AUCKLAND.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume III, Issue 176, 27 May 1864, Page 3

AUCKLAND.

LATEST NEWS. By the Qneen, which arrived on Wednesday, we have dates to the 23rd inst. We take the following from the Weekly News of the 21st:— General Cameron and staff have returned from Tauranga, and the short but costly campaign there may be deemed concluded. Our troops, in repeated reconuaisances, found that the rebels had retired to a considerable distance from the coast, whither it was deemed inadvisable to follow them at present. It is not however, that we are to have a complete cessation of hostilities, as the intelligence received during the last few days

seems to indicate the danger of risings by the natives of Hawke’s Bay and Wanganui. Although, up to this time, no very friendly feeling has been shown, the tribes'in these districts have refrained from outrage against the settlers, the more restless spirits having gone to recruit the relel army in the Waikato. From Wanganui we learn that great excitement had been caused by the arrival in the neighborhood of a party of Ngatiri&nuis with the head of Captain Lloyd, and word had been sent to the authorities by some friendly natives, that the town was to be attacked, and that a pa was about to be built. The militia were immediately called out, the outsettlers warned, and other ' measures of precaution taken. In the meantime, Mr. Booth, catechist at Piperiki, came into Wanganui, with his family, in a half-famished condition, having barely escaped with their lives from the hostile natives. There is no fear but that any attack on the town would be easily repulsed, but the force now at Wanganui is too small to undertake offensive operations. The Ngatiruanuis have all. along been unceasing iq their endeavors to induce the Wanganui tribes to unite against the settlers, and in Upper Wanganui, at least, the natives are disaffected to a man. A good deal jf alarm prevails throughout Hawke’s Bay. It is supposed that a large party of rebels from the army broken up at Waikato have betaken themselves to the neighborhood of Lake Taupo, and that the natives there will be drawn into active hostility by their presence. Great reliance, however, is placed on the strong guarantee for peace held by the stock-owners in the large rents paid to Benata, and several other influential chiefs for the Ahuriri plains. Mr. Donald M’Lean, Superintendent of Hawke’s Bay, is at present in Auckland, having come, it. is presumed, to urge the sending of reinforcements to Napier. It is reported that considerable bodies of troops are to be sent immediately to the points threatened, but whether it is intended merely to increase the garrisons, or to begin offensive operations is not known, and will probably depend upon the attitude assumed by the natives. The country in the neighborhood of Wanganui is not of such a nature as to make a winter campaign impossible ; and, perhaps, occasion might be taken of the lull in warlike operations' elsewhere, to open up the country along the West Coast between Taranaki and Wanganui, which is now closed against us. It is quite possible that, driven out of Waikato, and pressed for the means of sustenance, the rebels may during the winter make inroads on (he wellstocked plains of Wanganui and Hawke’s Bay. Hie hon. Mr. Fox, Colonial Secretary, left Auckland on Thursday, on an official visit to ’Wanganui. A sergeant and four men of the IBth Begiment have been surprised and killed by a party of natives at Kirikiriroa, a place about half-way between Ngaruawahia aud Maungatautari, and thus a considerable distance within our advanced posts. The danger of Marauding parties of the enemy getting through the bush and falling upon stragglers is one which at present we cannot prevent, and unless great care is taken, this may be only the first of many such calamities.