Shortland wrung his pudgy hands. A bead of sweat appeared at his temple, and made a furtive break for his collar. Goosepimpled with nerves, his skin assumed the consistency of a refrigerated chicken.
‘I shall ask you again, Mr Shortland. Who is R. A. Fitzgerald?’
‘He is a planter, sir, late of the West Indies.’
‘What is your relationship to him?’
‘Well, of course I know the man, sir, and I see him not infrequently.’
‘What is your relationship to him?’
‘I do not see how that is germane, sir, to — ’
‘What is your relationsbip to R. A. Fitzgerald?’
‘her he is my father-in-law, sir.’
‘Your father-in-law?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘How the devil did you get away with it? Were the accounts not audited?’
‘All the colony’s accounts have been audited, sir. All the payments therein have been officially authorized, sir.’
‘By whom?’
‘By the auditor, sir.’
‘Obviously they have been audited by the auditor. I mean, what is the name of the auditor?’
Shortland rather shamefacedly looked at his boots.
‘I shall ask you again, Mr Shortland. What is the name of the auditor?’
‘I ...’
‘Well?’
‘R. A. Fitzgerald, sir.’
‘R. A. Fitzgerald is the auditor?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I shall expect your resignation within the hour.’
‘But - my career will be finished, sir!’ Shortland burst out.
‘You should have thought of that when you issued the payments. Think yourself lucky I do not have you clapped in irons.’
‘“Clapped in irons”?’ sneered Shortland derisively. ‘You are not on a brig now, sir. I was left here, on my own, with no money and no authority, for two years. Do you think Hobson did not have his hand in the till? It is the way things are done down here. You think you can just walk in and act the sea-captain - do this, do that? You shall not last five minutes here. The company will crush you like an ant! Like they crushed Hobson! You have been here but a few days, and already the matter is quite obvious to everyone but you!’ Shortland’s whey face had turned puce with indignation. ‘You shall repent of the way you have treated me!’
‘Get out,’ rapped FitzRoy. ‘Get out of here and never come back.’
‘You’re done for, FitzRoy,’ spat Shortland, ‘you and your nigger friends!’
He marched out, slamming the door so hard that another shower of white flakes spiralled seasonally down from the ceiling.
FitzRoy took the brig North Star to Wellington, a trip of ten days, to confront the company in its southern heartlands. The ship stank, for it had recently regurgitated another boatload of diseased, wretched, stumbling immigrants on to the quay: England’s poverty-stricken under-class, who had given their every last penny to the Wakefields in return for a future that did not exist. With the help of the Waimate missionaries FitzRoy had organized poor relief, paid for by himself and administered by his wife. Tents were put up, and Mrs FitzRoy moved among the would-be settlers distributing bread and soup. It could only be a short-term solution. Desperate measures were called for.
A ferocious wind squeezing itself brutishly down the Cook Strait made for an uncomfortable approach to Wellington. Viewing the little town through a buffeting crowd of seagulls, FitzRoy could not believe that the company had chosen such an insane site for their headquarters. Hemmed in by high, forested hills, Wellington could boast no level, cultivable land. As a seaport, it was a disaster: the entrance to Port Nicholson was long, narrow and studded with threatening black rocks, making it almost a blind harbour. There was no shelter from the relentless winds, and no prospect of defending the exposed, straggling settlement from any native attack. Whoever had selected Wellington’s location was a fool. On closer inspection, the town reminded him of Kororareka: a shabby muddle of grog-shops and gun-dealers, populated by drunken, desperate men.
