Ah! What is that? A roar, as of a wild beast springing upon its prey, and a big gun, unsuspectedbefore, belches from an embrasure round shot and chain and scrap iron almost in the faces of the bewildered men. The space between the two fences is a shambles now; but they will not run, and Phillpotts is on his feet still.
They might go now. They have done enough for honour. Why does not the bugler blow the "Retire"? If he does, those stern fighters do not hear it; or, if they hear, they do not heed; for Phillpotts is running along that impassable fence, seeking for a way through.
By Heaven! He has found one! But what a way! The embrasure through which but now a heavy gun poked its ugly muzzle. Hardly large enough for a child to climb through, much less a man. But with a shout to his tars Phillpotts is up and wriggling through, and his cheering men are under him, each striving to be the first up and after his leader.
Phillpotts is almost through, and a dozen muskets are emptied in his face. But such is the perturbation of the Maori at sight of that solitary, well-known figure, threatening now to leap into their midst, and shouting "Follow, lads! Follow!" that every man there misses him. And still he struggles in that narrow way, shouting "Follow!"
A single shot rings out, clearly heard in a momentary cessation of the hideous din. It is fired by a mere boy; but it does its work, and Phillpotts without a cry falls dead, still grasping his sword.
phillpots
Phillpotts at Oheawai
He lies somewhat apart; but Captain Grant of the 58th is not far away, a ball in his heart, andBeattie, subaltern of the 99th, is dying. Two sergeants have fought their last fight, and thirty of rank and file—the brave unnamed—will never charge again. Macpherson, leader of this forlornest of forlorn hopes, is grievously wounded; so are Ensign O'Reilly and Interpreter Clarke. Three sergeants and seventy-five of the rank and file are down. Not ten minutes at it, and three-fourths of the one hundred and sixty who started have fallen, dead or wounded; and of them all not one has passed that cruel fence. Will that bugle never blow?
Ah! At last—"Retire!" The man watching from the hill, the man who commands, realises now that he has demanded the impossible, has set his men to take an impregnable fortress. And again, as if imploring them to obey, the bugle wails—"Retire!"
The assault by escalade upon Oheawai is over, and the Maori has once again repulsed the Briton.
But whose is the fault?
FOOTNOTES:[60]His father's name.[61]Some of which required thirty men to raise them by means of ropes.[62]Soldiers.[63]Statement of one who fought on that day.
[60]His father's name.
[60]His father's name.
[61]Some of which required thirty men to raise them by means of ropes.
[61]Some of which required thirty men to raise them by means of ropes.
[62]Soldiers.
[62]Soldiers.
[63]Statement of one who fought on that day.
[63]Statement of one who fought on that day.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE FALL OF THE BAT'S NEST
When Colonel Despard about a fortnight later turned his back upon Oheawai, he left thepain flames behind him. At no time had much been seen of the enemy, except during Kawiti's dash and that fatal ten minutes of assault; so the quiet aspect of thepaattracted no particular attention. Then Waka's men noticed one night that their challenging watch-cries were not answered, though the howling of dogs suggested that the place was still occupied. Cautious investigation before dawn revealed the state of matters. Several dogs were tied up to posts, so that their howling might deceive the besiegers; but the enemy had stolen away, leaving an immense amount of material behind them, probably with the intention of tempting Waka's men and so checking immediate pursuit. Without more ado thepawas burnt and the return to Waimate begun.
The storm of popular indignation now broke out anew, not only on account of Colonel Despard's failure—for it was failure, the Maori counting as nothing the evacuation of apain time of war,—but because the Governor listened to the advice ofMr. George Clarke, Chief Protector of Aborigines, and refused to prosecute the war until it should be seen whether Heke and Kawiti would sue for peace. They did nothing of the sort and, when it became known that Kawiti was building apawhich he boasted would defy any number of big guns, the Governor was popularly called upon to resign.
Captain Fitzroy refused to resign, and it was not long before petitions reached England, praying the Colonial Office to deal with him and to relieve the depressed state of the colony.
No one in England had any very clear idea of what to do for New Zealand; but Lord Stanley shook his head when the New Zealand Company suggested the establishment of a proprietary government on the model of the early colonies in North America. Captain Fitzroy was, however, relieved of his office and, when the colonists learned that Captain George Grey, Governor of South Australia, was to take his place, there was general jubilation; "for now," people said, "they have at last sent us a man!"
For George Grey was not untried in the art of governing men of different races, living in the same land; nor was he without experience of troubles such as were then oppressing New Zealand. He had dealt in South Australia with precisely such problems, and had in five years brought order out of chaos. Nor would he come unprepared to argue matters with the New Zealand Company; for the South Australian Colonisation Association oddly enough derived its existence, and in a measure took itsmethods, from Mr. Edward Gibbon Wakefield, the right-hand man of the New Zealand Land Company.
When Captain Grey became Governor of South Australia in 1839, the country was almost bankrupt from much the same causes (the native question excepted) as had brought New Zealand to the verge of ruin. Before the Governor left, South Australia was in a flourishing condition; by the aid and liberality of their chief the colonists had overcome their difficulties, and the prosperity of the colony seemed established. Is it any wonder, then, that the New Zealanders joyfully anticipated Captain Grey's arrival, and looked to him to do for them what he had done for their cousins on the other side of the Tasman Sea?
