<name key="name-111507" type="work">England and the Maori Wars</name>

Front Cover

Spine

Back Cover

Hauhau ritual dance

Frontispiece

England and the Maori Wars A. J. Harrop M.A.(N.Z.), Ph.D.(Cambridge) Author of “England and New Zealand,” etc. THE NEW ZEALAND NEWS (LONDON) 92 FLEET STREET, E.C.4 AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND: WHITCOMBE & TOMBS LTD.

Limited and Only Edition, 1000 copies Printed in 1937

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY UNWIN BROTHERS LTD., WOKING

TO THE MINISTER OF NATIVE AFFAIRS DOMINION OF NEW ZEALAND (THE RIGHT HON. M. J. SAVAGE, M.P.) AND THE FUTURE OF THE MAORI RACE

Acknowledgment

I am much indebted to the officials of the Public Record Office, the British Museum and Newspaper Repository, the libraries of the Royal Empire Society, Colonial Office, War Office, and the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society, London, and the Public Library, New Plymouth, for their courtesy and help during the ten years since the collection of material for this book was begun. The late Mr. H. E. M. Fildes, of Wellington, a careful student of New Zealand's early history, kindly helped me by reading through the material in its raw state and making several useful comments. For the opportunity to read Henry Sewell's Journal and for encouragement at various stages of the work, I must thank Dr. James Hight, Rector of Canterbury University College, whose wonderful capacity for assisting and inspiring others has won him the respect and affection of all fortunate enough to be associated with him. Where original documents of a very controversial period are being studied for the first time, the task of sifting the material in order to include the essential and to eliminate the irrelevant, however interesting it may be, is a heavy one. For much help in this and the many other tasks connected with the production of this volume I am deeply grateful to my wife.

For help in regard to the illustrations my thanks are due to the New Zealand Government, for permission to use several blocks used in The New Zealand Wars and the Pioneering Period by James Cowan; the Librarian, High Commissioner's Office, London; Messrs. John Murray and Messrs. Sampson Low, Marston & Co., Ltd.; Mr. T. E. Donne and Mr. H. E. M. Fildes for photographs of William Thompson, the Maori King Maker; Major W. Fowler, for securing the photograph of the oil painting of General Sir Duncan Cameron in the Queen's Barracks, Perth, headquarters of the Black Watch. I am grateful to Mr. F. H. Coventry, 3 Stanley Gardens, London W.11, for the great care he has taken with the cover design, frontispiece, and map.

A. J. H. 88 Gower street, London, W.C.1

References

The Colonial Office records in the Public Record Office are distinguished by the letters C.O. and the War Office records by W.O. It has been thought best to print the references in footnotes, as no other plan seems to be any more satisfactory.

Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENT 7 INTRODUCTION 13 IMPERIAL REGIMENTS IN NEW ZEALAND 24 SECRETARIES OF STATE AND MINISTRIES 25 1. YEARS OF UNREST 27 2. MAORI KING MOVEMENT 40 3. OUTBREAK OF WAR 67 4. PRELUDE TO GREY'S RETURN 126 5. UNEASY PEACE 147 6. WAR IN TARANAKI AND WAIKATO 166 7. A CONFISCATION POLICY 198 8. RISE OF TE UA AND THE GATE PA DISASTER 216 9. GOVERNOR v. MINISTERS 227 10. “SELF-RELIANCE” 241 11. GOVERNOR v. GENERAL 250 12. “PEACE” BY PROCLAMATION 272 13. WAR “ATROCITIES” AND THE FALL OF GREY 289 14. PAYING FOR THE WAR 312 15. WAR WITH TE KOOTI AND TITOKOWARU 318 16. A CRITICAL YEAR 346 17. OVERTURES TO THE UNITED STATES 377 18. END OF THE WARS 393 19. CONCLUSION 396 BIBLIOGRAPHY 411 INDEX 417

List Of Illustrations HAUHAU RITUAL DANCE. Drawn by F. H. Conventry Frontispiece Facing page LORD ABERDEEN'S COALITION CABINET, 1854 33 SIR FREDERIC ROGERS (AFTERWARDS LORD BLACHFORD) 96 SIR GEORGE GREY 128 FLAG OF THE MAORI KING 160 “THE KING MAKER” 160 GENERAL SIR DUNCAN CAMERON 192 TE UA 224 TAURANGA IN 1864, SHOWING BRITISH CAMPS 257 EDWARD, VISCOUNT CARDWELL 288 A SKETCH OF CHUTE'S COLUMN ON THE MARCH 320 PLAN OF TAURANGA-IKA PA 352 COLONEL (AFTERWARDS MAJOR-GENERAL SIR) G. S. WHITMORE 384 MAJOR ROPATA. 384 MAP OF THE WAR AREAS (TO OPEN OUT) 416

Introduction

This book was originally intended simply to fill a gap in the history of New Zealand by giving the results of the first examination of England's policy during the Maori Wars, based on the original documents. As the work went on, however, it became more and more obvious that the Maori Wars provided the opportunity for working out in practice theories of Imperial defence and colonial self-government which changed the whole character of the Empire. Was it possible to throw on the colonists the onus of self-defence without cutting them off from the Motherland? Was it possible to include in colonial self-government control of native races protected by treaty with the Motherland? Was it worth while to retain colonies at all if they were to be almost entirely independent?

These questions were by no means easy to answer without practical experience, and the manner in which successive Secretaries of State put them to the test of experience in New Zealand and elsewhere is of great interest to those who wish to understand the Empire as it is to-day. The manner of the testing may have been rough and ready, with inadequate precautions against failure, but the test had to come sooner or later. If Gladstone and Granville seem to us unconscious of the risks they ran with the tender plant of Imperial unity, there is nevertheless something well worthy of attention in the political philosophy of the late 60's. To the policy of retrenchment in colonial expenditure more lasting merit may be ascribed than a mere lowering of taxation, while even the opposition to the Liberal Government's policy towards New Zealand produced important Imperial results. The great influence exerted by the Royal Colonial Institute, now the Royal Empire Society, can scarcely be questioned, and it was the policy of withdrawing Imperial troops from New Zealand and “leaving the colonists to their fate” which led to the meetings from which the Institute emerged.

From whatever standpoint we look at the Maori Wars, they have interesting aspects. As this introduction is written the question of the transfer of native territories in South Africa from the administration of the British Government to that of the Union Government is prominently before the public. The Secretary of State for the Dominions has repeated in the House of Commons the assurance that before such transfer takes place the wishes of the inhabitants of the territories will be consulted. No such consideration was given to the Maoris when the British Government, in order to secure the withdrawal of the Imperial troops, decided to transfer control of native affairs to the New Zealand Government. In handing over the task of interpreting the Treaty of Waitangi to a Government engaged in a bitter struggle with the other party to the treaty, the British Government took, no doubt, considerable risks with its own honour. The alternative policy of creating a Maori protectorate with Imperial officers to assist the Maoris in ruling themselves might conceivably have averted the long and costly warfare which we have to describe. From motives which are discussed in the narrative the British Government chose to trust the colonists of New Zealand to find out from bitter experience that a benevolent native policy paid best in the long run. For many years after the wars the Maori problem was left to solve itself through the extinction of the race, believed to be inevitable. It was a Maori movement which arrested the fatal process and put new life into the people. To-day the Maoris are increasing in numbers more rapidly than their white neighbours, and the Maori King moves in 1938 to Turongo, his new home in the old capital, Ngaruawahia. The reed house of the first Maori Kings is gone. The idea of Maori kingship persists.

In this book we are dealing with the darkest period in the chequered story of New Zealand and one which still influences the relations of Maori and white man. The causes and results of the Maori Wars are imperfectly understood to-day, and only great episodes of the struggle, such as the Maori defence of Orakau, the British disaster at the Gate Pa, and the raids of Te Kooti, have made any appreciable mark on what may be called the collective memory of New Zealand. We should not forget that a localized struggle about a plot of land into which, it may be said, “some one blundered,” became a widespread war of extermination. A British officer who took part in this war wrote: “You must remember we were fighting without gloves, and that it was war to the knife.” He was excusing the acts of a Maori leader of friendly natives who summarily executed more than a hundred captured followers of Te Kooti—and there were many other things done on both sides during the war which could be justified only by some such plea. One of the remarkable things about the struggle is that it was never entirely a war of race against race. Even at the worst periods there were always some tribes who remained faithful to the British cause, and though some of the “friendly” Maoris at times exasperated the commanders of the troops, it is questionable whether, without them and such leaders as Te Kepa and Ropata, the followers of the Maori King, of Titokowaru, and of Te Kooti would have been subdued—or rather, forced to refrain from aggression—even in ten years. Inter-tribal rivalry had devastated New Zealand with war for centuries, and even the menace of white domination could not produce unity in the ranks of the Maoris. That a part of the race could hold superior forces of Imperial and colonial troops at bay for so long a time is a remarkable fact, which will, it is hoped, add interest to this volume.

The Maori Wars raised problems of colonial policy which demanded the close attention of successive British Governments, and which attracted the equally close attention of newspapers in many lands, missionary bodies, and societies interested in the welfare of native races. In Australia there was naturally keen interest in these wars, as Imperial troops were sent from there on the outbreak of hostilities and large forces of military settlers were raised later. In Canada, at the same time, the question of Imperial responsibility for local defence was being settled and the events leading to the “withdrawal of the legions” from both Canada and New Zealand were very closely related. There was also a very close connection, as will be shown in the volume, between events in South Africa and New Zealand, for both these countries were confronted by a difficult native problem. The wars in New Zealand undoubtedly influenced British policy in the Pacific generally, and reluctance to annex other island groups which might involve similar controversies and expense was perhaps not unnatural.

As the story of the wars unfolds, we realize why this decade is so important in the history of the British Empire. “The broad road leading to Imperial disarmament lay plainly ahead,” writes Dr. A. Folsom in her account of the formative years of the Royal Empire Society, while books like Studies in Mid-Victorian Imperialism, by the Danish historian, C. A. Bodelsen, strengthen the conviction that in the struggle of the Maoris against Imperial troops and the colonists more than local issues were decided. “It was the belief,” writes Bodelsen, “that the Gladstone Government was about to cut the colonies adrift and that their treatment of New Zealand was part and parcel of a deliberate scheme for bringing about such an event, which started the new Imperialist movement.”

One of Lord Granville's despatches to New Zealand, dated March 21, 1869, divided the Press of London into two camps. The Times, Daily News, and Morning Post supported Lord Granville, but the Spectator wrote on July 24: “It is clear that Mr. Goldwin Smith's colonial ‘policy’ the policy, that is, of shaking off the colonies as too burdensome … has not only been accepted by the existing Government, but that they are acting on it.” The Standard (Conservative) wrote on October 13: “By a minute of Lord Granville it has been decreed that there shall be no colonies.” Bodelsen says that the tone of this particular despatch “would hardly have been admissible in a note to a foreign Power under strained relations.” It was, as we shall see, but one of a series of communications which had the effect of causing New Zealand to consider seriously annexation to the United States. This effect, almost unimaginable to-day, is the more significant in view of the hostile relations between England and the United States arising out of incidents during the American Civil War.

“The decade 1861–70 may fairly be called a critical period in British Imperial history, for it was during those years that tendencies in England towards the disruption of the Empire reached their climax, …” wrote R. L. Schuyler, in the Political Science Quarterly (December, 1921). “This subject, however, received little or no notice in the standard histories of England or in the biographies of the leading statesmen of the day. Perhaps this is not to be wondered at, since the insularism of English historians, against which Seeley lodged a memorable protest a generation ago, has been only slightly modified since his day, and the revival of Imperialism in England during the last fifty years has no doubt predisposed Englishmen, as historians, against dwelling upon what, as citizens, they would prefer to forget.”

We are certainly inclined to forget many aspects of Imperial history in the nineteenth century which contain lessons for us to-day, and to take for granted many conceptions which were very far from being generally accepted during the period with which we are dealing in this volume. The American War of Independence had effectually quenched enthusiasm for colonies, and even the burning faith of Wakefield, Buller, Durham, and the rest of the Colonial Reformers scarcely sufficed to revive it. Missionary enterprises prompted by the evangelical revival of the 20's were of great importance in promoting interest in far-off lands. The humanitarian motives of the missions and the disinterested enthusiasm of most of the missionaries did not always result in complete sympathy with the local authorities, and both in New Zealand and South Africa there were differences of opinion which produced misgivings in England and consequently affected colonial policy very considerably. Kaffir wars in South Africa followed by Maori wars in New Zealand had the not unnatural effect of producing a reaction against heavy colonial expenditure. Where withdrawal of the British flag was impossible this reaction itself produced another important effect. It smoothed the way for colonial self-government, since colonies that governed themselves were less expensive than those governed from Downing Street, and economy was becoming the watch-word of British colonial policy. In discussing British policy in South Africa, C. W. de Kiewiet remarks

British Colonial Policy and the South African Republics.

that, “although it directed numerous protests against the native policy of the two republics, the British Government was at no time after 1854 prepared to sacrifice men or money in pursuit of purely native interests.” It is from the year 1854 that our story begins and we shall have to observe how it came about that the British Government found itself forced to sacrifice many men and much money not “in pursuit of purely native interests” but in pursuit of interests which, it maintained, were almost exclusively those of the settlers.

The Kaffir War of 1851 may be taken as the beginning of a new and eventful era in British colonial policy. It prompted Cobden to write: “The proper cure for these recurring wars is to let the colonists bear the brunt of it. This must be done by first giving them the powers of self-government, and then throwing on them the responsibility of their own policy. They would then be very careful to treat the neighbouring savages with justice.”

Cobden to H. Richard, March 13, 1851. J. A. Hobson, Cobden, the International Man, p. 75.

The war also prompted the cry that the colonists welcomed wars fought for them by Imperial troops. That cry was to be repeated many times before the Maori Wars were over.

In England and New Zealand (1926) the present writer traced from original documents the relations of the two countries down to the eve of the Taranaki War of 1860. In this volume the story is continued. The writer has relied mainly on original documents and contemporary newspapers to reveal the true motives of British policy during a period which was characterized by an almost complete lack of understanding between the mother-country and the colony. He has attempted to examine as much as possible of the information that was actually before the Colonial Office, in order to show how far its policy towards the colonists was just and reasonable. All the material sent home by the Governors—despatches, ministerial memoranda, reports of debates, newspaper cuttings, and private letters—has been read, and also much of that forwarded by newspaper correspondents to London journals. Every reference to New Zealand in The Times for more than twenty years has been consulted and that journal becomes one of the chief characters in our story. For local impressions of the warfare and Colonial Office policy, the file of the Taranaki Herald in the library at New Plymouth was examined. Great attention has been paid to the evolution of the Colonial Office despatches, for the successive minutes of the different officials are, of course, not available in New Zealand, and without them it is not possible to decide whether despatches were framed by the permanent officials and merely signed by the Secretary of State, as Sir George Grey contended. The writer has thought it advisable in a work of this kind, where the original material in England is being covered for the first time, to allow the actors in the story to speak for themselves. It has not been possible to report fully the parliamentary debates on the subject of New Zealand affairs, but the general trend of the main debates is indicated.

Accounts of the major battles of the different campaigns, founded on the official War Office reports, have been included in the narrative, but no attempt is made at a detailed military history. A careful examination of the local sources for such a history has been made by Mr. James Cowan, and his two volumes, The New Zealand Wars and the Pioneering Period, published by authority of the Minister of Internal Affairs, absolve the present writer from the necessity of adding still further to what is of necessity a long work. As the issue of further volumes of New Zealand Historical Records to cover the period after 1840 is not likely to be undertaken in the near future, the writer has felt that it would be of real value to give in full some of the historic despatches and minutes of the period. A certain amount of duplication is caused by the method employed, but, as the aim is to give a detailed study of policy during a period which must necessarily be treated in summary fashion in books dealing with the whole history of New Zealand, it is hoped that the advantages of the method outweigh the disadvantages.

Material for this volume had been collected over a period of ten years, and the main outlines of the story were drawn up without referring to secondary authorities. These were later consulted, and references inserted where they seemed to be called for. Memoirs and biographies of the period contain many letters and contemporary judgments of great interest and value. An example is The Letters of Lord Blachford (edited by G. E. Marindin, 1896). Blachford, then Sir Frederic Rogers, was Permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1860 to 1871, and some of his views of his different chiefs may be quoted here as an introduction to the successive Secretaries of State of the time.

“The Duke of Newcastle was an honest and honourable man, a thorough gentleman in all his feelings and ways, and considerate of all about him. To me he was always kind…. It was said of him that he did not remember his rank unless you forgot it, and the expression well hit off his relations to his subordinates. In political administration he was painstaking, clear-headed, and just. But his abilities were moderate; and he did not see how far they were away from being sufficient for the management of great affairs—which, however, he was always ambitious of handling….

“Cardwell was just and kind, clear-headed and hard-headed, industrious, very accurate and enormously safe, especially in regard to matters of which the House of Commons might have cognizance. In fact, he seemed always to feel on his trial before the House of Commons; and I have occasionally felt that his dread of a Parliamentary scrape sometimes supplied the place of thorough force of character…. And it is to be remarked that in nine cases out of ten his guide would be a true guide—the House of Commons seeing in ordinary cases what is not honest or not for the public interest…. He took pains not to make enemies, and bore no ill-will to his opponents.

“Lord Carnarvon became at once a friend more intimate than Cardwell, both because there was more warmth in him, and because there was the bond of a common feeling in Church matters.

The Tractarian movement had “the sympathy and counsels” of Rogers (Dict. Nat. Biography). He was one of the founders of the Guardian newspaper.

He was a great contrast. He had not Cardwell's hard- headed desire so to do the work that statesmen and Parliament following statesmen, should see it was done well, but he had more of a generous desire to effect worthy objects and also more, I think, of a wish to shine before the public and to distinguish himself in the ordinary sense of the word.”

The Duke of Buckingham was “a thoroughly honest and kind-hearted man, with a rough but friendly manner, not without shrewdness, and clear-headed, but with a natural turn for detail, which he had indulged as Chairman of a great railway,

The London and North-Western, from 1853 to 1861.

till it injured his capacity as a Minister.” Lord Granville was “the pleasantest and most satisfactory chief of those under whom I served.” “He trusted his subordinates in matters of detail—and would act vigorously in what may be called ministerial as distinguished from departmental policy.”

Of Rogers himself his writings, letters, and minutes give a clear picture. A contemporary at Eton of W. E. Gladstone, G. A. Selwyn, and A. H. Hallam, he had a brilliant academic career, taking, like Cardwell, a double first at Oxford in classics and mathematics. He was elected a Fellow of Oriel and became an intimate friend of John Henry, afterwards Cardinal, Newman, who said “that of all his friends Lord Blachford was the most gifted, the most talented, and of the most wonderful grasp of mind.” Other close friends of Rogers were Gladstone and Dean Church. He was an able and conscientious administrator, inclined perhaps to be over-critical of some of his chiefs and of the politicans of the communities he had to deal with, but not imbued with any exaggerated ideas of his own importance.

“Have you any views as to the use of a peer?” he wrote to Sir Henry Taylor. “Viewing the title as a reward of exploits, perhaps I ought to propose myself as Baron of Heligoland or Wagga-Wagga.”

His wide experience in the Emigration Office, from which he had helped, as he wrote, to send more than half a million settlers to Australia and New Zealand between 1846 and 1860, and in the Colonial Office for the following eleven years, did not endow him with complete prophetic vision. In 1885 he wrote: “I had always believed—and the belief has so confirmed and consolidated itself that I can hardly realize the possibility of anyone seriously thinking the contrary—that the destiny of our colonies is independence; and that, in this point of view, the function of the Colonial Office is to secure that our connection, while it lasts, shall be profitable to both parties, and our separation, when it comes, as amicable as possible.” Such a view, held by an official so highly placed, helps to illustrate the critical importance for the Empire of the years we are about to describe.

Imperial Regiments In New Zealand

The right to the battle honour “New Zealand” was won by British regiments in a series of arduous campaigns. Below are set out the names of regiments which served in New Zealand between 1854 and 1870, with some of the battle honours they had won before the Maori Wars, and the names of the regiments to-day. The Royal Regiment of Artillery and the Corps of Royal Engineers were represented throughout the wars, each justifying the regimental motto “Ubique.” Detachments of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines also played a prominent part in the operations.

12th Minden—Gibraltar—Seringapatam—India—South Africa, 1851–3 The Suffolk Regiment 14th Namur—Corunna—Waterloo—Sevastopol The West Yorkshire Regiment (The Prince of Wales's Own) 18th Namur—Blenheim—Ramillies—Oudenarde—Malplaquet—Sevastopol (Royal Irish.) Disbanded 1922 40th Louisburg—Vimiera—Talavera—Badajoz—Waterloo—Kabul 1st Battalion, The Prince of Wales's Volunteers (South Lancashire) 43rd Quebec—Vimiera—Corunna—Ciudad Rodrigo—Badajoz—Salamanca—Vittoria—South Africa, 1851–3 1st Battalion, The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry 50th Vimiera—Corunna—Vittoria—Alma—Inkerman—Sevastopol 1st Battalion, The Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment 57th Albuhera—Vittoria—Alma—Inkerman—Sevastopol 1st Battalion, The Middlesex Regiment (Duke of Cambridge's Own) 58th Louisburg—Gibraltar—Salamanca—Vittoria (Served in 1845 war—withdrawn from New Zealand on the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny) 2nd Battalion, The North-amptonshire Regiment 65th Guadeloupe—India—Arabia 1st Battalion, The York and Lancaster Regiment 68th Salamanca—Vittoria—Alma—Inkerman—Sevastopol 1st Battalion, Durham Light Infantry 70th Guadeloupe 2nd Battalion, The East Surrey Regiment

[The 96th (2nd Battalion, The Manchester Regiment) and 99th (2nd Battalion, The Wiltshire Regiment) won “New Zealand” honours in earlier campaigns.]

Secretaries Of State And Ministries

The Secretaries of State for the Colonies and the Ministries in England and New Zealand during the period with which we deal were: ENGLANDSecretary of StateMinistry1855Sir William Molesworth (d. Oct. 22)Lord Palmerston (Liberal) (Feb. 5, 1855 to Feb. 22, 1858)1855Henry Labourchere (Lord Taunton)1858Lord Stanley (resigned in May)Earl of Derby (Conservative) (Feb. 22, 1858 to June 11, 1859)1858Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton1859The Duke of NewcastleLord Palmerston (d. Oct. 18, 1865) and Earl Russell (Liberal) (June 13, 1859 to June 27, 1866)1864Edward Cardwell (from April 8)1866Lord Carnarvon (resigned Mar. 2, 1867)Earl of Derby (resigned Feb. 25, 1868) and Mr. Disraeli (Conservative) (June 27, 1866 to Dec. 3, 1868)1867The Duke of Buckingham1868Lord Granville (became Foreign Secretary, July 1, 1870)Mr. Gladstone (Liberal) (Dec. 10, 1868 to Feb. 17, 1874)1870–4Lord Kimberley
The Permanent Under-Secretaries of State were: Herman Merivale (1847–60); Sir Frederic Rogers (Lord Blachford) (1860–71); Sir Robert Herbert (1871–92). NEW ZEALANDThe New Zealand Ministries were:The Governors were:May 7–20, 1856: BELL-SEWELLColonel T. Gore Browne (Sept. 6, 1855 to Oct. 2, 1861)May 20 to June 2, 1856: FoxJune 2, 1856 to July 12, 1861: STAFFORDJuly 12, 1861 to Aug. 6, 1862: FOXSir George Grey (Oct. 3, 1861 to Feb. 5, 1868)Aug. 6, 1862 to Oct. 30, 1863: DOMETTOct. 30, 1863 to Nov. 24, 1864: WHITAKER-FOXNov. 24, 1864 to Oct. 16, 1865: WELDOct. 16, 1865 to June 28, 1869: STAFFORDSir George Bowen (Feb. 5, 1868 to March 19, 1873)June 28, 1869 to Sept. 10, 1872: FOX

Chapter I Years Of Unrest

The New Zealand Constitution Act of 1852 gave the colonists self-government but reserved to the Governor the direction of native affairs. The reservation was prompted by the best possible motive—the welfare of the Maoris—but unfortunately the Governor was not provided with adequate funds to administer the Native Department. Consequently there was a damaging division of authority which led to confusion and uncertainty. The Treaty of Waitangi had guaranteed to the Maoris the possession of their lands, but they viewed with apprehension the rapid influx of a white population naturally anxious to acquire land in the most fertile districts. A section of the colonists did its best to increase the apprehension of the Maoris—from motives good in some cases but dubious in others.

In 1854 Colonel Wynyard, the Acting Governor, reported that a pamphlet which had been circulated by a member of the Church Missionary Society was calculated to incite the natives against the Government system of land purchase. Here is a passage from the pamphlet: What is the root of the wealth of the world? It is the land.—Deuteronomy, 3, 7, 8, 9. For what reason did the foreigner desire to purchase the Maori land? What are the things upon the land? Timber, grass, water, and numerous other things. What are the things inside? Coal, iron, gold, copper, gum, and endless wealth. When all these pieces of land are gone to the foreigner, where will you find a place as a town for you hereafter?

