AN INCIDENT OF THE FIRST TARANAKI WAR.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume I, Issue 3, 21 April 1880, Page 4

AN INCIDENT OF THE FIRST TARANAKI WAR.

" Blue-jacket" writes as follows to the New Zealand Herald : — The disquieting rumors from Parihaka remind me very much of what happened in Taranaki at the commencement of the war twenty years ago. I can remember how all the Taranaki settlers regarded the probable war as of no account. " Six weeks would settle it," said everybody. We had only two companies of the 65th, under Major Murray, at Marsland Hill ; but then, every settler was of the self-reliant type, albeit they made a grievous mistake as to the natuie of the conflict they were about to enter into. But to my story. Let me here say that I was one of the boats' crews, and one day, after a hard day's work afloat, we were mustered by our harbormaster, "Boko," as he was familiarly called, and ordered to fall in at the boatsheds, at eight o'clock p.m., for the purpose of being put on sentry-go to protect the boats against the native attack that was expected that night. In due course we arrived, and after an amusing half hour at drill, in which our commanding officei*, in showing us how to load, put the cartridge in wiong end first, we were told off to our duty for the night. I happened to be the first man placed on his post. My duty was to challenge any person coming along the road in front of the iron store and boat-sheds. I well remember, it was a dark, drizzly, rainy night, and as I walked backward and forward for about two hours without anything happening, I began to think it an awful bore, and my greatest wish at fhat time was to get relieved, and roll into my blankets. All at once, I observed something coming round the corner, towards me, in a crouching attitude, as though seeking to approach unnoticed. After mentally weighing the probability of the intruder being a pig or a Maori, I advanced, and to my first challenge of " Who comes there ?" I received no

: answer. Turning round for a moment, to see if the object advanced, and then facing it suddenly, I found that it had crawled up to within a few yards of where I stood. I immediately challenged, and, coming to the charge, pinned my antagonist with the bayonet against the bank by the blanket. "Was it a Maori?" No, but a citizen who, disguised as a Maori, in a blanket, had bragged that he would make the sentry run from his post. However, he just screamed out in time to save his life, " It's me, S — N — , it's me ; for God's sake don't shoot ! " One moment more, and he would have been in eternity. However, I made a prisoner of him, and handed him over to the Sergeant of the Guard. And so I took the first prisoner during the war of 1860.