The schooner Trent and Major Thomas Bunbury, 1840

Early Sailing Vessels and Visitors to Tauranga, Part XIX

On the morning of 29th April, 1840, H.M.S. Herald left the Bay of Islands, bound for the Coromandel and Bay of Plenty. The skipper, Captain Nias, had been tasked with taking Major Thomas Bunbury, officer commanding the British military forces in New Zealand, on a tour to secure further signatures to the Treaty of Waitangi. An experienced officer, Bunbury had just returned from a term as Lieutenant-Governor of the Norfolk Island convict settlement. Accompanying Bunbury as interpreter, was Edward Marsh Williams, who had assisted his father, the Rev Henry Williams in Translating the Treaty from English to Maori.  After obtaining Treaty signatures at Coromandel Harbour and Mercury Bay, where the Herald remained at anchor, Bunbury proceeded to Tauranga on the 18 ton schooner Trent which had been chartered for the purpose.

A 17 ton, Bay of Islands-built schooner at anchor, 1845

Described as ‘a little schooner,’ the Trent had been built during 1826, near the mouth of the Kawakawa Inlet, Bay of Islands on a small plot of land noted for its ‘two remarkable trees.’ The site had been purchased from the Ngapuhi rangatira Pomare II or Whetoi, at nearby Otuihu Pa for £10 by the shipwrights Thomas Scott and James Hawkins. With the assistance of the caulker Flower Russell, they completed and launched the schooner in 1837. The vessel’s initial survey certificate which has survived, reads:

This is to certify that Gilbert Mair has held a survey on the ship Trent, built at the Bay of Islands by James Hawkins and Thomas Scott in 1837, of which Thomas Bateman, trader, is the sole owner, the master and builders being British subjects. The vessel has one deck, is schooner rigged, square sterned, has a figurehead and no quarter galleries [balconies used as lookouts and for latrines on each side of the stern], and is of the burthen of 18 tons.

During the Trent’s coastal trading voyages, the skipper proudly flew New Zealand's first flag - the flag of the United Tribes of New Zealand. After 33 northern chiefs signed the Declaration of Independence in 1835, the British government had recognized New Zealand as an independent Maori state. Locally built vessels flew this flag and the signed authority for the schooner read: ‘Trent is entitled to bear that flag and be respected accordingly. Given under my hand and seal at the British Residency, James Busby.’

HMS Herald and a steam ship tender, 1852.

Before HMS Herald departed the Bay of Islands, Captain Nias had been requested to ‘display the force of his ship’ at Tauranga ‘to show that we were prepared to resent any violence’, as a European had been reported killed in the region. Nias wisely ignored the recommendation and contracted Captain Bateman’s schooner Trent, to convey Bunbury from Mercury Bay to Tauranga instead.

After a quick passage to Tauranga, Bateman was unable to sail the Trent through the narrow channel under Mount Maunganui, due to contrary winds and tide, and was compelled to stand out to sea. They Treaty party were becalmed under the Mount for much of the following day, until a favourable wind propelled them through the channel and across the harbour to the landing below the Te Papa mission station.

The major’s Tauranga dispatch to Lieutenant Governor Shortland began:

I have made an excursion in the schooner “Trent,” to Tauranga. She left the "Herald" at Mercury Bay on the 12th instant late in the evening, and arrived off Tauranga on the Sunday following; but the night was too far advanced to attempt to enter the harbour until the following day when Mr. Parker of H. M. ship "Herald," Mr. Williams and myself went on shore at the mission station, where we were received by the Reverend Mr. Stack; and I was agreeably surprised to learn that most of the native chiefs in that neighbourhood had already signed the treaty, with the exception of the principal chief [Hori Tupaea], and one or two of his friends at the Otumoiti Pa.

Major Thomas Bunbury
A veteran British army officer, Bunbury held the rank of major during the Peninsula War in Portugal and Spain.

The resident missionaries Alfred Brown and James Stack had, in fact, gathered few signatures on their Māori-language copy of the Treaty, by the time Bunbury arrived on 11 May to check on  progress. Bunbury instructed Stack to produce two more copies of the Treaty. One was sent inland to Rotorua, the other to Taupō, where both Te Arawa and Ngāti Tūwharetoa refused to sign.

Accompanied by Stack, the Treaty party visited Otumoetai Pa which Bunbury described as ‘a very extensive fortification, and appears to contain about one thousand men’. Unable to persuade the principal chief Hori Tupaea to sign his Treaty copy, Bunbury described the rangatira as ‘a very young man’ whose manner was ‘less than prepossessing than I had before seen in others’. Bunbury also stated that rangatira’s reluctance was driven by Catholic influences at Otumoetai Pa. (Tupaea had previously welcomed Bishop Pompallier’s Catholic missionaries and had his Ngai Te Rangi people assist them in building their chapel within Otumoetai Pa).