Donald Maclean, who had brought this matter to the notice of the Governor on October 21, 1854, wrote of “the strong opposition of several of the native tribes to the sale of their lands, the numerous confederations they are forming in the island to resist it, the national feeling of independence adverse to the progress of the English Government, which such an opposition creates, and the evil which it is likely to generate by creating feelings of resentment and ill will between both races of Her Majesty's subjects.” The Colonial Office minute to H. Merivale, the Permanent Under-Secretary, was: “This appears to be a repetition of the mischievous course formerly pursued by some of the Europeans in New Zealand … It might be proper to forward a copy of this despatch to the Society in this country, pointing out the disastrous consequences which might result from such an influence being exerted on the natives and requesting the co-operation of the Society in checking such a course. Since the departure of the late Governor the natives have shown a restlessness in some quarters, and I know that it was his opinion that a very little might serve to create an outbreak amongst those of them who were not well disposed.” Sir George Grey, therefore, had no illusions about the state of the country after his long period of almost absolute power.

In 1855 the situation was so threatening in Taranaki owing to an inter-tribal feud concerning the sale of land in the Puketapu district that the settlers sent a memorial asking for more troops. H. Merivale's minute to Sir William Molesworth, the Secretary of State, on this memorial is illuminating as indicating the beginning of that policy of pressing the colonists to undertake their own defence which was to have such far-reaching results. This is what Merivale wrote: “Arm your militia; organize a police; stand on your own defence; and depend on it the Maoris will not meddle with you. Do not rely for your defence on soldiers whom we have not to send, whom we strongly suspect you wish for more on account of their expenditure than for any other reason, and who after all would not serve you as well in this kind of warfare as yourselves, if armed. But the difficulty of using any part of this language is, that hitherto we have used an opposite course of policy, and it must be said, very successfully. Lord Derby and Lord Grey met the demand from the colony by a very considerable supply of soldiers; and there can be no doubt that their presence contributed, perhaps as much as Governor Grey's own singular qualities, to the remarkable tranquillity of the years 1847-54, now so much threatened. The settlers are now numerous enough to protect themselves without the aid of soldiers, but such self-protection would doubtless be attended by the usual barbarizing results of frontier conflicts, and the progress, such as it is, already made by Maori civilization, would be stopped. Therefore I think it is on the whole rather satisfactory that the Governor has so far yielded to these fears as to concentrate some 300 men at Taranaki, and hope the precautions may prove sufficient.”

Sir William Molesworth's minute, written in his beautifully neat hand, was: “When Lord Derby and Lord Grey were in office, New Zealand was governed from this country, and therefore it was the duty of the Home Government to provide for its internal tranquility. Since then New Zealand has obtained representative institutions and responsible government, and, enjoying its sweets, it ought also to bear the burdens of self-government. One of the chief of those burdens is the preservation of internal tranquillity. I think the inhabitants of New Zealand ought to be told that they must prepare to rely on themselves to defend themselves against the natives. They must arm their militia. They must organize a police. They must keep upon good terms with the Maoris, and, as the land has been made over to the local government, all disputes with the natives about land, are local questions with which the Imperial Government has no concern, and to settle which disputes the Imperial Government cannot be expected to maintain a body of troops in the colony. If we send 2,000 or 3,000 soldiers whenever any one of these petty communities apprehends a Maori row, there will be plenty of such rows. For such a body of troops creates a public expenditure of great importance in such a place as New Plymouth. I think these views should be expressed to the memorialists in clear and distinct though conciliatory terms. In existing circumstances, and having the troops to spare, the Governor has probably done right in concentrating 300 men at New Plymouth.”

Governor Gore Browne, who arrived in New Zealand on September 6, made a summary of the Taranaki question in a despatch of November 19, 1855. The agent of the New Zea- land Company, he wrote, had purchased a tract of land of 70,000 acres from the only inhabitants, about sixty Maoris. The tribe to whom the lands belonged had been conquered and enslaved by a more powerful tribe of the Waikato. In course of time they recovered their liberty, returned to New Plymouth, and demanded the restitution of their land. Commissioner Spain was sent to investigate. With certain exceptions he declared in favour of the New Zealand Company's purchase. His finding was overruled by Governor FitzRoy. “This just decision,” Browne stated, “which has also proved a very politic one, prevented the New Zealand Company from fulfilling its engagements with the settlers, and caused great dissatisfaction, and, in some cases, distress.” A certain section of the population advised force to secure land from the Maoris. “In the autumn of last year Mr. Cooper, sub-commissioner of Crown Lands, was induced to commence a survey of some native lands which had been the subject of a native feud.” Katatore opposed the survey, and shot Rawiri and six of his followers. “I have disapproved of Mr. Cooper's conduct in commencing a survey before he was assured that all who had even a disputed claim to the land desired it should be sold, and have declined to make a demand for reparation which could only be enforced at the expense of a general war, including sooner or later all the tribes in the Northern Island.” Gore Browne criticized the action of W. W. Turton, a Wesleyan missionary, whose letters to the newspapers had aroused the Maoris' suspicions that the Europeans would not rest until they had “slain and taken possession of” that which the Maoris likened to Naboth's vineyard. “It is scarcely necessary to add that a much larger force than that now stationed in New Zealand would be required if British law were to be established and upheld in the Native as well as the European settlements.”

C.O. 209, 131.

In a despatch of February 14, 1856, Gore Browne reviewed the state of the colony, nothing the growing pretensions of the provincial councils and the evils arising from the election of superintendents. He suggested a Lieutenant-Governor for Auckland and nominated superintendents for the other provinces. He emphasized the importance of better communication between different parts of the colony if the Central Government was to be strong, and drew attention to the dangers of the land shortage. The condition of the Maoris was deteriorating: “Foreigners, unprincipled adventurers, deserters, or escaped convicts smuggle gunpowder and large quantities of spirits for their use, and purposely endeavour to make mischief in the hope of securing advantages to themselves.” The Governor expressed his intention of maintaining strictly clause 73 of the Constitution (reserving to the Governor the right to purchase native lands). He considered the presence of a ship of war absolutely necessary.

C.O. 209, 135.

Merivale, in a long minute on this despatch to John Ball (Under-Secretary for the Colonies), said that none of those responsible for the framing of the Constitution meant to make the superintendent anything more than president of a Legislative Assembly. “It was left to the general and local legislatures to give him executive power, if they thought proper. The provincial ordinances herewith sent disclose at last (what was never revealed to us before) how this has been done. I see nothing illegal in the general purview of these ordinances, though there may be here and there a mistaken assumption of power. But it is a great misfortune that this step has been taken by the Provincial Governments—not by the Central, as it ought to have been. There were several reasons for this. In the first place Governor Grey committed what I must now think a serious error, though I am bound to say that none of us anticipated the consequences, when he convened the provincial legislatures before the general, thereby giving them the start in action, and time to acquire an independent hold on popular opinion. The Act seems to have limited the same time for both (six months after its proclamation). In the next place the government fell on Governor Grey's leaving, into the hands of a temporary administrator quite unfit to deal with such a contingency as the establishment of a new Constitution. Thirdly, the House of Representatives discredited itself at the outset by an unseemly squabble for place and power, and the General Legislature has ever since been almost in abeyance.

“Government therefore has practically fallen into the hands of the elective superintendents, and will not easily get out of them again. The Governor wishes an appeal to Parliament which alone can convert these elective superintendents into nominees. I very much doubt the advantage of such a change at all: and believe it impracticable at all events. Suppose Parliament were to consent to such a change, which is very doubtful, the nominee superintendents would be immediately opposed by all the democratic party in each settlement, and the ‘respectable’ people, who the Governor says wish for the change would most assuredly leave him in the lurch. The small governments, as now constituted, will doubtless fail in providing for matters of general interest; steam communication, postage, etc. Nor can this be remedied until the General Legislature assumes some real authority. It may be also that they are really expensive, as they certainly must be annoying to industrious people who dislike constant local squabbles. But I cannot think these reasons for undoing by extraneous force what has been done, without any expression of popular wish to justify us. These observations, however, only apply to the Southern settlements. With regard to Auckland and New Plymouth the case is different. Without insisting on the Governor's grievance of his own want of executive power, and being obliged to ask the Superintendent of Auckland for a policeman, I cannot think it is safe or judicious to maintain a considerable Military Force for the protection of these settlements against the natives, in places where the Crown has literally no civil power at all. But I can suggest no mode of rectifying this state of things, unless Mr. Labouchere is prepared to refuse all additional military assistance except on terms of the concession to the Crown of the required civil power.

“As to the appointment of a Lieutenant-Governor, there are no funds wherewith to pay such an officer.”

C.O. 209, 135, June 2, 1856. Henry Labouchere was Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1855 to 1858, succeeding Sir William Molesworth, who died in October, 1855.

John Ball, Under-Secretary of State, in a minute to Labouchere, wrote: “In the passage which I have underlined, Mr. Merivale has indicated the only means that I can perceive for

Lord Aberdeen's Coalition Cabinet, 1854 The Duke of Newcastle is standing by a map of the Crimea. Other Secretaries for the Colonies shown are W. E. Gladstone. Sir William Molesworth, and Lord Granville.

escaping from the very difficult position in which we are placed by the present constitution and especially by the practical results of the way in which it has been brought into operation. The existence of elective superintendents, if these are to continue to be political officers exercising considerable power and patronage and dealing (together with their councils) with all the concerns of government, is a most serious evil and will tend, I fear, to infuse into the entire New Zealand society a spirit of faction and adherence to local cliques rather than principles …. The only real … remedy is, in my opinion, to be sought in the increased power and consideration of the Central Legislature.”

With reference to Auckland and New Plymouth, the writer concurred with Merivale “in thinking that if the amount of protection which is demanded is to be continued, the Crown should obtain in return a restoration of that executive power which never should have passed into the hands of the local elective functionaries.” “I may observe that on this point it is essential that the instructions to the Governor should be of the most precise and definite character. With the present feeling of insecurity, the Governor will be very reluctant under any circumstances to let the 58th Regiment go, but it seems necessary to give him formal instructions not to retain troops in either Auckland or New Plymouth unless the necessary conditions are complied with. But the precise question now to be settled is what conditions should be required. In one of his minutes on this subject I understood Mr. Merivale to suggest that a temporary suspension of the present constitution is what he thinks most advisable. My own opinion (is) that it would be far better to take the opportunity for practically reducing the provincial bodies to little more than ordinary municipal functions without suspending, transferring not to the Governor but to the Governor in Council all the powers and authority usually vested in the Executive. The measure as to New Plymouth would require some modification in this respect. From both provinces some moderate contributions to the cost of military defence may be fairly demanded, but it should, I think, be very moderate, limited to the cost of barracks for additional men now maintained in these provinces. If political concessions are to be sought for, I think it would be well to say less about the charge for military protection being thrown on the colony than in the draft despatch of May 28.”

Labouchere's instruction was: “Write to the War Department that under present circumstances I am of opinion that it would be better not to withdraw the Regiment. Inform them of the Governor's request that the troops be armed with Enfield rifles. State that we intend to instruct the Governor to ask the local authorities to bear a certain proportion of the expense of barrack accommodation, etc.” Labouchere also directed that a letter should be sent to the Admiralty expressing the opinion that it was of great importance that a ship of war should at once be sent to New Zealand.

C.O. 209, 135.

A despatch of the Governor from Auckland, dated February 14, 1856, in connection with the murder of a Maori woman by an American at Auckland, drew from Merivale the following minute: “This despatch is very serious—not only New Plymouth but Auckland itself, if not in danger, is evidently in alarm. I do not think sufficient attention has ever been paid to the enormous difficulty of managing natives with ‘responsible’ government, or with the expectation of it, where those natives are numerous and quarrelsome. Personal influence alone can control them, or else a superior military force. The first is incompatible with a popular system of government in these small communities. Even the second, a disagreeable alternative at best, is difficult to reconcile with civil independence. I believe far the best thing for New Zealand would be to withdraw Auckland and New Plymouth back again under Crown Government; to increase the military force there, and to leave the other settlements, which are under no apprehension from the natives, to govern themselves. And I daresay the European settlers would be content enough to submit to a ‘Suspending Act’ for a limited time, such as that which passed in 1847, in exchange for greater security and greater military expenditure. But if it is too late for all this, as may probably be the case, then I doubt whether any good will really be done by increasing the force. Self-governing communities must aid at least in protecting themselves from such dangers.”

C.O. 209, 135.

In a despatch of March 12 Governor Gore Browne expressed the view that all dealings with the native tribes should be reserved to him alone. Merivale's minute was: “I do not think it possible, with advantage, to withhold native affairs from the cognizance of responsible advisers, the matter being so closely connected with other points of domestic administration.”

C.O. 209, 135.

Several years were to elapse before this view prevailed, and much might be written of what would have happened had it prevailed at once. But we are concerned too closely with the findings of a track through a tangled forest of fact to spare time for the by-paths of speculation.

A Colonial Office memorandum, prepared for Labouchere on August 8, set out: “By your despatch of 28 November last the Governor was told in the usual terms that New Zealand would henceforth be expected to contribute to its own military defence. This has been entirely disregarded, and it may be taken as generally true, that no expenditure whatever will be devoted to such a purpose, so long as troops are maintained by this country. Even contribution towards barrack accommodation at New Plymouth has been resolutely declined, both by the general and provincial governments. The only governments concerned are those of Auckland and New Plymouth, where the Governor says (by a very incredible piece of political arithmetic, however) there are 49,000 natives capable of bearing arms, against 4,000 British.

Gore Browne later altered his figure from 49,000 to 30,000 (C.O. 209, 141).

Under these circumstances the Governor has determined on retaining the 58th. When the drafts have arrived there will be about 1,700 men in New Zealand of the 58th and 65th. In this detention Lord Panmure acquiesces…but answers that the colony ought to pay for all the force employed there.

“These are the points for your decision and there are several courses open: (1) To leave matters as they are and pay for the soldiers and barracks; in which case Lord Panmure will require to be answered. (2) To make payment for the barracks the only condition, but to insist on it that the 58th shall be withdrawn, unless this is satisfactorily done. (3) To insist in accordance with Lord Panmure, that if a certain voluntary contribution (say £10,000, but the amount should be settled by the Treasury) is not voted by permanent law within a certain time (whether by general or provincial legislature is immaterial), Governor Browne must send back the 58th Regiment without fail. This would be just and reasonable, but between general and provincial legislatures it will never be done. (4) To require Auckland and New Plymouth to consent to a suspension for five years of the constitution so far as regards these provinces, and the finding of barrack accommodation as the price of maintaining any force there beyond 1,000 men. I am quite aware of the very great Parliamentary difficulty of such a course: but believe it would be ultimately the best. One thing only is clear: that negotiations with the legislatures are at present unavailing.”

C.O. 209, 135.

Labouchere's minute in reply was dated August 26: “I believe that the best course will be to retain the troops in New Zealand for the present as they are now, but insist on the colonists paying the barrack accommodation which may be required for any number exceeding one thousand, directing the surplus number to be sent away after a certain date if the accommodation is not provided. Write to Lord Panmure accordingly.” On October 21, 1856, Governor Browne was informed of the decision arrived at and told that unless he should be soon able to report that barrack accommodation had been provided, the Government would feel it necessary to issue peremptory orders for the withdrawal of the troops from the districts concerned.

C.O. 209, 135.

Donald Maclean, in a report to the Governor on April 14, 1856, stated that he did not consider it would be safe to dispense with any of the troops then in the colony. Of the Maoris he said: “They are well-armed and skilful in the modes of warfare and of skirmishing best suited to their country. Their commissariat is carried without inconvenience. The wilds of the forest, where Europeans would starve, afford them shelter and supplies of food. They are fond of the excitement of war and resort to it periodically upon the slightest provocation…. Fighting, which had ceased at Taranaki after the landing of the troops, is again renewed. Without some restraining power, any ill-disposed tribe, at the instigation of either native or European, might endanger the safety of numbers of our out-settlers; or even of the settlements themselves. Recently a disaffected body of the Ngatiruanui, residing between Whanganui and New Plymouth, having heard of the withdrawal of the garrison of the latter place, came thither armed, with the intention to recommence hostilities with the natives of the locality; but finding a detachment of the 65th Regiment still remaining there—returned defeated in the object of their mission—an example of what might be expected not only there but in other neighbourhoods, were the military forces weakened in the colony.”

C.O. 209, 135.

In a private letter to Merivale dated April 29, 1856, Gore Browne referred to a minute he had drawn up on the view he took of his relation to his responsible advisers. Section 2 of the minute was: On matters affecting the Queen's prerogative and Imperial interests generally, the Governor will be happy to receive their advice, but when he differs from them in opinion, he will (if they desire it) submit their views to the consideration of Her Majesty's Secretary of State, adhering to his own until an answer is received. Among Imperial subjects the Governor includes all dealings with the native tribes, more especially in the negotiation of purchases of land.

“Judging by what I now see,” Gore Browne wrote, “the difficulty will be not to turn men out of office, but to keep them in it. My advisers will be subject to pressure from an opposition agitated by violent party feelings and restrained by no fear of consequences. If my view of the case is correct, they will not find it easy to control those who cast longing eyes on native land, nor will the fear of war have that effect, for many would profit by it largely in the way of trade and to the unscrupulous it holds out hope of acquiring the lands they covet. If, therefore, the Governor is obliged to consult with his Executive Council in questions affecting the natives, he will be liable to their throwing up office and being supported in so doing by the Assembly whenever they take or are forced to take a one-sided view of native affairs. The great numerical preponderance of the natives, their large contribution to the customs, their being in no way represented in the Assembly, the impossibility of inducing them to recognize any other authority than that of the Governor to whom they pay but a doubtful obedience, all suggest the necessity of their being withdrawn from the uncertainty which must necessarily follow from the changes in a constitutional government.”

C.O. 209, 135.

The attitude of the Governor in respect to native affairs was upheld by the Colonial Office in a confidential despatch of December 10, 1856.

In the House of Representatives on April 25, 1856, Henry Sewell expressed the view that it was right that the Governor should reserve native affairs to his own control until the colony was prepared to say to the mother-country: “We are ready to take on ourselves our own defence and the charge of the military.” “We have,” he said, “no right to ask for more, or to take into our own hands the exclusive control of matters which may involve the mother-country in a war of which she will bear the cost.”

C.O. 209, 135.

Baron de Thierry, in a confidential letter to the Governor from “Ivy Cottage” on May 17, reported that his son George had just returned from Coromandel with an account of the activities of one Tekin, from Mechanics' Bay, “who leaves his cutter at Paparoa each trip and is the principal furnisher of grog, powder, caps, etc., to the hostile natives, and this man is now at Coromandel with his traitor's cargo, and brought upwards of 200 boxes of caps. The fighting dress is to be white shirts and shawls about the waist and Tekin has brought about £200 worth of them for the warriors.” The name of a member of the Provincial Council was also mentioned in connection with the trade.

Ibid., 136. The Baron's earlier activities in New Zealand are described in England and New Zealand, chapter 2. A biography of the Baron, Check to Your King, by Robin Hyde, appeared in 1936.

The Maori appetite for munitions of war, always great, was now becoming so keen as to justify a belief that an outbreak was only a matter of time. That a number of white traders should take advantage of the critical situation to extend their operations was merely in keeping with the traditions of European settlement in New Zealand. The arms traffic had converted tribal warfare from a form of national sport into a series of massacres. Much the same sort of thing was happening in South Africa at the same time, and arms illicitly sold to the Basuto helped to precipitate a conflict which was to have far-reaching results.

See below, p. 148.

Chapter 2Maori King Movement

On July 31, 1856, the Governor circulated a letter to a number of prominent people asking whether the management of native affairs might be safely conceded to the Governor's responsible advisers, reserving to the Governor a veto in all cases, and a recommendation in relation to expenditure or whether the whole management of native affairs should be reserved to the Governor.

C.O. 209, 137.

Those who favoured keeping control entirely in the Governor's hands included Colonel Wynyard, James Busby, Major Richmond, Major Nugent, Dr. J. Wilson (colonial surgeon at New Plymouth), F.E. Maning, Lieut. J. J. Symonds, Henry Walton, George Clarke, Charles Baron de Thierry, the Rev. G. A. Kissling, and Donald Maclean. Bishop Selwyn, in his reply, asked: “Why should not the two races, though inhabiting the same country, form as it were two colonies, the one in the more advanced state of representative institutions, the other in the state in which many British colonies still are, more immediately under the direction of the Crown. It is undoubtedly most desirable that the whole native race should be gradually admitted to the higher privileges, but in the meantime there is no reason to think that they are discontented with the lower.”

Archdeacon C. J. Abraham wrote: “From what we know of the present Ministry and House of Representatives, it is not likely that the members of the responsible ministries will be much acquainted with the habits and feelings of the native race, or be personally acquainted with any of them…. Though the native principle of legislation is somewhat democratic they prefer a monarchical executive, and above all things they value permanence, stability and fixedness—words and ideas unknown in an English colony and a Colonial Assembly during its early stage of existence…. I believe the colony would not be safe in six months from the day on which a Ministry irresponsible to the Imperial Parliament was put in trust with the question of peace or war.”

Archdeacon William Williams and Archdeacon Henry Williams both supported the reservation of native affairs to the Governor. But Archdeacon Octavius Hadfield wrote on August 27: “I am inclined to think that the two races cannot be permanently governed on two different principles or in two different ways, and therefore it would be advisable that the management of native affairs should be placed on the same footing and conducted in the same manner as that of all connected with the European population…. If the whole responsibility of governing the native race were thrown on the Ministers, they would be obliged to use the greatest care in investigating every question concerning their interests, for every error they committed would immediately recoil on themselves, involving them in difficulties and bringing on them public censure. The Ministers and the Legislature would be obliged to approach these questions more seriously and with a deeper sense of responsibility.” He proposed two conditions: (1) That the natives should be officially informed what their rights were under the Constitution Act, and that facilities should be afforded them to register their names as electors and to record their votes at elections;(2) That any military force in the country should not be dispersed for mere police duty, or employed against the native population, unless a militia force co-operated with them, and unless the whole expense incurred in such service, including the whole of the pay of the troops during such period of service, were defrayed from Colonial funds.

Archdeacon Hadfield's plan, though rejected at the time, was very similar to that adopted a few years later by the British Government. Whether it would not have been wise to adopt, as a temporary measure in 1856, Bishop Selwyn's proposal for a sort of Maori Crown Colony, is a matter for conjecture. The views expressed show that here was considerable variation of opinion on native policy even among the Anglican missionaries.

The Rev. G. Smales, Wesleyan missionary, supporting reservation of full powers in native affairs to the Governor, said in his memorandum of August 11: “A considerable number of natives in the interior and in the Waikato district have recently been canvassing the propriety of electing one of their chiefs as i Kingi mo te Maori (a King for the Maoris).” This passage was heavily marked in the Colonial Office.

Bishop Pompallier advocated the responsibility of the Governor assisted by a Council of Advice consisting of representatives of the House of Representatives and the chief religious denominations.

The report of a Board of Inquiry on Native matters, transmitted to the House of Representatives on July 6, 1856, referred to the “League not to sell land formed among the native population”: “This League, commencing south of Auckland, at about fifty miles from the town, at a branch of the Waikato River called Maramarua, embraces nearly the whole of the interior of the island, and extends to the East Coast, and the West Coast, south of Kawhia.” The Board considered the existing method of purchasing land from the natives the best adapted to the difficult circumstances.

C.O. 209, 138.

Governor Gore Browne wrote to the Colonial Office on September 25, 1856: “I do not hesitate to say that Auckland exists on the forbearance of a race of savages, and I consider this a perilous state. The natives are all, or nearly all, armed. I doubt if one European in twenty has a gun or knows the use of it.” Donald Maclean, in a report to the Governor, noted that the natives were “daily becoming more jealous of our growing preponderance, and more fearful of a latent intention—which they imagine to exist—of taking possession of their country and subjugating themselves, as soon as the decrease in their own numbers and the increase in ours should place us in a position to do so.” The growth of the movement not to sell land was referred to in a series of communications

Ibid., 139.

and objection was taken to the activities of the Rev. T. S. Grace, a member of the Church Missionary Society, in encouraging the natives in this direction. Lord Chichester, president of the Society, was asked by Labouchere to remove Grace “to some other mission where his zeal may be exercised with less dangerous results.”