Moreover, Captain George Grey was believed to know more than any man living about native races, and how to induce them to adopt the manners and customs of civilised man. If there were some who shook their heads and declared that George Grey was "too much inclined to see that niggers got their rights," their growls were lost in the shriller chorus of satisfaction.
Captain Grey arrived on the 14th of November, 1845, at Auckland. Without loss of time he quieted the financial panic, smoothed away for the moment the land difficulty, and assured all loyal natives of the Queen's favour and protection. Then, having ascertained that Heke and Kawiti were still in arms, he sent them a message that, unless they sued for peace before a fixed date, he would again set the war dogs at their throats. As a gentle hint to allconcerned, he immediately passed a bill to prevent Maori from purchasing munitions of war.
While Heke and Kawiti, unused to such swift decision, debated the question, the time limit expired, and their spies raced to them with the news that theKawana(Governor) was sending against them the greatest "war-party" which the "Pakeha Chiefs" had ever put together. Heke was still forced by his wound to abstain from active participation; but old Kawiti had finished his strongpa, Ruapekapeka—"The Bat's Nest,"—and retired thither, convinced that it would be impossible for the British to dislodge him.
Kawiti felt both complacent and apprehensive. Thepahe had built was immensely strong and provided with every means of scientific defence, and five hundred good fighting men lay behind its massive fences. Colonel Despard, on the other hand, commanded close upon twelve hundred men, with eleven guns, two of them being thirty-two-pounders. For the odds Kawiti cared not at all; but the prospect of so many guns pounding at him all at once did not please him. There was no help for it. The war-party was at his gates, which he did not mean to open without a struggle.
Colonel Despard, getting his first glimpse of "The Bat's Nest," made up his mind that he would reduce it by means of regular sap work, if it cost him a year. He had not to wait nearly so long; but neither he nor Kawiti had the least presentiment how swift was to be the fall of a fortress which at first sight looked impregnable.
It was now summer, and the dreadful mud and angry rivers were no longer to be feared; yet there were difficulties in getting into position, for old Kawiti had chosen his site with consummate skill. The troops left Kororareka on the 8th of December, and four days later reached thepaof a friendly chief, Tamati Pukutetu, whence Ruapekapeka could be seen, nine miles away. Only nine miles; yet it cost those twelve hundred men nine days to cross the intervening strip of country between Pukutetu'spaand their camp before Ruapekapeka, and another nine days elapsed before the whole of the guns and ammunition could be got up. Kawiti made no attempt to harass the troops. The country fought for him and, besides, he was in no hurry to begin. No Maori ever was.
The British camp lay distant eight hundred yards from Ruapekapeka, which stood on the side of a hill, surrounded by dense forest. A quarter of a mile of space had been cleared all around of bush, leaving a formidable glacis, which must be crossed before the massive palisades could be reached. Not that the colonel intended to cross it until he had sent ahead of him a good many iron notes of interrogation.
For thepaitself, with its one hundred and seventy yards of frontage and seventy yards of depth, all broken into flanks, if a purely technical description were to be given of its figure—the stockaded divisions of the enceinte, the curtains with their huge piquets, the trenches and covered ways, the loopholes on the ground-level for musket fire, the traverses, the subtle division of the interior into compartments so thatthe loss of one should not necessitate the loss of the rest, the subterranean cells, the bomb-proof shelters,—were these to be detailed, even a soldier would stare and, while still his wonder grew, ask not only how old Kawiti's head could carry all it knew of the science of defensive warfare, but also, to adapt a famous query, "Where the deuce got he that knowledge?"
The bombardment began long before all the guns were up. Moses Tawhai, one of the allied chiefs, just before daylight on the 29th of December stole through the thick bush with his men to a position six hundred yards from thepa. Ere the enemy detected their daring approach, they had "rushed up" a temporary stockade, and into this two hundred soldiers and a couple of guns were promptly conveyed.
Two days later, even as the enemy, as if inviting a beginning, hoisted their standard, every British gun in position—big guns, brass guns, little guns, mortars, rockets—roared, banged, cracked and fizzed an instant response. When the very first shot—fired from the gun served by the contingent from H.M.S.Racehorse, under Lieutenant Bland—cut the flagstaff in two and brought down the flag, "even the ranks of Tuscany could scarce forbear to cheer." Which is to say, the chivalrous gentlemen defending thepawere as ungrudging in their admiration of the successful marksman as were the besiegers.
Next day, the 1st of January, 1846, the guns again roared out in chorus, this time in salute to the New Year; and old Kawiti, on the 2nd, tried one of his famous flank rushes. But the British were readyfor him and drove him back with loss, so that he kept behind his defences for the remainder of the siege.
So the days wore on until the 10th, by which time every gun, heavy and light, was in position. All day long they thundered and crashed, and shot and shell thumped and smacked against the wooden walls with much more visible effect than at Oheawai, so that two very obvious breaches had been made by nightfall.
