To these convictions must be added the indispensable persuasions of the Missionaries, in whose word and advice the Maoris placed implicit trust; but the thing which proved the determining influence in the negotiations--more than the inducements offered by the Crown, or the persuasions of the Missionaries--was that the chiefs had acquired a clear grip of the primal fact that whatever it took from them, the treaty left them in secure possession of their lands. The sovereignty was the shadow, the land was the substance; and since the shadow was already passing from them by force of circumstances over which they were powerless to exercise control, they consented to its surrender with all the less regret. Once having determined upon this course, and given effect to their determination, there was no wavering, even though in its early stages the rule of the _Pakeha_ must have clashed harshly with their ideas of individual authority. The Maori people were a people capable of delegating their sovereign rights, and they did so delegate them. The Treaty of Waitangi therefore became what it professed to be, a yielding of the supreme political power in the country to the British Crown,[163] and when the last signature had been put to it, Britain's right to colonise and govern in New Zealand was incontestable before all the world. That is why it has always appeared to the writer that there was at the time, and has been for many years since, much beating of the air by the importance given to the so-called race to Akaroa, between the British sloop _Britomart_ and the French frigate _L'Aube_, when, soon after the consummation of the treaty, the sovereignty of the South Island was supposed to be in danger. As this incident is the leading historical event which seems to challenge the value of the clause now under review it will be convenient to discuss it here. Major Bunbury had returned from his southern mission on July 4, and at midnight of the 10th the French corvette, _L'Aube_, cast anchor in the Bay of Islands. From the pilot who went out to bring her in, Captain Lavaud heard that British sovereignty had been proclaimed over the country by Captain Hobson, and that the Union Jack was flying over his residence as an evidence of the fact.