In his work, The Maori King Movement in New Zealand, published at Auckland in 1860, the Rev Thomas Buddle, head of the Wesleyan missions in the colony, wrote: “The present King movement has been initiated in the Waikato district. William Thompson Tarapipipi, principal chief of the Ngatihaua, is universally regarded as its author and chief promoter…. In December 1856 the first public meeting held to deliberate on the subject and prepare some plan was held at Taupo, at which several influential chiefs from various districts were present. Many proposals were made to adopt extreme measures.… It was eventually decided that Tongariro (the burning mountain of Taupo) should be the centre of a district in which no land was to be sold to the Government, … that no prayers should be offered for the Queen, no roads be made within this district, and that a king should be elected to rule over the New Zealanders, as the Queen and Governor do over the settlers.” It was unfortunate that at this juncture (in January 1857) William Thompson should have been ignored by Government officers in a visit he made to Auckland and refused a loan for a mill. To crown everything he was insulted by the master of the cutter in which he returned.

John Ball, in a minute of February 23, 1857, expressed the opinion that it was desirable that the transfer of responsibility for native affairs to the Governor's executive council should not be very long retarded. “But as it will be an experiment not free from risk,” he added, “I am strongly of opinion that it should not be tried mainly at the cost of this country. I shall have far more hope that the Assembly will deal justly and prudently by the natives when they know that they will be in their own persons and purses responsible for their proceedings. Even then there remains the risk that so many of the members are really without a stake in the game, being removed from the native districts…. I would then say that Her Majesty's Government have no desire to retain permanently for the Governor acting on behalf of the Crown the exclusive control of these matters, but that until the representative institutions which have been introduced into New Zealand have been more firmly established by practice and the results of practical working, it seems to them inadvisable to submit to the vicis-situdes of political change matters affecting the security of the entire colony and the continuance of peaceful relations between the races by which it is inhabited. Such a change Her Majesty's Government are not disposed to consent to while the cost of maintaining a considerable military force for the protection of the colonists is borne by the Imperial Treasury. But whenever the General Assembly is prepared to undertake a considerable share of the cost of the military force maintained in the colony—an arrangement which is no more than the natural and reasonable result of obtaining completely representative institutions—Her Majesty's Government will readily take into consideration the measures necessary for transferring to the control of the Assembly all matters connected with the aboriginal inhabitants and all proceedings in respect to the lands to which the native title may not have been extinguished.… I see no strong objection to proposing to Parliament in the present session a short measure for enabling Her Majesty to assent to any act of the General Assembly for repeating or altering the provisions of the Constitution Act…. Of course it would be necessary to provide that all measures for this purpose should be reserved by the Governor for Her Majesty's pleasure…. Referring to the general question of the security of the colony which, though not, I trust, in actual danger, is plainly not free from cause for anxiety, I venture to suggest to you that the expediency of affording a reasonable degree of naval protection (at the present time, at least), is a matter transcending mere departmental considerations, and deserving to be seriously weighed by all the members of Her Majesty's Government.”

C.O. 209, 139.

Governor Gore Browne, in a despatch of January 6, 1857, wrote: “If… the qualification (for voting) is strictly confined to persons possessing individual titles, the natives must be for many years to come excluded from any share in the representative institutions of the colony. Of this they are aware, and great pains are taken to remind them that the revenue, to which they contribute so largely is disposed of by persons whose interests (it is asserted) are strongly opposed to theirs, and of whose desire to obtain land they are extremely jealous.”

C.O. 209, 141.

On May 9 Gore Browne reported that he had had an interview with the chief Te Heu Heu, who stated that the English were by degrees obtaining the best of the Maoris' lands, and that they would soon “be eaten up and cease to be.” That for these reasons they were determined to have a King of their own, that they would not interfere with the English in the settlements, but that the laws they intended to make should be binding on all who chose to reside among the natives. Gore Browne said: “I was not elected by the English but appointed by Her Majesty, and though I should always be glad to consult with Te Whero Whero, whom he had indicated as the future King, I could not consent to any such election, and that I was sure that he (Te Whero Whero) would not do so.” Later he had two long interviews with Te Whero Whero and the latter declared his intention of being guided entirely by the Governor's advice.

Colonial Office comment on the Governor's actions was favourable. “The conduct of the Governor seems to have been very judicious,” wrote Gairdner, one of the permanent officials. Merivale and Labouchere concurred. In a minute on the Governor's report on his journey, his advisers noted: “The peculiar feature of the time is the tendency to self-organisation now being exhibited by a large section of the Maori people.”

Ibid. Cf. F. M. Keesing, The Changing Maori, p. 47: “One common basis of unity fired them, … namely, to seek to restore the declining mana of their people.”

The growing pressure of European settlement was having the not unnatural effect of diminishing inter-tribal animosities and encouraging the concept of a Maori King.

On May 11 Gore Browne forwarded two minutes by his responsible advisers on the question of the colony paying the cost of barrack accommodation for troops. Merivale's comment was: “They will never pay a farthing unless they are made. Whether it is worth while quarrelling with them about the £6,000 or £10,000 is another matter…. To try the provincial councils would lead to no result at all.” Gairdner wrote: “The troops are now required chiefly for Auckland and Taranaki, and there would be in all probability a strong objection on the part of the representatives of the other provinces to vote any portion of the charge necessary for the defence of the Northern districts from the general revenues of the colony. Indeed, in a letter which I have received from Colonel Browne by the late mail, and which I gave to you, he expresses his conviction not only that the jealousy of the Southern provinces would prevent them voting such assistance, but that those colonists would not regret to see any difficulty with the natives which would have the effect of driving the inhabitants from the Northern to the Southern settlements…. The object of the local government apparently, and probably, is to exhaust time in corresponding across the world and to stave off the question while the Governor is still drawing upon the Imperial Chest for the payment of the charge.” Gairdner quoted Colonel McCleverty's opinion that the difficulties with the natives were encouraged by the settlers at New Plymouth “for the purpose of obtaining the military to eat up their produce. In fact it was called ‘a Beef and Mutton War.’”

C.O. 209, 141.

A charge such as this probably had some basis of justification, but it is difficult to believe that there were many settlers who thought that commissariat expenditure would outweigh the evils of even the shortest Maori war.

Henry Sewell was interviewed by Lord Stanley on the subject of the colony paying for barrack accommodation for Imperial troops. He advanced the New Zealand Company debt, the large expense of postal contracts, the difficulty of direct taxation, and the difference of interest in the question between the two islands as reasons for the refusal to pay. Merivale's minute on this was that New Zealand, with scarcely 50,000 white inhabitants, spent £213,000 on government alone in 1856, “a very large proportion of which expenditure is utterly useless to the public, wasted in political jobbing, for such, I suppose, is the real meaning of the numerous officers of half-a-dozen petty settlements.” Merivale inclined to think that separation of the islands in government might be a good thing, the North being more “in dependence on the Crown than at present,” and the South, with Wellington, “left to the undisturbed enjoyment of self-government.” Lord Stanley decided that the charge in question should be thrown on the colony, and in the event of their declining to bear it that the troops should be withdrawn.

March 10, 1858 (C.O. 209, 141).

The issue was now stated. But more than ten years were to elapse before it was finally decided.

The result of the meeting of the Waikato tribes for the purpose of instituting Te Whero Whero in his office as Maori King was described in the Southern Cross on June 5, 1857: “The King's flag, for the present, has been struck to that of the Queen. But the idea is far from being abandoned. The movement still goes on; while the propriety, the thoughtfulness, and the caution with which it is conducted render it all the more serious by nature…. It is becoming more and more evident even to the most incredulous, that a crisis in native affairs is coming on. We do not believe, indeed, that a King will be actually made; but it is clear that a great change is approaching, either for good or for evil, in the relations between the races. The natives thoroughly understand what they want, and it is not a play-thing that they seek. They are resolved on making an effort to preserve their existence, not only as a race, but, as they understand it, a nation, before they shall be over numbered, and therefore out-mastered by the whites.”

C.O. 209, 141.

In a letter written by Waikato chiefs to the Government on June 25, 1857, they said: “Perhaps you think that the Maori King will be separated from the Queen. Not so…. Let us work together with respect to the regulations concerning our King, that they may be properly carried out, lest there be strife between them, lest one should clash with the other…. It is now ten years since the Maori chiefs first talked about a King for themselves. It was commenced by Te Heu Heu, who proposed it to Potatau; afterwards by Hoani; and after that by Wiremu Tamihana (William Thompson) to Waharoa. If you disapprove of this (act) of God's take back the Gospel also.”

The Governor replied: “Are there two suns in the heavens? Can there be two Sovereigns in New Zealand?… This thought about setting up a Maori King is not wise…. What could a Maori King do for you, which the Queen, the Governor, and the Laws will not do? You say your King is to suppress strife and disorder among you. Friends, the Queen's laws will do this if you are really earnest in wishing it, and willing to be directed.”

C.O. 209, 142.

On August 7, the Governor reported that he had with-drawn the detachment of troops stationed at the Bay of Islands as his advisers had refused to provide proper accommodation for them. His action was warmly approved by the Colonial Office. “The Governor has acted with courage and wisdom,” was Labouchere's minute.

C.O. 209, 142.

In a despatch of August 25, expressing the view that 1,320 troops were not enough for the safety of the colony without naval protection, Gore Browne said: “For some years to come this colony will be in the position of a wooden house stored with combustibles. It is to be hoped that no explosion will take place, but the greatest care may not be able to prevent it.”

C.O. 209, 142.

On September 23 Gore Browne reported that he had received a letter from Te Whero Whero saying that he had accepted the Maori kingship: “This chief was pensioned and brought to live near Auckland as a sort of protector by Sir George Grey, and, as I stated in my despatch of May 9, he very recently assured me of his determination to refuse the offer and check the movement. He acknowledges the letter, but still professes attachment to the Queen.” “Direct opposition,” the Governor added, “would rather accelerate than impede the movement, and unless some unforeseen cause of irritation should arise, I trust it will wear itself out and cease for want of provocation. If, however, contrary to my expectation, this agitation is persisted in, it will resolve itself into a conflict of races and become the greatest political difficulty we have had to contend with since the establishment of the British Government in these islands.” Merivale's comment was: “This seems serious.”

Ibid. In spite of his acceptance of the kingship the pension of Te Whero Whero (Potatau) was apparently continued until March 31, 1860. See below, p. 93.

On October 17 Gore Browne reported that an old feud between two tribes under Te Hapuku and Te Moananui in the neighbourhood of Hawke's Bay had broken out into open hostilities and several lives had been lost on both sides.

C.O. 209, 142.

On November 9, in a despatch on the King movement, he wrote: “I learn that the emissaries sent to the South have met with but a lukewarm reception, and that in the North the natives have declined to join the movement.” Potatau's adviser had told him that Englishmen were at the bottom of the agitation for the election of a native King. “It is my intention,” he added, “to submit to the Assembly an act to empower the Governor to declare certain districts within which laws may be made by the Governor and his Executive Council as far as possible in accordance with the feelings and wishes of the natives.” The Colonial Office comment, in the margin, was: “At last.” The Office minute included the following “Hardly a despatch arrives without proof of the evils caused by the conflicting powers of Superintendents and the Governor.”

C.O. 209, 142.

The Governor, in a despatch of January 23, 1858, reported that Katatore had been ambushed and murdered by Ihaia's brother on one of the main roads of the Bell district, New Plymouth. The motive ascribed was revenge for the murder of Rawiri

See above, p. 30. Cf. Saunders, I, 342. Though the chief Ihaia admitted that the murder was contrived and directed by him, no attempt was made to bring him to trial.

and jealousy that Katatore was able to offer land for sale, while Ihaia's offer of land had been rejected. Trouble was also reported in Hawke's Bay, where the chief Moananui was an ally of “Te Heu Heu, the chief organizer of the movement for establishing a Maori King in the Waikato and a league to prevent the sale of land to the Government.” The Governor added: “A building called the King's House and a flagstaff have been erected near the confluence of the Waipa and Waikato Rivers, but I have not thought it advisable to notice what I have no power to prevent…. I do trust that not less than two complete regiments and a steamer of war will be stationed permanently at New Zealand.”

C.O. 209, 145.

Lord Stanley, in a Colonial Office minute on this despatch, wrote: “The state of the Empire and especially that of India renders it impossible to send more troops, or to alter our de- cision in regard to the 58th. But the 65th will be kept up to its full strength.”

C.O. 209, 145.

In a despatch communicating this decision, on April 14, 1858, he said: “Her Majesty's Government must, and do, rely on the exertion of the colonists themselves, as well as on the spirit of cordiality and forbearance towards the native race, which it is hoped may continue to actuate them, for preventing or if necessary for aiding in keeping down, any inclination to disturbance which may exist among the latter.”

C.O. 209, 145.

On February 15 Governor Gore Browne reported that he had issued a proclamation declaring “that all persons whosoever who shall unlawfully assemble with arms within the boundaries of the district described in the schedule to this proclamation, will without further notice be treated as persons in arms against the Queen's authority and active measures will be forth-with taken against them by Her Majesty's civil authorities and military forces.” He added that the officer commanding the troops in New Plymouth had been directed, if satisfied that his interference was necessary, to call in all the inhabitants and inform them that it was not in his power to protect them unless they did as he directed: “He is also furnished with an authority to draw out the Militia for active service, and to call for military assistance from Wellington; but he is enjoined not to commence hostilities unless they are forced on by the natives…. Should war be forced upon us, of which however I have no sort of expectation at present, Her Majesty's Government and the people of the mother-country will know that they are assisting men who are willing to do all that is possible for themselves, and that war has not been brought on for the sake of commissariat expenditure by those who are willing to lay the burden on others, but shrink from bearing it themselves.”

C.O. 209, 145.

In a confidential despatch of February 18, 1858, Gore Browne said: “This [King] movement, if not originated, is fostered by a man named Davis,

C. O. Davis. F. E. Maning thought his Maori paper, Te Karere Maori, very mischievous in intention.

lately first interpreter in the Native Office, whose correspondence with the Maoris in all parts of New Zealand is very extensive…. He has also pub- lished two numbers of a newspaper in Maori, in one of which recent events in India are related in a manner calculated to have the worst effect upon the natives…. You will perceive that the tribes occupying the country between Auckland and Wellington are those least prepared to amalgamate with the Europeans and adopt their customs. The elder chiefs whose memories are stored with deeds of savage might which formed the glory of their youth, view with jealousy and dislike the introduction of laws which will not only curtail their power, but make them of less importance than men of humble origin but better education. Many of the young men, too, have relapsed from the early fervour with which they embraced Christianity and have become indifferent or lukewarm on the subject. They have none of the continuous perseverance of the Anglo-Saxon race, and will only labour for short periods and at their pleasure.”

C.O. 209, 145.

This despatch was commended by the Colonial Office as “very interesting and well-written.”

In a despatch of February 25 Gore Browne wrote of the Maoris: “I need say no more than that in a military point of view they have every advantage, as they possess and are capable of threading fastnesses we cannot enter, and that they occupy the interior, while we are scattered along the coasts of the island. It may be asked—is a colony which possesses self-government in the most complete form to depend always on the mother-country for military support, and yet contribute nothing towards its expense? In answer I would submit that when the revenue arrives at a certain sum—say two hundred thousand pounds per annum, Her Majesty's Government may fairly require that the colony should contribute towards the cost of its protection, such contribution to increase with the increasing wealth of the colony.”

Here there is a Colonial Office note in the margin: “Yes, but the provincial revenues?”

“In a few years also,” the Governor's despatch went on, “it is to be hoped the natives will be so far advanced as no longer to require special exemption from the control of the Assembly and may in some way or other be represented in it. Till that time arrives I venture, at the risk of appearing im- portunate, to urge that a force sufficient to prevent any out-break on the part of the natives may be maintained in the colony, for the absence of such force may at any time subject New Zealand to disasters which would entail a vast expenditure of both blood and treasure.”

C.O. 209, 145.

Merivale wrote the following minute for Lord Carnarvon: “Governor Browne deserves credit for the frank and clear statement of his views. For my own part, I am very much inclined to believe that the maintenance of 2,000 men in New Zealand, disposed as he suggests, would be an excellent ‘investment’ for this country—that the stimulus which the sense of security would give to occupation and protection would soon amply repay it in a pecuniary point of view. But this is not the policy in vogue with Parliament or the country, and the next best thing is to adhere definitively to the scheme of reduction and force the colonists to defend themselves?” “Probably,” Lord Carnarvon replied, “but the aspect of affairs at New Plymouth is threatening and affords reasonable grounds for anxiety.” The despatch was referred to the War Office.

Ibid. It may be noted that during the financial year 1857–8 there were in the colonies 47,000 troops. The British Exchequer disbursed for Colonial military defence £3,590,000, while the colonies' own total expenditure for the purpose was £378,000. Cf. Cambridge History of the British Empire—South Africa, p. 391: “The heavy expense of the Kaffir War of 1850–3, the menace of the native war in the Sovereignty, and the collapse of British administration there, caused a violent reaction in England in favour of that section of public opinion led by Cobden and Molesworth which demanded that the colonists should undertake and pay for the conduct of their own internal affairs.”

Merivale, in a minute of August 24, 1858, on a speech by C. W. Richmond, Colonial Treasurer, on native affairs, wrote: “An able speech, but not one which would shake my own opinion of Sir George Grey's merit as an administrator. It may be that he trumpeted his own success too much. It may be that he talked too pompously of systems, when (as Mr. Richmond asserts) he introduced none. The truth is, he had the Maoris ‘well in hand.’ He could govern them and lead them towards civilization, and he did so. Very possibly this was mainly owing to his personal qualities; his knowledge of their character, his nobleness of spirit and intention, even the romance and enthusiasm which lay in his character and responded to theirs. All this vanished when he left; inferior, though well-meaning, men succeeded: and his work has in great measure crumbled away—showing, perhaps, that he unconsciously attributed too much to his regulations, too little to his personal qualities. But a merely conceited man would have done just the reverse.” Lord Carnarvon wrote: “I entirely agree.” Sir E. Bulwer Lytton's comment was: “The speech has many striking thoughts, and affords but little substantial hope.”

C.O. 209, 145.

On May 25, 1858, the Southern Cross had written of Grey: “No one ever understood the art of displaying his plumes, borrowed or proper, to greater advantage, than did the ‘model governor.’ But day by day the fact is becoming more apparent that he bequeathed his difficulties to his successor.”

C.O. 209, 145.

On November 1 T. F. Elliot, Assistant Under-Secretary, wrote on a despatch from Gore Browne enclosing a memorial from New Plymouth concerning power to deal directly with the natives for land: “The New Zealand settlers have from the first origin of the colony been as willing to rush into rash disputes with the natives as unwilling afterwards to fight them out manfully. Insolent and aggressive in spirit, they have failed in the hour of action, and they are the last members of the Empire who can with any fair countenance seek to involve the national forces in difficult native wars in which their own part has so little redounded to their honour.”

C.O. 209, 145.

In the House of Representatives on June 25, 1858, F. A. Weld said he felt sure that if the Home Government were to say, in a moment of emergency, we need all our troops, that in such cases there was not an hon. member in that House, nor a man in the colony, but would willingly submit to any inconvenience or even risk that might accrue. But such was not now the case. The Home Government had not appealed to our national sympathies. They had simply said, “Keep our men, if you like to pay for them.” They had placed the whole question on the narrowest and most short-sighted commercial grounds. Gore Browne, in a despatch of July 15, wrote: “The colonists say that if they had been informed that respon- sible government entailed payment for any part of the military and naval protection they would not have accepted it until they were able to comply with the terms.”

C.O. 209, 146.

After reading all the papers, Sir E. Bulwer Lytton, in a minute of October 23, expressed himself as certain that a force of at least 2,000 men was not one too many in New Zealand if great disasters were to be averted.

Ibid., 145. Cf. Life of Lord Norton, by W. S. Childe-Pemberton, p. 172. John Robert Godley wrote of Lytton on August 21, 1858: “Sir E. Lytton talked incessantly and charmingly, quite realizing my idea of an illogical, eloquent man of genius…. He is literally made about his responsibilities and fancies he is going to reform the whole Colonial empire. He gets up in the middle of the night to write despatches, and is furious if they don't actually go in twelve hours.” Lytton tendered his resignation in December 1858, for health reasons. He was estranged from his wife and “the brightest moment of his public career coincided with the darkest hour of his private affliction.” (See Life of Edward Bulwer, by the Earl of Lytton, 1913, chapters 4 and 6.) On remonstrance from Lord Derby and Disraeli, Lytton withdrew his resignation, but secured release with the defeat of the Government in the general election and a vote of no-confidence at the end of May 1859. The new Secretary of State was the Duke of Newcastle.

On August 19 Gore Browne forwarded “far from satisfactory” accounts of the progress of the King movement. He trusted that “time and absolute indifference and neglect on the part of the Government will teach the natives the folly of proceedings undertaken only at the promptings of vanity and instigated by disaffected advisers.” “In the entire absence of naval protection and the expected reduction of the military force,” he added, “no other course is open to me, even should my anticipations prove incorrect.”

C.O. 209, 146.

The Governor also forwarded a translation of a letter from native chiefs of Rangiao-whia to Wiremu Kingi of New Plymouth: “Friend, I have to tell you that the Council has agreed to visit you, and that a King has arisen (or has been appointed) for New Zealand—laws have been agreed upon and the authority of the land has been vested in the King throughout his territory…. At the meeting at Rangiaowhia, 1,529 persons were seen to bend their knees to King Potatau, and at the meeting at Ngaruawahia 860 men (gave in their submission).”

Ibid., 147.

The Governor, in a despatch of October 14, on native affairs, wrote: “The difficulties and intricacies which have arisen from the juxtaposition and relative interests of the two races have led to the admission of those who possess the confidence of the Assembly to a participation in the management of native affairs as a matter of expediency, the extent of which is briefly as follows: I admit the right of the Assembly to legislate in the manner it thinks proper, reserving to myself the right to veto as provided by the Constitution Act. I retain to myself the executive and administrative part of native affairs, admitting my responsible advisers to full information, and granting them the right to advise me, but reserving to myself the right to act upon my own judgment when I differ from them. This arrangement was announced to the assembly when responsible government was granted, has been approved by Her Majesty's Government and accepted by the Assembly. I see no reason to think that any alteration of this arrangement would be either advisable or advantageous.” The Governor transmitted a memorandum on native affairs by the responsible ministers in which they said: “Ministers desire to see the Department of Native Affairs conducted by one of the Ministry as its acknowledged head, but subject to the supervision and control of the Governor.”

C.O. 209, 147.

The “Native Territorial Rights Bill,” proposed by ministers, was opposed by the Governor and the Native Department. The Governor declined to recommend it for the Queen's assent. It contained a provision asserting a right to levy a tax of ten shillings an acre on land alienated by natives to Europeans. Gairdner, in a Colonial Office minute on the subject, took the view that “there is a marked exhibition of ability and subtlety on the one side, and of clear manly common sense on the other,” in the controversy between ministers and the Governor, traversed in voluminous minutes, letters, reports, and despatches. The Bill was disallowed.

C.O. 209, 147.

Gairdner wrote on an Admiralty letter of December 7, 1858: “We have at last wrung from the Admiralty a promise that a war steamer shall be sent to New Zealand, though it will probably not be long detained on that unpleasant station.” Lord Carnarvon: “This is certainly a point gained—thanks to unwearied writing.” Sir E. Bulwer Lytton's comment was: “I am heartily glad of this concession, which I urged much on my colleagues.”

C.O. 209, 150.

In a despatch of January 25, 1859, Gore Browne reported that attempts had been made by Maoris at Kawhia “to levy contributions from Europeans in the name of the Maori King” and that serious disturbances had broken out among the Maoris at Wanganui. “I regret also to state,” he added, “that I am about to withdraw the European magistrate from the Bay of Islands on the East Coast owing to the disaffection evinced by the natives in that district.” The Governor trusted that time and “the supreme indifference manifested towards the restless agitators who foment the troubles, will produce the desired effect.” The Colonial Office minute, written by Gairdner, read: “This is not a satisfactory report, but the firm and temperate policy of Governor Browne will probably serve to check any serious difficulties. In the meantime the military force has been increased and the Admiralty have reported the assignment of an armed steam vessel for that station.”

C.O. 209, 150.

The Colonial Office minute on the Governor's Financial Statement forwarded by the Governor on January 27, 1859, was: “This certainly shows a favourable result. The New Zealand colonists are always proud of their progress except when they wish to get rid of a liability and then they are apt to plead poverty.”

C.O. 209, 150.

In a despatch of February 12 the Governor stated that the Government was willing to support an entire company of the Royal Engineers in New Zealand at its own expense.

C.O. 209, 150.

The offer was referred to the War Office, who replied: “The offer to pay the men while employed in civil labour, however specious, means in fact nothing more than that the colony would be glad to obtain trained surveyors at much less than the market price, the cost of their passage besides being paid by this country.” In a Colonial Office minute Gairdner wrote: “It would perhaps be better not to send this letter, as it would probably irritate the colonists. The same meaning might be conveyed in more courteous terms.”