The arrival of the North Star at Lambton Quay and the news that the governor had come to town caused an immediate sensation. Even before FitzRoy’s party had reached the town centre, filthy, bedraggled settlers were running to keep up. A copy of the Nelson Examiner was thrust into his hand, and one glimpse at its cover was enough for him to register that it was the sister paper to the New Zealand Gazette. Jerningham Wakefield had been busy with his pen once more. ‘Our whole community,’ it screamed, ‘upbraids the governor with one accord. He has hounded a troop of excited savages upon a peaceable and scattered population. His policies risk the extermination of the Anglo-Saxon race in New Zealand.’ White-lipped with anger at this excuse for measured journalism, FitzRoy pressed on to Barrett’s Hotel, where a table was fetched and placed in the street, from which lofty heights he could address the populace. A noisy and excitable crowd had gathered, calling for the perpetrators of the Wairau massacre to be apprehended and hanged.
‘I have investigated the massacre at the Wairau river,’ FitzRoy began, silencing the crowd, ‘and whether I try the proceedings of Mr Arthur Wakefield and his followers by general principles or by the laws of England, I am compelled to adopt the same conclusion: that their unhappy deaths were the result of their own actions. So manifestly illegal, unjust and unwise were the martial array and the command to advance that I fear the authors of that order must be held responsible for all that followed in sequence upon it. I shall therefore take no action against the native population.’
A score of angry voices burst out, and copies of the New Zealand Gazette and the Nelson Examiner were waved in outrage.
‘The rebellion must be crushed!’ shouted one man, who could be heard above the others.
‘There has been no rebellion,’ countered FitzRoy ‘These were British subjects defending their own property. The execution of the prisoners was a terrible crime by our standards, but normal by theirs. Yet it would not have happened had they not been attacked first. It must never happen again. Mistake me not, my friends, when I tell you that not an acre, not an inch of land belonging to the natives shall be touched without their consent. None of their villages, cultivated grounds or sacred burial places shall be taken from them while I have the honour of representing the Queen in this country. All parties, and I mean all parties, shall receive nothing but justice at my hands. There are many British persons who look on the natives of New Zealand as impediments to the prosperity of the settlers. To such persons I would say, the best customers of the settlers in New Zealand are the natives themselves. They are the purchasers of blankets, clothing, hardware, tobacco, soap, paper, arms, ammunition, boats, canvas and other articles, for which they pay in ready money, in food, in land and in their own labour. In future I expect the settlers to do all in their power to befriend and conciliate the natives, to forgive them and to make allowances to them, because they are the natives of this place, even if they are sometimes in the wrong. The only hope for the future of this nation is that we should extend the hand of friendship to our neighbours.
‘Many of you will have come here believing that you purchased native land back in England. It is with regret that I must tell you that no illegal land deals shall be honoured, but I promise that each and every transaction will at least be fairly scrutinized. Meanwhile, in order to ease any hardship among those settlers not in possession of land, I shall issue notes as legal tender, to be used for poor relief. These shall not be banknotes as such, for they shall be valid but two years, but they shall be honoured by my administration.’
FitzRoy raised his newspaper aloft.
‘One final point, gentlemen. The feelings displayed towards the natives in this newspaper are condemned by myself in the strongest terms. This ... publication contains the most pernicious statements against the New Zealanders. Clearly, they are the work of a young, foolish and indiscreet man. I trust that, as its author has years before him, he will yet learn experience.
That is all, gentlemen.’
FitzRoy stepped down from the table and entered Barrett’s Hotel. The bustling outrage that had greeted his initial remarks had receded, to be replaced by an insidious, creeping sense of hatred.
It was not a couple of minutes before he was confronted in his room by a raging Jerningham Wakefield. The young man, who could hardly have missed the references to himself at the end of FitzRoy’s speech, was scarlet with fury, his prominent Adam’s apple rocketing up and down his sapling neck. Although he towered over FitzRoy, he looked in every danger of being blown off his feet by the next gust coming in off the Cook Strait.
‘You scoundrel!’ blurted Wakefield. ‘My uncle lies murdered and you side with his killers? You have not applied even the simplest principles of justice! You have not yet listened to the white side of the story because you were determined, even before your enquiry, to decide entirely in favour of the savages!’