Heke arrived that night with a reinforcement, having dodged a column of friendlies who were blocking him in his home at Okerangi. When he saw the condition of things, he gave the very sound advice that thepashould be evacuated before further mischief was done. "There is no sense in remaining here to be killed," he urged. "Let them have thepaand, if they follow us into the bush, we shall havethem; for they cannot bring their big guns there."
People who have for nearly a fortnight endured a bombardment do not require much persuasion to change their quarters, and the majority then and there followed Heke out into the dense bush in rear of thepa.
But it was different with old Kawiti. Ruapekapeka was his very own, the offspring of his own science and skill. He would not leave thepawhile hope remained of saving it. So he threw his oratory into the scale against Heke's arguments, and prevailed upon a few devoted adherents to share his fortune for good or ill.
So the 10th of January closed without the Britishbeing aware that Heke and the bulk of the garrison had slipped away to safety.
The end came on the next day, and from one point of view rather pathetically. It was Sunday, and if there was one principle more than another which themihonarihad impressed upon their converts, it was that no work of any kind must be done upon God's Day of Rest. Most of those who were left in Ruapekapeka were Christians, and these, believing that the British would be similarly employed, assembled for divine service under cover of some rising ground outside, and in rear of thepa. Kawiti and the few who remained inside were asleep in the trenches; for they, too, had assumed that no attack would be delivered on that Day of days. Heke might have warned them; for he had read the lives of Wellington and Napoleon, and knew that Sunday never yet stopped a fight. But Heke and his people were also busy at their devotions in the shelter of the forest.
Had the British been alone nothing might have happened; but the friendlies made a shrewd guess at the cause of the unusual quietude within thepa, and Wiremu Waka Turau (William Walker), Waka Nene's brother, stole up to the breaches and cautiously peeped through. As he had expected, he could see no one; so signalled his brother.
Nene communicated the news, and Captain Denny and men of the 58th instantly hurried up with thehapuof Nene and Tao Nui at their heels. As they burst into the silent fortress, old Kawiti awoke and with a handful of followers made a brief defence.But the assailants poured in, the odds were too great, and the old warrior, knowing that the game was up, turned and fled out at the rear of thepaand joined Heke in the bush, calling upon him to return with his Nga-Puhi and retake Ruapekapeka.
The face of the situation was thus entirely changed. The fort was occupied by the British and their allies, and the Nga-Puhi were hopelessly attempting to re-enter it at the rear. Their attack was really a feint, intended to lure the soldiers to Heke's ambush; but when the Nga-Puhi skirmishers at last fell back towards the bush, strict orders were given against pursuit. Here, again, it was the advice of the friendly chiefs which prevented the conversion of an unexpected success into a disaster.
"Ah! The soldiers care nothing for Sunday when there's any fighting to be done," observed a rueful Nga-Puhi prisoner after the fight. "It's only when there's nothing else to do that they go and say their prayers!"
So, on the 11th of January, 1846, fell Ruapekapekapa, "The Bat's Nest," at a cost to the British of twelve killed and thirty-one wounded—how different from those ten awful minutes at Oheawai!—and with it fell the hopes of Heke and Kawiti, who presently tendered their submission and swore allegiance to Britain.
And so ended the first sustained war between Maori and Pakeha.
CHAPTER XIX
THE WAR IN THE SOUTH
"Luck!" said the stupid. "Foresight!" declared the wise. "George Grey all over!" chuckled the knowing ones. But the fact remained that Captain Grey had in less than two months partially disentangled the economic knot, had done something towards smoothing the political situation, and had brought about the end of a war which for a year and a half had vexed the peace of New Zealand.
There were not wanting malcontents who prophesied all sorts of evil because Captain Grey had accepted the submission of Kawiti and Heke, pardoned them unconditionally, relieved the north of martial law, and left only a nominal garrison at the Bay of Islands.
But the Governor already knew the Maori well enough to feel sure that a generous confidence in their honour would strongly appeal to them. And, besides, when George Grey had resolved upon a course, he held to his resolution, unstimulated by the smiles of flatterers, unvexed by the sneers of the envious, undeterred by the expressed opinion, good, bad, or indifferent, of any living being.
Kawiti was seventy-two when he rushed the British with his favourite flank attacks. A week after the destruction of his famous fortress, Ruapekapeka, he wrote to the Governor, proposing peace in a letter very characteristic of himself, and particularly impressing one fact upon His Excellency. "Let us have peace between you and me," he wrote, "for I am filled with your riches" (he meant, "I have had enough of your cannon-balls"). "Therefore, I say, let you and I make peace. Will you not? Yes!"
Honi Heke professed not to wish to make peace, and so long as he actually refused submission, so long was there danger that, if opportunity served, he would break out again. Once he had submitted, that possibility would cease to exist; for he had never been known to break his pledged word.
Waka Nene paid him a visit one day and attempted to talk him over. Heke admitted that he had every desire for peace, but that, as he was a great chief (which he was not, save by marriage, as Waka knew very well), and as he had only fought in defence of his land and his liberty, which no one should convince him was wrong, he would only submit if theKawanacame and asked him to do so.
