That record, since December 1642 when Abel Tasman first sighted 'Clyppygen Hoeck', to December 1840, when colonisation began, had the records of 1758 vessels arriving on the [New Zealand] coast.
They came, first to explore, then to exploit, little schooners and brigs out of the infant seaport of Port Jackson, the whaling barques out of the ancient port of London, the full-riggers from the whaling ports of Maine and Massachusetts, from Lisbon, Copenhagen, Le Havre, Bremen and Hobart Town. Sealers and whalers, spar ships and flax traders, sandalwood schooners on their way home from Fiji, ships laden with tortoise shell and coconut oil from Tahiti, and ships of war from Trincomalee and Toulon.
New Zealand, and many of its precolonial seaports, enjoyed a trade by sea that was truly international, and today, as one sails up the harbours of Akaroa, Port Underwood, Hokianga or the Bay of Islands, with only an occasional fisherman or pleasure boat in sight, it is difficult to imagine those waters thronged with barques, brigs and schooners flying the flags of many nations, of whaleboats, in countless numbers, trafficking between ships and from ship to shore.
They came in their hundreds, seeking grog and girls, pork and potatoes, and the natural products the coast had to offer: oil to light the lamps of Europe and America; whalebone to corset their women; sealskins to robe the Manchus of China or to appear on the streets of London as 'beaver hats'; flax to provide canvas, rope and cordage for their ships; and solid kauri spars for masts and yards. Whatever they sought, they came by sea, stayed a while and went on, about their seafaring business. A few were left behind, seamen from America, France, Australia, England, Scotland and Ireland, ship deserters of many nations, living with their Maori wives and laying the foundations of what was to become a multiracial society.
To some perhaps, the most significant maritime activity of these years will be seen as that occurring in 1840, the arrival in Port Nicholson of the chartered ships of the New Zealand Company, carrying between them close on 2000 intending settlers, to be landed haphazardly on the beach at Petone in the rude collection of tents, shacks and whares they proudly called 'Britannia'.
- Rear-Admiral John O'Connell Ross,* New Zealand Maritime History to 1840: People, Ships, Trade & Settlement, Wellington, 2024, p.146-7.
History: The itinerant life of a tramp steamer, 11 December 2021
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