Memoirs of the Life and Labours of the Rev. Samuel Marsden, of Paramatta, Senior Chaplain of New South Wales; and of His Early Connexion with the Missions to New Zealand and TahitiMarsden, Samuel
Religion
Memoirs of the Life and Labours of the Rev. Samuel Marsden, of Paramatta, Senior Chaplain of New South Wales; and of His Early Connexion with the Missions to New Zealand and Tahiti
Marsden, Samuel
Marsden, Samuel, 1765-1838; Missions -- French Polynesia -- Tahiti (Island); Missions -- New Zealand; Māori (New Zealand people)
At length the Santa Anna returned, having procured a valuable cargo of
seal skins, and prepared to take her departure homewards. Duaterra had
now an opportunity of gratifying an ardent desire he had for some time
entertained of visiting that remote country from which so many vast
ships were sent, and to see with his own eyes the great chief of so
wonderful a people. He willingly risked the voyage, as a common sailor,
to visit England and see king George. The Santa Anna arrived in the
river Thames about July 1809, and Duaterra now requested that the
captain would make good his promise, and indulge him with at least a
sight of the king. Again he had a sad proof of the perfidiousness of
Europeans. Sometimes he was told that no one was allowed to see king
George; sometimes that his house could not be found. This distressed him
exceedingly; he saw little of London, was ill-used, and seldom permitted
to go on shore. In about fifteen days, the vessel had discharged her
cargo, when the captain told him that he should put him on board the
Ann, which had been taken up by government to convey convicts to New
South Wales. The Ann had already dropped down to Gravesend, and Duaterra
asked the master of the Santa Anna for some wages and clothing. He
refused to give him any, telling him that the owners at Port Jackson
would pay him in two muskets for his services on his arrival there; but
even these he never received.
Mr. Marsden was at this time in London, quite ignorant of the fact that
the son of a New Zealand chief, in circumstances so pitiable, lay on
board a South Sea whaler near London bridge. Their first meeting was on
board the Ann, as we have stated, when she had been some days at sea.
His sympathies were at once roused, and his indignation too; for it was
always ill for the oppressor when he fell within the power of his stern
rebuke. "I inquired," he says, "of the master where he met with him, and
also of Duaterra what had brought him to England, and how he came to be
so wretched and miserable. He told me that the hardships and wrongs
which he had endured on board the Santa Anna were exceedingly great, and
that the English sailors had beaten him very much, which was the cause
of his spitting blood, and that the master had defrauded him of all his
wages, and prevented his seeing the king. I should have been very happy,
if there had been time, to call the master of the Santa Anna to account
for his conduct, but it was too late. I endeavoured to soothe his
afflictions, and assured him that he should be protected from insults,
and that his wants should be supplied."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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