Captain Bateman next conveyed Bunbury on the Trent to Maungatapu Pa on the inner harbour, where he was received hospitably by the Nuka Taipari, principal chief of the Ngati He hapu of Ngai Te Rangi. There, he found that all but two rangatira had previously signed the Treaty and described the pa and its people as ‘of considerable strength and importance.’ In contrast to Hori Tupaea, Bunbury considered Taipari ‘well disposed towards the government’ and ‘a fine intelligent-looking fellow.’

Hori Kingi Tupaea
During the 1830s Tupaea succeeded his father Te Waru as leading rangatira of Tauranga’s Ngai Te Rangi people.

Coincidentally the shipwright Thomas Scott, who helped build the Trent in 1836, had operated a harekeke or flax trading station at Maungatapu Pa during the early 1830s. At this time, Tauranga Maori were exchanging dressed flax by the ton, for muskets and munitions. Rev Henry Williams who was at Tauranga in March 1833, trying to mediate in the bloody skirmishes between marauding Ngāpuhi, the local people, and Te Arawa, refers to ‘a Mr Scott who resides there as a flax agent.’ Williams subsequently made two visits to Scott at Maungatapu ‘to discuss the affairs of the natives’, It appears that by 1834 Scott was back in Sydney, at his previous and safer trade of boatbuilding.

During his time at Tauranga, Bunbury he had some profitable talks during runanga (public meetings) on a variety of Treaty related issues, particularly land sales, though he found the interminable questions posed by the rangatira exasperating. He was also dismayed by the fierce and disruptive competition for Maori converts, waged between the resident Catholic and Anglican missionaries, noting:

Whenever the boat of the Protestant mission, I was told, left the station, a boat with the priests started also at the same time for the same Pa. These unseemly disputes sometimes ending with rioting could not have been very edifying to the natives. With Mercutio they might justly exclaim, "A plague o' both your houses."

The Treaty party departed Tauranga Harbour on the Trent before daylight on 13th March, bound for Mercury Bay and HMS Herald. Against wind and tide they were barely able to claw their way through the channel. Before rejoining the Herald, they were becalmed again, this time between Te Ruamaahu (The Alderman Islands) and Tuhua (Mayor Island), but later reported that the fishing was excellent. Governor Hobson received the Tauranga Treaty sheet with its 21 signatures on 23 May 1840. Bunbury ended his Tauranga dispatch on a cynical note, suggesting that that the Otumoetai Treaty resistors, were unlikely to change their minds ‘until out bidden by the promise of an increased premium.’

Sources
Bunbury, Thomas, Reminiscences of a Veteran, Vol. III, London, Charles Skeet, 1861.
Evening Post, 22 October 1920: 8.
Lambourne, Alan, Major Thomas Bunbury: Envoy Extraordinary, New Zealand Soldier – Treaty Maker, Heritage Press, Waikanae, 1995.
Locker, Ronald H; ‘Thomas Scott lands in the Mahurangi’, http://www.mahurangi.org.nz › thomas-scott-and-sons
Matthew, Felton, The Founding of New Zealand, The Journals of Felton Matthew, Reed, Dunedin, 1940.
Patea Mail, 29 April, 1940: 1
Tauranga treaty copy | NZHistory, New Zealand history online, https://nzhistory.govt.nz › media › interactive › taurang...
Williams, Henry, The Early Journals of Henry Williams, 1826-1840, L. M. Rogers (comp.),  Pegasus Press, Christchurch,1961.

Illustrations
Hutton, Thomas, 'The Bishop's [Selwyn’s] schooner "Flying Fish" lying at her moorings in Orakei Bay, April 4th 1845,’ E-111-1-071, National Library of New Zealand.
HMS Herald  and steamship tender Torch, ‘Expedition to the South Sea’, Illustrated London News, 15 May 1852.
Bunbury, Thomas, Reminiscences of a Veteran, Vol. III, London, Charles Skeet, 1861: Front Cover.
Hōri Kingi Tūpaea, by Horatio Gordon Robley, c.1864. From the album of Henry Harpur Greer Digital image donated to Tauranga City Libraries in 2003 by Mike Dottridge (great, great grandson of Colonel Greer). Original painting donated to Alexander Turnbull Library (Ref: A-128-025-1). Link: http://tauranga.kete.net.nz/tauranga_local_history/images/show/8961