The chiefs treated his "sovereign rights and powers" with undisguised derision. They disavowed his territorial claims because they were made regardless of the fundamental principle underlying the Maori law of property--that all the people who have an interest in the land must consent to its sale. Subsequently the matter was compromised by Tamati Waaka Nēne conceding him a small area,[20] to which he retired destitute of retainers, and surrounded only by the members of his own family. The story of the Baron's landing in 1837, with much pomp and circumstance, under a salute of twenty-one guns, his dispute regarding Kendall's purchase, his final disappearance into obscurity, are, however, of secondary importance to our purpose. What is of vital interest is that the announcement in 1835 of his approaching advent galvanised the British Resident and the native chiefs into a state of anxious activity. Living as they were on the confines of civilisation, their information concerning events outside their own little world was necessarily of the scantiest. Their fears were thus often greater than their knowledge of the facts, and so in this emergency they had no difficulty in persuading themselves that an invasion by the French was at hand. As a counterblast, Mr. Busby counselled that the chiefs should immediately crystallise the position taken up by Britain--that New Zealand was not a British possession--by unequivocally declaring their own independence. His policy was approved, and for the purpose of giving effect to it, thirty-five chiefs assembled at Mr. Busby's house at Waitangi, where in the presence of the resident Missionaries and merchants they evolved the following declaration,[21] which brought into existence the much-questioned and questionable authority known as The Confederated Tribes of New Zealand. It is not difficult to trace the Roman hand of the Resident throughout the document, especially as the Maori had no word in their language to express the idea of sovereignty; but it is only just to remark that in a subsequent despatch Mr. Busby drew the attention of Governor Bourke to the fact that the concluding paragraph, both in language and sentiment, originated with the chiefs: DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE OF NEW ZEALAND (1) We, the hereditary chiefs and head of the tribes of the Northern parts of New Zealand, being assembled at "Waitangi" in the Bay of Islands on this 28th day of October 1835, declare the independence of our country, which is hereby constituted and declared to be an independent state, under the designation of the United tribes of New Zealand.