Merivale was sympathetic towards the colony: “Surveying operations are all in all for a young colony,” he said. “The need for them ought not to be treated as an ordinary case of supply and demand. If, therefore, the application does mean what the War Office suggest, namely that the colony wants to get trained surveyors below market price, then the colony wants the very best thing for its own development, and the best thing for the trade of the mother-country, which is to receive an impulse from that development. If this country could give engineers for nothing, it would be of the greatest possible advantage to both parties.” Chichester Fortescue and the Duke of Newcastle agreed with Merivale, but the Duke decided that in view of the condition of Europe at the time, he could not press the matter on the War Office.

C.O. 209, 152.

In a despatch of March 29, 1859, the Governor stated that he had visited Taranaki, where he found “the settlers dissatisfied with the Government and ill pleased with the Maoris, who, though they possess large tracts of land which they cannot occupy, refuse to sell any portion of it.” The Governor said he had had an interview with the Chief Wiremu Kingi and a large part of his tribe and had taken the opportunity to declare that every man, whether Maori or Pakeha, who committed a crime within the European boundaries, would be arrested and brought before a judge and any sentence pronunced would be carried into effect.

During the meeting Te Teira offered to dispose of land at the mouth of the Waitara river. The Governor promised to buy it if he could prove his title to it. “William King (Wiremu Kingi) then rose, and, while asserting no claim to it, said he would never permit that land to be sold. Then, waving his hand to his people, he and they left the meeting with some want of courtesy to myself…. I have little fear that William King will resort to violence to maintain his assumed right, but I have made every precaution to enforce obedience should he presume to do so.”

Ibid., 150.

Thus was the fatal purchase made which was to be the occasion, if not in fact the final cause, of long and bitter warfare. Possibly no other single act in all the long and controversial history of New Zealand has led to more conflict in deeds or in words.

On June 13 Gore Browne described his visit to Wellington during which, he said, “Epuni informed the native secretary that a European had disturbed the minds of the natives in the Wairarapa district, and had caused great apprehension by telling them that the object of my visit was to mature a plan for the destruction of their race.” Proceeding to Wanganui from Otaki, the Governor found that “an emissary from the party who profess allegiance to the Maori King” had preceded him. He was able “to disabuse the minds of the natives of many impositions to which they had been subjected by designing persons.” “The chiefs subsequently,” he said, “opened a negotiation for the cession of all their lands (subject to proper reserves) from Manawatu to the European boundary on the north-west side of Wellington, being a distance of some forty-five miles. In making this offer they openly declared their distrust of the settlers' government and of the commissioners appointed under the Native Reserves Act, 1856, of whom several are native chiefs, but offered to place themselves in the hands of myself and Mr. Maclean.” Here Gairdner, in the Colonial Office, noted in the margin: “This is remarkable”—as indeed it was.

“From Wellington,” the Governor continued, “I proceeded to the New Province of Hawke's Bay, where also I had interviews with some important chiefs. Here too I found the emissaries of the party professing allegiance to the Maori King had preceded me, but I have reason to think that their influence was in a great degree neutralized by my visit.” Referring to the King movement, the Governor stated that in 1857 Potatau had given him an assurance that he would control the then probable movement, that he had no desire to be King, and that he would always be a faithful subject to Her Majesty. The Governor said he had every reason to believe that the old chief had adhered to his promise.

“At the time alluded to,” he said, “I appointed Mr. Fenton to be magistrate of that district, this officer being enthusiastic in his desire to introduce law amongst the natives. It soon, however, appeared that the tribes of the Waikato were divided into two parties: one chose Potatau as their head and was composed of all the old and important chiefs: the other consisted of young men who called themselves the Queen's party and desired to be assimilated with the English. I will not assert that Mr. Fenton's indiscretion was the cause of this formation of two distinct parties in this district, because it is possible that this movement was beyond his control, but he unwisely allied himself with the latter party. Potatau explained that his position as the great chief of the Waikato had been recognized by all the Governors, but that now young men were encouraged to disregard his authority and that some slights had been put upon him. I soon found that if Potatau had chosen to assume the position his followers desire to thrust upon him, all the chiefs of importance in the South would join him (an opinion in which I am fully confirmed by my recent tour), and I have strong reason to believe that many of the leading men on the other side only wanted to see if he really would establish a national party, when they would also join him. As soon as this came to my knowledge, I declared that I would recognize no parties at all: that Her Majesty was the only Sovereign of New Zealand, but that I fully acknowledged Potatau (as all my predecessors had done) as the great chief of the Waikato. This tranquillized affairs, but I was accused of putting an extinguisher on the Queen's party who were alone thought deserving of consideration.”

The Governor reported that Fenton had been appointed assistant law officer in 1858 and removed from the Waikato.

Cf. J. E. Gorst, The Maori King (1864): “To extinguish Mr. Fenton was no doubt a great triumph for the Native Department but has since turned out rather a costly one for the British Empire.” The report of a select committee of the House of Representatives, dated October 31, 1860, noted “the entire want of harmonious action between the Ministry and the Department of the Native Secretary.” Fenton's report is in C.O. 209, 156. For an impression of Fenton and of the general state of the Waikato before the wars, see More Maoriland Adventures of J.W. Stack, edited by A.H. Reed (1936).

He was now awaiting a report before sending another magistrate to the district. On the general state of the country the Governor reported favourably: “Any one may travel from one end of the island to the other without fear of molestation. The mail is now carried by Maoris, and single individuals wander fearlessly through districts in which the missionaries witnessed horrors almost incredible.” “I believe,” he added, “that the individualization of property and the exchange of a communal title to a Crown grant are most desirable, and will contribute more than any one thing to the amalgamation of the two races.”

C.O. 209, 150.

In a despatch of June 15, 1859, the Governor noted that land in Wanganui was selling at £2,000 per acre.

C.O. 209, 150.

In a despatch of the same date, he referred to the deadlock at Wellington between the Superintendent, Dr. Isaac Featherston, and his Council. Chichester Fortescue,

He became Baron Carlingford in 1874.

the new Under-Secretary of State, wrote: “It is difficult to read with patience this account of the working of the machinery of government at Wellington—two rival powers both created by all but universal suffrage, a miniature assembly of (I suppose) some dozen members, a President of the little republic. And the latter required to ‘reign’ through ‘responsible advisers,’ that is, the hostile majority of a Council, which he defies, trusting to his own popular origin and support.” The Duke of Newcastle added this comment: “The colonists will probably soon find out that an elected superintendent is incompatible with the system he is supposed to work.”

C.O. 209, 150.

To fears of Maori aggression was now added dread of foreign attack. France and England were on the verge of war. In a letter to the officer commanding the troops, Colonel Gold, dated August 2, 1859, the Governor wrote: “As the erection of batteries and the supply of arms, etc., from England are matters requiring considerable time, while the colony would in all probability be in greater danger from the French squadron at New Caledonia immediately after a declaration of war than at a later date, I beg to suggest for your consideration such preparations as could be made at a moment's notice.… I have already ascertained that at least one hundred volunteers trained to artillery can be obtained at a moment's notice, and arrangements are being made for enrolling them and establishing a fixed rate of pay.”

Ibid., 151.

In a despatch of August 14, the Governor referred to the Admiralty's statement that the Niger, steam frigate, would be sent to Sydney for service in New Zealand. “I have, however,” he said, “heard nothing of the Niger, and am reminded that similar assurances of naval protection have been repeated more than once since 1854.”

The Niger arrived at Auckland in October 1859 (C.O. 209, 151).

The Governor reiterated his former appeals for greater military strength. The 65th Regiment then consisted, he said, of 924 rank and file fit for duty, spread over the colony. “I cannot but see with some uneasiness,” he added, “the continuance of the movement in favour of a Maori King. With the means at my disposal nothing can be done, or could ever have been done, to arrest it;

Cf. Buddle, The Maori King Movement: “If,” said an intelligent Waikato chief, “some means had been initiated at an earlier period to give the Chiefs a status in connection with the Government and some part in the administration of our affairs, we should not have had a Maori King.” See also Keesing, op. cit., p. 48.

nor do I apprehend any immediate danger from it. Should any unfortunate circumstance lead to a collision, the union of a large body of natives under a single chief, with their central position in the fastnesses of the country, would give them a great advantage. There are seldom wanting in New Zealand disaffected Europeans who for selfish purposes desire to foment discord between the two races; and by the last mail from Wellington I learn that a deserter and others have been disturbing the minds of the natives in that neighbourhood and exciting them to arm: that they were purchasing arms extensively and being drilled, and that they have used meanaces which had alarmed both the settlers and the civil authorities. I trust these fears will prove exaggerated, and that the evil influence has not spread beyond the district. If, however, blood were once shed by the Europeans, even in self-defence, it would be impossible to foresee the consequences. Some unprotected family would probably be murdered in revenge: the murderers would find countenance and support in their tribe, and the flame of war once kindled, would extend throughout the island. There can be no doubt of the ultimate success of Her Majesty's arms in any contest with the native race, but the consequences to the scattered European population of this colony, in even a successful conflict, could not fail to be ruinous and distressing in the extreme and to prevent such a calamity the protecting force should be of strength sufficient to make it apparent to the natives that successful opposition is impossible.”

C.O. 209, 151.

Fortescue, who, in a minute to the Duke of Newcastle, dismissed as of little importance the possibility of foreign attack, added: “But the other danger is a serious one—the presence of a large body of warlike, excitable and now, it seems, excited natives—living under, or rather by the side of, a Government suited, as the Governor truly says, to a high state of civilization, which allows them to arm themselves to any extent and does not control with a strong hand European agitators making mischief among them. Then there are the facts that the settlers are often scattered and utterly unprotected, that there would be very great difficulty in raising a permanent militia force, and that a war between settlers and natives would be far more revengeful and sanguinary, and would leave far greater evils behind it, than one carried on by regular troops. As to the amount of protection which ought to be supplied, a steam gunboat capable of entering the harbours and an increase of the 65th to 1,200 men would probably suffice. I believe you are opposed to the idea of a man-of-war specially attached to the colony and paid by it. Might not then the opportunity be taken to obtain an increased military contribution to about the same amount as the colony offers to make for the gunboat, giving them the latter free, and drawing the very sound distinction, as it seems to me, between the general naval defence of the Empire, which the Imperial Government will undertake, and the military defence of its particular portions to which each ought to contribute.”

The Duke of Newcastle wrote: “I should be glad to see the regiment in New Zealand raised to 1,200 men, and this ought to be done, but I cannot recommend another battalion…. If a native insurrection were to take place, two things should be borne in mind: (1) that no military force which could be sent there could undertake to protect scattered settlers, and (2) that the soldiers should act in force against the enemy in the field and the small posts must be withdrawn and their places occupied by volunteers. This is the best way to prevent the sanguinary excesses which will occur when civilians only half trained to arms and smarting under the loss of property, and perhaps of relatives, are called upon to take the field unchecked by the presence of regular soldiers.”

C.O. 209, 151.

In a despatch of August 22, 1859, the Governor said that he had received a letter from the Superintendent of Wellington (Dr. Featherston) “in which he states that Sir George Grey's scheme for disarming the natives and rendering another war wellnigh impossible has been successful to a degree which he himself could not reasonably have anticipated, but that the state of affairs has been entirely changed, and the fruits of his policy lost, by the issue of a proclamation by myself on June 25, 1857, superseding Sir George Grey's regulations and substituting others in their place.” The Governor stated that the Superintendent was in error in referring to Sir George Grey's proclamation of 1846 as being the one in force previous to 1857. It should have been the one dated August 20, 1851. “You will perceive,” he added, “that instead of relaxing the restrictions on the sale of arms the proclamation of 1857 made them rather more stringent.” The Governor said that only 43 guns had been legally sold in Wellington since the proclamation. “That they have been sold illegally,” he added, “is no fault of the proclamation or of mine, for the police and all means of prevention are in the hands of the Superintendent. The sale of gunpowder is, however, permitted freely by the proclamation.” He explained that this was due to his finding that all the unfriendly natives were abundantly supplied with arms and ammunition, and “that our friends complained that we would neither protect them nor enable them to protect themselves: that smuggling was carried on almost openly; that prosecutions had signally failed, even when the breach of the law was notorious.”

C.O. 209, 151.

Fortescue wrote on this: “I think the answer should contain an approval of the course taken by the Governor. The tone of the correspondence between Mr. Featherston and the General Government is very characteristic of a New Zealand superintendent and very different from what it would be were he the deputy of the Governor. The latter seems to have no power to enforce police regulations, even on these critical native subjects.” The Duke of Newcastle's instruction was: “Approve the Governor's proceedings.”

C.O. 209, 151.

A Select Committee appointed in 1858 by the New Zealand House of Representa- tives, decided that “it would not be judicious at present to make any attempt to re-impose the former restrictions on the sale of arms and ammunition.” Referring to the sale of ammunition in a despatch of September 21, 1859, Gore Browne said that the Superintendent of Canterbury had used his power to remove all restrictions on the importation of gunpowder to that province, thus rendering the maintenance of restrictions in other parts of the colony useless.

C.O. 209, 151.

In a despatch on the administration of native affairs, Gore Browne wrote: “The natives have seen the land they alienated for farthings resold for pounds; they feel that dominion and power, or as they term it ‘Substance,’ went from them with the territories they alienated, and they look with apprehension to the annihilation of their nationality. The consequence of this feeling has been the formation of a league to prevent the alienation of land, commenced by the tribes in the Waikato before my arrival in the colony and which has since been combined with the so-called King movement.”

“The Europeans,” the Governor went on, “covet these (Maori) lands and are determined to enter in and possess them, recte si possunt, si non quocunque modo. This determination becomes daily more apparent. A member of the Auckland Provincial Council stated in the Council that ‘the fault lay in the system of acquiring land from the natives. We were called upon to leave them the best land and sacrifice ourselves to sympathy for the natives—and all that kind of humbug. The settlers had no room for their stock and would be obliged to set Government at defiance…. People would soon begin to act on the old principle of letting land belong to those who can keep it.’”

The Governor saw clearly the dangers of such a policy: “The immediate consequence of any attempt to acquire Maori lands without previously extinguishing the native title to the satisfaction of all having interest in them would be a universal outbreak in which many innocent Europeans would perish, and colonization would be definitely retarded, but the native race would be eventually extirpated.” He recommended that the Governor should be assisted by a permanent council for native affairs, to be nominated by the Crown. He also proposed, somewhat doubtfully, that the responsible ministry should have the power to recommend two persons to Her Majesty.

C.O. 209, 151.

In a Colonial Office memorandum on this despatch it was stated: “Much discussion from time to time occurred in consequence of the steadfast desire by the responsible ministers to press their interference in native questions, a claim which Colonel Browne has hitherto succeeded in resisting with great firmness and temper on essential points…. All the evidence goes to show the strong and striking difference which is attached by the natives to the influence of the Queen and her representative, and to that of the Ministers, whom they at once recognize as a body having no permanent existence in themselves and dependent on the will of the Legislature, a body which they regard as their natural adversaries.”

C.O. 209, 151.

In a despatch of ebruary 22, 1860, on his visit to the Poverty Bay district, Gore Browne stated that the Maoris were much wanting in courtesy to him. “They objected,” he said, “to the Union Jack hoisted at the magistrate's residence during my stay, said they should not recognize the Queen, and that unless I visited them for the purpose of restoring the lands which the Europeans had cheated them out of, they did not wish to see me.” The Governor noted that since the Rev. T. S. Grace had presided over the church during Archdeacon W. Williams's absence in England the Maoris had openly and distinctly objected to the prayer for the Queen used in the Church of England service. The Duke of Newcastle's comment was: “Mr. Grace may very probably become responsible for bloodshed.”

Ibid., 153.

In New Plymouth the dissatisfaction of the settlers with the lack of land for occupation was growing acute. In a leading article of January 7, 1860, the Taranaki Herald said: “At the close of another year we are again discouraged to find that next to nothing has been effected by the Land Purchase Department for the Province. Our transactions during that period after so much promise and expectation, show a purchase of fourteen thousand acres of back forest land! A small payment, it is true, has been made for some land at the Waitara, but the opposition affect to treat this as a mere present, and the view—and we should add the opposition itself—is strengthened by the reprehensible procrastination of the Government in following up the purchase…. It is a fact patent to everyone that the land Teira sold was exclusively his own, and the Government openly paid him an instalment on account of it…. Limited as Teira's land is said to be, it is his own, and a great principle is involved in the issue. It is besides acknowledged by the natives to be the key to purchases of land in Taranaki on a scale commensurate with the requirements of the province, and we therefore implore the Government not to let another year pass over as resultless to us as 1859 has been.” The year 1860 was to be far from resultless, and the direct appeal of the settlers to the Government was not without influence in precipitating a conflict destined to last for more than ten years.

Chapter 3Outbreak Of War

The Governor, in a despatch of February 27, 1860, wrote: “Contrary to expectations … the chief Wiremu Kingi resisted the survey of the land purchased from the chief Teira at Waitara in the province of Taranaki. No violence was offered, but the unsettled state of the tribes both north and south of that district, and the continuance of the King movement, lead me to think it necessary to take every possible precaution to prevent bloodshed, the consequence of which it would be impossible to foresee…. Private letters are full of surmises and alarms, and talk of a war of races, but I do not put faith in them or anticipate any real opposition when the chief Wiremu Kingi sees that I am determined not to permit him to defy Her Majesty's Government.” Gore Browne stated that he had ordered H.M.S. Niger to proceed to Taranaki and would accompany a detachment of troops there himself. Volunteers would be called to protect Auckland in the absence of troops.

Gairdner, in the Colonial Office, wrote: “The issue of this case will depend on the spirit with which the other native chiefs act. If they are disaffected to any extent there will probably be a prolonged and tedious bush warfare.” The Duke of Newcastle's minute was: “Nothing more can be done at present than to express approval of the steps which the Governor has taken and hope that they may be successful. The affair is, I should fear, critical, but much will depend upon the settlers exercising as much discretion and forbearance as the Governor.

C.O. 209, 153.

It may be noted here that on June 17, 1860, Sir Frederic Rogers, who had been appointed Permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies in May, wrote to his mother, Lady Rogers: “You will have seen by the papers that we have New Zealand troubles ahead. The clergy of the English Church out there think us (the English) in the wrong, I fear. But the official accounts, coming through a Governor well inclined to protect the natives, seem to show that great care has been taken to keep us in the right, and that we are so. He, the Governor, asks for 8,000 troops, which is, of course, absurd. However, you need not say that.”

G. E. Marindin, op. cit., p. 227.

The number of troops actually asked for by the Governor was 3,000, Sir Frederic's figure probably being misread. In the circumstances of the time with war between France and England threatening, either figure could well have appeared absurd, though even the larger was eventually to be greatly exceeded.

Sir Frederic went on to give an account of his relations with his chief: “I see very little of the Duke [of Newcastle]. The Duke works at home, comes down about three, is off to the House of Lords about four, and probably has two or three appointments in the meantime, so that it is very difficult to catch him at all, and you must dispose of what you have to say shortly and clearly when you see him; so far perhaps no bad thing. But then, when a thing has to be passed in a hurry, amended in progress, and so on, the absence of your chief, or his inaccessibility, is worrying. However, he is very ready to accept your conclusions, very clear in his own directions, and extremely careful (which I respect highly) never to turn back on a subordinate any shadow of responsibility for advice that he has once accepted.”

The Secretary of State's New Zealand policy was opposed by the Aborigines Protection Society, founded in 1838 by Sir T. F. Buxton and Dr. T. Hodgkin and supported by many members of Parliament. Here is one passage from its journal in 1860: “Even the Bishop of New Zealand says—‘My advice to the natives in all parts of New Zealand has always been to sell all the land which they are not able to occupy or cultivate. I had two reasons for this: first to avoid continual jealousies between the races; and secondly to bring the native population within narrower limits in order that religion, law, education, and civilization might be brought to bear more effectually upon them.’ We cannot doubt the sincerity and purity of in- tention of the Bishop in giving this advice, but we may question its soundness and expediency upon his own shewing.”

Here is the Society's view of the Duke's attempt to solve the New Zealand problem by legislation: “The difficulties of the native land question … inevitably claimed the attention of the British Government, and a Bill was brought before Parliament from the Colonial Office with the express object of removing them. The Bill was evidently drawn with the intention to do good. Its failure to give satisfaction to the colonists' party sufficiently indicated that it afforded the natives some shelter from the colonists, but, when carefully examined, it no less clearly manifested that the rights of the natives were not placed on any solid foundation. The committee of the Aborigines Protection Society therefore regarded it as a duty incumbent upon it to explain to the Colonial Office the grounds on which it deprecated the passing of the Bill.

“What can be said in defence of a system by which, under pretence of protecting the natives, the Government practically levy a duty upon the sale of their lands amounting to thirty-nine-fortieths of their value? This is no exaggeration of the case, and the interdiction of the natives to sell, except to the Government, has become in practice—whatever it may have been in theory—a plan to keep down the prices at which the natives might sell to the Government.

“The constitution of the proposed Native Council is objectionable, because its members are to be exclusively the nominees of the Crown and removable at will…. Our most serious objection to the Bill is that, while it gives to the Council an almost unlimited power of interference with the natives, and especially with their lands, the natives themselves are entirely unrepresented in it.”

The Society suggested that one or more commissioners should be despatched from England, “armed, not only with the power necessary to institute an inquiry which will lay bare all the facts of the case, but also with the authority to adopt such remedial measures as circumstances may render desirable.” Commenting on the withdrawal of the Bill, the Society said this was probably due to the “more public opposition” to it.

Of the attitude of the missionaries in New Zealand the Society formed a very different opinion from that expressed by Sir F. Rogers in the letter we have quoted. “The position which the leading missionaries have taken up in connection with the present war in New Zealand,” stated the Society in its journal, “reflects the greatest credit upon their characters as Christian men.… The clergy, through their recognized leaders, have faithfully and earnestly exposed the injustice and oppression of which the authorities have been guilty. In the first instance they remonstrated with the local Government; they drew up protests; they appealed to the public conscience; but, unhappily, all in vain. Colonel Browne and his advisers had too deliberately entered upon the evil path, and old passions and hatreds had been too deeply aroused for the voice of reason and justice to exercise its legitimate authority. The clergy have, therefore, appealed from the lower tribunal to the higher, that is from the Governor to the Minister, from the inhabitants of the colony to the British people.”

Archdeacon Hadfield's “Letter to the Duke of Newcastle” was then reviewed. In it Hadfield wrote: “The question at issue is simply this—Is a native chief to be forcibly ejected from his land, because an individual member of his tribe tells a subordinate land-agent that it is his, and not the chief's, and that agent believes him? The Governor says ‘Yes’; the chiefs say ‘No.’” Also reviewed in the journal was Sir William Martin's pamphlet, The Taranaki Question. “We rejoice,” the reviewer stated, “to find that our opposition to the iniquitous Taranaki War is sustained by so unquestionable an authority.” The investigation of the Waitara purchase was “in every respect insufficient and irregular.” Sir William showed, it was contended, that “the whole weight of the evidence goes conclusively to prove that William King had no connection with either the land league or the King movement.” We must now turn to the dénouement of the Taranaki tragedy.

On February 22, 1860, Lieutenant-Colonel G. F. Murray, having received a letter from Wiremu Kingi from which it appeared that he was still determined to hold the land in dispute, made a momentous decision: “I have consequently deemed the moment to have arrived for putting into operation the instructions of His Excellency the Governor. I have accordingly this day published His Excellency's proclamation placing the district under martial law. I have also as directed instructed the officer commanding the militia to call out for active service the force under his command.” Wiremu Kingi's letter, dated February 21, ran: “You say that we have been guilty of rebellion against the Queen, but we consider that we have not because the Governor has said he will not entertain offers of land which are disputed. The Governor has also said that it is not right for one man to sell the land to Europeans, but that all the people should consent. You are now disregarding the good law of the Governor, and adopting a bad law.” Gore Browne's memorandum on this was: “This is an exceedingly clever letter, as the writer implies but does not assert that he has a claim to the land in question. A long and careful investigation has proved that he has no sort of claim either as proprietor or as a chief.” Before leaving for Taranaki, he had letters sent to Potatau and other chiefs explaining the circumstances. “The land is a small matter,” he wrote, “but the Governor will not allow W.Kingi to interfere with Teira in the disposal of his own property. The Governor has directed that Teira's land shall be surveyed and it will be surveyed.”

The Superintendent of Taranaki wrote to Colonel Gore Browne on February 24: “Your despatch intimating active hostilities against Wiremu Kingi created considerable sensation, but it has now subsided and the settlers generally are working on quietly and preparing for a struggle: goods, furniture, women and children, etc., are gathering so fast in the town that it must soon be full to overflowing.… I have no complaints; all are sensible that this visitation is a necessary evil and will in the end prove advantageous; indeed all hope that the Province may be rid of the ‘evil genius’ that for near twenty years has been its bane as well as a great annoyance to the General Government. Kingi, having successfully ‘bounced’ all previous Governors, expects to continue it to the end.”

C.O. 209, 153.

