Richard A Cruise was a British military officer who commanded the military detachment travelling aboard HMS Dromedary on its 1820 voyage to collect timber spars from the kauri forests of New Zealand’s North Island. In the first decades of the nineteenth century, European settlement in New Zealand was in its infancy but contact between European traders and settlers with Māori had seen the introduction of firearms to the country. Māori acquired the weapons from traders seeking access to timber and other resources and soon an intertribal arms race, known as the Musket Wars, began among warring iwi. The resulting conflict saw many thousands of Māori killed. Some communities were completely destroyed, their members killed, enslaved or forced to migrate. The wars resulted in shifting rohe (iwi boundaries), causing a change in the balance of power among Māori, which defined New Zealand affairs for several decades. Cruise’s account is an important source for the history of Māori society during this period.