James Busby arrives as British Resident

James Busby was a settler in New South Wales who had studied wine-growing in France, and he had never visited New Zealand when he applied for the job. While in Britain in 1831 he wrote an essay arguing that a resident agent could make treaties with the chiefs for the security of trade, and in March 1832 he was offered the post. The idea of a Resident had come from Sydney. After the Elizabeth affair Governor Ralph Darling proposed one in April 1831, and in January 1832 Lord Goderich approved it, but with no troops and no warship stationed in New Zealand.

The powers that came with the title were slight. Because New Zealand was independent territory, Busby could not sit as a magistrate, arrest anyone or take evidence on oath, and a bill to let New South Wales legislate against crimes by British subjects in the Pacific failed in Parliament. Governor Bourke, who disliked him, told him his chief duty was to win the goodwill of the rangatira, and suggested he might guide them towards a 'settled form of government' able to deal with offenders. Bourke's council, which resented paying for New Zealand, kept him short of money. NZHistory says Māori mocked him as a man-of-war without guns. The Waitangi Tribunal says the phrase first appeared in a House of Commons debate in 1838.

HMS Imogene brought him into the Bay on 5 May 1833. His formal reception came on 17 May, when he was rowed ashore to a seven-gun salute and welcomed at Paihia by around 600 Māori and 50 Europeans, with speeches and a war dance. He read the King's answer to the petition the chiefs had sent in 1831, then his own address. One rangatira told him he would have done better to bring soldiers. He made his home at Waitangi, under Te Kēmara's protection, in a house shipped from Sydney.

The limits of his position soon showed. Late on 30 April 1834 thieves broke into the Residency, and a shot fired at Busby narrowly missed his head. Months later a local chief, Rete, was named as the culprit. A hui of rangatira agreed he should forfeit his land, and in March 1835 a party took possession of about 130 acres, which Busby named 'Ingarani', but Rete stayed close by and the chiefs would not drive him off. Busby could bring rangatira together, as he did for the flag of 1834 and the declaration of 1835, but he could not make them act. Fighting in 1836–37 led him to report his position untenable. When Hobson arrived in January 1840, Busby helped him in every way he could, arranging the meeting with northern chiefs at his Waitangi home and helping to draft the treaty. He then declined a post in the new government.