Another old identity on the Peninsula was Billy Simpson. He had been a fine looking man. The features were marked, determined and regular, and his high, broad forehead showed that his brains were of no mean order. There was a deep scar on the right brow, on which hung a tale, of which more hereafter. Age and hardship made him a mere skeleton, but there was still great vitality apparent in his bright eyes, which kindled when he was spoken to of old times. He had been, as most of the readers of the Akaroa Mail know, residing at Mr. Macphail's, at Island Bay, but an attack of illness rendered it necessary to bring him to Akaroa for medical aid. Simpson was an old sailor, who was born in Berkshire in 1823, according to his own account, but many fancied he was much older. He was early apprenticed to the owner of some vessels running in the West India trade, and he spent his time in the ordinary manner. When he had completed his time, he shipped to Sydney in a large ship called the Mary Ann. This vessel was built for troops, and took out the 28th Regiment to New South Wales. Her commander, Captain Smith, was described by Simpson as a perfect brute, and dire were the quarrels that took place between him and the men. This gentleman was familiarly known as "Pirate Smith," and Simpson warmly asserted that he had as good a right to fly the death's head and cross bones flag as Captain Kidd ever had. Arrived in Sydney, the crew struck and went ashore, refusing to go aboard the Mary Ann again. Brought up before the magistrates, the option was given them of sailing in the vessel, or forfeiting their wages and clothes. They all preferred the latter alternative, and stopped in the Colony. It was at a time when whaling was the principal occupation of sailors in these seas, and in Sydney Simpson soon fell in with Captain Hempleman, who, finding him a good man in a whale boat, engaged him to go for a trip in the brig Bee, as boat steerer, with one and a half shares. This was in the beginning of 1835, about seventy sevenpage 134years ago, so Simpson must have been about twenty three years of age at the time.

Captain Hempleman had been in command of several big ships before this time, though quite a young man, but had left a large vessel, an English whaler, named the James Calvert, at the Sandwich Islands, owing to some dispute, and therefore had much against his will, to accept the command of the brig Bee, a small and inconvenient vessel compared to those he was accustomed to. Long and Wright were the names of the owners of the Bee, and they fitted her out for a cruise to New Zealand, where whales were then reported as specially plentiful. One reason that Captain Hempleman accepted the command of the Bee was that he was permitted to take Mrs. Hempleman aboard. They would not allow her to be aboard the larger vessels, and he did not like leaving her ashore, so he took a short trip as mate in the ship Norwood, of Sydney, and then took command of the Bee, and amongst other hands shipped Billy Simpson, the hero of the memoir. Mrs. Hempleman, the first, who afterwards died at Piraki, was an English girl, who had came out as an immigrant to Sydney.

The voyage of the Bee to New Zealand, and what success they met with has been previously recorded in these stories, and Simpson said the account was a most correct one. The place where the whaling was carried on, the name of which is not mentioned in the log, was Piraki, but Simpson was very indignant about it being said that they cut poles for the houses in Pigeon Bay, for he vowed they never went there. On mature reflection, however, he said he remembered that Port Levy was then called Pigeon Bay, and it was there the poles were cut. The trip of the Bee was a most successful one, and Hempleman was so pleased with Piraki that he determined to return to it if possible. On his arrival in Sydney he was still more anxious to do this, from the fact that Messrs Wright and Long raised the old objection to his carrying his wife aboard the vessel. He therefore persuaded a Sydney firm, named Clayton and Duke, to let page break

Billy Simpson.

page 135him establish a whaling station on shore at Piraki. He was to be visited at intervals by vessels, which would bring provisions and take the oil away that had been collected. It was just Christmas time in the year 1836 when the schooner Hannah set sail from Sydney with the first white men who had ever attempted to form a settlement on the then savage, wooded and mountainous tract of country known as Banks Peninsula.

The Hannah had another shore whaling party to land in New Zealand, besides Hempleman's. The destination of the other was Poverty Bay, but the schooner went to Queen Charlotte's Sound There they stopped for five or six weeks, and although the one party left them to go to the North, they had a good many additions to their ranks, many of the men forming connections with Maori women. There were four boats' crews in the party, some thirty white men in all, Mrs. Hempleman being the only white woman. About a dozen Maoris accompanied then from Queen Charlotte's Sound. The Hannah went first to Akaroa, where she stopped two days before proceeding to land the party at Piraki. There were no whalers in these waters at the time, and the few Maori whares were deserted, for it was just after the massacre by Rauparaha, and he had laid all the plantations waste, destroyed the pas, and driven the few people who escaped death or slavery into the interior. As, therefore, there were no provisions to be got from the Natives, or any object to be gained by stopping in the harbour, the Hannah sailed for Piraki the second morning after her arrival, and that same day landed the party at their future home. It was fine autumn weather, and many aboard were pleased with the idea that it was St. Patrick's Day (being the 17th of March, 1836) when they landed. They soon got their things ashore, and commenced building their whares. They used to sleep in casks for some time, and they were much delayed by going after whales, before they had the trying works and their own houses put up. Hempleman's house was of sawn timber brought from Queen Charlotte's Sound. There was no time for planting. It was just page 136arranged that one boat should be on the fishing ground at daybreak one morning, and another the next, and of course when whales were got they had to be tried out. Very few amongst the men knew anything about whaling at all. Captain Hempleman was a really good hand, but he was always drinking. A sad accident, too, depressed them much. Mr. Beers, or Bean, was an excellent headsman; in fact, got most of the whales that were caught. One day his boat was upset in returning to the shore, and he and three of the hands were drowned. Two of these were Sydney natives, fine fellows who knew their work, and could ill be spared in the little settlement. Beers, it is thought, might have escaped easily, as he was a good swimmer, but he had a heavy monkey jacket on at the time, and in swimming after the hands to get them to the boat, so that they could hold on, the coat became saturated with water and dragged him down. He was very deeply regretted indeed

