after his release confessed to having committed the crime. This incident greatly incensed the Maoris and did much to aggravate the mounting tension between both races. During the same month the Protector of Aborigines, George Clarke, unhappily reported another circumstance which highly disgusted the natives. In several instances their dead had been disinterred by some of the settlers merely for the sake of obtaining the few ornaments with which they were usually buried. “I regret also to say,” said Clarke, “that these atrocities could not be brought home to the guilty parties for want of evidence.” Te Rauparaha, hoping to see justice meted out from the European authorities, refrained from taking an indiscriminate revenge and quietly cautioned Clarke in the following manner: “A few years ago I should have taken cognisance of these cases, and would have obtained ample satisfaction for the injury I have received, but I now with confidence leave the matter with you.” The excitement and unrest caused by these outrages had hardly subsided within the strongholds of Ngati Toa when news arrived from Nelson that the Europeans intended making a survey of the Wairau Plain. At the head of a deputation of chiefs in Nelson, Te Rauparaha told Captain Arthur Wakefield that they had not sold Wairau, and warned him against sending his surveyors there. When Wakefield, quite unperturbed, expressed his determination to proceed, the quick-tempered Rangihaeta sprang forward to deliver an angry tirade. Grimacing fiercely at the Resident Agent, he threatened to take his head if the survey commenced. He made it abundantly clear to all in Nelson that if anyone wanted to lay claim to that land they would first have to succeed in killing him, and thereby the land would remain as the lawful possession of the conqueror. Before leaving for Kapiti Te Rauparaha issued a final warning that he would put the case before the Queen's Commissioner, Mr Spain, with a demand for an immediate settlement of the claim. Wakefield foolishly turned a deaf ear to these threats and warnings. On the 15th of April, 1843, a contract for the survey was drawn up with Messrs Barnicoat and Thompson, Cotterell and Parkinson. A few days later these surveyors with forty assistants proceeded to the Wairau where they started work without further delay. Nearly two months had gone when Wakefield received word that the Ngati Toa chiefs had crossed over to the Wairau and were obstructing the surveyors by burning their huts and compelling them to return to Nelson. The affair was becoming extremely serious, and Te Rauparaha had made it perfectly clear that neither he nor any of his people were to be trifled with. Yet Wakefield on receiving a report of the proceedings sanctionel another blunder. This was the decision to proceed at once in the Government brig “Victoria” and arrest the chiefs on a charge of arson. “We shall muster about sixty,” wrote Wakefield, “so I think we shall overcome these travelling bullies.” It is also ironical at this stage to observe the following remark in a letter to his brother before embarking: “I never felt more convinced of being about to act right for the benefit of all, and not less especially so for the native race.” On reaching the mouth of the Wairau River it was found that the Maoris had retired to a more inaccessible position further upstream on the western side of the Tuamarina stream. Te Rauparaha was sitting in front of a fire eating a meal of potatoes when the pakeha war party approached along the opposite bank. Jumping to his feet he hailed them in the traditional manner, and enquired of the Police Magistrate leading the party if they had come to fight. Thompson Te Rangihaeta, nephew of Te Rauparaha. He became actively hostile to the British in the Hutt Valley and established a fortified pa at Pauatahanui, from which he was finally driven in July, 1846. With a few loyal adherents he retreated to the swamps of Poroutawhao where, like Hereward the Wake, he built his last stronghold on a mound. Grey wisely left him alone; and he died at Otaki in 1855. (Turnbull Library Photograph).