The missionaries made constant efforts for peace and assured the natives that the British Government was determined to protect their rights and property. Great was their surprise and consternation when a Report of the House of Commons stated that “all lands not actually occupied by the natives are declared to be vested in the Crown.” Selwyn wrote: “The natives of New Zealand cannot bear this uncertainty; they can see the merits of a question as clearly as we can; but if they detect us in a falsehood, or even in a change of purpose the reason of which they cannot understand, our influence with them is lost.” It was in the neighbourhood of the Bay of Islands that there was most restlessness, and here the discontented Maoris gathered round a chief named John Heke. On a hill overlooking the village of Kororareke there was a blockhouse with a few soldiers and a flagstaff on which the British flag was flying. This was to the natives a symbol of British sovereignty. Heke was a Christian and had no hostility to the missionaries, nor did he desire to destroy the property of the settlers. It was the fear lest his people should be reduced to the condition of slaves that aroused his hostility. The Bishop writes: “Meetings began to be held at which John Heke was the chief speaker, the subject of discussion being the cutting down of the flagstaff. In the month of August, 1844, Heke assembled a party of armed men, and proceeded to Kororareke, where he spent Saturday and part of Sunday in alarming the natives and early on Monday morning, mounted the hill and cut down the flagstaff. I was at Paihai at the time, engaged in the native school, at the close of which the first words I heard were ‘the colour has fallen.’ I shuddered at the thought of this beginning of hostilities, so full of presage of evil for the future. Heke then crossed to Paihai, and with his party danced the war dance in my face, after which many violent speeches were made.” The Bishop’s fears were justified; a troubled period of anarchy followed. Soldiers were sent for from Sydney to defend the settlers and their property. The fighting was most serious in the district round Kororareke. During the next two years the flagstaff was cut down on three more occasions, and the town of Kororareke was captured by the Maori rebels. The Bishop watched the attack from his little sailing vessel, to which he had brought some of the wives and children of the settlers for safety. Then he landed with Mr. Williams to recover and bury the bodies of the dead. He wrote: