As an adjunct to his slender authority, Mr. Busby had been informed by Governor Bourke that Sir John Gore, the Vice-Admiral commanding the Indian Squadron of the Navy, would be instructed to permit his ships to call in at New Zealand ports as frequently as possible, and offer him what support they could during these fitful visits. But upon neither naval nor civil power was Mr. Busby to rely overmuch. He was to depend for his authority rather upon his moral influence and his co-operation with the Missionaries, to whom he went specially accredited. Mr. Busby has frequently been made the butt of the humorist, because his bark was necessarily worse than his bite. The Maori cynic of his day chuckled as he dubbed him "_He manuwa pu kore_" ("A man-of-war without guns"), and many a playful jest has since been made at his expense, all of which is both unfair and ungenerous to Mr. Busby. The difficulty in the way of investing him with legal power was thus tersely explained by Sir Richard Bourke during the course of his initial instructions to the Resident: You are aware that you cannot be clothed with any legal power or jurisdiction, by virtue of which you might be enabled to arrest British subjects offending against British or Colonial law in New Zealand. It was proposed to supply this want of power and to provide further enforcement of the criminal law as it exists amongst ourselves, and further to adapt it to the new and peculiar exigencies of the country to which you are going, by means of a Colonial Act of Council grafted on a statute of the Imperial Parliament. Circumstances which I am not at present competent to explain have prevented the enactment of the Statute in question.[11] You can therefore rely but little on the force of law, and must lay the foundation of your measures upon the influence which you shall obtain over the Native Chiefs. Something, however, may be effected under the law as it stands at present. By the 9th Geo. IV., cap. 83, sec. A, the Supreme Courts of N. S. Wales and Van Dieman's Land have power to enquire of, hear and determine, all offences committed in N.Z. by the Master and crew of any British ship or vessel, or by any British subject living there, and persons convicted of such offences may be punished as if the offence has been committed in England.... If therefore you should at any time have the means of sending to this colony any one or more persons capable of lodging an information before the proper authorities here, of an offence committed in N.Z. you will, if you think the case of sufficient magnitude and importance, send a detailed report of the transaction to the Colonial Secretary by such persons who will be required to depose to the facts sufficient to support an information upon which a bench Warrant may be obtained from the Supreme Court for the apprehension of the offender, and transmitted to you for execution. You will perceive at