as an admirable position.  Hobson’s advisers, in choosing it as his seat of Government, are said to have been the missionary, Henry Williams, and Captain Symonds, a surveyor.  As the capital of New Zealand it was the wrong place from the first.  From every other standpoint the selection was a master-stroke.  Twenty-four years later Auckland ceased to be the capital of the Colony; but though in this she had to yield to the superior claims of Wellington, she could afford to lose the privilege.  First in size and beauty, she is to-day second to no other New Zealand city in prosperity and progress.

In 1841, however, by way of making as bad a start as possible, little Auckland began with a land boom.  Forty-four acres were sold at auction by the Government for L24,275.  Small suburban lots a few months later fetched L45 an acre, and cultivation lots L8 an acre.  For one or two picked city frontages as much as L7 10s. a foot was paid.  The hanging up of the northern land claims, and the inability of the Government to buy native land while it refused to let private persons do so, joined, with a trade collapse in Australia, to make the condition of the Auckland settlers soon almost as unenviable as that of their fellow-colonists in the Company’s settlements.

Governor Hobson died at Auckland after ruling New Zealand for a little less than three years.  His best monument is the city which he founded, and the most memorable verdict on his life is written in a letter addressed by a Maori chief to the Queen.  “Let not,” said this petition, “the new Governor be a boy or one puffed up.  Let not a troubler come amongst us.  Let him be a good man like this Governor who has just died.”  When these words were written, the judgment of the English in New Zealand would have been very different.  But time has vindicated Hobson’s honesty and courage, and in some important respects even his discernment.  He anticipated the French, baffled the land-sharks, kept the peace, was generous to the Maori, and founded Auckland.  No bad record this for the harassed, dying sailor, sent to stand between his own countrymen and savages at the very end of the earth, and left almost without men or money!  If under him the colonists found their lot almost unbearable, the fault was chiefly that of his masters.  Most of his impolicy came from Downing Street; most of his good deeds were his own.  It must be remembered that he was sent to New Zealand, not to push on settlement, but to protect the natives and assert the Queen’s authority.  These duties he never forgot.

Chapter XI

THROUGH WEAKNESS INTO WAR

  “Awhile he makes some false way, undebarred
   By thwarting signs, and braves
   The freshening wind and blackening waves,
   And then the tempest strikes him; and between
   The lightning-bursts is seen
   Only a driving wreck,
   And the pale master on his spar-strewn deck.”