It appeared that both had been convicts who had got away from Sydney as stowaways in a ship bound for New Zealand, the captain of which, on arrival, had handed them over to the missionaries to be returned to New South Wales.

The men, however, ran away into the country, believing that the natives would reverence them as superior beings and maintain them in comfortable idleness.

They were at once made slaves of.

Had they been strong, handy agricultural labourers, their lot would have been easy enough.

Unfortunately for them, one had been a London tailor, the other a shoemaker, and the luckless pair of feeble Cockneys could be of little use to their taskmasters.