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The Monarch, commanded by Captain Smale, chartered by Messrs. Robinson (formerly Resident Magistrate at Akaroa) and Smith, who was the first person who placed sheep on Mr Buchanan’s run at Little River, was the first English ship that ever came to Akaroa. She arrived on April 2, 1850, and the following is a full account of her trip, published in the Akaroa Mail in 1877:—

“It is now twenty-eight years ago since we first turned our thoughts towards New Zealand. The idea speedily ripened into resolve, and finally we took our passage in a small barque named the Monarch, of 375 tons register, the owners, Messrs. Robinson and Smith, coming out with her. The crew consisted of the captain, David Smale, three officers, six A.B. seamen, and an apprentice, while the passengers numbered fifty-two, including a doctor. With a small vessel, a short crew, and a few adventurers, for such we might be termed in those days, we set sail for Auckland, but Akaroa was to be our destiny, and there we proved to be the first direct English settlers in what is now called Canterbury. The town of our adoption, Akaroa, now boasts of a periodical publication, and it has been thought that an epitome of our voyage, and the subsequent career of some of those ante-pioneers to the Canterbury settlement—ante-diluvians as we have been jocosely termed—might prove interesting to the readers of that journal.

“We left Gravesend on the 22nd day of November, 1849, putting into Cowes, Isle of Wight, whence we resumed our voyage at 6 a.m. on the 27th, and, with a fine light breeze, ran down the Channel that day, losing sight of land as the shades of night closed in, and hid it from our gaze. With Madeira came our