In 1838 Bishop Broughton came from Australia to confirm the candidates taught and prepared by the missionaries. He reported to the C.M.S. committee at home on the flourishing condition of the Mission. The Christians were said to number thirty thousand, and Bishop Broughton urged the desirability of sending out a Bishop to superintend the work of the Church in New Zealand. The special conditions of the country demanded that the influence of the Church should be felt in all the new circumstances that were arising. Settlers were pouring in, many of them convicts from Australia, unprincipled men with no desire for anything but their own gain. Contact with them was teaching the Maoris their evil ways, and leading to much corruption and drunkenness. To the settlers the natives with their old established customs of land tenure, their great attachment to their lands, and their constant tendency to fight for their rights, were hindrances in their way. They desired only to exterminate them. The home government realized that this was not a state of affairs that could be left to settle itself. In the interests of peace, they determined that New Zealand must be made into a British Colony. This was strongly opposed by the C.M.S. who encouraged by the progress that Christianity had made amongst the Maoris, believed that before long the whole people would become Christian and believed that the arrival of colonists would only disturb the peaceful development of the natives. It was, however, impossible to imagine that a country as full of resources as New Zealand could be left to its scanty native population. Settlers were sure to come, and it was better for all that a good and stable government should be set up in the land. An English officer, Captain Hobson, was therefore sent out to enter into peaceful negotiations with the chiefs, in order to establish the sovereignty of the Queen in New Zealand. This was not an easy matter, for the chiefs feared that to agree to this would mean that they would have to give up to the Queen of England the ownership of their lands. They had heard of what had happened in other countries and how the people had been reduced to the position of slaves by the coming of the white settlers. A great gathering of the chiefs was held at Waitangi early in 1840, when Captain Hobson explained to them what was proposed, and told them that “the shadow would go to the Queen and the substance would remain, and that they might rely implicitly on the good faith of Her Majesty’s Government.” The question was long discussed. The missionaries urged the chiefs to trust in the words of Captain Hobson. At last one of the chiefs said to him, “You must be our father, you must not allow us to become slaves; you must preserve our customs, and never permit our land to be wrested from us,” and the majority of the chiefs ended by signing the treaty of Waitangi. Captain Hobson fixed the seat of government for