Fortunately for New Zealand, Britain had a fair start of France in the race for possession. Unfortunately for many colonists, then and to be, the New Zealand Company ran well ahead of the British Government in the race for the acquisition of land. Most fortunately for all concerned, Her Majesty's representatives were men not afraid to undo the tangle caused by the early dealings in land. They were men determined to adjust upon an equitable basis all land transactions between the white population and the brown. They were men who insisted that the Maori, ignorant at first of the value of that with which they parted so lightly, should not be driven from their ancestral possessions for the price of a few old muskets, a handful of red sealing-wax, or even an orchestra of Jew's-harps and tin bugles. It would be improper to refer otherwise than delicately to a past so recent. Something must be said, but not without consideration for the feelings of others. Moreover, the subject of the proceedings of the New Zealand Land Company is so difficult and involved, that, save in the briefest manner, it does not fall to be dealt with in a history of this nature. While the _Tory_ was ploughing through girdling oceans north and south, the Directors of the New Zealand Company were doing all they could to attract a good class of emigrants. They described in glowing terms the situation, scenery, and climate of the country, eulogised their system of colonisation, and offered, by lottery, land at popular prices, which included the passage out of the emigrant and his household. Fifty thousand acres in the North Island were at first offered by the Company for purchase, and over eleven hundred emigrants--purchasers, labourers, and their families--sailed within six months for New Zealand, full of hope in the future. The startling feature of the story is that the Company had no title to land in New Zealand, nor any right to sell it. The significant lines did not occur to them, "The man that once did sell the lion's skin while the beast lived, was killed with hunting him." After a voyage of four months, the _Tory_ dropped anchor in Port Nicholson on the 20th of September, 1839. The shores of Cook Strait had been for many a year the scene of fighting among the Maori and, as first one and then another tribe came uppermost in the struggle, the question of the actual ownership of the land became decidedly matter for argument. It will be remembered that, by Maori law, conquest of land constituted ownership. True; but if the conquerors of to-day were likely to be turned out to-morrow by the recently vanquished, or by another set of combatants, it does not need much demonstration to show that intending purchasers would require to be very careful as to the soundness of their own right and title, or entirely careless of any law but that of possession.