NEW ZEALAND 75 YEARS AGO

Southland Times, Issue 17608, 24 March 1914, Page 2

NEW ZEALAND 75 YEARS AGO

••THE MAORIS ARE COMING.** A VOICE FROM THE DEAD. (From Our Special Correspondent), LONDON, February 6. The Standard of Empire gives this week some very interesting extracts from a letter written home in the forties of last century by Mr George Graham. one of the early New Zealand settlers. who was actually present at the signing of the Treaty of Waitsngi years ago to-day. Mr Graham, ho was in the Royal Engineers, was in charge of the construction of military works at Auckland, and his letter gives some idea, of the difficulties with which he had to contend, owing to lack of proper labour. But it is his description of the engagements witti the Maoris and the tribute he pays to their bravery and character that is specially interesting. ■'The natives at the Bay of Islands are still up in arms, and nothing here is talked of save war and ‘the Maoris are coming. - This is how Mr Graham introduces the subject. Proceeding he describes how an expedition against Hone Ileki, the native chief at bay, fared. The Briusli force consisted of 9,30 men of the iiSth Regiment, a company of the 96th Regiment, together with marines an I sailors from Her Majesty’s ships Hazard and North Star, and some friendly natives. An engagement took place at Hone Heki pah without apparently a decisive result. the natives losing heavily, and the British also suffering con s Kiera hi e losses, Air Graham then Hi rows a light on the chivalry of the natives, which even at the time was fullv recognised. He says;— "Hone Heki. who is a witty, brave fellow sent instantly after the engagement lo the colonel to say he had found one soldier with a dress different from the rest: he had got the Rev. Mr Burrows, a missionary, to bury the dead (which was the case) and had paid every respect; hut he wished to know before lie interred tliis one. whom he believed to be an officer, whether there was any form of prayer lie wished said over him different from the rest. (This was a sergeant). To show that it was not plunder Heki ordered all the soldiers’ clothes and arms to be buried with them, and requested Mr Burrows to name that it was with the Government he wished to tight, not the settlers. Heki believes the English Government wishes to enslave them, ami he declared he will not allow it." Mr Graham dwells on the general anxiety prevailing in the colony. " ’Tis much pleasanter to sit by an English fireside than live here in a continual state of alarm. Every able bodied man lias been sworn into a militia, and is drilled every other morning. Almost ai! trades are slopped, very little land will this year tie cultivated, and those that can are leaving the colony." However, yir Graham lived through these troublous limes and passed the greater part of his life oversea. His death took place at Hove, Sussex, in 1901. at tlie ripe age of SS. He was a member of the First House of Representatives in New Zealand, and continued to sit for nine sessions. It was owing to liis influence with the Maoris that the Waikato war of 1563 was brought lo an end. Mr Graham volunteered to go alone into the hostile country and cn.deavour to get Tamehana. the great Maori war chief, to make peace. His offer was accepted, although no one believed lie would be successful, or that, going unarmed among tbe natives, ins life would be spared. He succeeded, however, in persuading the Maori chiefs to go with him to Tamehere, where liearranged a meeting between them and General Carey and other officers commanding the British forces, and then persuaded the natives to consent to the proposed terms of peace, which peace ha-s continued uninterrupted until the present day. The letter from which these quotations are made was addressed by Mr Grabam to his father-in-law, Mr Sam. Sergeant, who occupied in his lime an official position n the engineers’ department at Windsor Castle in the reign of King George I, and was concerned in the construction of the present royal burial vault in St. George's Chapel. The letter is now in the possession of his grandson, Mr W. S. Sargcant. of Kew.