‘I have read the white side of the story,’ said FitzRoy, coldly, ‘in this sorry rag you refer to as a newspaper.’
‘A newspaper that reflects the public feeling of this colony!’ shouted Wakefield.
‘I know my duty and I will do it, without caring for public feeling. I come here to govern, not to be governed.’
‘Do not speak to me as if I were a little middie on board your ship whom you can bully as you like. You treat our complaints as so much waste paper! I demand, on behalf of the New Zealand Company, that you take military action to apprehend my uncle’s murderers.’
‘Do you have absolutely no conception of how militarily helpless we are? I have but seventy-eight troops to put up against an entire nation. If we attacked the New Zealanders, they would retreat into their fastnesses, where no regular troops could follow. Thousands of warriors would join them. Hostilities against the settlers would then commence, and our ruin would inevitably follow. We should risk a sacrifice of life too horrible to contemplate. Wellington would be annihilated, and yourself and the company with it.’
‘You damned fool! You think they will respect you for not punishing them? That they are now your friends? You do not know the New Zealanders — they will take your unwillingness to fight back on behalf of your fellow man as a sign of your own weakness! All you are doing is planning your own downfall! Ever since Wairau, the savages have been different - thieving, plundering, impudent, trying to frighten people, firing off muskets, practising their stupid war dances, buying a deal of gunpowder, making tomahawks, telling white people that they are cowards and that their queen is but a girl. That is because you have given them confidence. If we are murdered in our beds, it will be because you have as good as given them permission to do it!’
‘And how much weaker would I seem, were I to launch a military attack that failed? Answer me that, Mr Wakefield. All I have done is to take the novel step of applying British law equally and fairly to both parties. If that scuppers some of your illegal land deals, then so be it.’
‘You risk the ruin of the company and the entire settlement with your folly!’
‘I risk the ruin of the company? It is not I who has flooded Wellington and Auckland with boatloads of angry settlers needing to be fed.’
‘Then give them the land that is rightfully theirs - instead of issuing to them your worthless paper money! You possess no currency reserves. Your notes will be worth nothing, and shall only cause disastrous inflation.’
‘I am well aware of the risks. I believe the risk that your settlers shall die of starvation to be the greater.’
Wakefield snorted. ‘Governor’s instructions forbid you to establish a paper currency without special permission of the Crown first given. Only the Union Bank of Australia is allowed to issue notes.’
‘You know nothing of the governor’s instructions.’
‘Don’t I? Who do you think is the major shareholder in the New Zealand Gazette and the Nelson Examiner besides the New Zealand Company? The Union Bank of Australia, that is who. The same Union Bank that part-owns the company itself. And your governorship is in debt to the Union Bank to the tune of many thousands of pounds, thanks to that fool Hobson. They - we - shall want our money back immediately, Captain FitzRoy, and in genuine notes, not your worthless scraps of paper.’
‘Do not try to blackmail me, you cur.’
‘I have had about enough of your arrogance, and your dictatorial quarter-deck manner. You take advantage of your high station to lay aside all the feeling and demeanour of a gentleman. You think your governorship makes you powerful? You do not realize who you are dealing with. The company has many an influential shareholder in Parliament, on both sides of both houses. At least forty MPs own a stake. Even Lord Howick is a shareholder.’
‘If the Queen herself were a shareholder it would not make one whit of difference.’
‘We are shortly to begin publishing the New Zealand Journal, a British edition of the Gazette. Then all in Britain will be able to read of your folly. Who do you think owns Barrett’s Hotel? I could have you turned out of your room at once, if I so chose, and I doubt you would find anyone else in Wellington to take you in.’
‘There will be no need for that, Mr Wakefield. I shall not deign to remain in your company’s settlement one day longer.’
‘My father warned me about you, Captain FitzRoy. He was right, as always. And together we will finish you. We will finish you right off.’
