The missionary schooner Herald, 1826-1828 Vintage Transport - Sailing Ships, New Zealand Post, 1975 |
The Anglican missionary leader and former Royal Navy Lieutenant Henry Williams Lithograph, Charles Baugniet, C-0120-005 Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington |
During three days of brisk trading, the Herald was surrounded by up to 50 canoes and 700 Ngai Te Rangi, who competed to exchange their cargoes of potatoes, primarily for axes. Why the missionaries were unable to obtain pigs is not made clear. During the excitement, George Clarke’s voice became hoarse from shouting and he became frustrated when Ngapuhi sailors aboard the Herald informed the local Maori traders that they were selling too cheaply. After loading the vessel with potatoes ‘as deep as she could swim,’ distributing fruit trees and vegetable seeds, and promising to establish a missionary in Tauranga when the intertribal wars abated, Henry Williams and Captain Gilbert Mair took the Herald through the harbor entrance on the ebb tide of Thursday 29th June.
It is often claimed that the Herald was first vessel to enter Tauranga Harbour. That honour or dishonour lies with one of the many small whaler-gun trading vessels out of Hobart and Sydney like the Trial, Caroline and Brothers, that haunted the east coast between Cape Colville and East Cape from the 1810s. Additionally, Ngai Te Rangi visitors to the Bay of Islands in the winter of 1825 told Henry Williams that Pakeha vessels had already called to sell them muskets and how they had assisted ‘to hoist casks up out of the ships.'
Though it proved invaluable in spreading the gospel and ending missionary dependence on Ngapuhi for provisions, the Herald had a short life. After also visiting Sydney and trading around New Zealand, it was wrecked at Hokianga in 1828. Though no lives were lost, when the passengers and crew were forced to swim ashore at 2 a.m. they and the Herald were plundered, which, in accordance with traditional Maori salvage law, was tika or the perfectly correct response.
Sources
Clarke, George, Journal, 19-29 June, 1826, Journal of the Tauranga Historical Society, Vol 50, April 1974: 20-29.
Marsden, Samuel, The Letters and Journals of Samuel Marsden, 1765- 1838, Elder, J. (ed.), Dunedin, Coulls, Somerville, Wilkie and Reid, Dunedin, 1932.
Williams, Henry. The Early Journals of Henry Williams 1826-1840, Rogers, L. M. (comp.), Christchurch: Pegasus Press, 1961.
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