On March 2 the Governor reported that he had arrived at New Plymouth on the Airedale steamer on March I, and that H.M.S. Niger had arrived in the evening of the same day. The strength of the troops assembled in New Plymouth was: Officers 25, sergeants 34, drummers 9, and rank and file 380. Total 448. He had sent Parris

Parris “had been a small trader among the natives before he became Land Commissioner” (The War in New Zealand, by W. Fox, September 4, 1860).

and Rogan of the Native Department to see Wiremu Kingi “desiring him to come and see me, and giving him a written promise of safety under my own hand.” “These gentlemen,” he wrote, “were sent from place to place, and would not have succeeded in obtaining an interview with him, had it not been for Mr. Whiteley, a Wesleyan missionary, whom I requested to accompany them.” (Whiteley went some distance from the pa alone and succeeded in bringing the chief back.) “After a long desultory talk in which he asserted no proprietary claim to the land, he said he would either come or send his final decision to us to-day. The place to which he has retreated is far back in the woods, and exceedingly difficult of access, but enables him to command many straggling settlements recently occupied by Europeans, most of whom have taken refuge in the town. I have now the honour to forward a translation of his letter in reply, which is nothing but a mockery and a subterfuge to obtain time until he can get assistance. It is now my intention to request Colonel Gold to occupy the land at the mouth of the Waitara with Her Majesty's troops, taking every possible care to prevent a collision unless it is forced upon him. I shall there erect at the expense of the local Government a blockhouse large enough to hold a company of troops, and strong enough to be left in charge of twenty men. My future movements will depend on the conduct of Wiremu Kingi, but I am still in hope of being able to avoid bloodshed. I learn from the missionaries and others that the natives generally have been for some time alarmed by the most mischievous and unfounded reports of our intentions towards them—that they generally admit the justice of the course I have adopted, and would not think of interfering in favour of Wiremu Kingi were they not prompted to do so by their own fears and suspicions. To allay these fears as much as possible, I caused certain documents to be printed and circulated in Maori, of which a translation is enclosed.”

Kingi wrote in his letter: “I am afraid of your force, because you have brought soldiers with you into the town, and therefore I think you are angry with me.… The reason we have come to the Bush is because the settlers have gone to the Town.”

C.O. 209, 153.

On March 12 the Governor reported that Colonel Gold had marched to the Waitara with a force of 341 officers and men on the morning of March 5 and reached the encamping ground about 11 a.m. “I reached that place in H.M.S. Niger about four hours earlier. Some boats from the ship landed at once, and my private secretary, Captain Steward, Lieutenant Blake, R.N., and Mr. Rogan, native agent, seeing no one, advanced to meet the troops. They soon, however discovered a number of natives lying in ambush well concealed. After some talk with the native agent who told them they were between the troops and the sailors, they retired saying they would return. During the night Wiremu Kingi's natives built a pa commanding the road and the following morning stopped an escort coming into camp. On hearing of this I sent a message … saying that if they did not evacuate it in twenty minutes I should instruct the troops to fire on them. This had the desired effect and the pa which was found to have traverses and to be extraordinarily well designed, was burnt by the troops.” The Governor then returned to New Plymouth in the Niger, as he had been informed that Maoris from the south would attack the town at once. The force in the town at this time consisted of 300 militia and 26 regular troops. The Governor sent for the 65th Regiment, stationed at Wellington, directing the O.C. there to entrust the care of the town to the militia.

Fifty men, a six-pounder gun, and a twelve-pounder rocket-tube were also landed from the Niger. Europeans on the Tataraimaika block were recommended to go into the town and two blockhouses were erected to command the main roads and afford protection to stragglers. The native pa in the town was closed, and Maoris admitted by passes given only to those signing a declaration of allegiance to the Queen. “The whole of the population,” the Governor wrote, “is now assembled in the town and the militia and volunteers perform the ordinary military duties by day and by night with a good will which is deserving of the highest commendation.”

C.O. 209, 153.

On June 27, 1860, the Duke of Newcastle, in a despatch in reply, stated that “if the next reports should show that this insurrection is spreading, a regiment will be ordered to New Zealand without delay for the relief of the 65th, and you will be authorized to retain the latter regiment until the insurrection is put down. I have great confidence in the spirit of self-reliance shewn by the colonists on the late occasion as marked by the zeal and alacrity both of the militia and volunteers on this the first occasion after their enrolment on which they have been called out for duty.”

C.O. 209, 153.

On March 13 the Governor described the scene of operations and said: “It is difficult to imagine a country better adapted for the operations of savages whose strength lies in their power of penetrating fastnesses and taking advantage of every inequality to conceal themselves.” We may perhaps wonder why the Governor did not think of this before committing himself to a policy that made war inevitable.

Cf. Swainson, New Zealand and the War (1862).

The difficulties of the country did not intimidate Colonel Gold. On March 19 he reported that Wiremu Kingi's party had erected another pa on the Government block of land for hostile purposes and had refused to abandon it on March 17: “The guns and rockets now opened upon the pa at about 750 yards; in half an hour I moved to the right to batter another face at shorter range, when the natives opened fire upon us. I again took the same direction and fired at about 300 yards. Having made considerable havoc on this side, and a swamp deterring our further progress, I took ground to the left, when a rash but daring movement of the volunteer horsemen occurred towards the pa. A heavy and well-sustained fire was then opened on us from two faces, on which occasion Mr. Sarlen of the mounted volunteers and two privates, 65th Regiment, were dangerously wounded. One of the latter, P. W. Corbett, I regret to say, is since dead. The enemy's musketry was silenced by the guns, and I continued the movement as far as the road on which we had advanced in the morning.

“The troops were now halted and formed in close column covered by the guns. A line of entrenchment was then drawn out by Lieut. Mould, R.E., which the soldiers speedily converted into a suitable cover guided by the intelligent non-commissioned officers of the Royal Engineers. During this opportunity we were within good range of a rapid and continuous fire from rifles and musketry, and but for a kind Providence, might have sustained considerable loss. The guns were put in rear of the trenches, and it being nearly dark we laid down on our arms, the fire from the pa continuing nearly all night. On the morning of the 18th, as soon as there was sufficient light, the guns were advanced towards the stock-ades, covered by skirmishers of the 65th Regiment, who, with the Royal Engineers, soon threw up a trench in their front. Fire was then opened, after which another approach to about 50 yards, protected as before, was made, and a breach in the pa soon made, into which the troops entered at 40 minutes after 11 a.m., finding it, to their great disappointment, evacuated.” The Maoris had left their flag and several tons of potatoes.

On March 22 the Governor reported with much regret that a collision had taken place between the troops and the Maoris at Waitara. “It is now clear to me,” he wrote, “that Wiremu Kingi has been encouraged in his opposition by an assurance of formidable support, and that the question of the purchase of an insignificant piece of land is merged in the far greater one of nationality. I have insisted on this comparatively valueless purchase, because, if I had admitted the right of a chief to interfere between me and the lawful proprietors of the soil, I should soon have found further acquisition of territory impossible in any part of New Zealand. Even if the right of mana (viz. a feudal superiority without proprietary interest in the land) exists at all, Wiremu Kingi could neither possess nor exercise it, Potatau, the Chief of the Waikatos, having obtained it by conquest and sold all his claims at New Plymouth to the New Zealand Company.”

The Governor gave this as the real problem at issue: “The Maoris have seen with alarm the numerical increase of the Europeans and recognize with bitterness of heart their own decrease. … They talk and think of themselves as of a race dying out, and the King movement and the land leagues are only practical results of this feeling. … Tribes heretofore at deadly enmity with each other, and who would have gladly joined us to be revenged on their opponents, have buried their tribal quarrels and are ready to unite to arrest the progress of the Europeans and to throw off their dominion.” The Governor expressed the view that had a larger number of troops been kept in the colony the trouble might have been arrested. “The Maoris entertain but little respect for our numbers and believe that they cannot or will not be increased. Shot and shell are thrown away on their defences.” The Governor asked for a force of 3,000 men, a steam gunboat, and a steamer of war.

C.O. 209, 153. The Secretary of State's reply to this urgent despatch of March 22 was not written till July 26, more than four months later (see below, p. 79). The long delays in communication between the two countries greatly hampered administration. They also increase the difficulties of writing a connected narrative of events.

The Sydney correspondent of The Times, in a report of April 16, published on June 13, 1860, wrote: “The native discontent in New Zealand has burst out into open insurrection. Notwithstanding that the Governor collected all the available naval and military resources at his command, and fully paraded them before any conflict began, Wiremu Kingi remained undaunted, and prepared for attack. There is a deliberateness and determination about his conduct which betokens a settled purpose and a long meditated scheme.” After describing the taking of Kingi's pa, the correspondent added: ‘The news that the natives had all escaped capture was heard with dismay by the colonists, who loudly condemned the commanding officer for not bringing his artillery into closer quarters at first, and ‘rushing’ the pa overnight, or, at least, surrounding it so as to prevent escape. … The natives, after recovering from their fright, began to construe the engagement as a victory and the effect of this indecisive action on the native mind was soon seen. Manahi, a Taranaki chief, who had quite recently taken the oath of allegiance, began with his men to plunder the neigh- bourhood.” A party of volunteers which went out to the aid of settlers still in the bush received, the correspondent went on, little support from the regulars under Colonel Murray, and the want of harmony between the two forces “created a very bitter feeling in the small community of New Plymouth.” The volunteers complained that they were cruelly abandoned while bearing the brunt of fighting at Waireka, while the regulars contended that the volunteers were always getting into useless scrapes and expecting the soldiers to get them out again. “The Governor, in order to moderate the vehemence of the prevalent feeling, has personally besought the editors of the local journals not to discuss the subject.”

On March 30 the Governor reported that hostile Maori tribes had approached New Plymouth from the south. On March 27 three settlers and two boys who had gone into the country to look after cattle were savagely murdered, and on the following morning the hostile tribes came close to the stockade at Omata, “danced the war dance and fired some shots at it.” A force of volunteers sent to relieve a blockhouse had been attacked by the Maoris. They were reinforced by sailors from the Niger and after a long fight captured the Maori pa at Waireka. Four sailors were wounded and sixteen Maoris killed. “It is evident that other combinations may be made against us and that a trial of strength between the two races will take place unless I am able to prevent the junction of the powerful tribes living on the Waikato and their allies with those now in arms against us. The provincial authorities are making arrangements to send away as many women and children as possible to Nelson, as they look forward to protracted troubles.” The Governor added that he had obtained a small steamer to enable him to keep up communication with the detachment at Waitara—no longer possible by land.

C.O. 209, 153. For gallantry in the engagement at Waireka, William Odgers, leading seaman, received the Victoria Cross.

The resentment of the settlers at the tactics employed by the Maoris is reflected by the Taranaki Herald, which wrote on April 7: “These tribes have chosen to make war upon us, race against race, to murder, plunder, and destroy, and we owe it to the righteous cause which united us, and our own courage and self-reliance, that the day of trial was disastrous to them. There can be no peace or truce with murderers and assassins. Each native engaged against us at Waireka was at heart a murderer and assassin, without pretext or provocation, and we are at liberty at any time or place to do our best to extirpate them as any other animals of wild and ferocious natures. Their lives and lands are the forfeit of such unprovoked and wicked aggression, and we devoutly trust that no mistaken leniency will allow of these natives escaping at least the latter penalty…. Land is the only property a native has, and if he can play rebel without forfeiting his possessions there is nothing to check or restrain him.”

On April 6 Major-General Pratt, Officer Commanding at Headquarters, Melbourne, informed Governor Gore Browne that he had sent 3 officers and 125 rank and file of the 12th Regiment, and 1 officer and 40 rank and file of the Royal Artillery as a reinforcement to Taranaki.

On April 24, Gore Browne reported that he had sent agents to the Waikato to correct false reports. He had also consulted with Colonel Mould, the commanding Royal Engineer, concerning the defences of Auckland. “Reports of an intended attack upon Auckland by the powerful tribes on the Waikato had caused a panic as general and extreme as it was groundless,” he remarked. “These fears were scarcely dissipated when it was reported to me that friendly natives were insulted in the town, that a canoe with a large number of natives, passing one of the Pensioner villages, narrowly escaped being fired into, and that the natives friendly and unfriendly were viewed with a feeling so bitter that unless something was done to prevent it, collision would be inevitable and the whole native population would be in arms against us.” The Governor stated that he had published a notification on the subject.

C.O. 209, 153.

The next day he reported to the Secretary of State that this notice asking for friendly treatment of individual Maoris in Auckland had drawn the following comment from the Auckland Examiner: “How dare he publish a request to the inhabitants of Auckland, even a request, that they should endeavour to conciliate brown-skinned ruffians whose recent conduct is a standing menace to the peaceable and well disposed traders of this city.” The Governor made this comment: “False reports, calumny, unfounded assertions, the offspring of fear, ignorance, malice, the love of gossip, and, I must add, the injudicious zeal of some who are most friendly to the Maoris, cannot be spread far and wide over the land without engendering such a crop of passions as will make the maintenance of peace exceedingly difficult, if not altogether impossible.”

C.O. 209, 153. Cf. Henry Sewell's MS. Journal, April 5, 1859: “Colonial newspapers are as a class little better than public sewers through which streams of party and personal virulence flow.”

For defence Auckland was divided into five districts, each of which was to furnish a company of militia. In addition, a volunteer force of nearly 400 men, a mounted volunteer troop of about 43 men, 160 men of the 65th Regiment, and 40 marines formed the garrison of the town.

In a despatch of July 26, 1860, the Secretary of State in reply to the Governor's request for 3,000 additional troops, wrote: “England cannot undertake the defence against a nation of war-like savages of a number of scattered farms and villages selected not with any view to such defence but to the profitable pursuit of peaceful industry…. A policy which requires the continual presence of a large force carries, in most cases, its condemnation on its face. I cannot refrain from observing,” the Secretary of State continued, “that neither your despatches nor Mr. Richmond's memorandum

On native affairs. In C.O. 209, 153.

indicate any definite intention on the part of the colonists to contribute to the expense of the troops whom they demand, that the volunteering appears to be confined to the particular localities threatened, and that Mr. Richmond, while calling upon the Home Government to adopt the expenses of war, does not even hint at the propriety of investing it with any larger powers than they at present possess for dealing with the native question out of which these expenses arise…. I allude to these circumstances not, of course, as relieving the Home Government from the duty of supporting the Colony against a pressing danger, but because they must materially affect the disposition of the British Government and people to undertake that indefinite expen- diture of blood and treasure to which Mr. Richmond invites them.”

C.O. 209, 153. The despatch was written by Sir. G. C. Lewis in the absence of the Duke of Newcastle in America with the Prince of Wales. The principle that England could not undertake the defence of scattered farms was approved by The Times on January 23, 1861.

Reviewing the progress of the King movement in a despatch of April 27, Gore Browne stated that two tribes unconnected with the Waikatos had tendered their allegiance and presented their lands to the league of which the King is the nominal head. Great exertions had been made to obtain similar adhesions from other tribes. “The King's Council,” he wrote, “openly assume the right to decide on the justice of my proceedings, and consider whether or not they will aid a chief in rebellion against Her Majesty's Government. A large sum has been subscribed and given to a disaffected European for a printing press to be conducted by him. A flag has been designed and hoisted and an abortive attempt made at Kawhia to levy customs in the King's name…. I cannot but think the occurrences at Taranaki fortunate because, to use the expression adopted at the King meeting, ‘it has led to the discovery of the Pa before the builders have had time to complete it.’ It is well known that Potatau, who is blind with age and very infirm, represents only the most moderate of the King's party, and that his power to control those who advocate war and a return to indiscriminate slaughter in prosecuting it, is very uncertain.” The Governor said he had asked all the chiefs to meet him at Auckland on July 2.

C.O. 209, 153.

T. H. Smith, the native agent who visited the Waikato tribes for the Governor, reported that he had met Potatau at Ngaruawahia. The Taranaki and Ngatiruanui tribes had sent representatives to tender allegiance to the Maori King. In their speeches in reply the Waikato chiefs “broadly hinted that by the proceedings at Taranaki the Governer had committed an aggression on the Maori people and violated the principles which Potatau and the Ngaruawahia party had adopted, and by which universal peace and good will was to prevail.” “I am impressed,” the Governor said, “with the conviction that the Maori King movement, so far from dying out, is assuming proportions which make it an object of the most serious attention on the part of the Government…. I believe that its leaders perfectly understand the task they have set themselves to accomplish—the achievement of a national independence.”

C.O. 209. 153.

Sir William Denison, the Governor of New South Wales, took a somewhat different view of the situation: “You have now as a fact,” he wrote to Gore Browne on May 16, “something analogous to a General Government among the Maoris, a recognition on their part of the necessity of some permanent authority. This is a step in the right direction; do not ignore it; do not, on the ground that some evil may possibly arise out of it, make the natives suspicious of your motives by opposing it, but avail yourself of the opportunity to introduce some more of the elements of good government among them.” A copy of this letter was sent by Denison to the Duke of Newcastle.

Sir W. Denison, Varieties of Vice-Regal Life (1870).

On March 20 the Provincial Council of Hawke's Bay had passed a resolution recording its full and entire sympathy with the province of Taranaki “at present under martial law owing to the meddling of disaffected aborigines,” and thanking the Governor for his able and efficient aid. This resolution brought a strong protest from the Bishop of New Zealand, G. A. Selwyn, “because martial law was proclaimed at Taranaki before a single native was known to have taken up arms against the Government and when no offence had been given by the natives, beyond an unarmed obstruction of the work of the surveyors.” The Bishop urged the setting up of a regular tribunal for settling land questions, with the usual safeguards against partiality or error, that is—evidence on oath, arguments of counsel, and a right of appeal.

C.O. 209, 154.

In a memorandum on his protest, the Governor's responsible ministers wrote: “It should be remembered that the Philanthropist, notwithstanding the high ground he takes, which given him perhaps an undue advantage in public opinion over those who are discharging the ordinary duties of life, is often found to be liable, even beyond other men, to the disturbing influences of prejudice and passion.” “Looking to the whole tenor of the Bishop's letter, and to the attitude of open opposition to the Governor which His Lordship has unfortunately assumed, in reference to the Waitara land question,” ministers defined that attitude as being: (1) That Wiremu Kingi's right was not fully and fairly inquired into;(2) That military force was prematurely employed to take possession of the land at Waitara;(3) That the interest of the natives of the Taranaki district had been sacrificed in the transaction in the interest of the European settlers.

Ministers asserted that Wiremu Kingi had never put forward “any proprietary or other claim of a nature that could be recognized by the British Government to the land on the south bank of the Waitara.” “It is well known,” they stated, “that when Kingi in 1848 deserted his pa and cultivation at Waikanae and was moving northward to Taranaki Sir George Grey forbade him to settle on the south bank of the Waitara. But Kingi, having first obtained the permission of Raru Teira's father to build his pa on the south bank, disregarded the Governor's prohibition and now pretends to claim Waitara in virtue of a species of conquest achieved by his defiant return.” Ministers added that the Bishop's anxiety for an effective land tribunal could not exceed their own or that of the Governor. The difficulty of establishing such a tribunallay, they contended, with the natives themselves.

Addresses of congratulation on his policy were tendered to the Governor by the Provincial Councils of Canterbury, Wellington, and Taranaki and by the residents of Wanganui, Nelson, and Auckland. In the Journal of Henry Sewell, for April 23, 1860, we read: “After the most careful and dispassionate consideration of the case, I came to the conclusion that what has been done has been right (and so far as one can predict the future) for the best.” This judgment shows that it would be unsafe to condemn summarily Gore Browne's handling of a difficult situation.

The Times, in a leading article on June 18, said: “Nobody can be surprised at the sensation created by the report of the insurrection in New Zealand. It is not merely that a success- ful and promising settlement is menaced with injury, but a great political question is opened for practical solution exactly at the moment that it had been proposed for theoretical debate. How should the military defence of our colonies be conducted? That is the inquiry which has recently occupied the attention of statesmen, and now, at the very nick of time, comes a colonial war, demanding, no doubt, all our vigilance and activity, but inviting also our acutest observation and most impartial judgment. The experience of this occasion, if judiciously employed, may do more to resolve the problem before us than twenty years of conjecture and discussion.

“Twice during the brief campaign did differences of opinion arise between the commanders of the regulars and the colonial volunteers, and twice was it proved by the event that the volunteers were in the right…. Without any intention, therefore, of impugning the strategy of our regular officers, which was probably in strict accordance with military rules, we think it impossible to deny that the tactics of the colonial volunteers were better adapted to the actual exigencies of the war in hand. We observe also that the alacrity of the colonists in the duty of self-defence was most remarkable, and it had received, indeed, a well-merited tribute at the hands of the Colonial Secretary…. Seeing that the colonists are in point of numbers so fairly matched with the natives, in point of zeal so unexceptionally animated, and in point of military ability so manifestly excellent, we may certainly ask why forces less fitted for the work should be despatched from a distance of 15,000 miles to supersede the settlers in the business of self-defence? We are not arguing absolutely against the maintenance of a military establishment in those parts. The single regiment which is stationed in New Zealand will doubtless do good service, notwithstanding the unlucky beginning just announced, but it does seem to us that, if the war should continue, we might do far better by improving such material as the colony undoubtedly contains than by sending fresh battalions across the globe to take the place of volunteers on the spot. A cargo of Enfield rifles, a battery of Armstrong guns, a few light ships of war off the coast, and some hearty words of encouragement and sympathy from home, would, we think, put the colonists in a position to dispense in a great measure with the aid of regular troops. In a few words, we would rather see the organization of volunteers extended than the establishment of regulars increased…. The colonists understand the natives and the country; they have the natural intelligence of volunteer soldiers, every man of them fights for his own land, and they soon engraft the subtlety of the savage upon the hereditary valour of the Saxon…. If we compare with this policy the best illustration of the opposite system—viz. the state of things at the Cape, we shall find nothing to prefer in the plan of ‘Imperial’ campaigning. After a succession of costly and troublesome wars, we only contrived to secure peace and quietness by maintaining an establishment equal to a regular army. At one time there were ten fine regiments there, being about as many as it is thought we could array against an invader at home. What made the matter worse was, that the very settlers who, with proper encouragement would have done all this duty, acquired by these proceedings a direct interest in getting it done for them. The colonists, instead of becoming volunteers, became contractors, and the supply of the enormous military establishment became a material item in the trade of the colony.

Cf. The Times, February 27, 1849, quoted in Canada and the British Army (C.P. Stacey), p. 47: “It had often been calculated,” it remarked in a leading article on the Kaffir War then in progress, “that Canada was enriched by her outbreak, and that the blood our soldiers shed was amply compensated for by the money they circulated.” Stacey traces the hand of Robert Lowe, “that arch-Little-Englander,” in The Times leading articles of this and subsequent years on colonial affairs.

We trust we shall not see such arrangements reproduced in New Zealand. The colonists may depend upon every necessary succour from home. The mother-country will never see them overmatched or discomfited, but, as they have evidently such perfect ability and such hearty good will to stand on their own defence, it would be but a poor compliment in us to insist on taking the work out of their hands.”

On June 27, 1860, the Governor forwarded a report by Donald Maclean after a great meeting of Maoris at Ngaruawahia on the Waikato and also one from Mr. Turton, a resident magistrate.

C.O. 209, 154.

“These reports show,” he said, “how widely disaffection has spread throughout the Southern tribes. An intense desire to maintain a separate and distinct nationality, mixed with fear and alarm at the increase of Europeans, is doubtless at the root of it; their fears have been worked on by designing or disaffected Europeans sometimes through the Press, but more generally by persons termed Pakeha Maoris.”

Maclean's report stated that the main object of the meeting was “to confirm Potatau Te Wherowhero as King and to erect his flag.” Those present were mainly from the Waikato, Taupo, and Manuka tribes, and there were no “deputies of distinction” from any of the more distant tribes. The total attendance was about 3,000 of whom about 1,200 were males capable of bearing arms. The Upper Waikato party was asked by the speaker of the Lower Waikatos to disclose whether war was intended with the Europeans generally or whether it should be confined to Taranaki. “The Upper Waikato,” Maclean stated, “would not disclose their ultimate intentions. They expressed discontent with the Governor for not consulting Potatau and the Waikato native assessors before he declared war.” Wiremu Nero denounced the proceedings of those responsible for the meeting on the ground that it was uncalled for.

C.O. 209, 154.

Other speakers also declared themselves friendly to the Europeans. The Maoris were of three classes: (1) The large majority were staunch adherents of the King movement: (2) Moderate adherents to it, while its object was the preservation of distinct nationality, the retention of land, the adjustment of grievances and the preservation of peace: (3) Opponents of the movement from a conviction that it was not calculated to promote any permanent good. “The first class,” Maclean said, “will fight to the last in support of the King movement, and will seize any opportunity or pretext for a general war.” Maclean addressed the gathering and emphasized that the Governor had decided to buy the Waitara land only after the closest investigation.

