A.—No. 4,

this morning, reduces very considerably the force at my disposal for active operations. You will still have at Auckland, a reserve of between seven and eight hundred men. If however, you think the state of affairs is such as not to admit of the withdrawal of the remainder of the 18th from Auckland, I beg that you will telegraph to General Carey accordingly. I have, &c, D. A. Cameron, Lieut.-General. P.S.—I am very anxious to have the " Gundagai" here as soon as possible. His Excellency Sir George Grey, K.C.B. D. A. 0. No. 18. His Excellency the Governor to Lieut.-General Sir D. A. Cameron. My dear General, — Kauwau, 26th January, 1865. I have received your two letters of the 21st instant. lam very glad to hear of the arrangements you have made for protecting the settlers on the right bank of the Wanganui. I have telegraphed to General Carey to send you the troops you have sent for—the remainder of the 18th. The " Gundagai" sailed immediately in compliance with your wishes, —at least an express has been sent ordering her to sail. Everything continues perfectly quiet here. Unless I am satisfied that the country is entirely safe in this quarter, I will not go to Dunedin. The English mail has not yet come in; we are all very anxious here upon the subject. I have already told you, in another letter, that I entirely concur in your instructions to Colonel Warre, and in the several steps you took at Taranaki. As I shall probably have another opportunity of writing to you before this letter is sent off, I will not say more now than that I think the present expedition was essentially necessary, and that it will, I still trust, settle this war. I wish you all the good luck and success you can desire. I have, &c, Lieut.-General Sir D. A. Cameron, X.C.8., &c, &c, &c, G. Grey. Wanganui. No. 19. Lieut.-General Sir D. A. Cameron to His Excellency the Governor. My dear Sir George,— Wanganui, 28th January, 1865. Before this reaches you you will probably have seen some account in the papers of our fight with the Maories on Wednesday last. It was by far the boldest attack they have yet ventured to make. The nature of the ground surrounding our camp enabled them to assemble near us unperceived, and our picqucts were attacked so suddenly that they were forced back some distance before reinforcements could arrive to their assistance. They attacked our front and right flank simultaneously. On our right they penetrated to within 150 yards of our camp, when being turned on the left, and charged by our small party of cavalry, they gave way and fled to the bush a good deal faster than they came out of it. The fight lasted longer on the left, but they were beaten back on that side also, and obliged to retire into the bush. Our loss was considerable, but the Maories must have suffered still more severely, although we did not pick up more than eleven dead bodies, and two wounded men. With one exception, the killed and wounded were natives of Kawhia ; the Ngaliruanui having according to their custom kept well out of danger. We were informed by one of the wounded that the attacking party was 600 strong, and as they left a garrison in the pa, they must be in considerable force on the Waitotara. I consider my force insufficient to attack so formidable a work as the Wereroa pa. It would bo necessary to establish two posts to keep our communication open with Wanganui, and we should have to furnish escorts daily for convoys. This would reduce my force to 700 or 800 men, which would not be sufficient to provide for the protection of the camp in such a country, and at the same time to cprry on all the laborious operations of the siege. Instead of 1100 men, my present available force, I should require 6000. Besides, I should not have a single soldier left in reserve, and if anything should happen in any other part of the settlement, it would take a week or ten days' to remove all the stores and raise the siege. For these reasons Ido not intend to attack the pa, but to cross the Waitotara and see what can be done on that side. I came into town on Thursday for the purpose of getting a look at the mouth of the Waitotara from the sea. We started early yesterday morning in the " Sandfly," but when we got outside the bar it blew so hard from the west, and there was so much sea, that it would not have been possible to get near enough in shore to see the coast well, and we turned back. To-day it is blowing a gale. I hope that vessels can get into the Waitotara, and that we shall be able to establish a depot on it, as it would be impossible to supply a force north of the Waitotara by land. From the Waitotara I propose, if the settlement is not attacked, to advance towards the Patea, and if I should succeed in forming a post on that river, I shall have but a small force left for anything else; but I suppose that as long as 100 men can be collected together we shall be required to carry on this miserable war for the profit and gratification of the Colony. Since I have been in this part of the world I have made inquiries about the purchase of the Waitotara block, and have reason to believe that it was a more iniquitous job than that of the Waitara block, lam not surprised that the natives have opposed our road-making. The Government at homo ought to be made acquainted with the true history of the business. You will have heard of Colonel Warre's advance to the Stoney river, and the apprehension of the natives suspected of murder. Colonel Warre talks (how easy it is to talk) of marching down the coast with a flying column of 500 men and meeting me at Patea; but for what object he does not explain. He calculates on meeting with no opposition, and his march would of course only be possible on that condition, for 200 men in a good pa would effectually bar his progress, and if attacked by *uch a body as that by which we were attacked on Wednesday he would inevitably come to grief. The news is rather bad from the Upper Wanganui, where our friendlies arc expecting to be

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