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173 CHAPTER XIV. Departure for New Zealand—Voyage—Three Kings—A New Zealand conqueror—North Cape—Manganui—Coast scenery— Massacre at Wangaroa—Bay of Islands. The fertility of the soil of New Zealand, and its great advantages of climate being well known to the speculative classes of Australia and Van Dieman’s Land, it was manifest to them that the active spirit of colonization, which has arisen out of the condition of the British empire in the present day, would soon invade these fertile islands, and confer on the land a high and marketable value. In their appreciation of early land purchases, as a means of rapidly acquiring wealth, these thriving colonists do not yield precedence even to the Americans. Hence the purchase of land from the chiefs, some years previous*’ to the appointment of a governor, became a favourite speculation, and vessels were dispatched weekly from the ports of Australia to New Zealand, with cargoes of merchandise and numerous passengers. The return freight of these vessels usually consisted of maize, pota toes, flax, pork, and whale oil; and the captains seldom failed, on their arrival in the colonies, to exhibit scraps of paper, purporting to be the title-deeds of land acquired by purchase from the natives. Most of these purchases