In his report Maclean went on: “A New Zealand chief like Potatau, who could always lead several thousand warriors into the field, and who is, moreover, proud and sensitive, must often have felt the restraints imposed by intercourse with Europeans, and the little attention paid to him in an English town, compared with what he was accustomed to receive from his own people, whose displays of hospitality are so congenial to native ideas. And though fully prepared to admit and to appreciate the many advantages to be derived from intercourse with Europeans, these would scarcely be regarded by him or indeed by any of the higher chiefs who attain Potatau's age as sufficient compensation for the relinquishment of many of their long cherished associations and customs. Nor is it easy to foresee how these feelings can be overcome unless the chiefs are invited to take a more prominent part, subject to Government control, in the management of the various tribes owing allegiance to them.”

Here the following Colonial Office minute appears on the margin: “This is the natural course, and is that suggested by Sir W. Denison.”

Maclean's report continued: “Indeed it may be safely assumed that the King movement is not supported so much with a view to the regaining of national independence, but as a means of exacting such a recognition of their rights as may ensure the preservation of the declining influence and power of their chieftainship. The King movement is more remote in its origin than is generally supposed. The earliest attempt to establish a King was suggested by Samuel Marsden, the founder of the New Zealand mission. The proposal was at first favourably entertained by some of the Ngapuhi chiefs. but failed in consequence of inter-tribal jealousies…. Te Heuheu of Taupo remarked to me fifteen years ago that he was king of the interior, and that the Tongariro mountain was his backbone; that the inferior tribes residing upon the sea-coast might sell their lands, but that he would neither alienate his, nor submit to British rule. Iwikau, his brother, the present Heuheu, informed me that Heke had advised him, years before that time, not to alienate any land, and to watch with jealousy the increase of the Europeans. Subsequently, about ten (?7) years ago, Matene Te Whiwhi attempted to raise a King's standard, and visited Taupo, Rotorua, and other parts of the interior to enlist people in the cause, writing to the Waikato to join.”

Buddle gives 1852 as the date of Te Whiwhi's movement.

Maclean said that the Maoris were “labouring under the in- fatuated superstitious belief that they will be favoured by Providence in all encounters with the Europeans, which are undertaken for the purpose of regaining the sovereignty and independence of land inherited by them from their ancestors.” He added that the King party now had “councillors, magistrates, constables and one native surveyor,” while one of their number was drawing up a code of laws, adapting that issued recently by the Government in Maori.

C.O. 209, 154. Cf. Saunders, History of New Zealand, I, pp. 396–7.

“You will find Mr. Maclean's report very interesting,” wrote Gairdner in a minute to Elliot. “It contains no very new feature, but brings out the present state of the New Zealand natives very clearly. The present King movement, if skilfully managed, might most probably be turned to good account, but it is very doubtful if there is any one in New Zealand at present capable of successfully working out such a policy. Mr. Maclean understands them well, but he is only a subordinate officer.”

C.O. 209, 154.

In this minute we may perhaps see the first signs of the Colonial Office policy which was to lead to the return to New Zealand of Sir George Grey.

On July 6, 1860, Gore Browne reported that Wiremu Kingi had left his stronghold in the bush and built a pa within a mile of the English camp at the Waitara and on June 23 his men fired on a reconnoitring party sent out by Major Nelson. “When Colonel Gold received information of this,” the Governor wrote, “he reinforced the troops at the Waitara and instructed Major Nelson ‘to teach the troublesome natives a lesson they will not easily forget.’ Accordingly, on June 27, Major Nelson, with a force consisting of 348 men of all ranks, made an attack upon the new pa. After a severe and gallant conflict he was obliged to retire with a loss of 30 killed and 34 wounded. Considering the difficulty which Colonel Gold himself experienced (on March 17) in the capture of a pa built in a very inferior manner in a single night, the prudence of an attack upon this pa with so small a force, without support or co-operation from New Plymouth, seems doubtful…. This reverse is likely to have a prejudicial effect upon our relations with the Maori races generally and it is not easy to foretell the consequences.” The Governor added that he had sent reinforcements to Colonel Gold, leaving Auckland protected only by the militia, volunteers, and 120 regular troops. Colonel Gold stated that he had not ordered an attack on the pa, but had left the matter to the discretion of Major Nelson.

The Times of September 13, 1860, printed news from the Sydney Morning Herald of the further outbreak of war and the Herald's comment: “The die is cast. It is plain that we have a foe to deal with who is not to be despised; it is equally so that he must be put down at all cost.” The Taranaki Herald, quoted in the same issue, said: “There were men present cool enough to see that the British honour was not only sustained but exalted by this fierce struggle. The great numerical superiority of the natives only made it necessary for our troops to retire. Officers and men fought with steadiness and energy under a fire which an Indian officer compares to that at Feroze-shah and Sobraon, and which a soldier of the Crimea states to have been hotter than that in the Redan…. The enemy, too, showed unexpected resolution, and have proved the first body of men able to meet the British bayonet…. The large army assembled about Kingi is a fine comment upon the policy of our Government, which stands trifling with mild addresses and Maori Parliaments, while the men whom it seeks to conciliate gather by the thousand, with arms in hand, to give that dignity to the deliberations of their senators which belongs to a sense of their power…. India might have taught what New Zealand is repeating that the most tremulous hand makes the bloodiest work.”

On September 14 The Times published an account of the engagement from a Melbourne correspondent: “The conduct of Colonel Gold is severely censured in the accounts which have reached us…. It is said that he was hissed by his own men of the 65th when ordering a retreat. It is impossible to believe that an old officer of his standing wants mere animal courage, but I fear it will be found that he is deficient both in judgment and energy, and on this as well as on a former occasion, he got bewildered by his difficult position…. The sentiment of the Australian colonies is now almost universally enlisted in the cause of the New Zealand settlers, and there is hardly any sacrifice which would not be made to promote the complete establishment of the Queen's authority.” The Sydney correspondent of The Times, in a despatch printed on the same day, said that all but about 120 soldiers had been sent to NewZealand and that no volunteer force had been raised to act in place of the regulars. Two French regiments were due shortly en route to New Caledonia, and speculations were being made on the result of a sudden breach with France.

The Times of November 11, 1860, recorded that the French transport Sibylla arrived at New Caledonia with 600 soldiers on August 20, without calling at Sydney. The war steamer Coetlagon, which called on September 13, had only 24 soldiers on board.

The Times, in a leading article on September 14, said: “The news from New Zealand which we published yesterday is only too fully confirmed, and will create a very painful impression in this country. We had a right to expect that the reputation of the British arms would not be again risked at so critical a time without ample provision against the possibility of failure.” The Times ascribed the failure of the attack to “the old Anglo-Saxon tendency to undervalue our enemies,” and the tardiness of Colonel Gold, who did not bring up his force of three hundred men.

Discussing the New Zealand question on September 17, The Times said: “Had things been allowed to take their own course, New Zealand might still have been in the possession of the aborigines, or we might have seen the Emperor of the French engaged on a still larger scale in the work he has undertaken in New Caledonia, to which we observe he has just despatched two fresh regiments. The people, however, who wished to colonize New Zealand were not so easily put off. As the Home Government did not choose to colonize the island, they colonized it themselves, and by this means and by the exertion of a considerable amount of Parliamentary interest they succeeded in forcing the recognition of the Colony on the Home Government. Thus it was that we have become involved in the barbarous politics of New Zealand, and are compelled to support by military force an occupation which we so long opposed…. Their contests with our troops of the line, and perhaps the observations they have made on the peculiar abilities of the colonels who command them, have given the natives the most unbounded contempt for our regular forces. It is a common saying among them that they will fight the blue-jackets themselves, but that their old women are able to beat the soldiers…. Of course, we shall expect to hear that Colonel Gold has been promoted for his services, and that had it not been for his masterly dispositions, we should not have had to pay for our defeat so small a number of valuable lives as we appear to have lost.”

In a letter to The Times, dated December 4, and published on February 19, 1861, Gold, now Major-General, wrote: “For a considerable time I have passed over unnoticed the unfounded abuse of a portion of the colonial press, smarting under the mildest possible administration of martial law, being quite satisfied that my friends in this country would know the truth in all its bearings; but when I find The Times adopting their expressions I think it is high time to request you will do me the justice to state that, with reference to your article on Major Nelson's attack on the Waikato Pa at the Waitara, I had neither the knowledge that such would take place, nor had I arranged any combined movement whatever with him. I had the day before sent him all the reinforcements I could spare from New Plymouth. It is true that I made a reconnaissance as far as Mahoitai, where I was anxious to form an outpost, but (independent of the river being impassable) I could not have advanced further without endangering the town and its 2,000 women and children. As to your remark that this was not the first instance of tardiness on my part, I am quite unconsciouss of ever having merited such a severe accusation at your hands.”

Major A. A. Nelson, brother of the Major Nelson in New Zealand, replied to this letter in the issue of February 20: “Documents in my possession enable me to assert that the attack was not made without the Major-General's knowledge.” On May 11, 1861, The Taranaki Herald discussed the affair and strongly supported Major Nelson's version.

The verdict of J. W. Fortescue on the engagement is: “The whole proceeding was one of almost criminal folly” (History of the British Army, XIII, p. 478). Major-General Gold, on promotion, retired from active service in New Zealand on October 1, 1860. He had served with the 65th for 32 years—in British Guiana, Barbados, Canada (during the rebellion), Ireland, England, and Australia.

M. S. Grace, who arrived shortly after the engagement, states, however, that “the general impression in both camps was that Major Nelson had neither rejected nor much desired Colonel Gold's co-operation,” meaning to score “off his own bat.”

A Sketch of the New Zealand War (1899), p. 37. Grace was a staff assistant surgeon.

On July 1, 1860, Colonel Gold wrote from New Plymouth to the Deputy-Adjutant General, Melbourne, emphasizing “the urgent and absolute necessity” for reinforcements: “I am now in a position involving great risk to this town if I leave it without a strong garrison of regulars, as the militia troops armed are not drilled, and the rebels are cunning in tactics, quick in their movements, and armed with double-barrelled guns or rifles. I regret to say that the artillery at my disposal are comparatively useless for attacking pas.”

W.O. 33/16.

On July 13 Major-General Pratt informed Sir Henry Barkly, Governor of Victoria, that he intended to proceed himself, with a portion of his staff, to New Zealand, as a temporary measure, “to make all military arrangements for the general defence of the Northern Island, in communication with the Governor and the local authorities.” In acknowledging the letter Sir H. Barkly wrote on July 16: “There is every disposition on the part of my advisers and of the legislature to act with the utmost liberality on this occasion and to manifest their sympathy with those who are called on to sustain the honour of the British name in the sister colony.” In a despatch of July 19, 1860, he reported that “the unfortunate accounts received of the progress of the war under Colonel Gold's auspices, added to the renewed appeals of that officer and of the Governor for further succour, rendered it incumbent on Major-General Pratt to send down the Head Quarters of the same (40th) Regiment under Lieut.-Colonel Leslie, whilst the absence of unanimity which seems to prevail between the different branches of the Service, no less than the want of confidence among the New Zealand colonists and the alarming aspect of affairs generally in the Northern Island, left the Major-General no alternative but to proceed in person for a time at any rate to the scene of action.”

“The arrangements thus made,” Sir Henry continued, “have been regarded as so inevitable and proper that notwithstanding the disturbed aspect of European affairs at the last accounts, no objection has been raised from any quarter. On the other hand, they have led, I am happy to state, to the display of a large amount of loyal enthusiasm on the part of the inhabitants generally, and have served to determine my advisers at length to propose to the Legislature the repeal of the clause of the Volunteer Act which limits the number whose services the Governor may accept to 2,000 men, and to engage them further to put a considerably larger sum for the fortification of Port Philip on the estimates of 1861 than is available for the purpose during the present year.” Thus two immediate effects of the Taranaki War were the strengthening of ties between Victoria and New Zealand and a greater willingness on the part of the Victorian Government to undertake defence measures. The Governor concluded by repeating previous warnings about the danger to which the colony was exposed by being left divested of all regular military and naval protection. His despatch and one of similar purport by Sir William Denison, Governor of New South Wales, dated July 21, were referred to the War Office.

C.O. 309, 52.

General Pratt arrived at New Plymouth on August 3. On September 8 he wrote to the Military Secretary, New Zealand: “The state of the Taranaki province…is most deplorable; the settlers are driven in from their farms, their property destroyed, and in many instances their homes burnt. They bear their losses with great fortitude, and are most uncomplaining, and I do trust they will be compensated for their losses at some future time. The natives in arms against British authority have adopted a system of warfare which they have never before resorted to since this country has been occupied by us, viz. to move about in small parties, with the avowed intention of murdering every European they can meet, and thus driving them out of the country; and the nature of the country, affording concealment in every bush, enables them to carry this out without loss to themselves. The Maori King movement is agitating the native mind to an extent unknown before, and though the powerful Waikato tribes are wavering, any untoward event may make it most formidable, and as far as I can understand the war here may be considered as only commencing, and will not be put down without large reinforcements from England; these have been asked for many months ago, and I trust will soon arrive…. Having now been a month in New Zealand I am enabled to state that the nature of the war has no parallel in any other part of the world, from the dense bush, ravines and swamps, which the natives can crawl through, and our troops cannot follow.”

In a despatch of July 6, 1860, Gore Browne reported that he had received news of the death of Potatau, the Maori “King.” On July 31 he reported that Potatau's son would probably be appointed his successor. William Swainson, in his book New Zealand and the War (1862), records that Potatau received a Government pension up to March 31, 1860, and that on November 11 of that year £1 17s. was paid on account of coffin furniture for him. The continuance of the pension is a little difficult to reconcile with the Governor's policy, but it may have been prompted by a desire to keep the King as inactive as possible.

In his speech at the opening of the General Assembly on July 30 the Governor said: “My thanks are due to the Governments of the neighbouring colonies for the efficient aid which they have rendered on this occasion and particularly to the Government of Victoria, which promptly despatched to my assistance its fine armed steamer.” On July 31 the Governor, in reporting to the Colonial Office Major-General Pratt's intention to proceed with reinforcements direct to Taranaki, enclosed a copy of his letter to the General in which he had stated that the Maoris, “aided by the strength of their country and fighting in their own fashion,” were “brave and formidabel enemies.” “They boast with some truth,” he said, “that since our first arrival in the colony the British troops have gained no decided advantage over them, though our arms have always been immeasurably superior and our numbers often in excess of theirs.”

The Times of November 14, 1860, contained more than three columns of New Zealand war news from correspondents in Melbourne and Sydney. The Melbourne despatch was dated September 25: “General Pratt, on his arrival, did not im- mediately assume command of the troops. He found that the commanding officer was fettered in his operations by strict instructions from the Governor, Colonel Gore Browne—so much so as to justify the General in expressing an opinion that Colonel Gold could not have acted otherwise than he did. The forces of all arms at the commanding officer's disposal amount to 2,500 effectives, and the insurgent natives are supposed not to reach that number. It is further stated that General Pratt intimated that unless the Governor would give him carte blanche as to the conduct of the war, he would decline the responsibility of the command and return to Melbourne, and that the Governor had yielded to this condition. The General was quite right in having his position clearly defined…. The General Assembly has been called together at Auckland, and we are indebted to that circumstance for some very important disclosures, and for a general expression of opinion which we should otherwise have remained without. These disclosures impart to the war a character different from that which I communicated in former letters. A belief is gaining ground among a large number of the settlers that the war is unjust; that Governor Browne has committed a great error; that he has wantonly departed from principles which he himself had laid down for conducting the purchase of land; that Teira, from whom he purchased the disputed block, had no title to it; and lastly, that by mistranslation or unskilful use of the Maori language, what he intended as a proclamation of martial law (itself wholly illegal and beyond his powers) was really a declaration of war, and would be so understood by the natives and by every person acquainted with the Maori language…. Even admitting that the taking of the disputed block of land was an act of gross spoliation, it cannot be acknowledged as a valid ground for open rebellion. Thus the Governor has reduced the Crown to this false position—that it is compelled to make its power manifest at the expense of its character of justice…. Teira's right, if any, is simply a right to occupy a small portion, I believe about 1/60th part of the rock which in native language is named ‘Te Porepore,’ of which the tribal title is in W. Kingi, while the individual claims of himself and family are far larger than Teira's.”

The literal translation of the Governor's proclamation was given by the correspondent as follows: “Because soon will be commenced the work of the soldiers of the Queen against the natives of Taranaki, who are haughty (rebellious), fighting against the authority of the Queen. Now I, the Governor, do openly proclaim and publish this word, that the fighting law will extend at this time to Taranaki as a fixed law, until the time when it shall be revoked by proclamation.”

For an exposition of the difficulty of translating English ideas into Maori terminology, see F. M. Keesing, The Changing Maori, PP. 61-2.

“Now this proclamation,” the correspondent wrote, “is not directed solely against Kingi's party in arms at Waitara, but is extended to all the parties at Taranaki who are alleged to be fighting against the Queen, although at that time (January 27, 1860) not only had no fighting taken place, but no open act of rebellion had been committed…. It cannot be wondered at that the tribes who were denounced as rebels fighting against the Queen (an undoubted falsehood) should at once make common cause with Wiremu Kingi. Denounced as rebels, they had nothing to lose and much to gain by becoming rebels.”

The Sydney correspondent, in his despatch dated September 21, took a different view of the rights of Teira and Kingi: “The Government has justified itself by publishing as Parliamentary papers all the documents connected with the title of the land and Wiremu Kingi's claims. The defence is complete. Kingi was a fugitive when the British first colonized New Zealand, having been driven out by the Waikatos, and settled down near Port Nicholson. It was only under the shelter of the British that he was able to return to his ancestral acres; and when he did go back he stood in such awe of the Waikatos that he was afraid to live on his own land, and got leave to build his pa on Teira's block, because that put a river between him and the foes he dreaded, and brought him nearer to the British settlement. Yet this is the man who now pretends to claim feudal rights, which are inconsistent with the treaty of Waitangi, and which neutralize the Queen's sovereignty…. Had the Governor yielded to his threats he would have acknowledged a power in the island greater than the Queen's.”

On November 15 The Times commented on the discrepancy between the different accounts of the case: “As for the original dispute, its merits are as inscrutable as the sources of the Nile or the causes of the Trojan War, so hopelessly is it overlaid by the subtleties of Maori jurisprudence and the operation of subsequent aggressions on both sides…. The Home Government may have had good reasons for declining to send extraordinary succours, but we cannot acquit of the gravest indiscretion those in New Zealand whose inopportune scruples weaken the hands of the Government. It is a first rule in dealing with all lawless outbreaks, from a school rebellion to a political émeute, to restore order first and to redress grievances afterwards. No irregularity in the transfer of land can justify the natives in renouncing a sovereignty which they have formally accepted and which has raised them from savages to Christians and civilized beings…. Meanwhile, it would surely be possible, either by proclamation or through the agency of friendly chiefs, to separate the question of the Te Porepore block of land from that of sovereignty, reserving the former, if necessary, for further investigations, while insisting upon absolute submission to the Queen's authority. If this can be enforced we trust that no false notions of honour will interfere with the peaceable termination of a dispute which, trifling as it seemed, has gone far to mar one of the fairest pages of our history.”

The Melbourne correspondent's attack on Gore Browne was answered by Professor E. Harold Browne of Cambridge, a brother of the Governor,

Afterwards Bishop of Winchester. Cf. More Maoriland Adventures of J. W. Stack, edited by A. H. Reed (1936), pp. 181–3. Though Canon Stack was interested in Gore Browne as a brother of the Professor and raised a triumphal arch of welcome for him when he arrived at Kohanga, he condemned his attitude to the Maoris and the Waitara purchase.

in a letter published on November 17: “I have the clearest possible proof,” he wrote, “that Colonel Gold was in no way hampered by my brother's orders. … Archdeacon Hadfield triumphantly asserts that Teira's might came entirely through his father, and that his father was all on Kingi's side. Now I am most distinctly assured that Teira's father has been wholly with his son and with the Government, and that he actually assisted in cutting the ground. This is but

Sir Frederic Rogers, Afterwards Lord Blachford (From a drawing by George Richmond, R.A.) one example, not the only one, of misstatements which party spirit has allowed good men to make and, no doubt, to believe.” Archdeacon Hadfield was in turn defended by his brother, Colonel Hadfield.

Commenting on this and the situation generally on November 21, The Times said: “We intended to make an honest bargain, and the worst that can be said is that we bought the land from the wrong man. We were ready to pay somebody or other a fair price for it, and it is to be presumed that we should look out, with the natural instinct of purchasers, for the best title procurable. Although, therefore, it is impossible, as we do not deny, that Wiremu Kingi may be an ill-used man, we cannot see that the policy of the Government is exposed to any serious reprobation at this point of the transaction. Whether we have been premature or not in our resort to force is a question equally complicated, but as Governor Browne is blamed by one party for his precipitation, and by the other for his tardiness, it would perhaps be hard to refuse him the credit of probable impartiality. The truth of the matter is however—and here all the obscurity of the case is suddenly dispelled,—that this dispute with Wiremu Kingi is but the expression of a controversy by which the colony has been long divided. There is a native population there and a British population—the latter, strange to say, outnumbering the former, in the aggregate by some 15,000 souls. Each of these classes has its peculiar interest, which, however they may be reconciled in the end, are unhappily found to clash for the present…. What gives the case its peculiarity is that the native side of the question has been energetically adopted by authorities of high and deserved influence amongst the British themselves. Dr. Selwyn, the Bishop of New Zealand, and Archdeacon Hadfield, his zealous coadjutor, have constituted themselves the advocates of native rights, and with the support of a party in the colony, have formally protested against the policy of the Government, and justified the claims of the now insurgent chieftain. In these proceedings they have acted without reserve and appear to have candidly avowed their conviction that the colony of New Zealand is, by the very terms of its original settlement, an institution designed not for the advantage or benefit of Englishmen, but, in its primary object, for the protection of the natives against the encroachments of the settlers on their territory…. We say distinctly that the native-ascendancy theory cannot stand. It may have been designed but cannot be upheld. If the interests of the rival populations cannot be reconciled, those of the natives must give way. The result, whether consistent with justice or not, is simply inevitable.”

Professor Browne, in his book, The Case of the War in New Zealand (1860), wrote: “It is a matter of deep concern to me that I am forced to express a strong difference from one, whom of all men living I have honoured most for his unparalleled missionary labours, I mean Archdeacon Hadfield. There are passages in his conduct as regards the present disturbances which I cannot construe, and which I long to see cleared up. I can but strive to be satisfied with the knowledge that burning zeal in imperfect beings will at times degenerate into intemperance, and that then it will blind its owner to principles and even to facts, which under other circumstances could not be overlooked.” Browne recorded that letters of Wiremu Kingi to Hadfield in July 1859, asserting a tribal claim to the disputed Waitara land, were not shown to the Governor. He gave Hadfield's explanation and remarked that the two great authorities on native affairs, Hadfield and Maclean, contradicted each other in every particular in their evidence at the parliamentary investigation into the subject. On the question of the ambiguous translation of the proclamation of martial law, Professor Browne said that Wiremu Kingi had “on a former occasion been living in a district where martial law was proclaimed, and fully understood its meaning.”

The effect of the war news on John Robert Godley is shown by a passage in a letter he wrote to C. B. Adderley on November 15: “The New Zealand Government seems to have plunged most unjustifiably into war, of course intending that we shall pay for it. Sidney Herbert writes to me in a tone of intense disgust at it, but says that he has been obliged to send two regiments, etc. If we don't turn this affair to account in supporting our general views we shall throw away a good case. I quite despair of the present Colonial Office and look now for your side.”

Childe-Pemberton, Life of Lord Norton, p. 176. Cf. on p. 178, Robert Lowe to Adderley, December 31, 1861: “It seems to me that from a muddling tyrant the Colonial Office has sunk into a parasite of the colonies, and that there is more danger of dismembering the Empire by over-indulgence than by over-interference.” Sidney Herbert was Secretary for War, 1859–61. He became Lord Herbert of Lea before his death in 1861. The Cabinet formed after the general election of 1859 was one of “Whig-Liberal reunion,” its members including Palmerston, Russell, and Gladstone. G. M. Trevelyan states that it “dealt with the Italian crisis on Liberal principles and with the American Civil War and the Danish question on no principles at all.”

J. R. Godley had joined the Colonial Reformers under the inspiration of E. G. Wakefield, who persuaded him to go out to New Zealand as leader of the Canterbury Settlement. Like Molesworth, another of the Reformers, he was a strong advocate of colonial self-reliance. He became Assistant Under-Secretary of State for War.

The view of Godley and Adderley that colonies should be made responsible for their own internal defence did finally prevail, and the Liberal ministry of 1868 was to be as adamant in upholding it as the Conservative administration of 1866 in which Adderley served.

