another by Sir Thomas Brisbane, dated the 17th of May, 1824. So strong a feeling, indeed, had been excited upon this subject among the more respectable inhabitants of the English colony, that, in the year 1814, a society was formed in Sydney Town, with the Governor at its head, for the especial protection of the natives of the South Sea Islands against the oppressions practised upon them by the crews of European vessels. The reports of the missionaries likewise abound in notices of the flagrant barbarities by which, in New Zealand, as well as elsewhere, the white man has signalised his superiority over his darker-complexioned brother. But it may be enough to quote one of their state ments, namely, that within the first two or three years after the establishment of the society’s settlement at the Bay of Islands, not less than a hundred at least of the natives had been murdered by Europeans in their immediate neighbourhood. With such facts on record, it ought indeed to excite but little of our surprise, that the sight of the white man’s ship in their horizon should be to these injured people in every district the signal for a general muster, to meet the universal foe, and, if it may be accomplished by force or cunning, to gratify the great passion of savage life— revenge. The circumstances of this attack are all illustrative of the New Zealand character; and,