This state of official negation continued until the tidings of the part played by Captain Stewart and his brig _Elizabeth_ in Te Rauparaha's Akaroa raid reached Sydney. Then Governor Darling and his successor, Sir Richard Bourke, realised that this game of glorified bluff could not go on indefinitely. The strongest possible representations were accordingly made to the Home authorities, and these representations were followed by a pathetic petition from the natives to King William IV., which was transmitted to Sir Richard Bourke through Mr. Yate, one of the principal members of the Church Missionary Society's staff then labouring in the colony.
The leading chiefs of the northern part of the Islands had long ere this realised the ineffectiveness of their tribal system to cope with the altered state of society. The Missionaries on their part watched with anxiety the unhappy trend of affairs, knowing that if some more enlightened course was not given to events, a serious collision would in all probability arise between the two races, which could scarcely terminate otherwise than in the extermination or expulsion of the one or the other.
Being fully persuaded that to maintain the chiefs and their tribes as an independent people was the most effective safeguard against foreign aggression, they saw with deepest regret the intestine warfare which was going on amongst the natives, thinning their ranks, and rendering them every day less able to resist the pretensions of a foreign power. Stung by a sense of failure, and excited by a rumour that the French were at hand, the chiefs placed themselves under Missionary direction and addressed themselves to the King in the following diplomatic terms[7]:--
TO KING WILLIAM, THE GRACIOUS CHIEF OF ENGLAND
KING WILLIAM--We, the chiefs of New Zealand assembled at this place, called the Kerikeri, write to thee, for we hear that thou art the great Chief of the other side of the water, since the many ships which come to our land are from thee.
We are a people without possessions. We have nothing but timber, flax, pork and potatoes, we sell these things, however, to your people, and then we see the property of Europeans. It is only thy land which is liberal towards us. From thee also come the Missionaries who teach us to believe on Jehovah God, and on Jesus Christ His Son.