Perhaps no one was more surprised than Heke when the Governor came and frankly offered him his hand. In the Maori code, the chief who goes first to the other, or who first sends a "go-between," is held to be the one who sues for peace. So Heke shook hands with the Governor and tried to be condescending. But he knew in his heart that he wasdealing with a shrewder man than himself, and one who would never hesitate to make a small and not dishonourable concession for the sake of a great public good. Heke knew that he had received the shadow, and looked content; Governor Grey was fully aware that he had gained the substance, andwascontent.
The conclusion of the whole matter came in May, when old Kawiti boarded H.M.S.Diver, then in the Bay of Islands, and formally tendered his submission to the Governor, expressing his regret for the trouble he had given, and his gratitude for the consideration with which he had been treated. The scene was watched by Waka Nene and other chiefs who had helped to lay the axe to the root of this venerable tree; but, true to his course, Governor Grey's reception of him was so cordial and kind, that the old warrior soon forgot his humiliation, and remembered only that he stood in the presence of a friend.O si sic semper!
"Jack" Maori did not allow the Governor much breathing time. The south was seething with discontent. Some of the colonists had never forgiven the Executive for treating the Massacre of the Wairau as a political rather than as a personal incident and, since Te Rauparaha and Rangihaeata were living in the neighbourhood of Wellington, people there were apprehensive of similar happenings. The Maori, too—and particularly the restless pair just mentioned—continually grumbled, and the burden of their lament was, as ever, "Land! Land! Land!" Moreover, men of their type were notlikely to be heedless of the doings farther north. Colonists knew this, and conceived their fears well grounded.
They were indeed. Neither Te Rauparaha nor his friend, Rangihaeata, were men to be trusted should power, linked with opportunity, come their way. They had already scored heavily off the Pakeha, and their attitude was closely watched and imitated by their countrymen. A few miles outside Wellington settlers were treated with an insolence which enraged them, but which they dared not resent as they would have done had their numbers been greater and their dwellings less scattered. Their indignation at the behaviour of the Maori was the greater, because they now felt it to be justified; for the land most in dispute—the valley of the Hutt—had been bought by Governor Fitzroy, and the money paid over to Te Rauparaha. Whether he had or had not made a fair division with Rangihaeata was not the settlers' affair.
But the "Tiger of the Wairau," as Rangihaeata had come to be styled, chose to think otherwise and, having secured a partner to his liking in his friend Mamaku, demonstrated his views in his own objectionable way. Te Rauparaha, the diplomatist, kept himself in the background, though it is certain that his advice counted for much; and even Rangihaeata did not at first make himself conspicuous, allowing his brigadier, Mamaku, to harass the settlers in the valley of the Hutt and its neighbourhood.
Perhaps too close a watch was kept upon Rangihaeata, and Mamaku reckoned at less than hisproper value. At all events, after a few months of desultory fighting, it was Mamaku with a hundred men who attacked a force of British regulars with a dash and spirit seldom seen in the wars between Maori and Pakeha.
Boulcott's Farm was the advanced post of the British stockade of Fort Richmond, on the Hutt, and was held in May, 1846, by Lieutenant Page of the 58th Regiment and fifty men. The post consisted of a wooden cottage, several huts and a barn adjoining, which last had been rendered bullet-proof, and was the only fortified portion of the cluster of buildings. The ground had been cleared for some little distance all around, and beyond, on every side, spread the noble forest for which this region was then famous. The River Hutt was not far away, and somewhere in the thick scrub beyond the opposite bank lurked the enemy. So Boulcott's Farm kept wide awake.
The night of the 15th of May passed quietly. The careful officer made his rounds, and to every challenge had for answer, "All's well!" For none could know that from the fringing scrub on the other side of the river dark faces peered, and fierce eyes watched the glimmering lantern as the rounds swung back to quarters, thankful for the prospect of a quiet night's rest.
But so it was. Mamaku and his stalwarts were there, watching and waiting their opportunity to cross the stream and spring upon an easy prey.
The night wore on; a new day was born, but still the darkness lingered. The song of a bird, thering of a settler's axe, the crash of some giant tree falling from the ranks of its comrades, these were the few and infrequent sounds which broke the silence of the Hutt at that date; but, as the stars began to pale before the dawn of the 16th, the stillness seemed intensified. The men of the inlying picket felt the influence of the deep silence of the bush as they had never felt it before.
The sentry, suspicious of he knew not what, peered at the forms of his comrades, indistinct in the gloom, and his nerves thrilled as he caught sight of a standing figure in their rear. The challenge was on his lips when the figure slowly, but not stealthily, advanced a pace or two, and the sentry recognised Allen, the bugler, a boy of fifteen. With a sigh of relief the sentry turned and peered again into the darkness of the clearing to his front.
Paler grew the stars, some flickered out low down upon the horizon; but still the darkness and the silence held and—— What was that?
That deep silence was broken at last, but by a sound so faint that only tensely strained nerves could have caught it. A rustle, nothing more, as if the first light breath of the morning wind stirred the tiniest fronds of the fern. Yet the sentry heard it and, with his musket at the ready, stared into the gloom and prayed for light.
Again! This time he was sure it was no wind, and his eyeballs ached with the effort to discover the cause of that gentle and, it might be, ominous rustling. But absolute silence had fallen again.
