They were very anxious for the benefits which they hoped to derive from intercourse with the whites, and readily undertook to secure Hall and King from all danger.

Even Governor Macquarie was so far satisfied that he consented to let Mr.Marsden go out and arrange the new settlement, to which he presented two cows and a bull.

These, with three horses, and some sheep and poultry, were embarked on board the _Active_, with a motley collection of passengers, the eight Maories, the three missionaries with their wives and children, a sawyer, a smith, Mr.Marsden, and another gentleman named John Lydiard Nicholas, the master of the vessel, his wife, son, and crew, which included two Tahitians, and lastly a runaway convict who had secreted himself on board.

Their arrival might have been rendered dangerous by the conduct of a whaling crew at Wangaroa, in the northern island of New Zealand, who, by way of retaliation for the massacre of the _Boyd's_ ship- company, had murdered a chief named Tippahee with all his family, without waiting to find out whether he had been concerned in the slaughter.
Nevertheless, these brave men were ready to dare to the utmost, and the fame of Mr.Marsden, "the friend of the Maori," had preceded him, and the _Active_ was welcomed with presents of fish and visits from the natives.
They found that Tippahee's people at Wangaroa had accused the tribe of the Bay of Islands of leading the English to murder their chief, that there was in consequence a deadly feud, and that several desperate battles had been fought.

Marsden knew that if he came as the friend of Duaterra and his tribe alone, party spirit would entirely alienate the rest of the islanders, and he therefore determined at once to prove that he came not as the ally of one party, but as the friend of both.