At this time Simpson heard from the Maoris a good many tales regarding Rauparaha's invasion, and he had previously been shipmates in the Bee with one of those who escaped. The account he gives of the matter, as related to him by the Maoris, is as follows:—Some time antecedent to these events, a Ngatiawa chief named Pahi had visited Europe. He was much impressed with the customs of civilised nations, especially with the fact that wars were usually made against people speaking a different language. He brooded deeply over this idea, and when he returned he formed the ambitious idea of doing away with the inter tribal discords, and making the Maoris a strong united people, capable of waging war on other places beyond New Zealand, and of repelling any foreigners. In the North, amongst his own people, the idea was well received, but he then wished to go through the South, and for that purpose announced his intention of coming across the straits to Taiaroa, who was the leading chief of all these tribes, though he resided in Otago He came across, but the old feeling of hatred to the Northern tribes was still strong, and when he got to Kaiapoi he was page 133treacherously murdered by a rangitira named Tangatahira The great Northern chief Rauparaha vowed revenge, and right royal "utu" he took for the assassination of his friend. Rauparaha induced the captain of a trading brig, named the Martha, to take himself and a number of his warriors to Akaroa. He had no money to give him, but he proffered a few of those preserved human heads which were then such a common article of traffic, being sold as curiosities for the museums of the old world, and he promised to fill the vessel with pigs and flax as "utu." Directly the Maoris landed, however, they immediately began to massacre all the Natives they could meet, and all the survivors fled to a strongly fortified pa at the end of that Peninsula (Onawe) running out between Duvaucbelle and Barry's Bay, now in the occupation of Mr T. L. F. Kay. The position was a strong one, and it was several days before the attacking force gained an entrance to the pa, but when they did a most horrible carnage ensued, many of those taken being killed in the most terrible manner. The Maori who was with Simpson in the Bee told him that the conquerors seized many of the children, and, cuting their throats from ear to ear, eagerly drank the hot life blood as it flowed from the terrible wounds. They held high and hideous festival on the bodies of their dead foes, and Simpson said he had himself seen the huge Maori copper in which they had roasted several corpses at a time. Bloody Jack was the Maori who held the command in defending the pa. He was not a chief, but his great fighting qualities had placed him at the head in this time of desperate danger. He and many others escaped after the last successful assault, and found a refuge in the bush. Every plantation and whare that the merciless victors could find they utterly destroyed, so that famine should be the lot of the wretched few who had escaped them.

When their horrible work was done they went aboard the brig, aud one cannot help thinking that Captain Stewart was rightly served for aiding the Maoris by carrying them on their bloody errand, when, instead of flax and pigs, these savages brought on board a number of their page 134wretched victims. He (Captain Stewart) remonstrated, but was warned that his fate would be a terrible one unless he obeyed Rauparaha in all things; and there is little doubt he would have been killed had they not required his skill to take the vessel back to Kapiti, which was their destination. The voyage must have been a fearful one for captain and crew, for the Maoris kept murdering their prisoners, and cooked their flesh in the ship's coppers, greatly to the horror of the sailors, who insisted on them being at once destroyed when the Maoris left the ship.

One terrible incident seems to stand out in bold relief. When the Martha came up the harbour, Ruaparaha and his men hid themselves under the hatches, and told Captain Stewart to make signals to the shore that he wanted to trade, in the hope that some unsuspicious Native might be lured on board and become their victim. The experiment succeeded only to well, A chief of importance seeing the signal, and thinking the Martha was an ordinary trading vessel, came on board with his daughter, and was instantly seized and bound. During the terrible time of the massacre ashore they were left in the hold of the vessel; but when these demons were once more clear of the land they loosed him, and taunted him with the horrible and bestial tortures and indignities they were going to inflict on his daughter as well as himself. Determined, if possible, to save the poor girl from the indescribably horrible fate in store for her, the gallant prisoner managed to snatch a tomahawk from one of their fiendish persecutors, and killed the miserable girl with a single blow, threw her body into the sea, and tried to leap after it. In this, however, he failed, for, before he could take the spring, he was seized by his captors, who, baulked of their proposed atrocities on his daughter, promised him a death of intense agony. Well they kept their hideous promise! On their arrival at Kapiti, at the great feast at which they celebrated their successful raid, the wretched man was brought before them and tortured to death in a most hideous manner—by having red hot bars of iron thrust through his body, Terrible indeed had been Rauparaha's revenge!

Billy Simpson's narrative had the effect of causing a gentleman residing in Akaroa to write to the Akaroa Mail the following letter, which will be found very interesting: —