(From the Taranaki Herald, July 14.)

Colonist, Volume III, Issue 291, 3 August 1860, Page 3

(From the Taranaki Herald, July 14.)

It is important to correct a passage in our accountfof the battle at Pnketakauera, which was founded on imperfect information, to the effect that the Maoris on that occasion stood the bayonet charge of the soldiers of the 4.oth regiment. The most reliable information contradicts this statement. On the occasion of t«ie advance of the soldiers and blue jackets to the charge, the natives remained in cover, till our men were within 20 yards of them, and then discharging their double barrelled gums turned about and ran. An officer to whom a shower o! bullets is no novelty, states in lively language, " I have seen fellows cut and run before, but not as these did; they leaped like kangaroos over the tutu and fern." To this hour it is impossible to give a trustworthy estimate of their loss; and it will probably ever remain so. It may be observed that the native accounts, even from the most thoroughly loyal, must be taken with allowance for the feeling of fellowship in race; every man must naturally take pride in the skill of those of his own blood. Our loss was exaggerated by the Maoris, and doubtless they make the least of theirs. The troops were engaged for two hours and more, firing on the enemy at no great distance, and a short delay in the arrival of succour from W. Kingi, would probably have put our men in possession of the pah. The artillery practice seems to have been unpleasantly warm, and there was an evident inclination to evacuate the position entirely. From these circumstances, and remembering the deadly charge of cannister into a cluster of them, the reader must form his judgment. The only part of the British force which was at all disordered was the party of the Grenadier Company under Lieut. Brooke, who were greatly outnumbered, and scattered in swampy ground under a galling fire from the heights and scrub around them.