Describing a “Native Conference” he had convened at Kohimarama, near Auckland, from July 10 to August 10, in a despatch of August 28, 1860, the Governor stated that its results had far surpassed his expectations: “The language, conduct and general courtesy of the chiefs towards each other,” he stated, “might be imitated with advantage at many European meetings, and in no assembly could greater decorum be maintained. The result may be summed up in a few words: The great chiefs Tamati Waka Nene, Wiremu Nera, Teiroa and others declared their attachment to the Queen and their disapproval of the King party in the most unequivocal terms. This, and my own declarations, reassured many who had been led by disaffected Europeans to believe that the Government and the settlers were preparing to seize their lands and enslave themselves, and that all the tribes in New Zealand were ready to unite and join the King party.

“Confidence having been secured, various subjects were submitted for their consideration.” The Government's policy in connection with the Waitara purchase was explained, and approved by all except a few who (the Governor stated) were connected in some way with W. Kingi and his people. “The Chiefs declared unanimously in favour of a repetition of the Conference, and they recognized it as the first real step towards governing them in the manner they desire to be governed, and earnestly requested that I would give them a promise that they should meet again in 1861…. I sent a message to the House of Representatives, who suspended their Standing Orders and passed a resolution (without a division) granting £2,500 to enable me to comply with the wishes of the Chiefs.”

A Colonial Office memorandum proposed that a certain number of chiefs selected by the Conference or nominated by the Governor should be made capable by law of being placed on Committees of the House of Assembly or the Legislative Council upon questions respecting native affairs. “And I would give,” the writer added, “to all these representatives of the Conference the right of being present at the debates of the Assembly and Legislative Council in a place which marked their rank. Perhaps before long the Conference would be allowed as they desire actually to send members to the Assembly or rather perhaps the Legislative Council.”

C.O. 209, 155.

On September 7 the Governor wrote concerning certain actions of the Rev. R. Burrows, Secretary to the Church Missionary Society in New Zealand, who disagreed with reports of the Native Conference which had appeared in a newspaper: “I need not inform Your Grace that the assembly of the chiefs at this conference was attended with difficulty and vast expense, and the object was one which should have claimed the sympathy and cordial support of all Her Majesty's loyal subjects. I regret, however, to say that many (but by no means all) of the clergy belonging to the Church of England Mission have recently placed themselves in antagonism to the Government and have added greatly to the embarrassments with which it is surrounded.”

In a Colonial Office minute Chichester Fortescue wrote: “These gentlemen do not appear to recognize the fact that we are at war with a portion of the natives and that the Petition of Right, etc., does not apply either in the case of Englishmen or Maoris.”

C.O. 209, 155.

The Duke of Newcastle, back in England after that visit to America which greatly influenced his ideas and led him to take up the cause of Canadian confederation,

Cf. Sir E. W. Watkin, Canada and the States(1887): “The real, practical measures which led to the creation of one country extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific were due to the far-sighted policy and persuasive influence of the Duke. The Duke was a statesman singularly averse to claiming credit for his own special public services, while ever ready to attribute credit and bestow praise on those around him.”

congratulated the Governor on the success of the conference, and a Colonial Office minute made this reference to the Wiremu Kingi case: “Great consideration was due to a native chief standing up for what he had long been accustomed to consider the rights of himself and his followers, and therefore it would be a great satisfaction to Her Majesty if any honourable means were to present themselves of restoring peace, more especially as this seemed to be the general feeling among the native chiefs at the Conference. Finally (that) the Duke of Newcastle would above all things deprecate the making a war of this kind a means of enriching the colony by the confiscation of lands, a precedent which, if once set, would be a dangerous inducement to future wars of the kind…. That the question whether the expenses of the war should be defrayed from Colonial or Imperial funds would be treated hereafter, but the Duke of Newcastle could not refrain from expressing his surprise at the suggestion which appeared to have been made in debate by the Colonial Secretary that in a war which was so peculiarly and exclusively a settlers' war part of the expenses of the volunteers and militia should be borne by England.”

Fortescue, in a minute, added that among the changes he thought it desirable to obtain, if possible, was the abolition of the elective character of the superintendents of provinces and their subordination to the Governor and the Crown, “Their present position,” he wrote, “seems to me intolerable, weakening an already weak executive, even when they are friendly (if they ever are), and often creating opponents to the Governor when he ought to find instruments and supporters.”

C.O. 209, 155.

In a debate in the General Assembly on August 3, 1860, on the Native Offenders Bill, the policy of the Governor and the Government in pressing the Waitara purchase was strongly criticized by H. Carleton and T.S.Forsaith. The latter contended that W. Kingi had claimed proprietorship over the land and that therefore it should not have been bought until the claim had been thoroughly investigated. He read the proclamation in Maori of martial law. The English equivalent, he said, was: “The law of fighting is now to appear at Taranaki and remain in force until countermanded.” The proclamation appeared under date January 25, 1860, nearly a month before the survey was attempted. The translation was defended by J. C. Richmond and Dillon Bell. Alfred Domett upheld the Governor's policy. E. W. Stafford said: “Her Majesty and the British nation never had a more upright representative than Governor Gore Browne. One desire, conscientiously to do his duty, governed all his action. No greater proof of this could have been afforded than his conduct as to the Taranaki question. Had he not been an honest man, nothing could have been simpler than to have smoothed over and patched up this question. He might have avoided any declaration of policy, or failed to act up to it when opposed by a contumacious native. He might have really degraded the dignity of the Crown in the native mind, but he might not have gone to war. He might have left that for his successor, and left the colony with the character at home of having held a most peaceful reign, of being a ‘model governor’ but he preferred to do his duty.” (Loud cheers.)

Dr. Featherston said: “I am glad of the opportunity of declaring that whatever doubts previously existed in my mind as to the gross injustice of the war—as to the fact that a flagrant error had been committed, have been entirely removed by the inquiry that has taken place; however one-sided and partial the inquiry has been I am also glad to express my conviction that His Excellency has been more sinned against than sinning in this matter, for he has evidently been most grossly deceived by those upon whose information and trustworthiness he had a perfect right to rely. It appears to me as clear as noon-day that the war is to be attributed to an undue pressure having been brought to bear upon His Excellency in order to force him to acquire possession of Waitara, no matter by what means, or at what sacrifices—to the incompetency of the District Com- missioner

William Swainson states that the investigation of the validity of the purchase from Te Teira was entrusted to the “District Land Purchaser,” R. Parris, who reported that “in the face of opposing claims the purchase could not yet be safely completed.” Though later urged by the Governor and Native Minister to complete the purchase, Parris, “who appears to have exercised great prudence and caution,” was unable to hold out any hope of a speedy and satisfactory settlement.

to whom so delicate a negotiation was entrusted and to a sinister influence exercised at the board of the Executive Council. At the same time I am not prepared to relieve His Excellency from the responsibility of this war; on the contrary I hold him solely responsible for it. The war is an Imperial war, in which the colony has not been permitted to have a voice—and therefore it behoves this House to take care that they do not by any resolution they may pass implicate the Colony in it or make it responsible either for the expenses or consequences…. I venture to predict that when Her Majesty's Government learns the facts of the present case—when they learn that the war originated in a grudge, entertained by Teira against his chief—that because a native girl jilted Teira's brother and married W. Kingi's son, Teira swore he would have his revenge—that knowing that W. Kingi had given a solemn pledge to his father not to sell Waitara, but to keep it for an inheritance for the Ngatiawas, Teira resolved to gratify his revenge by selling Waitara to the Government; when they knew that of the six hundred acres offered by Teira, and purchased by the Government only a small portion really belonged to Teira—that the greatest portion is owned by natives who have either protested against the sale or have never been consulted in the matter—that no investigation worthy of the name has ever been instituted into their claims … I venture to predict that their answer to His Excellency's application for troops will be that those who have been guilty, while acting in Her Majesty's name, of so great a wrong, who have plunged the country into such a war, are no longer worthy of Her Majesty's confidence, and that, instead of reinforcements, Her Majesty's Government will send out peremptory instructions to bring the war to a close, and to prevent any further shedding of blood in so unjust a cause.”

The view taken by Featherston, in this celebrated speech, of the motives for Teira's action and of the unjust nature of the war is supported by Saunders in his History of New Zealand.

Vol. i, chapters 37 and 38.

A review of the subject is made in the report of the Royal Commission on Confiscated Native Lands, 1928. The Commission formed the opinion that “Teira was not entitled to sell the Waitara block without the consent of Wiremu Kingi and his people.” Surprise is expressed that Parris “managed to remain ignorant of the facts … which were ascertained without difficulty by the Governor and Native Minister in April 1863.”

N.Z.P.P. 1928, G—7.

If Swainson is right in his statement quoted above, Parris presumably entertained strong doubts of the validity of the purchase from Teira. The really surprising thing seems rather to be the fact that Sir George Grey's personal inquiry into the facts of this fundamental dispute was delayed so long after his return to New Zealand.

C. W. Richmond, Colonial Treasurer, in his financial statement of September 4, 1860, said: “The people of New Zealand are surprisingly fond of law. The produce of fees, fines and penalties in the Canterbury Province is astonishing. Altogether the annual revenues of the colony, counting land fund as revenue, are now little if at all, less than half a million. It is a wonderful country. The more I see of it the more I am astonished at its resources. It is well indeed that it is so, for our burdens also are extraordinary. For my part I say it is plain that the cost of the war must be paid by the Imperial Treasury, if only for this simple reason—that the colony is unable to pay it. If the demands upon us become much heavier, the sources of revenue will be dried up. Notwithstanding the great prosperity we have lately enjoyed, we are but an infant community unequal to the burdens of mature age and confirmed strength…. We propose to ask the House to make provision for laying down a line of electric telegraph connecting the principal settlements.”

C.O. 209, 155.

In a despatch of September 29, the Governor said he had “no hesitation in recommending that the expense of the war may not be thrown entirely on the settlers.”

C.O. 209, 155.

In a despatch of October 2 he stated that he had urged General Pratt “to adopt the most energetic measures” and had authorized him upon the Governor's own responsibility to incur whatever expense was necessary. “The want of success on our part at Taranaki,” he said, “has so elated some of the tribes residing at the Thames and its neighbourhood that Auckland has been threatened with a night attack and there can be little doubt that various combinations against us will be made in all parts of this island unless we are able to convince the Maoris that permanent success on their part is hopeless.” The Governor stated that the total force at Taranaki on September 26 was 2,359 and that the strength of the insurgents had never exceeded 2,000. A Colonial Office memorandum on the despatch reads thus: “The Governor evidently considers that the military authorities are wanting in enterprise. General Pratt justifies himself in a long letter of September 29 which (I must say) appears well considered and reasonable.” The Duke of Newcastle's comment was: “The difference between the Governor and the General is unsatisfactory.”

C.O. 209, 155.

In his letter of September 29 General Pratt recalled the state of the province when he arrived on August 3: “I found the settlers,” he said, “driven in from their farms, their cattle seized and other property destroyed, many of their homes burnt, the enemy in the immediate vicinity around the town, an attack on it avowedly threatened, the place crowded with women and children, whose only safety was the presence of the troops, and the defence in a very imperfect state.”

Cf. Taranaki Herald, January 16, 1864, referring to conditions of 1860: “Our degradation will best be made apparent by the fact that at one time firewood was actually imported from Auckland.”

Allowing for outposts and sickness and other causes, he added, the whole force at his disposal “amounted to 1,000 or thereby.” “No certain information could be obtained,” he went on, “with regard to the numbers of the enemy, which was estimated by those best able to judge at about 1,700, who were divided into two bodies, one of which, consisting of W. Kingi's followers, assisted by some of the Waikatos, occupied the strong pa Puketakauere, little more than a mile from the camp on the Waitara. This pa was connected with the Bush by a chain of smaller pas, some of them of considerable strength, by which the enemy were enabled to bring reinforcements to the front with great ease and rapidity. The other body comprised the Southern natives, Taranakis and Ngatiruanis, who were busily engaged in the construction of considerable works within a few hundred yards of the Waireka camp.”

The General stated that in removing the women and children to safety he “did not meet with that cordial co-operation on the part of the civil authorities of the Province, which, in the delicate position I was placed in, I had a right to expect, and the people showed so much unwillingness to leave the place that after only about 112 women and 282 children had been shifted I found that without resorting to actual force, no more could be induced to go.” On his return from Auckland, where he had gone to confer with the Governor, the General said he had found that the enemy had abandoned their strong positions at Puketakauere and Waireka, which were immediately destroyed, and that a large number of them had left the neighbourhood. The movement convinced him, he said, “of the utter hopelessness of all endeavours to prevent their escape from any place which they did not intend to defend.” “During the whole of the period,” he continued, “the enemy have been suffering very severely from sickness caused by privation and exposure, and I have certain information that they have lost a good many men, including several of their most influential chiefs who have been killed in action or have died of their wounds. The whole of our casualties throughout all these operations amount to only one killed and four wounded…. I am satisfied that any increase in their numbers which might give them sufficient confidence either to defend a pa in an accessible position or to accept battle in the open country would lead to a much more satisfactory result than a lengthened continuance of the present state of affairs.”

C.O. 209, 155.

On November 1 Gore Browne, in reviewing the history of New Zealand, wrote: “A large annual grant from the Imperial Treasury, full power and great tact, enabled Sir George Grey to keep the country tranquil, but he was unable to establish any system or machinery which could effectually prevent the collision of elements so discordant as those with which the New Zealand Government has to deal…. With insufficient funds, circumscribed powers, and inadequate assistance, I have had to contend with difficulties inseparable from the association, without union, of two races in opposite extremes of civilization.” Replying on January 26, 1861, the Duke of Newcastle said: “I have never doubted that without the control of far larger funds for native purposes than have been placed at your disposal by the Colonial Government, it has been quite impossible to adopt such measures as would be effectual for the government and civilization of the Maoris.”

C.O. 209, 156.

Here we have implicitly stated the problem of responsibility for the drift into war. Governor and Secretary of State each passed the blame on to somebody else, while the Colonial Government declined to provide funds to be administered by the Governor as he thought fit. If the Maoris really wished to be governed, as some of their leaders and their missionary friends maintained, it is scarcely possible to escape the conclusion that responsibility for turning them towards war must lie almost equally with the Colonial and Imperial Governments for allowing so dangerous a division of power to continue. As we shall see, the Imperial Government soon made an attempt to transfer all power—and financial responsibility—for native affairs to the Colonial Government.

On October 14, 1860, the Governor learned that a Maori had been found dead at Patumahoe, thirty miles from Auckland, and that the natives believed he had been shot by a European. Maoris collected from all over the district and it was discovered that on a given signal they had determined to murder all the Europeans present. “Mr. Maclean,” the Governor wrote in a despatch of November 3, “was informed of this privately and advised to escape, but with his usual nerve and judgement, he took no notice of it, and, after Archdeacon Maunsell had concluded his arguments, succeeded in allaying the excitement.” On a report of the supposed murder reaching the Waikato the tribes there were greatly excited and moved towards Auckland. The Governor ordered that the militia should be called out.

C.O. 209, 156.

In a despatch of October 16, General Pratt made the first mention of the use of friendly natives in an operation against Maori pas. They were 150 in number and were under the command of Parris, the assistant native secretary.

W.O. 33/16.

On September 10 a British force of 77 officers and 1,378 men had marched from New Plymouth and destroyed the Maori pas Ngatipaririu, Kairau, and Huirangi. In an engagement at the latter place four casualties were sustained. On October 9 Pratt marched from New Plymouth to attack “three strong pas named Pukekakiriki, Orongamaihangi, and Mataiaio, held by the rebel Maoris of the Taranaki tribe, and situated, two on the right and one on the left bank of the Kaihihi River, about eighteen miles distant from this place.” These were captured with five casualties, the natives abandoning them.

On November 6 the troops under Pratt engaged the Waikatos, who were coming to join William Kingi, at Mahoetahi. In a fierce fight five Maori cheifs were killed and the total Maori casualties were estimated at from 80 to 100. The British losses were 4 killed and 15 wounded. “I never saw,” wrote Pratt, “a more gigantic or powerful set of men than these tribes; and being armed with well-finished English rifles and double-barrelled fowling pieces, they were able to keep up a most continuous fire, while their power of concealment was most marvellous; indeed, when closing upon them, we only knew of their whereabouts by the smoke from their guns.”

W.O. 33/16.

On December 10, Pratt wrote: “The defeat of the enemy on November 6 appears to have had the effect only of rousing the native race.” He added that one of the many difficulties he had to face was “the uncertainty of the intelligence received through the Native Department as to the position, numbers and movements of the enemy; so that I am obliged to form and alter my plans from day to day, and feel occasionally as if I was fighting a ‘will o' the wisp.’”

On January 14, 1861, The Times published an account from its Melbourne correspondent of the engagement at Mahoetahi in which the native loss was estimated at 70 killed: “The correspondent of a local paper, who was an eye-witness, speaks highly of General Pratt's coolness and insensibility to danger. He was among the first in the pa, and in the thickest of the mêlée, and yet came off unhurt.” The Times devoted its first leading article to this victory: “Those who take an interest in the colony of New Zealand will rejoice to hear that, in the opinion of the settlers, the late battle of Mahoctahi has probably not only ended the war, but given the natives a lesson which will prevent them from lightly entering on another…. The safety of this promising colony depends on the strictness with which the lawless habits of these people, the elder of whom remember, and perhaps regret, the days of cannibal feasts, are repressed.” On the next day The Times discussed the motives of the Waikatos in assisting Kingi: “If the warriors defeated at Mahoetahi were in reality adherents of the Maori King movement, and not partisans of Wiremu Kingi at all, this battle may prove but the first act in a conflict between native sovereignty and the Queen's supremacy, to be prosecuted while the agrarian war is still upon our hands.”

An Auckland correspondent, in a message printed in The Times on December 20, 1860, wrote: “It seems that the Imperial Government do not yet realize what will one day be clear enough to them, that the surest economy is in sending a force sufficient to put an end once for all to these Maori Wars. I say no more because I am persuaded you all believe us in England to wish for troops merely for the sake of the Commissariat expenditure. What is the good of protesting against this belief? It is in the nature of things, perhaps, and we must bear the consequences as we may…. Whatever you do, pray make up your minds to one of two things—either keep the control and fulfil the obligations, or leave one and the other to us; you need not fear that we shall disgrace the English name, or justify, by any legislation, or by the expression of a single sentiment in the assembly, the supposition of Lord Granville (founded on an atrocious article in a low newspaper which has ceased to exist) that we desire ‘blood for blood’ and the annihilation of the native race.” The New Plymouth correspondent wrote on October 12: “Hitherto we have never once remained masters of the field, and since the affair of Waireka have not had a single success—not one gleam of sunshine to cheer us in this miserably conducted war. Six months, I believe, is the allotted time for blunders and incapacity to run riot at the commencement of an English war. We have exceeded this probationary period, and may, therefore, hope that a change is at hand.” The number of British troops in New Zealand in November was 2,145, and they were soon reinforced by the 14th Foot. The number of the militia was 692.

C.O. 209, 159.

In a long despatch of December 4, Gore Browne reviewed the question of “seignorial right” in Maori chiefs with special reference to the case of Wiremu Kingi. Fortescue noted that the despatch confirmed his own belief that the Governor had acted with “substantial justice” in the case of Kingi.

C.O. 209, 159.

The Duke of Newcastle's views were expressed in a private letter to Gladstone, dated January 21, 1861, in which he criticized Bishop Selwyn's contention that Wiremu Kingi had nothing to do with the King movement: “The King movement, the Land League and Wiremu Kingi are all separate parts of a whole—a desire on the part of the natives to reassume the sovereignty of New Zealand and with that view to prevent any more land being sold. Martial law was no doubt a mistake, and other mistakes have been made, but the Clergy would do better for all parties if they did not shew their almost bitter partisanship for the natives against the Governors and the settlers—the Governor having always hitherto been considered to go as far as possible in justice and common sense in the same direction.”

J. Martineau, Life of Henry Pelham, Fifth Duke of Newcastle, p. 319.

This letter was written after the publication on January 4 by the Church Missionary Society of a “Memorial to His Grace the Secretary of State for the Colonies” requesting “some authoritative declaration to the effect that the tribal rights and the rights of the chiefs in respect of land titles, will be recognized as heretofore; so as to allay the apprehension of all parties in New Zealand of any deviation from the policy which has been for twenty years regarded as established by the Treaty of Waitangi.” The memorialists expressed deep regret that martial law should have been precipitately proclaimed against all the tribes of Taranaki and urged that some method should be devised of explaining to the Maoris that such proclamation did not preclude the peaceable solution of the questions at issue. They urged that “the particular case of the land at the Waitara” should be investigated, and concluded: “Your memorialists are fully aware of the complications caused by the Land League and by the ‘Maori King’ movement in New Zealand but they believe that these combinations have received their most fearful aspect from the events at Taranaki, and that they would lose their chief strength if that affair were peaceably settled, and the Government policy on land titles were distinctly avowed.” This is a sober enough statement of the missionary position, and though individual missionaries doubtless showed “almost bitter partisanship,” there is little in this official statement to which legitimate objection could be taken. The Duke of Newcastle's view that martial law was a mistake, expressed in his letter to Gladstone, concedes the Society's main point.

In a despatch of January 26, 1861, the Duke of Newcastle reproved the Governor for assenting to a grant from the Imperial Commissariat chest for the pay, allowances, and rations of the Taranaki militia and volunteers, without a definite guarantee that the money so disbursed would be refunded by the Colonial Government.

C.O. 209, 155.

On the principle of the payment for the expenses of the war, Sir F. Rogers, in a minute of January 12, wrote: “The New Zealand colonists appear to claim on the one hand that as settlers they shall have all the advantages of the native war (in the acquisition of land and otherwise), that as the supreme Government of New Zealand they shall ultimately, if not at present, possess the power of taking and of governing the natives, but on the other hand that the expenses of (at least) the present war shall be borne by the Imperial Government because that Government has hitherto reserved to itself the government of the Maoris. The present war is notoriously the result of an act which has been pressed on the Governor by the settlers, and has been adopted by him in their interest and (rightly or wrongly) against the interest of those whom it is the object of the Government to protect. They are, therefore, especially bound not to throw the inconvenient consequences of that act on the British people. The war in New Zealand is part of the government of New Zealand—and for whose benefit is the government of New Zealand carried on? Plainly for the benefit of those who inhabit it. Therefore those who inhabit New Zealand should pay for the New Zealand war. The British taxpayer has nothing whatever to do with the matter…. The public here has never received the benefit of taxes raised in New Zealand, nor any other advantages except those which it reciprocates—the advantages of commerce and emigration. All the British Government does is this—it reserves to itself (imperfectly) the power of securing that the New Zealand colonists do not violate the pledges by which the British Government obtained these islands and subject to which it handed them over to its present possessors…. The recent expenditure of British money to the extent of £434,360 in five years (from 1853 to 1857 inclusive) in furnishing troops to New Zealand (to say nothing of naval assistance) is on the above view not the discharge of a strict obligation, but the exercise of natural and wise liberality. It may be viewed as a gift, perhaps necessary, of £500,000 made by the taxpayers of Great Britain to those of New Zealand without any consideration other than such as would have equally justified a gift from New Zealand to Great Britain. All this, however, is mere matter for argument—for there is no doubt that England must pay in a great measure the expenses of the war. And the question arises as to what extent and under what conditions this should be done…. These could only relate to the powers necessary for governing the natives and the providing of funds necessary for that government.”

Fortescue expressed the view “that the settlement in the end will be one under which the expense of the Queen's troops will be borne by this country and that of the local forces by the colony.” The Duke of Newcastle wrote: “I fear the Governor has thrown away our best chance of getting the colony to bear any portion of the military expenses hitherto incurred.”

C.O. 209, 155.

On December 22, 1860, Gore Browne reported that his ministers had accepted the proposal made by the Duke of Newcastle in his despatch of September 12 that the colony should contribute towards military expenditure at the rate of £5 for each officer and man.

C.O. 209, 157.

On December 4 the Governor, referring to a Colonial Office despatch on naval protection for the colonies, had stated that a colonial force, whether naval or military, would cost at least three times as much as one of equal strength employed by the Imperial Government. “The colonies,” he said, “might be called upon to pay a certain percentage of the cost of the vessels in the manner now agreed on for the Royal troops employed in New Zealand.” He pointed out, however, the difficulty arising from the fact that the Governor could only ask the naval commander to perform a service, and that if the latter took a different view of its advisability nothing could be done until it was almost inevitably too late. “Being fully aware of this,” the Governor went on, “it is not improbable that Colonial legislatures would be unwilling to contribute towards the maintenance of a fleet, the usefulness of which must depend so much on the temperament of individual commanders responsible to no authority nearer than England.”

C.O. 209, 157.

T. F. Elliot's comment was: “This supplies fresh illustration that a Fleet is no proper subject for Colonial contribution.”

