The unerring eye of Captain Cook had, seventy years before, noted the Hauraki Gulf as an admirable position.

Hobson's advisers, in choosing it as his seat of Government, are said to have been the missionary, Henry Williams, and Captain Symonds, a surveyor.

As the capital of New Zealand it was the wrong place from the first.

From every other standpoint the selection was a master-stroke.

Twenty-four years later Auckland ceased to be the capital of the Colony; but though in this she had to yield to the superior claims of Wellington, she could afford to lose the privilege.