He glanced at Allen. The lad's figure was moredistinct, and the sentry saw that he was leaning slightly forward, his hand to his ear. So he, too, had heard that soft stir, and was still unsatisfied.
Then, as the sentry watched his young comrade, the thick darkness yielded to the touch of the invisible day, and the black curtain was changed to sullen grey.
Again a sigh of relief passed the sentry's lips as he swung round to his front. Light was coming at last and—— Ah! Look!
No sound this time. Something crept stealthily, slowly—how slowly!—towards him. Something crouched close to the cleared ground and moved with infinite patience through the fern.
"My God! They're on us!"
With the exclamation—perhaps it was also a prayer—the sentry threw forward his musket and fired—hurriedly, blindly, hitting no one; and the report was almost drowned in the wild uproar which instantly followed.
The sentry shrieked a warning; the men of the picket discharged their muskets and swung them up by the barrel, as half a hundred naked Maori, upspringing from the fern, yelled and howled with fury, realising that they had been seen just a moment too soon.
But one sound topped all others. Clear and shrill on the air of that pallid morning rang the notes of the "alarm," as young Allen blew with all the power of his lungs—not so much to summon, as to save, his sleeping comrades.
Down went the sentry with a bullet in his brain.The men of the picket reeled to the ground shot, or stabbed, or tomahawked, and still young Allen blew—"Awake! Awake!"
A huge Maori rushed at him and snatched at the bugle. Still holding the mouthpiece to his lips, Allen dodged him and—ran? No; stood still and blew, clear and sharp, "Awake! Awake!"
With a grunt of wrath the savage raised his tomahawk and smote strongly downwards. The keen steel almost shore the lad's arm from his shoulder, and the bugle dropped from his nerveless fingers. But, ere it fell, the brave boy caught it in his left hand, set it again to his lips, and for the last time blew the quavering notes—"Awake! Awake!"
Then the Maori struck once more, and Allen died.
Many a brave man wears the proud cross "For Valour." Was it ever better deserved than by the boy who sleeps forgotten in a far-off land, and who simply did his duty?
While this tragedy was being enacted, a fierce attack was made upon the defenceless quarter of the farm, whence Lieutenant Page, aroused by poor Allen's last bugle call, rushed with two of his startled men. They were immediately driven back; but presently, while the sergeant with a handful kept the Maori at bay, Page and six men, carrying three wounded under a hot fire, managed to reach the stockaded barn and join forces with the bulk of the command. The end of the affair soon came after that. The British poured out of the barn, led by their officer, and Mamaku and his Maori, having no liking for cold steel, scampered across the river,having killed six and wounded four of the small company of soldiers. Lieutenant Page was subsequently promoted for his gallantry in beating off a force twice as great as his own.
boy
A boy's heroism. "Awake! Awake!"
Whether "Ould Rapparee," as the soldiers called Te Rauparaha, was really Rangihaeata's chief adviser in all this mischief, the "Fighting Governor"[64]suspected him of being so, and determined to put him where he could do no more harm for a time. "Ould Rap" was living not far from Porirua, near Wellington on the west, without the faintest suspicion that theKawana'skeen eye was upon him, and a most indignant man was he when he awoke in the grey of a winter dawn to find himself in the grasp of a number of sturdy tars. The little old fellow wriggled like an eel, fought, kicked, and bit, shouting lustily the while, "Ngati-Toa! Ngati-Toa to the rescue!" But the Ngati-Toa, seeing what was toward, judged it wiser to remain a little longer on their sleeping mats, and the warrior was carried off into what he chose to consider durance vile. Since he was treated as a State prisoner, and merely detained on board a ship of war for a year, he had only the fact of his captivity to complain of; and for this he had himself to thank.
Governor Grey now turned his attention to Rangihaeata, who had withdrawn to the Horokiwi valley, a most impracticable region, densely wooded, midway between Porirua and Pahatanui. Here hehad retired behind a stockade of immense strength, upon which, by Captain Grey's advice, no assault was made. New tactics of blockade were tried, a method of warfare which the Tiger of the Wairau relished as little as he had expected it: for there had been no time to lay in supplies. Consequently, he and his men were soon starved out and dispersed; nor did Rangihaeata ever again appear in arms against the Government.
Trouble arose early in 1847 at Whanganui. Disputes regarding land tenure had been frequent and acute; but it would not be fair to ascribe to that ever-burning question the shocking massacre and the outbreak which followed it. It was a boyish prank which this time fired the train of events and once more set Maori and Pakeha face to face in armed opposition.
On the 18th of April a youthful midshipman of theCalliopewas "fooling" with a pistol, which exploded and wounded a Putiki chief in the face. The wound was attended to by the English surgeon, and the chief made light of the matter; but certain "irreconcilables" proclaimed the middy's act an attempt at deliberate murder, and swore to takeutu. That these men were actuated by sheer hate of the Pakeha is clear from the fact that, not being related to the Putiki chief, they had no right to exact vengeance on his behalf. Yet revenge him they did, and in atrocious fashion.
A settler named Gilfinnan, his wife and eight children, lived at Matarana, a lonely spot five miles from Whanganui. Six natives descended uponthis solitary homestead two days after the midshipman's unlucky prank, and barbarously murdered Mrs. Gilfinnan, two young boys and a girl of fourteen. The eldest daughter was severely injured and Gilfinnan, bleeding from a tomahawk gash in the neck, staggered into the town with the dismal information.
