Deep-sea whaling commenced during the years 1791-2, the first arrival being the whaler, „William and Ann“. Shortly later, in 1792, the whaler „Britannia“ began operating in Dusky Sound (South Island).
From 1797 American whalers arrived, and during the 1830s the French whaling ships turned up in significant numbers. Seals were hunted, and their skins taken for the Chinese market. The flax trade grew.
Tensions arose sometimes. The Ngati Tama and Ngati Mutunga tribes allegedly killed the crew of the French whaling ship „Jean Bart“. In retaliation, the French corvette „l´Heroine“ under the command of J.-B- Thomas Médée Cécille, burnt a village and reportedly took a captive back to France.
The missionaries were also present at this time, and before 1840 there were three groups: the Anglicans, represented by the Church Missionary Society, the Wesleyans and the Roman Catholics. The French Bishop Jean Baptiste Francois Pompallier, set up the first Roman Catholic Marist mission in Hokianga in 1838.
The Bay of Islands became the stopover for traders and whalers, and the shantytown of Kororareka grew as a result. On route for Dusky Sound, in the south, the whalers called in at Kororareka for provisions, and also for women, in the numerous brothels which had sprung up. New Zealand became a country without law and order, left to its own devices – vices. In view of the degrading situation, 13 Bay of Island and Hokianga chiefs, backed by the Church Missionary Society, requested Britain to intervene, in 1831. At first Great Britain was hesitant to act, but was prematurely pushed to a decision by the actions of „The New Zealand Company“, coupled with rumours of French plans for their own colonisation of New Zealand. The French navy had been exploring New Zealand, showing the flag in support of its whaling fleet and of its nationals, of whom Bishop Pompallier.
Adding to the general confusion, a Baron Charles Philippe Hippolyte de Thierry whose family had fled from France to Great Britain at the time of the French Revolution, met with the missionary Thomas Kendall, in Cambridge in 1820. De Thierry arranged with Kendall for the purchase the land in New Zealand. The deed of sale indicates that Kendall bought 40,000 acres of land in the Hokianga area on behalf of de Thierry, for the price of 36 axes. The land was bought from the chiefs Muriwai Patoune and Tamati Waka Nene.