"I have deemed it expedient to enter more fully into the detail of this conference," wrote the Major to the Lieutenant-Governor in rebuke of the disloyal speculators, "as one which not only shows fully the general character of the natives, but also the nature of the obstacles I may hereafter expect to meet when principles alien to the Government have been instilled by interested Europeans into their minds, as exemplified also at Coromandel Harbour. Neither will I disguise from Your Excellency my regrets that men professing Christianity should, in a country emerging from barbarity, whose inhabitants are scarcely able to comprehend the simplest doctrines of the Christian religion, endeavour to create distrust of its Ministers--of whatever persuasion--Christianity in any shape, with these people being better than the deplorable condition of many of them at present. It is not the specious professions of a religion which asserts itself unconnected with civil Government which should blind us to the political disunion it creates, but rather its sincerity should be tested by its acts and their effects whether it seeks to open a new field of labour before uncultivated, or to paralyse the efforts of those who have laboured to improve the soil by establishing themselves upon it. The latter I conceive is incompatible with such professions, while this country contains so vast a field untried, but still it is to be hoped reclaimable." At the conclusion of the Tauranga conference Major Bunbury resumed his journey towards the south, the Missionaries being commissioned by him to continue their negotiations for signatures as opportunity offered. With the Arawa people at Rotorua, they had but poor success, for the reason that the members of that tribe were not altogether free to exercise their own will. Worsted in recent wars by Hongi and other victorious chiefs, the Arawas had in self-defence sought an alliance with the great Te Heuheu, of Taupo, whose protecting _mana_ was at this time thrown over them, and fearful lest they might forfeit his good-will should they adopt a course to which they had every reason to believe their ally was hostile, they refused to subscribe to the treaty until the voice of Te Heuheu had been heard. This leads us to a point where it will be convenient to consider the attitude adopted towards the treaty by this remarkable man.