A.—No. 1,

32

DESPATCHES FROM THE GOVERNOR OE NEW

The Governor had been made fully aware of my objection to a formal siege of the pa at that season of the year, and it is evident that the question he put to you in his letter of the 19th July was intended to draw from you the answer in the negative which you gave him. When afterwards, in compliance with the request contained in the Governor's second letter, you moved 400 men up to the pa, I should feel obliged by your informing me whether you gave Lieut.-Colonel Trevor orders which precluded him from taking any active part in the operations about to be undertaken, and whether there was any reason which would have prevented you, as the officer commanding Her Majesty's troops in the district, from taking command of the whole forces, Imperial and Colonial, and directing the operations, if you had thought proper, or if the Governor had expressed a desire that you should do so. It was not then the case of a formal siege of the pa by sap, nothing of the kind was in contemplation. The Governor and yourself had been close up to the palisading of the pa on the day previous with impunity ; the principal chiefs had surrendered, negotiations were going on, and there was little probability of serious resistance being made, as the result proved. I shall feel obliged by your forwarding your reply to me under cover to the officer commanding at Melbourne, in order that I may receive it on my way to England. I have, &c, D. A. Cameron, Lieut.-General. , Brigadier-General AVaddy, C.8., Commanding Field Forces, AVanganui.

Sub-Enclosure 4 to Enclosure in No. 19. Brigadier-General AVaddy to Lieut.-General Sir D. A. Cameron, K.C.B. Sir, — AVanganui, 7th August, 1865. I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the Ist instant, No. 258-65, and in reply I beg to inform you that on the 19th July last, when I was at Nukumaru, and directed Lieut.-Colonel Trevor, 14th Eegiment, to move to the camp in front of the Weraroa Pa, with 100 men, I did not give him any orders to refrain from taking an active part in the operations against the pa, which His Excellency the Governor had decided upon carrying on—in fact I did not think anything could be done till the 400 infantry and the guns and mortars were brought up. The 200 infantry from this got to the camp in the forenoon of 22nd July, the guns and mortars were at the AVaitotara Eedoubt, a few miles from the pa, and I was on the point of starting from this to ride out to the camp on that day, when the Governor arrived with the intelligence that the pa had been evacuated during the previous night, and that it had been occupied by the troops under Lieut.Colonel Trevor about daylight. On my arrival in the camp I should of course have assumed the command of all the troops there, and directed such operations as I might have thought proper against the pa, and I am under the firm conviction that the Governor told me he intended to leave as soon as I arrived in camp. Although I declined to invest the place, (which would have required a large force,) and to commence a regular siege with the Imperial troops (without your orders), I certainly never contemplated their remaining passive spectators of what might take place. AVhen I ordered up guns to batter down the palisading of the pa, it was my intention to have made a sudden rush upon it with a joint force of Imperial and Colonial troops and friendly Natives, when I could see the defences were sufficiently destroyed, and if I did not find there was too strong a force of rebels in it to render it rash orhazardous to attempt to take it in that way. The Imperial troops under Lieut.-Colonel Trevor did all that was required of them. They held a position in front of the pa while the Colonial troops and friendly Natives proceeded to occupy a position in rear of it, and Lieut.-Colonel Trevor was quite prepared to employ his 200 men of the 14th and 18th Eegiments, in any way he thought conducive to the speedy capture of the pa. I had told him in course of conversation at Nukumaru, that I had your permission to attempt to take the pa by a coup-de-main if I thought fit. I have, &c, E. AVaddy, Brigadier-General Commanding Forces. Lieut.-General Sir D. A. Cameron, X.C.8., Ac., &c, &c.

Appendix A. Extract from Despatch of Sir G. Grey to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, No. 82, 6th July, 1865. 4. In the second place Sir D. Cameron was perfectly aware that I did not postpone hostilities in the Taranaki country until after the meeting of the General Assembly, and that the delay in those operations was not unnecessary, and that it had nothing whatever to do with the question of who my Eesponsible Advisers might be. The question that I wished not to decide without the advice of a responsible Ministry was, what the extent of those operations should be, as the Colony would to a great extent be liable for the cost of those operations. I was anxious that their extent, and the precise object to be aimed at should be settled with the advice and concurrence of a responsible Ministry. But this question of acting under responsible advice was in no way connected with that of whether or not operations were to be undertaken between Taranaki and AVanganui, which had long previously openly been determined on ; or with the delay in September in carrying on those operations, which arose from a different cause. Sir D. Cameron knew that I had long previously determined that those operations should be undertaken ; that the first preparations for them began in August, 1864, or early in September, and that the interruption in them from that date to the 16th of December, arose from a great peril which suddenly and unexpectedly threatened Auckland. This lam fortunately able to show from Earl de Grey having been kind enough to send me a copy of the report of the Deputy