AUCKLAND.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XX, Issue 1158, 17 November 1863, Page 5

AUCKLAND.

[from our own correspondent.] November 5,1863. Br this mail I have rather more decisive and exciting intelligence to communicate than hitherto. Meremere is in our hands, and the summit of the position is now occupied by a redoubt held by our troops. It fell into our hands on Sunday last, the Ist November, without a struggle, the natives most unfortunately making their escape by means of canoes across the low land in their rear, which, owing to the unprecedentedly high level of the river at the time was one broad sheet of shallow water, just navigable for their canoes, without being so for our boats. The moment »the news of their attempt at escape became known, Meremere was occupied but too late to prevent them from getting off. This has been a great vexation both to the military and the settlers, as the attack was to have been made at daybreak on the Monday morning. It is not, however, any great loss excepting in so far as it prevents our fighting them in a large body and so inflicting a really severe defeat upon them. The advantage gained with Meremere amounts to nothing short of the possession and control of the whole lower Waikato country which it commands, and across which we can now ride our cavalry without any obstruction whatever. The immediate cause of the evacuation of Meremere, where not less than between 3000 and 4000 men were collected only the day before, was the operations of the new gunboat the Pioneer, which is jiow navigating the whole river with the most perfect ease, even going up in the dark over places where it was doubted by some whether any steamer would ever venture. On the Saturday morning before daylight the General caused 600 men to be conveyed by her past Meremere, and up the river about nine miles to the first good landing, at a place marked Takapau on the map. Here she disembarked the men, who marched inland to the high ground, over which the road from Meremere to Kangiriri runs. Here they threw up a small redoubt, and from hence they were to march so as to fall upon the flank ol Meremere before daylight on Monday morning, lhe danger was too evident to the natives, wo, thus deprived of their only means of escape, save that afforded by the overflow of the river,atonce seized the chance,and decampe in the direction of the Thames, dispersing in all directions. The Pioneer has been up at Kangiriri, but it will offer no resistance, as our possession of the river utterly precludes all hopes of defending its extensive earthworks. At this moment there is no considerable force between the army and Nearuawahaia, or from thence across to the Thames. If we had but 6000 or 8000 men

of the Waiknto militia to settle upon these lauds the neck of the rebellion would have been broken, for these men would hold their own safely enough, as they have shown in their first real fight with the natives which took place at Mauku on the 23rd of the last month. It was the very fiercest engagement that has yet taken place during the war, and all praise is due to the judgment and gallantry of the men, and yet more to the commander—Lieut. Lusk, of the Mauku Yalley Foresters, who extricated them from the position all but desperate into which they had fallen. Sixty-two men under Lieut. Lusk and Lieuts. Jtforman and Perceval, who were his juniors, fought for two hours and a-half against fully four hundred natives, who, confident in their vast superiority of numbers, charged them on all sides with their tomahawks and clubbed muskets. Eight of our men fell dead, and one was brought off wounded severely—he is recovering. Lieuts. Norman and Perceval were both killed. The loss of the natives as acknowledged by themselves since was very heavy, as indeed it necessarily must have been from the fact that our men did most of their shooting at from 5 to 10 yards, and had to use the bayonet freely before they could burst through. About 12 men and one great chief they acknowledge killed, and very many wounded. So severely were they handled that they crossed the Waikato at half-past eleven the same night with their killed and wounded, and spread the report amongst their own people that they had hundred pakehas. In political matters we have, as I expected when I last wrote, had great changes. Mr. Domett and Mr. Bell are no longer of the Ministry, and a new coalition Ministry has been formed, of which Mr. "Whitaker is head, Mr. Pox, Colonial Secretary, Mr. "Wood, Treasurer, Mr. Russell, War Minister, and Mr. Gillies, of Otago, PostmasterGeneral, to reside in the South. The new policy is not very new, being almost synominous with Mr. Domett's. It has for its basis the settlement of 20,000 military settlers, 15,000 from England, and 5,000 from the neighbouring colonies in the provinces of Auckland and Taranaki. The loan for carrying out the plan to be repaid out of the receipts arising from the sale of native lands, all of which will be taken from the rebellious tribes and only so much as is thought good, given back with a crown title to the individual. The idea of-a Lieutenant-Governor in the Middle Island with an executive of three persons is looked upon favorably by the Government, and will probably be carried out.