STORIES OF NEW ZEALAND.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 139, 13 June 1936, Page 2 (Supplement)

STORIES OF NEW ZEALAND.

B y james cowan.

HONE HEKE AND THE FLAGSTAFF—THE BATTLE OF KORORAREKA—VICTORY OF THE MAORI.

ON a steep hill called Maiki (pronounced My-kee), a com-

manding height at the north end of Kororareka Bay, the British had put up a tall flagmast. On this staff the Union Jack was flown at the masthead; and signals announc-

ing the approach of vessels entering the Bay of Islands were also hoisted. Below, the rough little town named Russell extended along the curving foreshore, close to the grey beach of gravel, sand and shingle. A track had been cut from the rear of the town, winding through the manuka and fern to the top of the hill. The British flag, flying there so bravely on its high hill, came to be regarded by most of the Ngapulii people as symbolising the source of ' their troubles. It warned the ships that the country was no longer the Maori's but the pakeha's; and that Customs taxes made all goods more expensive than they had been. Hone Heke and his followers therefore came to the conclusion that they must destroy the emblem of foreign authority. Heke had heard about the successful revolt of the Americans against England, and he burned to do likewise. An American trader gave him an American flag, and this he displayed at the stern of his war canoe as he and his young warriors went dashing about the bay.

The brewing trouble boiled over at in July, 1844, when a chief named Haratua, with a few followers, climbed Maiki hill, chopped down the flagstaff and took the flag away. Heke himself remained in his canoe at the beach; he had promised Archdeacon Henry Williams that he would not interfere with it.

The Governor of New Zealand now was Captain Robert Fitzßoy, who had been a naval officer like Lis predecessor, William Hobson. It was he who commanded H.M.S. Beagle on her famous voyage with Darwin the scientist on board. Fitzßoy was a distinguished navigator and meteorologist; but as Governor of a country he was out of his proper sphere. He presently found himself with a native war pn his hands. He sent to Sydney for British troops, and a detachment of the 96th was landed at Kororareka. The soldiers reerected the flagstaff, in spite of the advice of the magistrate and the missionaries that it should not be put up again for the present. In

January, 1845, the mast was twice cut down by Hoke's men. It was re-erected each time. When it was felled the third time ITeke and his men fired a triumphant volley on the beach and danced a war dance in defiance of the Government aiul the troops. More troops were sent for, but by the time they reached the Bay of Islands the flagstaff was down again—the fourth time —and Kororareka town was in ashes. War had begun.

The Capture of Flagstaff Hill. After the third felling of the signal mast on Maiki, Kororaieka town was fortified. A timber stockade was built around the house of Mr. Polack, a trader, near the northern end of the beach; a blockhouse with three ship's guns was put up in the rear of the stockade, on the track leading to Maiki; and on the hilltop itself a small blockhouse was built around the foot of the flagmast, which had been sheathed with iron to a height of about 10ft as an additional precaution. A trench crossed by a plank surrounded the little fort; this trench can still be traced by those who climb the hill to the modern flagpole. A young army officer with 20 men occupied the blockhouse, with the signal man, an old navy sailor named Tapper, and his Maori wife and family. At the other end of the town a naval gun was mounted at the entrance to the valley leading to a bay in the rear of

Kororareka; this piece was manned by men from the British frigate Hazard lying in the bay. A civilian gunner, Mr. C. Hector, a solicitor by profession, had charge of the guns in the other post at the back of the Pohick stockade. Most of the military (Ofitli Regiment) were stationed ill their barracks between the stockade and Hector's three-gun battery. That was the military position when Hone Heke •and a force of 200 warriors quietly landed by night in

Oneroa Bay, in the rear of Maiki hill, and very early in the morning of March 11, 1845, skilfully surprised and captured the blockhouse and flagstaff and dispersed the white garrison. At the same time two other divisions of Xga puhi, under Kawiti (the fine old warrior chief who afterwards directed the defence of Ohaeawai and Ruapekapeka), attacked the defenders near the church and the gun station captained by Mr. Hector. The Fight at the Church. There was a most desperate little battle around the church. There Captain Robertson, the commander of H.M.S. Hazard, was severely wounded while fighting bravely with his sword in a hand-to-hand combat. The naval men had to fall back from that position after spiking their gun, to prevent the Maoris using it. A gallant sailor was shot dead while obeying the order to disable the gun.

There was hot fighting for several hours. The warship fired round shot and grape shot (a cluster of email iron balls) from her broadside guns at the groups of Maoris on the hills and near the church. The Maoris now all were in the hills, firing on the town stockades. Heke had done all lie wished; he had captured the flagstaff. The mast was cut down; it took some time, because of the iron sheathing; the axemen had to chop it off above the blockhouse roof.

About noon the women and children in tlie town were sent on board the ships in the bay for safety; the men remained to defend tlie place.

But a disaster which occurred in the stockade at Polack's decided the fate of the town. A careless man smoked his pipe as he filled small bags of powder for the guns from the kegs in the stockade magazine. A spark or a bit of burning tobacco dropped in the loose powder on the floor and the magazine exploded, destroying the whole of the reserve ammunition in store, and mortally injuring the careless smoker and another man.

The Town Abandoned,

Lieutenant Phillpotts, who commanded the British frigate after the fall of Captain Robertson, now consulted with Mr. Thomas Beckham, the magistrate, and decided to evacuate the town. Orders were given that the troops and civilians should all go on board the ships and leave Kororareka to the Maoris. Meanwhile, the warship continued firing at the war parties.

All tliis time the two-gun battery on the mound in the rear of the stockade had been held by Hector's civilian gunners and Barclay's redcoats. The round shot probably inflicted little harm upon the Maoris, who swarmed on the scrub-matted slopes and hills around, but the gunnery and the small-arms fire at least prevented the Kapotai and their allies from descending into the town. With Mr. Hector were his two plucky sons, young boys, who gallantly carried up * ammunition from the stockade under heavy fire. Tapper, the signalman, an old sailor, was wounded while serving one of the guns. Mr. Hector was a disgusted man when he was told of the decision arrived at by the senior naval officer and the magistrate. He went down to the beach and offered to retake Flagstaff Hill if he were given fifty volunteers. The request was refused. Lieutenant Barclay, of the 90th, also went down for ammunition; when he returned he found that the guns had been spiked, by whose orders was not clear. Nothing could have been finer than Mr. Hector's work as battery commander, and it was not his fault that the post had to be deserted.