At Nelson, as over the whole of the Company's domain, disputes constantly arose between Maori and Pakeha. The Company's settlers appealed to the law, which had little choice but to decide against them; the natives went about their operations in a manner peculiar to themselves. Finding it impossible to prevent the newcomers from occupying land which they insisted had been bought, the Maori took to destroying the habitations of the invaders, though they rarely used violence towards individuals, and scrupulously abstained from theft. It was unlikely that this system of incessant pin-pricking by either side would result in anything but poisoned wounds, and the fears of those who had anticipated this result presently received fearful justification. The turbulent Te Rauparaha was, by right of conquest, one of the great landowners on the southern side of the strait, and with him was his son-in-law, Rangihaeata, a chief of fierce, untamed passions, obsessed by an intense, almost insane, hatred of the Pakeha, and the last man to submit tamely to their aggression. Rangihaeata had, too, a bitter grievance against the whites, since a woman related to him had been killed by a settler, whom the Supreme Court acquitted of wilful murder. With two such men in opposition to the business-like unsentimental Company, a peaceful solution of the difficult land question was not likely to be found. Some sixty miles east of Nelson is the fertile valley of the Wairau, abutting on the shores of Cloudy Bay. Having distributed the town sections at Nelson, the Company decided upon this valley as suitable for country lots, and sent their surveyors to fix boundaries and prepare the land for delivery to colonists. Though instantly warned off by the natives occupying the land, the Company's officials proceeded with their work. What makes the singular persistence of the Company in this case so difficult to understand is the fact that Te Rauparaha and his ally, Rangihaeata, were at that very time attending the Court of the Commissioner of Land Claims at Wellington, and they had agreed to meet this high functionary a few days later at Cloudy Bay, in order that the dispute about this particular valley might be adjusted. Naturally, on hearing of the presence of surveyors on the land they regarded as their own, the two chiefs hastened across the strait and gave the officials the choice between suspending operations, pending the Commissioner's decision, or being turned off. As no attention was paid to them, Rauparaha and Rangihaeata burned down the hut of the chief surveyor; but, in order to show that they had no desire to deal unjustly with men who were, after all, only carrying out their employers' orders, the two Maori collected the property of the operators and rendered it to the owners. A warrant against the chiefs for robbery and arson was immediately issued, and Mr. Thompson, the police magistrate, determined to execute the same in person.