[153] While H.M.S. _Britomart_ (Captain Stanley) was returning from her historic visit to Bank's Peninsula she put in to Port Nicholson and took Mr. Shortland on board, leaving Mr. Murphy to supply his place as the representative of the Government at the Southern settlement. [154] This number was subsequently increased to 546. [155] Mr. Fredarb, who was trading master of the schooner _Mercury_, added the following note to his copy of the treaty: "The chiefs at Opotiki expressed a wish to have it signified who were Pikopos (_i.e._ Roman Catholics) and who were not, the which I did by placing a crucifix † preceding the names of those who are, as above, and at which they seemed perfectly satisfied." CHAPTER VI THE TREATY Captain Hobson having now by his own efforts and the agency of those who were associated with him completed his negotiations with the native chiefs, it remains for us to examine briefly the nature of the compact into which the Maori and _Pakeha_ had thus solemnly entered. The Treaty of Waitangi is a document of few clauses and precise terms. Yet under the conflicting interests which it was designed to harmonise few documents have been more generally misunderstood or more persistently misinterpreted. More than once in high places its utility has been denied, its simple contracts have been repudiated, and its existence has been ignored. Lawyers have repeatedly questioned its legality, courts have discussed its constitutional force, parliaments have debated its wisdom, but still it stands to-day--unaltered in text or spirit--the great charter of Maori rights. Its most virulent enemies have ever been the land speculators, and there are not wanting signs in these times of unsatisfied land hunger--of never-ceasing speculation--that the treaty has either been forgotten by those whose duty it is to remember it, or that its obligations have ceased to have their old-time moral value. Lest we forget that the treaty is still in force, and that native lands are not common plunder for the avaricious _Pakeha_, let us briefly review the circumstances which made the compact between the two nations a political virtue, if not a political necessity.