 The ships then sailed up the east coast to explore prospects for trade, stopping at the Coromandel Peninsula and the Bay of Islands.In January 1827 Herd surveyed parts of the harbour at Hokianga, where either he or the company's agent on board negotiated the "purchase" of tracts of land from Māori in Hokianga, Manukau and Paeroa.The price for the land was "five muskets, fifty three pounds powder, four pair blankets, three hundred flints and four musket cartridge boxes".