After this, various expeditions, under the command of Hongi, or his sub-chiefs, marched southward to slay and eat all and sundry. The Ngatewhatua, a populous tribe of the Kaipara districts, had to bear the brunt of Hongi's advance, and were almost annihilated. He penetrated a long way south, ever victorious over every one by reason of his superior weapons. There is little doubt that he must have sometimes led an army of as many as five thousand men, mostly armed with muskets. This was a prodigious force for Maori war, irrespective of the enormous advantage of powder and ball over the native merè (battle-axe) and patu (a sort of halberd). Such was the spirit of the Maori, and such their warlike ferocity, that tribes never thought of submitting peaceably, or fled from superior strength. They always fought first. It is difficult to realize, nowadays, the awful carnage that Hongi instituted. Districts were depopulated, tribes annihilated, men, women, and children, in scores and hundreds, were butchered and eaten; pa and kainga were burnt and destroyed. Far to the south went the bloodthirsty conquerors, even into what afterwards came to be the province of Wellington. Ngapaoa, Ngatewaikato, Ngatimaniapoto, Ngatiawa, and many another tribe felt the full force of Hongi's lust for conquest. Even to the East Cape his terrible warriors came, decimating Ngateurewera and Ngatiporu. Of these latter they once roasted and ate fifteen hundred, at a single one of their cannibal orgies. But Hongi did not become king of New Zealand after all. He received a wound in battle, which brought him to his death in 1828. In spite of his propensities for war and cannibalism, both of which, one may say, were hereditary in the Maori blood at that time, Hongi would seem to have possessed many good qualities. His intellect was quick and vigorous, and would have distinguished him among any people. His ingenuity was great, both in overcoming difficulties and in the arts which the Maori used, or that had been taught him by Europeans. His bravery was undoubted, and was mingled with much large-hearted generosity. He had good impulses, and was singularly affectionate to his own family. To him missionaries and white traders owed the first footing they obtained in the country, and the ability to hold their own there afterwards. From the period of Marsden's first visit the labours of the missionaries began to bear fruit, and Christianity spread, at first slowly, but afterwards with marvellous rapidity and completeness. Soon after Hongi's death a more peaceful era commenced: arms were less often employed; cannibalism was given up among christianized tribes; and peaceful arts were more attended to. In 1823, a Wesleyan mission was established, first of all in Whangaroa; and, in 1837, a Roman Catholic one was commenced in Hokianga. By 1840 the whole of the tribes of the Maori were professedly Christian, and had relinquished their old warlike customs.