scattered about as useless. It took root, however, and in a few years the surrounding district was overgrown with garlic and parrot’s-bill acacia (_Clianthus Puniceus_), which yields a beautiful flower used by the natives as an ornament for the ear. After this the island was little visited except by whaling ships (the captains of which were sometimes so accommodating as to lend their ovens to prepare the banquets of human flesh so much relished by the Maoris) till 1839, when the New Zealand Land Company obtained a charter and began to form settlements in the south. It is worthy of remark, that so early as 1835 Great Britain formally recognised the independence of the natives and bestowed on them a national flag; but no sooner had the new company begun to buy extensive tracts of land from the natives, than the missionaries interfered and induced the home government to send out a governor. As a governor over an independent race would have been a contradiction in terms, the difficulty was obviated by inducing a number of natives to assemble at Waitangi, and to attach their signatures to a treaty in which they acknowledged the supremacy of our Queen. Rum and blankets were liberally distributed among the natives, who were ready to sign anything. Such was the origin of the treaty of Waitangi, on which alone our claims to the loyalty and obedience of the Maori race can be said to rest. It was a mere farce, unworthy of the ministers of religion who originated it—equally unworthy of the great nation who sanctioned it. As well might the nine tailors of Tooley-street, who dubbed themselves the men of England, have undertaken to dispose of the liberty of their countrymen, as the signers of the Waitangi treaty to barter away for rum and blankets the future independence of the Maori race. And yet it is in virtue of this worthless document, the authors of which in any civilized country would have been liable to an indictment for conspiracy, that we profess to treat the Maoris as a subject race, and make war against them as rebels when they try to assert their independence.