Murder Of Bishop

Patteson Old Records Clearly Suggest Revenge Motive

ON April 1, the anniversary of his birth, reference was made by missionary organisations to the life and death of the pioneer missionary. John Coleridge Patteson, first Bishop of Melanesia.

When the See of New Zealand was established in 1841. the erroneous boun daries. transcribed from the letters patent of the colony itself, which ex tended far north of the equator, gave an area of some 4,700 square miles of ocean to the diocese, including a large number of scattered islands.

Bishop Selwyn readily accepted the in accurate boundaries and in 1848. after a cruise, wrote to England suggesting that he should take spiritual charge of the area which embraced the New Heb rides, Solomon Islands, New Britain Archipelago, New Guinea, and all the Line Islands.

AT a meeting of the Bishops of Aus tralia and New Zealand, held at Sydney in 1850, the Australasian Board of Missions was set up. and it was decided that the work in the tropi cal islands should be carried out by long visits in the healthy season, instead of by permanent stations. An Ocean dio

cese was proposed, but complications arose, and it was not until 1861 that the consecration of a bishop was approv ed. In that year the Secretary of State in a despatch stated: “The Bishops of New Zealand are a liberty, without the invasion of the Royal prerogative or infringement of the law of England, to exercise what Bishop Selwyn describes as their power of consecrating Mr. Pat teson or any other person to take charge of the Melanesian Islands, provided that the consecration should take place be yond British territory”.

The Attorney General of New Zealand, citing precedent, held that there was no reason why Mr. Patteson should not be consecrated in Auckland. And so it was done on February 24. 1861.

Bishop Patteson who. as a worker in the mission field, had urgently pressed for the establishment of a British Pro tectorate over all the unoccupied islands in the area, was of the definite opinion that most of the native outrages were carried out in a spirit of revenge for wrongs perpetrated in connection with the labour traffic, and in this he was supported by naval officers. In the tur moil that existed, he realised the value of the navy to a mission “not with the idea of any protection being required, but with the intention of supporting the mission and giving help”.

On one occasion he cruised through the islands in the H.M.S. “Cordelia”; and in 1865 the H.M.S. “Curacoa” tow ed the “Southern 'Cross” through the Solomon Group, On each occasion, evi dence of outrages, committed in a spirit of revenge, was collected.

In September, 1871, in his last letter to Rev. R. H. Codrington. he wrote from the New Hebrides: “We only reached Mae to-day. I have spent the after noon on shore. One of the saddest after noons I have had for manv a day. No thing can be more deplorable than the state of the island. I counted 48 people in the village when of old 300 certainly were to be seen”.

He was depressed at the depletion of the nopulation by the labour trade, but could not bear to give up his hopes of securing some reforms.

On leaving the New Hebrides he pro ceeded to Nukanu, in the Santa Cruz group: and extracts from the log of Captain John Jacobs, master of the mis sion vessel “Southern Cross”, reveal the tragedy: “September 20. 1871; At 11.30 a.m. low ered boat. The Bishon went toward some canoes that were about one mile from the vessel: thev all nulled towards the reef. It being low water our boat could not cross.

“The Bishop went ashore in a canoe, six others remaining by the boat. They tried to get the boat’s crew to haul the boat on the reef: as thev could not suc ceed thev fired tie.. shot) into the boat and hit Mr. AtMns and two of the boat’s crew. One (Stenhen. a native) had five arrows broken in him; four were eut out but could not get the other. The beat returned to the vessel.

“I sent the mate, three of our crew and two black boys, with Mr. Atkins, to wateh the shore and see if thev could see the Bishop; and. when there was water enough to cross the reef and go as near to shore as was prudent.

“The boat went inside the reef. Ob served a canoe drifting towards them; thev pulled to it: the Bishop’s body was in it. He was killed—wrapped up in a mat. strinped of all his clothes, two fearful wounds in the head, the skull smashed in, several arrow marks, and his legs cut. Took him into the boat and pulled to the vessel.

“In the meantime a light air sprang up and we worked the vessel towards the reef to cover the boat. There was a cocoa palm leaf stuck in the mat, with five knots tied in it.

September 21; Mr. Brooke read the service for the dead over the Bishop, and we committed his body to the deep.

“September 27; Mr. Atkins departed this nfe. He suffered very much before he died. His breasts and shoulders turned quite blue shortly after he died.

“September 28; Stephen died; he suf fered dreadfully. Read the funeral ser vice and committed both bodies to the deep”.

A later report stated that two canoes went with the one in which the Bishop travelled, and in them were Mota and Taulu, two chiefs who had been on friendly terms. The remainder drifted about with the ship’s boat for about half an hour, when suddenly, without any warning a man stood up in one of them and, calling out, “Have you anything like this?”, he fired an arrow; and his companions in the other canoes called out, as they fired. “This for New Zea land Man”; “This for Bauro man”; “This for Mota man”.

Five men then in Fiji were known to have been stolen from Nukapu. and it is thought probable that their families believed they were dead. The five knots in the palm were presumed to indicate that the Bishop’s death was vengeance for the five stolen natives.—AM.