seized in Australia. The nebulous United Tribes of New Zealand later, in October 1835, sent the Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand to King William IV of the United Kingdom, asking him for protection. Ongoing unrest and the legal standing of the Declaration of Independence prompted the Colonial Office to send Captain William Hobson to New Zealand to claim sovereignty for the British Crown and negotiate a treaty with the Māori. The two parties first signed the Treaty of Waitangi in the Bay of Islands on 6 February 1840. The drafting was done hastily and confusion and disagreement continue to surround the translation. However, New Zealanders still regard "the Treaty" as marking New Zealand's foundation as a nation, and Māori revere it as a guarantee of their rights. In response to attempts by the New Zealand Company to establish a separate colony in Wellington, and mindful of French claims in Akaroa, Hobson, appointed as Lieutenant-Governor on 14 January 1840, declared British sovereignty over all of New Zealand on 21 May 1840. He published two proclamations published in the New Zealand Advertiser and Bay Of Islands Gazette issue of 19 June 1840. One "assert[s] on the grounds of Discovery, the Sovereign Rights of Her Majesty over the Southern Islands of New Zealand, commonly called 'The Middle Island' (South Island) and 'Stewart's Island' (Stewart Island/Rakiura); and the Island, commonly called 'The Northern Island', having been ceded Sovereignty to Her Majesty". The second proclamation expanded on how sovereignty over the "Northern Island" had been ceded under the treaty signed that February. Following the formalising of sovereignty, an organised and structured flow of migrants from Great Britain and Ireland began, and by 1860 more than 100,000 British and Irish settlers lived throughout New Zealand. The Otago Association actively recruited settlers from Scotland, generating a definite Scottish influence in Murihiku, while the Canterbury Association recruited settlers from the south of England, giving a definite English influence to the "Canterbury Settlement". By 1870 the non-Māori population reached over 250,000. Other settlers came from Germany, Scandinavia, and other parts of Europe as well as from China and the Indian subcontinent, but British and Irish settlers made up the vast majority, and did so for the next 150 years. Between 1881 and the 1920s, the New Zealand Parliament passed legislation that intended to limit Asiatic migration to New Zealand, and prevented Asians from naturalising. In particular, the