Then Honi Wiremu (John Williams), a Christian chief, called upon six other young men to follow him, and without an hour's delay sped up the river in pursuit of those who had dishonoured the Maori name. The murderers had made fifty miles when the canoe of the avengers dashed into sight and swiftly came abreast of their own. Before the assassins could lift a hand, Patapo, a young chief, gripping his tomahawk between his teeth, sprang into their canoe, instantly upsetting it, and in a few minutes the ruffians were dragged from the water, handcuffed and carried prisoners to Whanganui.
The district being at that time under martial law, Captain Laye of the 58th Regiment made short work of the murderers, four of whom he hanged out of hand, after general court-martial, while the fifth, a mere boy, was transported for life.
The torch was alight now: but it was three weeks later before the settlers saw the surrounding hills dark with hostile Maori, who opened fire on the town, the stockade and, impudently enough, on the gunboat in the river. The defence was too weak to allow of operations by daylight; but, after nightfall, when the natives thought that they might safely loot outlying houses, the soldiers, undismayed by superior numbers, chased them from the town, routing themutterly and slaying, with many more, their old chief, Maketu, a man of note.
Early in June reinforcements were dispatched to the Whanganui post, and the "Fighting Governor" himself arrived. How useful Captain Grey could be in a crisis such as this, and how intimate was his knowledge of human nature, is evidenced by what occurred shortly after his arrival, when a deputation waited on him with the request that he would remove the inhabitants from Whanganui and transfer them to Wellington.
Captain Grey studied the faces of the men for a few moments, and then replied, "How many of you really wish to effect this change? Let all who desireto run away from the nativescross to the other side of the room."
Not a man stirred from his place and, though some did eventually leave Whanganui, the settlement was not deserted. To-day Whanganui is the centre of one of the finest pastoral districts in New Zealand.
Throughout June, Colonel McCleverty tried without success to lure the Maori from their strong entrenchments; but towards the end of the month he made a demonstration in their front and, after some skirmishing, played the old trick of seeming to retreat in disorder. The enemy were outside their works in a twinkling, yelling triumphantly; but the soldiers turned at bay and drove them back over their breastworks at the point of the bayonet. This was the last of it. Winter had set in and the Maori, having had enough of fighting combined with semi-starvation, came in under a flag of truce and proposed peace on the ground that they considered they had killed sufficient soldiers!
Knowing the Maori mind, the Governor appeared to resent this remark and replied that, though he would discontinue fighting, he would blockade the river until peace was sued for in more seemly phrase. Spring was well advanced before the haughty chiefs crushed down their pride, and not a craft of any sort had been allowed up stream since theKawana'sfiat went forth. So, being unable to obtain tobacco, tea, sugar, and other luxuries, they swallowed humble pie, and wrote begging His Excellency to proclaim peace.
Numbers of Maori could by this time read and write their own language, and many had become proficient in English. A news-sheet in their own language gave them information regarding current events; the Bible and some other books had been rendered into Maori, and in spite of wars and rumours of wars, civilisation advanced apace.
With the conflicts round Whanganui terminated the first period of the long struggle between Maori and Pakeha. It had lasted over two years, it had made its influence felt from Auckland in the north to Wellington in the south, and it had demonstrated to the Pakeha that there were more ways of fighting than were to be found between the covers of the Red Book. Would the Pakeha remember that lesson when they next met the Maori in the field?
The meeting was to come; but not until eleven years of fruitful peace had passed, bringing with them all the beneficial changes which make for thefuture greatness of a young country. And for those quiet years with all their opportunities, he would be ungenerous indeed who would not give the credit and the thanks in large—perhaps in largest—measure to the Governor, Captain George Grey.
He had not yet been two years in the colony which he had found in such a parlous state; yet, as once before, in South Australia, he had brought order out of disorder, and by his firmness and consummate tact effected a by no means sham reconciliation between his own proud race and the equally proud, and far more turbulent, Maori folk. So far his greatest honours had been won in time of war. Let us see how he comported himself during the next six years which remained to him of that peace which he had done so much to bring about.
FOOTNOTES:[64]Captain Grey was styled the "Fighting Governor" by the Maori because of his frequent presence at the military operations against them, where, it was said of him, "he carried the spirit of peace into the councils of war."
[64]Captain Grey was styled the "Fighting Governor" by the Maori because of his frequent presence at the military operations against them, where, it was said of him, "he carried the spirit of peace into the councils of war."
[64]Captain Grey was styled the "Fighting Governor" by the Maori because of his frequent presence at the military operations against them, where, it was said of him, "he carried the spirit of peace into the councils of war."
CHAPTER XX
BUILDING AND UPSETTING
In August, 1846, the Imperial Parliament passed "The New Zealand Government Act," dividing the colony into two provinces and granting representative institutions. It was on New Year's Day, 1848, that the Queen's will was made known to her people in her youngest colony, and Captain Grey was sworn in anew—this time as Governor-in-Chief of the Islands of New Zealand, and also as Governor of the Province of New Ulster and New Munster, the new division of New Zealand proper. In the same month Major-General Pitt and Mr. E.J. Eyre were appointed Lieutenant-Governors of New Ulster and New Munster respectively.
