On 28 April one signature was added to the Manukau-Kāwhia sheet of the Treaty of Waitangi, that of Rāwiri, possibly from Ngāpuhi. This signature was witnessed by James Wallis, a Wesleyan (Methodist) missionary who was stationed in Kāwhia.
When Police Magistrate W.C. Symonds travelled to Waikato Heads, he found that Reverend Robert Maunsell, an Anglican Church Missionary Society missionary, had already collected signatures for the Waikato-Manukau treaty sheet from rangatira (chiefs) around the region, with the exception of Aotea and Kāwhia. The two missionaries at Kāwhia, James Wallis and John Whiteley, had earlier expressed an interest in helping with Lieutenant-Governor William Hobson’s mission to get chiefs to sign the treaty. Learning of this, Symonds sent the Manukau-Kāwhia treaty copy to them with instructions to explain ‘perfectly’ the ‘nature of the cession of rights’ in the treaty. [1] Wallis and Whiteley left no record of the discussions or their explanations, but Whiteley later stated that he had explained the treaty to the best of his ability.
[1] Symonds to Whiteley, quoted in Claudia Orange, The Treaty of Waitangi, Allen & Unwin, Port Nicholson Press with assistance from the Historical Publications Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington, 1987, p. 70