FitzRoy and his little retinue of paid clerks walked back to the North Star unattended and in silence. Nobody took off their hat or bowed. There was none of the frantic excitement that had accompanied their arrival. As luck would have it, a bitter gust of wind plucked the governor’s hat from his head and hurled it into the harbour. As he went aboard his brig, its crewmen busily trying to fish it out of the water, he could hear the sound of raucous laughter breaking like waves at his back.
Chapter Thirty-one
Auckland, New Zealand, 11 January 1845
‘Pappa, that looks like you.’
‘Yes Emily. It is a drawing of me.’
‘But, Pappa, the drawing is of a black man. You are not a black man.’
Emily had caught him red-handed, leafing through his latest batch of bad notices in the press. There were many more titles to choose from, these days: the New Zealand Herald, the New Zealand Spectator, the Auckland Gazette, all of them company titles, spreading the Wakefields’ pernicious gospel like missionary tracts penned by the Lord of the Flies himself. It was incredible that an immigrant population of just three thousand whites could sustain so many newspapers, but most of the settlers had nothing to do but read - or, in the case of the illiterate, have read to them - a rousing articulation of their burgeoning grievances. The object of their hatred, the governor who stood between them and the lands they believed to be rightfully theirs, had been caricatured as ‘The High and Mighty Prince FitzGig the First, One of the Kings of the Cannibal Islands’.
‘It is a funny drawing, Emily dearest. The artist wanted to make people laugh.’
‘Did you laugh at it, Pappa?’
‘Of course I did, when I first saw it. Now, my dear, forgive me, but Pappa is busy. Why don’t you go and play in the sunshine with Robert and Fanny?’
His daughter headed off obligingly, and his protective gaze shepherded her out on to the sunlit lawn. Little Fanny was waddling about in her long clothes, a huge, beaming smile on her face; Robert was wheeling in circles around her, a toy sailing-boat fashioned from coral in his outstretched hand. Behind them, the coarse meadows that swept down to the harbour had been plentifully seeded with mean thickets of wooden dwellings. Their numbers were increasing: in places they had clustered into discernible streets, as if huddled together, whispering and plotting. To the north and west of the town, dark, brooding clouds were gathering. On the wooded, volcanic hills that formed a natural amphitheatre on Auckland’s rim, long lines of native huts had appeared, each tribe allocated its own ridge. Ostensibly they were there to trade with the white man, but there was no doubting tha
t there was a new ostentation, a new confidence in their behaviour: Wairau had unquestionably altered the psychological balance. An opposing army, thought FitzRoy, could hardly have encamped more skilfully or with a greater appearance of regularity.
Of course he had written to Stanley, the colonial secretary, requesting more money and more troops. Without money he could not build a school, or a church, or a hospital, or even any defences. The process of justice had been frozen, for there was no money to pay lawyers. Even legitimate land sales had stopped, for his administration had no funds with which to purchase land from the natives. He even had to keep a tight rein on his own currency issue, for fear of sending inflation spiralling out of control. Just a limited sum of money, he had told Stanley, would enable him to pay small salaries to friendly chiefs, to purchase their allegiance; as it was, the love of Christ instilled in some of the tribes by the Waimate missionaries was the only leash holding back the New Zealanders. The country was in a state of paralysis: all he could do was to keep the two sides at arm’s length for as long as possible.
It had taken ten months for Stanley’s reply to come back. No money and no troops would be forthcoming. The company had assured the government that New Zealand should be entirely self-supporting, which, of course, it could be, were its native population to be conveniently wiped out. Instead of troops, Stanley had commanded him to raise a defensive militia by arming the white settlers, an order so provocative and foolhardy that he had felt obliged to disobey it. The natives understood, at least, that the red-jacketed soldiers were there to defend the law and the status quo, that they were a neutral force. Arming the mob of settlers would lead only to a bloodbath that would put Wairau to shame. News of his disobedience, he knew, would soon reach London. The New Zealand Journal had without doubt arrived there long previously.