KORORAREKA AFFAIR

Otago Witness, Issue 2649, 21 December 1904, Page 26 (Supplement)

KORORAREKA AFFAIR

however, a new element made itself felt. The Wairau massacre had frightened away many of the traders, and business was seriously affected. The imposition of the new customs duties was an inexplicable mystery to the native mind. The chance jest of an American, who, pointing to the British flagflying on the hill behind Kororarek.i, with the remark : "That's what's wrong/ bore unforeseen fruit. Hone Heke, a son-in-law of the celebrated liongi Hckc, marched upon the little trading

settlement with his men, and cut down the flagstaff amid the defiance of a furious war-dance. Fitzroy hurried down troops, and parleyed with the chiefs. Once again the influence of the missionaries made itself felt ? and, responding to their efforts, the chiefs sprang up and. laid down their arms at the feet of the Governor. Tamati Waka Nenei spoke : "Let the soldiers depart; return Governor. We will guard the flag; we, the old people are loyal, and will influence the young."

Subsequently, however, Hone Heke again destroyed the flagstaff, and the situation culminated in Fitzroy offering for the capture of Hone Heke, a compliment which Heke promptly returned by offering ,£IOO for the person of the Governor ! Eventually, despite the erection of a guard house, occupied by troops to protect the flag, Heke, by a ■clever feint, took the position with a loss to the British of fifteen killed and twenty wounded. The settlers were obliged

to take refuge in the warships lying in the harbour, and were thus conveyed to Auckland. The Waikato tribe offered to come down and protect the Governor ! The farce turned into a tragedy was still a farce. A forcp of 400 troops, with as many Maori allies, was sent inland to capture Heke, who had wisety employed the interim by strengthening his pas. The British soldiers — specially the 58th Regiment, which

had just landed, were fairly taken aback by the appearance of their Maori allies, who joyfully welcomed theim with a first-class war-dance, Waka Nene's wife in the front rank giving time to the leaping, flame-eyed Avarriors. Surprises were mutual. These Maori allies, who held their simple service of Christian prayer and praise each morning and evening as tattoo and reveille sounded, saw so few "'outward and visible signs" of the British soldier's faith, that they gravely asked

the colonel if his men, fresh from the white Queen's home, were indeed Christians?

Meanwhile more troops had been sent for from Sydney, and Captain George Grey appointed as Governor Fitzroy.'s svicc ?ssor. With a natural genius for fortification, the Maoris had quickly improved and adapted ancient methods to modem requirements. The pas invariably occupied a commanding position, and had only one access from below — and

that a difficult one. Inside the ramparts were shallow trenches, from which the defenders fired through the palisades ; behind were more palisades, each with its trench, and the whole was completed by rifle pits, with, in some instances, underground passages which led from pit to trench. Okaihau was the first of Heke's pas to be attacked. It was comparatively weak, yet proved impregnable without the aid of artillery. Fitzroy ordered more men and guns to the< front,

and the younger Maoris were delighted ; it was to be real fighting at last ; the older men were grave, sorrowful, yen. determined. No attempt was made to obstruct the commissariat or artillery trains, marching Jowly over bad tracks through heavy bush. That would have been spoil-sport indeed; let the enemy be full-fed and strong to fight. Okaihau proved impregnable. The troops narrowly escaped a

clever ambush planned by the enemy, and shortly afterwards heard the peaceful strains of the evening hymn being sung in a plaintive m'nor key by the Maoris within the pa. Thompson records how the graves of the soldiers who fell at Okaihau were deepened by the Maoris, that missionaries were brought to read the burial service over them, and the clothes of the slain were burned, not used.

Leaving Okaihau as unassailable, with the present force, the British retreated, and presently, reinforced by more troops from Sydney, followed Heke to his next pa, Oheawai. This was a much stronger pa, and even a thirty-two pounder made little appreciable effect at first in its palisades. A too hasty attempt to carry the outer entrenchments failed, the men penned between the outer and inner defences left half

their number behind them, and fell back, baffled, to pass a terrible night in their entrenchments. A prisoner had been taken, and Thompson asserts that the unfortunate man was I tortured. "Unfortunately the night was still, not a leaf stirred in the forest, and his screams of 'O, my God,' with the yells and shouts of the war-dance, drove the soldiers ' frantic." Not an eye was closed in the British camp, the

men, impotently raging, begged to be led to the rescue of their comrade.

When, finally, with the aid of heavy guns the inner palisades of fifteen-feet tree trunks were breached, it wa- to discover an empty pa. The Pakeha claimed a victory, but the Maori laughed. "Anyone," he said, "could take an empty pa."

GOVERNOR GREY arrived in Auckland on November 14, 1845. His first step was to proclaim at every opportunity the inviolability of the Treaty of Waitangi ; his next, to give Hone Heke four days in which to surrender. The rebel chief refused, and by December the new Governor had concentrated his forces, and was pounding away at the