Hurrying back to Auckland, Shortland called a meeting of his Council, and there sought some enlightenment as to this new view-point of the Maori status under the treaty. Amongst those consulted was necessarily Mr. Clarke, the erstwhile Missionary, and now Chief Protector of the Aborigines, whose close and constant intercourse with all the tribes gave him the most favourable facilities for gauging the strength and direction of the native aspirations. In the course of his examination Mr. Clarke was asked: (1) Do the natives who signed the Treaty of Waitangi acknowledge themselves to be British subjects? To which he replied:--The natives who signed the Treaty of Waitangi, having been solemnly assured by Her Majesty's representative, the late Captain Hobson, that they should in the fullest sense of the term be entitled to all the privileges of British subjects, consented to be considered as such, with a full understanding that their allegiance depended upon the British Government fulfilling their engagements in that treaty. (2) How far, and to what extent, do the various tribes in New Zealand acknowledge the Queen's sovereignty? To this Mr. Clarke's answer was:--The natives alone who signed the treaty acknowledge the Queen's sovereignty, and that only in a limited sense. The treaty guaranteeing their own customs to them, they acknowledge a right of interference only in grave cases, such as war and murder, and all disputes and offences between themselves and Europeans, and hitherto they have acted on this principle. The natives who have not signed the treaty consider that the British Government, in common with themselves, have a right to interfere in all cases of dispute between their tribes and Europeans, but limit British interference to European British subjects. (3) In your communications with the natives, have you asserted that they are British subjects, and the right of the Government to interfere with them as such? and (4) On making that assertion how far has it been acquiesced in?:--In all my communications with the natives I have been instructed to assert, and have always asserted, that they are British subjects, and amenable to British authority, in which very few, even those who signed the treaty, would acquiesce, save in matters relating to disputes or depredations upon each other (viz. differences between Europeans and natives).