The existence of such a place as Kororareka was felt to be a curse to the whole of the South Sea, and did not fail to affect even Sydney, two thousand miles away. There were not wanting some to press upon the Imperial Government the necessity of annexation and of active steps being taken. The Exeter Hall party, however, frustrated their endeavours, actuated thereto by motives that time has shown to have been founded on miscomprehension and mistake. Guided by the Exeter Hall influence, and by representations made by the missionaries, the Imperial Government took a decided step in 1835. They recognized New Zealand as independent, treated with a confederation of Maori chiefs, and bestowed a national flag upon the country, thus forfeiting the claim acquired from Captain Cook's original discovery. Mr. Busby was appointed to be British resident at Kororareka; as, however, he had no force to act with, he was unable to preserve order in that place, and he had neither influence nor power wherewith to uphold the dignity of his office and of the country he represented. Persons in England who had been desirous of seeing New Zealand converted into an appanage of the British crown, covered their disappointment by forming an association, styled "The New Zealand Company," much upon the basis of the old East Indian Company. They proceeded to form settlements upon a system of their own; a pioneering expedition being sent out in 1839, and the first body of emigrants landing at Port Nicholson in 1840. Their action, together with the outcry caused by the condition of things at Kororareka, caused the Imperial Government to reverse its former policy. Another circumstance operated to hasten the Government's decision. French Roman Catholic missions had been established in New Zealand, and were gaining many converts among the Maoris. In 1837 a French nobleman, one Baron de Thierry, purchased a large area in Hokianga, and sought to establish himself there as a sovereign prince. Then the French Government prepared to annex the islands as a possession of France. In January, 1840, Captain Hobson arrived at Kororareka in command of H.M.S _Rattlesnake_, instructed to hoist the British standard, which he only succeeded in doing a few hours before a French ship arrived for a similar purpose. Captain Hobson at once found a staunch ally in the person of Tamati Waka, a powerful Ngapuhi chief. By this man's influence the Christianized chiefs of the North were gathered together, and induced to sign the famous Treaty of Waitangi, on March 5, 1840. That instrument is the title-deed of the colony. It was the formal cession of sovereignty to Queen Victoria, by the principal men of the Maori nation.