The exultation of the colonists over their improved status was suddenly checked when they learned that Sir George Grey—now a Knight Commander of the Bath—had determined to withhold the franchise from them for a reason which seemed to him to justify this serious step.
The new Act conferred the franchise upon all who could read and write English, which, of course, excluded the great majority of Maori. Sir GeorgeGrey feared that, when the natives appreciated the great power which the exercise of the franchise would confer upon the white population, still greatly in the minority, and realised the disadvantages to themselves, discontent would be excited amongst them, and trouble break out afresh. For this reason he suspended that part of the charter dealing with the franchise until he should receive an answer from the Colonial Office to the communication he had made on the subject.
Strong man as he was, Sir George Grey was forced to bow before the storm of popular indignation which his action aroused. He held out until November; but he was one, and his opponents were very many, so in that month he wrote again to the Colonial Secretary, withdrawing from the position he had taken up. Meantime, he gave the public a portion of what was demanded in the shape of a provincial representative ordinance.
This came to nothing, for the Imperial Parliament was preparing a fresh charter for New Zealand. But, owing to the time which must elapse on each occasion before those so far divided could learn one another's views, it was not until the 30th of June, 1852, that the Constitution Act for New Zealand was passed. As in those days the voyage to New Zealand was a much longer affair than it is now, the new Constitution was not promulgated in the colony until January, 1853, in March of which year Sir George Grey assumed his new duties.
The Constitution Act gave representative institutions to the colony, which was divided anew into thesix Provinces of Auckland, Wellington and Taranaki in the North Island, and Nelson, Otago and Canterbury in the Middle Island. The Chief Executive was to be the Governor of the colony, and the office of Lieutenant-Governor was done away with.
Each Province was to be administered by a Superintendent, whose election the Governor had power to veto. Each Province was to make its own laws (save those which affected the colony as a whole) by means of an elected council. The whole colony was to be ruled by a Governor; a Legislative Council of ten, appointed for life by the Crown; and a House of Representatives of from twenty-four to forty members, to be elected every five years by the people. The Governor possessed the right to veto laws made by the Provincial Councils, while the Crown might exercise the same right with regard to the Colonial Parliament. The franchise included all British subjects—irrespective of colour—twenty-one years of age and having certain very easy property qualifications.
There were many more clauses, and, of course, the Constitution did not suit everybody. Still, it was on the whole a large and liberal measure, and time would show its working and where the need for alteration lay.
While all this was under discussion, matters were not standing still in other directions. Emigration revived upon the establishment of peace, and New Zealand became once more the Mecca of many a poor man's hopes. So firm, indeed, was faith in the future of the colony that within three years of the cessationof trouble in Whanganui, two new settlements had been planted in the Middle Island.
The earlier of these, Otago, was founded in March, 1848, under the auspices of the Free Church of Scotland, itself a new institution, formed by secession from the Established Church. The Company had a hand in the matter; but it was now a chastened Company, and the scheme which was drafted in view of founding Otago was not marked by such imperfections as had marred the success of earlier operations.
The agent, in this instance, was a man whose memory is yet green in Otago—Captain William Cargill of the 74th Regiment, retired, who had served with distinction in the Peninsular wars, and was reputed a descendant of David Cargill, the Covenanter. Otago never knew the desolation which had been the lot of her northern sisters and, in no very long time, the chief city had been founded under the reminiscent name of Dunedin, while the Port was called "Chalmers," after the great leader of the Disruption.
The principle of imitation possibly influenced the Church of England to follow the example of the Scotch seceders. Canterbury was founded in December, 1850, under the auspices of the Establishment, and it was Mr. Edward Gibbon Wakefield who obtained for the Canterbury Association a ten years' charter of incorporation from Her Majesty's Government. Moreover, land was purchased from the not yet defunct Company, and the emigrants, who were styled in England "Canterbury Pilgrims,"arrived in due course. As a whole, they were as fine a set of people as ever young colony could desire. Their ideas were at first a little high-flown; but they soon got rid of initial absurdities, and Canterbury is to-day not the least in the Dominion of New Zealand.
Everything was going very well indeed, and men began to tell one another that, now that the native trouble was over, there was nothing more to be feared, nothing to prevent active colonisation, nothing to interfere with the rapid growth of the towns already founded. One might almost assert that New Zealand was a land without drawbacks. So they talked and hoped and planned, forgetting all the while that they lived—or some of them—within that sinister belt which straggles round the globe under the name of the "earthquake zone." They were sharply reminded of it on the 16th of October, 1848.
It was about two in the morning when people were suddenly awakened by—they knew not what. Simply, they were awakened. Some lay still, wondering why sleep had so abruptly departed; others, suspicious of trouble, rose and began to dress; only the few were aware of the true cause of that untimely awakening, and these rushed out of their dwellings and shouted an alarm. As the cries were in their mouths, there came a dull, far-away rumbling, a shudder shook the earth, and every house in Wellington rocked to and fro. Then people knew what was happening, and for a time all was confusion. The earth-pang was upon them, and folk ran hither and thither, crying aloud in their terror, seeking aidof those who sought it as eagerly, bewailing their ruined homes while shock after shock convulsed the earth, shaking down walls, splitting gaps in houses and cleaving fissures in the solid ground.
