3

Jane Beauchamp never went out to New Zealand, though her land titles were under dispute for years after that one burst of independent investment with the Tollemaches, when—at £100 a section—she bought some 1,100 acres in Wellington. Her investment lacked the personal attention which it needed. Land sections were chosen in order of the original page 28 land ballot, and though three of her London drawings were among the first 500, her allotted land in Wellington adjoined the Bolton Street Cemetery; while drawings made immediately after hers won sections off Lambton and Thorndon Quays—by position, assured of being important business districts. Her other eight sections were near Wadestown, far to the rear of the proposed city.

Colonel Wakefield had selected the Wellington site, bartering with the Maoris for the 400 miles encircling the Harbour,“100 red blankets, 100 muskets, 2 tierces of tobacco, 48 iron pots, … 60 red nightcaps, 10 dozen looking glasses, 1 gross of jew's harps,” etc.

The colonisation of New Zealand by the New Zealand Land Company was a remarkable undertaking. In spite of its many practical mistakes the enterprise conceived by Edward Gibbon Wakefield and carried into operation largely by his two brothers, Colonel Wakefield and Captain Wakefield, R.N., marked a new epoch in colonial adventure. The newness consisted in the fact that it was no longer adventure; it was a carefully planned attempt to establish the best type of British stock and the best type of British polity in a country where they could flourish. The necessary capital for the development of public services and the remuneration of competent officials was raised by the selling of land in London; a just proportion between responsible capital and self-respecting labour was deliberately sought. The project was largely and nobly conceived; and it was infinitely in advance of any conception of colonisation in the minds of the page 29 Tapers and Tadpoles of Whitehall. It was a highminded and in the final event entirely successful attempt to force the British Government by example into some consciousness of its imperial responsibilities.

On September 20th, 1839, Colonel Wakefield arrived at Port Nicholson, now Wellington, with directions “to purchase native land, to acquire information, and to prepare places for immediate settlement.” In less than three months he was able “to report that he had purchased a territory as large as Ireland, for which he paid to the natives goods valued at, in round numbers, £9,000, and within which he had reserved a tenth part of the whole as land exclusively for the natives.” Meanwhile the Company in London had sold land to the value of more than £100,000, and had despatched 216 first- and second-class passengers and 909 labourers as emigrants to New Zealand, despite the warning of the Colonial Office that the action was illegal. The struggle between the responsible Company and the irresponsible Crown was to vex the early life of the colony.

The immigration ships which immediately followed established the class and character which was to remain New Zealand's for all time. In addition to administrators—men of good birth and breeding, traditional land-owners—there were mechanics and agricultural labourers, heads of families not over thirty years of age, who were given free passage. This was a select group of serious, law-abiding people, their general character indicated by the compact they made among themselves when they found that—having embarked without Crown sanc- page 30 tion—they were without civil authority. Having agreed to live to all intents and purposes as British subjects, and to punish “as if the offence had been committed against the law and within the realm of England,” the colony of 1,500 English and 400 natives lived together for four months “without a serious breach” (so they said). The contrast with conditions in New South Wales and Victoria was absolute.

Yet when Sovereignty was ceded to the Queen, the irregularity of Colonel Wakefield's proceedings, and the speculations of Sydney land-sharks, had led to Lieutenant-Governor Hobson's announcement that “the Government would not recognise the validity of land-titles not given under the Queen's authority.” Thus land-claims, without titles (though the purchases had been made in London for not less than £1 an acre—a basic principle of the Wakefield scheme),“became the subjects of litigations and petitions, some of which were not settled for twenty years.” All of which determined, further, the course of the Beauchamp colonial line.

In those twenty years, the colonists at Wellington passed from one misfortune to the next. The first settlement had been at Pito-one (in Maori,“End-of-the-Sand”), on a beach across the Harbour from the site of Wellington. But in the teeth of wind and weather, the settlers discovered their mistake; and despite trouble with natives who still claimed the land, in September, 1840, they floated the bank on a raft across the Harbour to Te Aro (where Wakefield Street is to-day). In November, 1842, a fire fanned by wind swept across the new village of page 31 raupo thatch along Te Aro Flat. Unaware of earthquake danger, the settlers and natives rebuilt in substantial fireproof clay and brick.

Wars with the Maoris divided their energies the next year. The Chief, Te Rauparaha, had carried terror and desolation into the district afterward named Marlborough, at the top of the South Island. The site of Picton and its stream (later to be owned in part by Arthur Beauchamp), called Waitohe after the Chief's favourite daughter, was precious to him; he insisted that the Wairau had not been specifically named in the Land Company sale, and that the beautiful country along the Sounds was still native possession. In 1843, the white men, led by Captain Arthur Wakefield, Colonel Wakefield's brother, rashly ventured in to survey, and were slaughtered in the “Wairau massacre.” For years afterwards the situation of the English settlers was precarious: native discontent flared intermittently, fanned by martinet governors.

Yet the colony at Wellington was planted more firmly by every ship docked. Gradually it crept up the hills surrounding the Harbour:

“The country for some miles about Port Nicholson” (wrote the artist, Mr. Angas, in 1845)“is little else than a succession of steep, irregular hills, clothed with dense forests; the nearest available land of any extent is the valley of the Hutt. … By an enormous and almost incredible expenditure of labour and money, they have cut down the lofty trees and cleared patches here and there amongst the forest, on the mountain sides to sow their wheat; but owing to the steepness of the hills the heavy rains washed down much of the seed sown, and the unfortunate settlers page 32 have not been able to raise sufficient for their own consumption. The view from the hills at the back of the town is a scene of exceeding beauty. The harbour looks like a large blue lake embosomed deep in the hills. The green and umbrageous forest displays foliage equal in magnificence to that of the tropics.”

In October, 1848, the most appalling earthquake shocks ever experienced in the lives of the settlers, or remembered by the natives, levelled the city of Wellington. The fireproof clay and brick buildings dissolved in the earthquake, as the thatched huts had melted in the fire. Terrified, many families tried to flee to Sydney on the Sobraon; but the vessel in beating out of the Heads missed stays, ran ashore, and went to pieces on the rocks. Taking this as an omen, the passengers returned to Wellington, to rebuild the city.