THE 40TH REGIMENT AT ORAKAU.

New Zealand Herald, Volume I, Issue 137, 21 April 1864, Page 3

THE 40TH REGIMENT AT ORAKAU.

It appeal's that the men of the lOth iiegt. have taken sorely to heart the remarks made by our eotemporary the Suit/ficrii Cross, on the part which they took at Orakau, and we have been requested by one of their number to publish the following statement relative to the disjosition of the men of his corps on the field that day, by which it will be seen that in no way are they to be blamed because ill.- Maoris in their retreat escaped through that portion of the cordon which was composed of men of the <10 th liegt., all of whom—and they were, it wouldseeui, buteighteen in number—gave evidence of the resistance they made by the casualties whicli they suffered Our correspondent writes : — "There were one hundred men of the 40th liegt. left, to protect the place where the Maoris nuide tue lush !ind succeeded in breaking through—but previously to tiiis, thirty-two ot ti.i-semeii weie .-cut into the sap —tweiit v-fivu were told oti' to make gabions, and twenty-live were placed over the big guns. Thu.there were hut eighteen men lcll to bearthu Jull burnt ul'the sortie ot two hundred Maoris, made aga-n.~t them, as forming the weakest part ot' our linos. Neatly all oi these eighteen men were cither killed or wounded, and yet because eighteen men could not stay the passage ot two hundred desperate natives, the whole rcjriment is to be held up to public contempt in the columns of an Auckland newspapir."