From Banks Peninsula on the east of the Middle Island to the Peninsula of Taranaki on the west and White Island on the east of the North Island, the two "isles shivered and shook like a man in a mortal affright." The plains gaped, the mountains reverberated to the crash of great masses of rock thundering down into their valleys, and for nearly a month from the time of the first tremor this whole area was full of diminishing unrest.
Most of the houses in the Wellington district were built of wood, though not a few were of brick, and it was discovered that those of wood which were built upon a brick foundation resisted the shocks better than those where only one of these materials had been used. Wellington suffered most, losing some sixteen thousand pounds' worth of property, while the fall of the ordnance store there buried in its ruins Sergeant Lovell and his two children.[65]
This was bad enough; but, as many of us know, it takes more than an earthquake to drive people from the land in which they have made their home. So most folk stayed where they were, and a shock of a more pleasurable kind presently confirmed them in their judgment.
This was nothing less than the discovery of gold. Men rejoiced, because they knew that, with such a magnet, it would not be long ere the colony attracted to her shores the increased population which she required for her better development.
There was reason to rejoice over the finding of gold at home, the more because, when news arrived of the Californian discoveries in 1849, no fewer than a thousand colonists had emigrated thither from New Zealand, whence so many able-bodied men could ill be spared. Two years later came the story of the marvellous finds in the river-beds of New South Wales and the gullies of Victoria, and the young colony suffered a further drain of her stalwarts. Many intending immigrants, too, had shifted their helm and, instead of keeping a course for Maoriland, steered for one or other of the gold-bearing colonies. So people were heartily glad from every point of view when Mr. Charles Ring in 1852 found unmistakable traces of gold at Coromandel, forty miles north of Auckland.
The Coromandel territory belonged to old Te Tanewha, or "Hooknose," the contemporary of Captain Cook; and Lieutenant-Colonel Wynyard, Acting Governor, would allow no invasion of his land without his permission. Old Hookinoë, as he pronounced his nickname, proved most gracious in the matter of cheap licences; but his land was soon exhausted, and his neighbour, Taraia, positively refused to allow either digging or prospecting. Five years later gold was discovered in paying quantities at Collingwood, in the Nelson Province, and fouryears after that there was a further find at Gabriel's Gully, Otago; but it was not until June, 1862, that Coromandel, where the metal had been originally unearthed, was declared available as a goldfield.
Though Sir George Grey had now a House of Representatives and a Legislative Council, he did not summon the General Assembly. He had already applied to the British Government to remove him from a position in which he had spent thirteen years of strenuous life—five in South Australia, eight in New Zealand—battling with, and for the most part overcoming, formidable difficulties; setting one colony upon the high road to success, relieving another of many of her burdens, bringing to her much-needed peace, and providing her with a Constitution and Representative Government. After such a long period of arduous toil he felt that he had a right to crave leave to rest awhile.
He left New Zealand on the 31st of December, 1853, carrying with him the best wishes of the best of the colonial population, and the whole-hearted devotion of the Maori race. It was not only as Governor that Sir George had gained the respect of the Maori; his qualities as a man—not the least of them his manliness—had won their regard, and they admitted yet another debt. He had learned their language, and had set down in that wonderful thing, a printed book, some of their most cherished traditions and legends, which must otherwise have been lost to them and to the world.
Sir George Grey being gone—having no presentiment that, as "Fighting Governor," he was to returnto his ancient battlefields,—the honour of opening the first session of the General Assembly fell to Lieutenant-Colonel Wynyard, who had assumed the administration of the Government. Auckland was, of course, the place of meeting; and there New Zealand's first Parliament assembled for the first time on the 27th of May, 1854, just fifty-four years ago. The second Parliament met in April, 1856, after the new Governor, Colonel Thomas Gore Browne, C.B., had assumed office.
The early months of Colonel Wynyard's administration were marked by a sad calamity. Measles broke out at the Bay of Islands and, finding virgin soil, spread, like a rank weed, from end to end of the land. Four thousand Maori died before the epidemic was stamped out, among them old Kawiti, at the age of eighty-four. He had fought more than one good fight against the British leaders; but this time there came a captain he could not defeat, so he drew his mat across his face and slept with his fathers.
As this is not a political history, it is unnecessary to deal with the struggles of the first Parliament to shape itself and to bring about responsible government. But it is well to remember that New Zealand was now subdivided into six Provinces, each empowered to manage its internal affairs; and also that there were men who from the first saw danger in this splitting up of interests, and did not hesitate to declare that there must be one Central Government, and one only. Otherwise, they insisted, there must be inevitably developed a number of small republics,each jealous of its own privileges, yet envious of its neighbours' success; each desiring the advantage of itself, all careless of the general good.
It was union, not separation, which all true men desired—a union which, while it left a man free to indulge in honest pride that his fate had made him a Wellingtonian, an Aucklander, a Cantuarian, or what not, should compel him to the larger boast, "I am a New Zealander!"