Hawke's Bay Times. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1868. THE REBELLION.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume XIV, Issue 611, 10 September 1868, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1868. THE REBELLION.

A "idlius addict us jurare in verba mnyisfri.

Melancholy news has reached us from the seat of rebellion ou the West Coast, —news surpassing in its sorrowful character that of the late unfortunate episode in our own more immediate neighborhood. Here we lost brave men, well known and much respected by their fellow-colonists, whose lives, full of hope and promise, were brought to an untimely end by the bullets of the escaped prisoners. There, the bravest and best of tin leaders cf our brave Colonial forces have fallen—fallen nobly, it is true, in the path of duty, beneath the murderous fire of the votaries of a horrible fanaticism.

There is something truly terrible to contemplate in the probable result on the minds of the fanatics and their semi-sympathising fellows in these repeated successes that they have met with of late, and the comparative reverses that have befallen our people. There can be no manner of doubt that all these will be attributed by the rebels to the favor of their god, and not only such things as have actually occurred, hut the same embellished and highly exaggerated. We remember that during the late campaign,— where the fanatics were almost invariably worsted, —their defeats were denied, and lying tales of splendid vie tories over our forces invented, wherewith to delude and bring over to their aid the ignorant and wavering of their people, who could be seduced to join their ranks only by such means. Now, the case is different. They have had a series of successes, more or less bril'liant. on which to built a glowing (story. On the West Coast they first I stormed a redoubt held by our men, and inflicted teirible slaughter on them. Next they attacked an escort party with fatal effect; and, lastly, they have, at one fell swoop, cut off no less than nineteen of our brave defenders, amongst whom we have to deplore some of the most gallant leaders of the day. Here, again, we have the successful rising of the prisoners at the Chatham Islands, and their . almost miraculous escape, safe, to the very

spot they had indicated as that to which they wished to be taken ; we have their favorable and rapid passage there, laden with our spoils, contrasted with the tardy return of the vessel that took theta there, to port, with the news of their escape and successful landing; next, their defeat of the brave little band that vainly strove to oppose their march into the interior; their subsequent defeat of those who bravely followed them into the terrible gorge of death, where still lie unburied the bodies of the brave men who left that gorge no more. True, indeed, they have not done these things without loss, and heavy loss; but in the accounts they spread through the length and breadth of the land their losses, we may be sure, wall be ignored or denied, and their successes over us exaggerated and described as miraculous, and all as owing to the special favor and direct interposition of their god. Can we doubt that proselytes to their cause will be gained ? that many a wavering tribe, but half inclined to live at peace with the Pakeha will be won back to them ? Dark, indeed, appears the prospect of the coming season. But one course is open to the Government now; and that is by all means to crush the threatening fanaticism ; to be prepared for a more determined hostility on the part of the rebtds than ever; and by vigorous measures to bring such a state of things to an end.

It ia well that the General Assembly is still in session. Much of the responsibility that would otherwise rest on Ministers will now be borne by the Council ; and we cannot think that the representatives of our brethren in the Middle Island, who are themselves removed from the theatre of war and its horrors, will for a moment allow a question of cost to stand between the lives of their brethren and sisters here and the extirpation ot a horde of cannibal fanatics, whose throats (they themselves tell us) are already open for the Pakeha. It may he that something like what has occurred was necessary to make the Colony act with the required vigor ; it having occurred, we cannot! doubt that such vigor will be used as| shall quell the rebellion at ouce and altogether.