A memorandum by Stafford, the Prime Minister, on the subject set out: “The system of separate Colonial fleets appears open to grave objections, amongst which the mode in which they are to be officered and the position they are to occupy relatively to Her Majesty's Navy, are among the least. This question does not affect New Zealand directly at present—nor is it likely to do so for some time to come, as it is not probable that for some years at least this colony will seek to establish vessels of its own for its defence by sea, unless the neglect of the Imperial Government to protect its shores should reluctantly compel it to do so.”

On December 31 Major-General Pratt reported that on December 28 he moved out from New Plymouth “in order to attack a large body of the Waikatos, who had occupied a very strong position at Matarikoriko on the left bank of the Waitara and not far from Huirangi. “The result of the three days' campaign,” he said, “was that the proud Waikatos who had threatened to drive us into the sea, have instead been themselves driven from one of the most formidable positions I ever saw, chosen by themselves and that too with singular sagacity, into the dense bush, and we occupy positions to keep them there. Our casualties have been three killed and 22 wounded, which is small considering the shower of bullets poured upon us for some length of time…. It is known that at least five chiefs have been killed.” The Maoris attacked No. 3 redoubt at Huirangi on January 23, 1861. After a desperate struggle they were repulsed with considerable loss.

In his report of operations in January 1861 General Pratt said that his 5½-inch mortars were “totally useless in consequence of the fuses in store in this colony being some of them as old as 1805 and all rendering the shells more dangerous to ourselves than to the enemy.”

C.O. 209, 160.

In a leading article on the engagement of January 23 the Taranaki Herald wrote: “The moral effect of this affair will be extremely valuable. The extreme caution of the responsible commanders has led to the mistaken impression among the natives that our race, and especially our soldiers, are physically timid. Now they have felt the pluck and vigour of the hearts and arms of our soldiers; and those who have not hitherto entangled themselves in this miserable struggle will not, with a few exceptions, be likely to drop in now. The gallant 40th have abundantly retrieved Puketakauere, and recovered in the eyes of the Maori any prestige they may then have lost. Colonels Wyatt and Leslie, the officers and men of the 12th, 40th, and 65th, by their wise, prompt, and bold conduct on Wednesday last, have laid a lasting debt on New Zealand—they have changed the face of the war. The timely arrival of the first instalment of the 57th Regiment and the intelligence brought by the November mail of the departure of a battery of Armstrong guns and 250 men, with rumours of further aid, are further grounds for thankfulness. The human race are readier at demanding what they think their rights than at paying the debts of gratitude; but it is to be hoped that the colonists of New Zealand will not fail in the fullest acknowledgment of the liberal support we have received from the mother-country. It will be said that it was the duty of the British Government to help us and that they have undertaken to govern these islands. Granted—but we must remember that in the particular case much has been done to furnish an excuse, if such had been desired, for leaving New Zealand in the lurch. From within our own bosom the enemy has come out. Disunion and conspiracy among our very legislators; denunciations from our Bishops and Archdeacons, and the elaborate defence of armed resistance to the Governor from a once revered judge of the Supreme Court—these have raised dust that might have given a colour of justice to any neglect. But the British Government and Press have not sought such a colour. They have cut through the cobwebs woven by party violence and semi-insane sentimentalism and declared that the fault of the Government here, if proved, is but light—that they have offered payment to the wrong man, perhaps, but that they have not robbed; that the right of any race to retain a land in a state of barrenness cannot be admitted in the face of the necessities of a growing population; and that the dream of Maori nationality which this monopoly is intended to maintain must now, once for all, be put to an end.”

Before the news of the January fighting arrived, The Times, in a leading article of February 14, said: “No news from New Zealand may be considered good news. So little can be gained, and so much may be and has been lost, in this inglorious contest; the initiative has so invariably been taken by the natives, and the selection of the theatre of war seems to rest so entirely with them, that we may well augur favourably from their inaction up to the early part of December…. If it were justifiable or possible to deal with every rebel Maori as a traitor or criminal, we might by degrees intimidate them into submission. As it is, we are compelled both in justice and policy to adopt the principles of regular warfare, while our antagonists are a fluctuating body of marauders, occupying all the strong places of the island, combining or separating and professing friendship or enmity as it may suit them best, and waging war on the whole European population, while we confine our reprisals to that part of the natives which is actually in arms…. For the present the Governor retains a paramount control over the forces and may well be influenced by many other than military considerations in a distribution of them. It is probable that more than one of our disasters have been directly or indirectly due to this divided command. Where the enemy is indefinite, the casus belli indefinite, and the limits of supreme authority indefinite, we cannot expect much vigour or unity of action…. A doubtful cause may be a good reason for not going to war at all, but it can be no reason for prosecuting a war languidly, and sacrificing in loss of capital and unproductive expenditure as much as would suffice to buy up all the rights of all the tribes in New Zealand.” But we must remember that the Maori King's followers would not sell their land at any price. Mana not money was at stake.

On February 9, 1861, Major-General Pratt wrote: “The information forwarded to me in this colony is in many instances so exaggerated and so contradictory that it is most difficult to act upon it, or to form an opinion as to the future. At this moment I have reason to believe that the continuous losses the Waikatos have of late received have subdued them very much, and that they now, for the first time, freely admit the skill and bravery of the troops, and begin to feel that a contest with them is a forlorn hope. I believe they would readily come to terms, if offered to them, provided (they being a proud and haughty race) these were of such a character as would show the clemency of the victors, without inflicting degradation on the vanquished; at the same time I equally believe that there are in the colony mischievous characters (few, I trust, in numbers) who would not desire the war to cease, but would look rather to its continuation, for the extermination of the natives and confiscation of the land, and are persuading them that the frequent arrival of troops is for the purpose of seizing their lands.”

W.O. 33/16.

The Times wrote on April 15: “The New Zealand question drags on, like a Chancery suit in the good old days of Lord Eldon.” It went on to say that the battle of Huirangi on January 23 read like the story of a miniature Inkerman. “The Maoris,” wrote the Melbourne correspondent of The Times, whose despatch appeared on April 13, “showed great courage, frequently endeavouring to climb the bank by grasping the bayonets of the men who were defending the trenches, and many were wrested from the rifles.”

In a despatch of January 24, 1861, the Governor referred to a mischievous pamphlet “printed at a press worked by a person named Davis who was for many years in the Native Department of the Government and left it to avoid inquiry into alleged misconduct.” Donald Maclean, in a confidential report of January 23, stated that there was every reason to believe that the Maoris meditated an attack upon Auckland. “They have,” he said, “erected strong pas in the forest country inland of Drury. They are using every effort to collect supplies of ammunition, and they are at present busily engaged in securing their crops, and placing them in those fortresses. In one pa recently finished they have several tons of flour, and it appears they have a large supply of powder, obtained by the aid of foreigners, in a place which is not easily accessible, and to which they themselves only resort at night.”

On February 2 the Governor reported a conversation between T. H. Smith, the Assistant Native Secretary, and the Waikato chiefs, Tamati Ngapora and Patara. Tamati had said that there were two great obstacles in the way of peace: one, the requirement by the Governor that the men concerned in the murders at Omata should be given up; the other, an impression which prevailed that compensation would be demanded for the losses of the Taranaki settlers and that the land would be taken. Tamati added that, if it were understood that the suppression of the Maori King and Maori independence would be insisted on, he believed it would close the door against peace. “To die in the struggle,” he said, “would be the resolution taken by the King's supporters, who would choose this rather than the shame which would attach to submission or giving up their point.”

Sir F. Rogers made the following minute: “A man who can persuade the Maoris to some mean (middle) course between disclaiming the Queen's supremacy and abandoning what they look upon as the means of securing good government and perpetuating the practical independence which they at present enjoy seems much needed. The Governor and those who talk of the difficulty of having two Governments in New Zealand appear to me to lose sight of the fact that there are at present innumerable Governments there. The policy of Government I should say would be to recognize the independence of the British Crown; not to be too specific or unyielding about the exact nature of this supremacy but to allow it to grow; and to resist, as indirectly as practicable, but effectually, native centralization under one head. I wish that the Government had displayed more sense of the necessity of adroit management on this point.” Chichester Fortescue wrote: “It is certainly discouraging. I go very much along with Sir F. Rogers's view. It is more and more evident that the chiefs in native districts should be made use of and attached to the Governor.” The Duke of Newcastle: “I read this with much concern.”

C.O. 209, 160.

On January 1, 1861, the number of effective troops in New Zealand was 3,306. In February the Governor had interviews with certain native chiefs on the subject of the restoration of peace. The Maoris suggested that the Waitara question should be remitted to a Court and all crimes relating to the war forgiven. The Governor stated that the chiefs had said not a word about the future recognition of British sovereignty in cases where individuals of the two races were concerned. “Were they to expect,” he asked, “after joining in an insurrection, spilling so much blood and utterly desolating an English settlement, to have an unconditional peace which would leave them at liberty to renew hostilities when they pleased?”

C.O. 209, 160.

In a report of February 5 Donald Maclean stated that the great mass of the native population of the Northern Island might be considered to be in a state of disaffection…. “They rely to a certain degree,” he said, “upon receiving the sympathy and aid of the French nation—this delusion being kept up by the assurance to that effect of a few reckless persons of no social standing from that country, by Portuguese and other foreigners, and even by some English subjects, including deserters from the Army, who excite the natives by tales of imaginary and unheard-of cruelties practised upon all the dark races who have yielded submission to British authority…. The threats, curses and opprobrious epithets used by Europeans towards them confirm their worst suspicions.”

C.O. 209, 161.

The following Colonial Office minute appears on Gore Browne's despatch of March 4, 1861, forwarding correspondence with Commodore Seymour: “It is to be regretted that there appears to be the same want of cordiality between the Governor and the Senior Naval Officer that there is between the Governor and the General in Command of the military forces.…. We have heard of General Cameron's arrival at Sydney.”

C.O. 209, 161.

On April 2, 1861, Major-General Pratt reported that on March 19 a white flag was hoisted and operations suspended. The Governor had arrived on March 27 and negotiations were proceeding which, he trusted, would terminate in an honourable and lasting peace. “On the 30th, when I was being sworn in as a member of the Executive Council of the Colony, the English mail arrived, and Lieutenant-General Cameron, C.B., reached my camp with orders to assume command of the forces in New Zealand, which was to be separated from the Australian colonies, while I am directed to return to my command in Melbourne. It is not for me to express any feeling in this matter, or as to the moment chosen for the change: my duty was simple obedience, and I the same day handed over the command to Lieutenant-General Cameron. I trust, however, that I may be permitted to assure His Royal Highness that during the seven months in which I have conducted this war, neither mental exertion nor bodily labour has been wanting on my part in endeavouring to carry it out to a successful termination, and that success has been continuous, whilst I felt, and well knew, that any serious loss or reverse on our part would have led to a general rising all over the Northern Island, and to the wholesale destruction of the property, and possibly of the lives, of the great mass of the settlers in New Zealand, for no amount of force which England could supply would be sufficient to protect the lives or save the property of the detached and widely separated out-settlers.”

In transmitting this letter to the War Office, “announcing the successful termination of the operations in New Zealand,” the Duke of Cambridge recommended on June 17 that Major- General Pratt should receive the K.C.B. Pratt left New Zealand in April 1861. His services were acknowledged by the Secretary of State, the Duke of Newcastle, who, in a Colonial Office minute stated that such recognition was fully due to him. “On the whole,” he said, “I think he has done well and judiciously and has shewn determination to spare his men. I fear we cannot say he has brought the war to a close.”

The temporary peace had been arranged by Maclean, who was sent by Gore Browne to Taranaki with certain terms:

(1) Investigation of title of the Waitara land to be completed;

(2) Disposal of land in possession of Her Majesty's forces to be made in any manner he thought fit;

(3) All arms belonging to the Government to be returned;

(4) All plunder to be restored;

(5) The Ngatiawas must submit to the Queen.

C.O. 209, 161. See Saunders, I, 430–1. Saunders regarded Cameron's arrival at this juncture as most unfortunate. “The terms of peace were altogether altered and put into much harsher language, without a word about investigating the title to the Waitara block.”

Gore Browne, in a memorandum of May 25, 1861, the day on which the Colonial Office was informing him of his recall, wrote: “When the supremacy of the Queen is fully established, the first step to be taken is the initiation of a system by which the natives may be governed through themselves.” He expressed the view that the Native Department should be entirely remodelled, that a native Service should be established, and that increase of pay and advancement should be offered as a reward for fidelity and efficiency. He advocated the establishment of a central school for the training of native assessors in the rudiments of British law. He stated that there was no school at all north of Auckland. Roads through native districts were absolutely necessary for the progress of civilization and the maintenance of peace, and a tribunal to deal with land claims should be set up. The memorandum was warmly approved by the Colonial Office and Fortescue expressed the hope that Sir G. Grey would be willing and able to carry the suggestions into effect. The Duke of Newcastle described the memorandum as “very sensible and practicable.”

C.O. 209, 162.

In his journal on June 15, 1861, Henry Sewell wrote: “It is madness and wickedness to attempt to crush it (the King movement)—and to do so by force with all its terrible consequences will be in my opinion a crime of very deep dye. Of course with such real earnest aims, it is preposterous to suppose that the natives will abandon their work. Every military demonstration aggravates our difficulties. What we have to do is to take the King movement in hand, in a spirit of earnest, kindly sympathy and aid. The word King is an unfortunate word. In England it is supposed to mean antagonism to British rule. In truth it represents nothing more than the principle of self-government, but self-government may well consist with uniformity of law under one presiding Sovereign. A little political wisdom would soon find suitable means of adapting suitable machinery to work out this problem. But above all things we must put away Armstrong guns and rifles. They are not the instruments to do our work. Of course there is a large class (the most numerous class) who call all this Utopian, fanciful, sanguine, etc., etc., and they side with the Government. We shall see.”

On August 16 The Times reported that the 70th Regiment from Calcutta landed at Auckland in May and detachments of the 57th Regiment in the same month. The Governor's proclamation to the Waikatos concerning the King movement was published on the same day. In a leading article on August 17 The Times asked: “It is possible that we can be involved in a fresh war in New Zealand? It is but a month or two since we were invited to rejoice over the timely submission of the Maoris, to retract, mentally at least, any suspicions we might have entertained as to Colonel Gore Browne's policy, and to condole with Sir George Grey in finding his task of conciliation forestalled…. There is a vagueness in his (Gore Browne's) address, and an evident shrinking from the ultimatum of demanding the abdication of the Maori King, which the natives will not fail to construe into weakness…. Always sensitive, and self-conscious far beyond the ordinary level of savages, the New Zealanders, like the Israelites, whose example they somewhat ignorantly invoke, are moved by an instinct, shortsighted perhaps, but not wholly blind or rebellious, in clamouring for a king. This need not have been conceded in words, but it should have tempered the spirit of the Governor's language. Above all, granted that the King movement could not be terminated by the same negotiation which put an end to Wiremu Kingi's insurrection, the knowledge of these facts should have made him postpone the proscription of it till he or his successor should be prepared with a comprehensive scheme for the future management of native affairs….

“The truth is, that the New Zealand colonists, for whose exclusive benefit, if not at whose instigation, this war is to be undertaken, are literally the only parties who will not be out of pocket by it. The late report on Colonial Military Expenditure records, indeed, the enrolment of 1,500 New Zealand volunteers, but on referring to the list of those colonies which contribute more or less to their own military defence the name of those favoured islands is wanting, and Sir G. C. Lewis

Secretary for War, August 1861, until his death on April 13, 1863. He was succeeded by Earl de Grey and Ripon.

commented on the same fact in very plain terms. The outlay of a million or two on hastening the extinction of the Maori race may add one or two pence to our income-tax, may make our poorer householders look anxiously to their grocers' and butchers' bills, and even think twice about sending Tom or Harry to school, but it will subtract nothing from the profits of New Zealand sheep-farm, unless it happens to be in the path of a native war-party, and in that case its owner will probably put in a claim for ample compensation. Not only will it subtract nothing from the great bulk of colonial property, but it will secure to the seaports and garrison towns of the Northern Island the continued custom of four or five ships-of-war and nearly 7,000 regular troops. A very slight knowledge of the world is required to understand the influence of such motives in opening or shutting the Temple of Janus.”

The report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Colonial Military Expenditure, to which The Times referred, was dated July 11, 1861. The fifteen members included General Peel, Lord Robert Cecil, Lord Stanley, Chichester Fortescue, Sir James Fergusson, J. A. Roebuck, and C. B. Adderley, with Arthur Mills as chairman. The first witness examined was T. F. Elliot, Assistant Under-Secretary for the Colonies, who had been connected with the department for thirty years. He stated, in reply to questions, that New Zealand had never contributed anything to its own defence, but had recently agreed to pay £5 a head for Imperial soldiers as from 1858. The number of regiments in New Zealand had been reduced from two to one in consequence of the Indian Mutiny. Elliot gave a curious version of the origin of the New Zealand Company's settlement at Wellington, agreeing that those responsible for it “wanted to found an independent State,” whereas their real desire undoubtedly was that the country should come under British rule.

Earl Grey expressed the view that the presence of Imperial troops had tended to check rather than to encourage wars in the colonies. He attributed the New Zealand war to the change in the form of government. It was difficult to say on which side right lay. “I think it is on the side of the settlers, but that is perfectly immaterial.” He thought that the Imperial Government should, in default of a considerable contribution by New Zealand to its defences, secure a greater control not only over native policy but over “the general policy of the Government of the island.” Lord Grey's contention was that no motives of expediency could justify the abandonment of colonists and subject races.

W. E. Gladstone, Chancellor of the Exchequer, was primarily interested in seeing that the colonies cost less, but he did not “propose to throw upon the colonies the responsibilities of their own defence by way of any sudden steps.” John Robert Godley and Robert Lowe, called before the committee partly by virtue of their experience in New Zealand and Australia respectively, were both keen advocates of the withdrawal of Imperial troops. “I believe,” said Lowe, “that the absence of troops would do more than anything to prevent war.” Sir Charles Clifford and Walter Brodie expressed the New Zealand point of view. “We would rather,” asserted Brodie, “have no wars than the heaviest commissariat expenditure.” The Duke of Newcastle said that he did not think there was any desire on the part of the New Zealand colonists to provoke war, to which their interests were as much opposed as were those of the mother-country.

The report of the committee's discussions shows that it was the views of C. B. Adderley which prevailed. He maintained that when colonies were made responsible for their own internal defence, full and unqualified self-government could not be withheld, and it is with the efforts of the Imperial Government to stimulate the colonists' activity in self-defence that the history of Canada, South Africa, and New Zealand is for the next ten years to be largely concerned.

One of the recommendations of the committee was: “That with respect to New Zealand, while it may not be right, under all circumstances, to withhold from the settlers in that colony assistance in protecting themselves against the attacks of native tribes, so long as the Imperial Government retains a control over native policy, their principal reliance ought to be on their own resources.” In Australia, South Africa, Ceylon, and the West Indies it was recommended that the number of Imperial troops should be reduced or their cost provided in great degree locally. In conclusion, the committee submitted “that the tendency of modern warfare is to strike blows at the heart of a hostile Power; and that it is, therefore, desirable to concentrate the troops required for the defence of the United Kingdom as much as possible, and to trust mainly to naval supremacy for securing against foreign aggression the distant dependencies of the Empire.”

The report, which has been justly described as “the most important single document in the long series of events which was to lead at last to the evacuation of the self-governing colonies by the Imperial Army,”

C. P. Stacey, op. cit. Cf. pp. 123-128. The Report reference is P.P. 1861, No. 423, vol. xiii.

greatly influenced public opinion, and when Adderley himself became Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1866 it was a foregone conclusion that the main principles of the report would be strictly applied. The rejection by Canada of the Militia Bill of 1862 displeased the British public, because Great Britain had responsibilities in North America “which it desired neither to repudiate nor to incur great expenditure in fulfilling.”

H. E. Egerton, Historical Geography of the British Dominions, vol. v, Canada, p. 232. See also R. G. Trotter, Canadian Federation, p. 204, etc.

The Times was very emphatic on the subject on July 23, 1862: “They have money for many other things, some necessary others unnecessary; money for jobs of all kinds, money for the most questionable of public works, but money for honour, money for liberty, money for independence, for the privilege of being governed by their own laws and knowing no master—for these merely secondary advantages, as we suppose they consider them, the Canadian Parliament and Ministry have nothing to spare.” The scheme for the confederation of Canada brought to England by George Brown gave “prodigious satisfaction,” because it foreshadowed a time not too remote when British America might be sufficient for its own defence and Britain would be relieved of the constant fear of an invasion of Canada by the United States. But even at a time when “everything Canadian had gone up in public estimation immensely,” Brown noted “a manifest desire in almost every quarter that ere long the British American colonies should shift for themselves, and in some quarters evident regret that we did not declare at once for independence.”

Even in South Africa, where the great numerical superiority of the native races created special difficulties, the Imperial Government was to foster a policy of federation similar to that devised earlier by Sir George Grey and summarily rejected, with the avowed object of making practicable the policy of the Committee of 1861. To bridge the gulf between the Cape and Natal, and make these colonies more capable of standing on their own, Basutoland was to be annexed to Natal. The plan miscarried, and on March 12, 1868, Basutoland was annexed to the Crown. “From this annexation,” writes de Kiewiet, “may be said to date the new republicanism.” The Orange Free State sent delegates to protest on its behalf. The Aborigines Protection Society protested on behalf of the Basuto. All in vain. The history of South Africa, like that of Canada and New Zealand, was changed by a not very large committee whose report has received less attention than many documents whose influence was much less.

Chapter 4Prelude To Grey's Return

On November 26, 1860, Governor Gore Browne had forwarded to the Colonial Office an act to establish a council to assist in the administration of native affairs, entitled the New Zealand Native Council Act. “When the Constitution Act was framed,” the Governor wrote, “sufficient provision for the performance of its engagements by the Crown (namely that it should act independently as guardian of the Maori race) was not made.” (The Colonial Office comment in the margin consisted of one word: “True.”)

“It has for some time been evident,” the Governor continued, “that the existing relations between the Governor and his responsible advisers on the subject of native affairs are not satisfactory. I believe that there has been little or no difference of opinion between myself and Mr. Richmond, the Minister for Native Affairs, for whose ability and integrity I entertain the highest respect, but the responsibility for native affairs has rested entirely upon me, while, with the exception of £7,000 a year (the appropriation of which I cannot alter without the consent of my advisers), the power of the purse, which is all but absolute, has been altogether in the hands of ministers. This has been an unequal and unsatisfactory division.”

Though the Act was recommended by the Governor, Chichester Fortescue, the Under-Secretary of State, said he could not bring himself to think that it should receive the Royal Assent. “It looks and sounds as if it were a concession to the Imperial Government, while in reality I believe it would be a concession by the Imperial Government in the matter of native administration. It creates indeed a ‘Native Council’ to be appointed by the Crown, and provides £2,350 a year for its support. But it carefully avoids associating the Council with the Governor. It gives the Council no initiative. It subordinates it to the ‘Government’—that is, the Ministers of the day—in all its action, and it only concedes to it administrative functions ‘in special cases and at the instance of the Governor in Council,’ that is, with the consent of his Ministers. Add to this that it is declared in the Preamble and in the Resolution of the Assembly, that the object of the Bill, and the condition under which it is passed, is ‘that the control and ordinary departmental administration of Native Affairs shall be placed under responsible Ministers,’ and I think it will be evident that the Governor will have, under the proposed system, nothing like the amount of personal control and action in native affairs that he possesses at present. You will observe also that the Native Council under the Bill has no power whatever of legislation within native districts, nor of granting Crown titles to natives.

“Now, if the effect of the Act be to make a further transfer of power in native affairs to the Colonial ministry, it seems to me that the present is the worst possible moment for such a concession. First, because it will appear to the natives that the Queen is delivering them over to the rule of the ‘Pakeha’—at the moment when the latter are flushed with victory, and confident in their strength, under the protection of the large force which will then be present in New Zealand. Secondly, because our only chance of bringing the Colonial Government and Parliament to any terms upon the native question lies in making the amount of the Imperial payment for the expenses of the war and the amount of force to be retained in the colony dependent upon the arrangements for the administration of native affairs, to which they may consent, and above all upon their liberality in providing founds for that purpose.”

The Duke of Newcastle wrote: “I find it quite impossible after a very careful consideration of the Ordinance and the accompanying documents to advise the Queen to assent to it…. It may be that when responsible government was given to the colony it was impolitic to attempt to exempt from its operation the management of native affairs. It may be that the natives would be more liberally treated under the operation of this Ordinance…. Such are not the immediate questions…. In the face of the Treaty of Waitangi this Ordinance cannot be sanctioned without injustice and bad faith to the natives. They have never been consulted as to its provisions, and those provisions deprive them of that which they believe is their best security as given by the Treaty—the direct protection of the Sovereign of England. Without their consent such a change would be looked upon by them as indicative of evil intention by the settlers even in times when the two races were living together in peace.—How much more so now when war has kindled vindictive passions in each and when the natives must be persuaded that they will be utterly crushed by the action of the Assembly backed by an English Army. I firmly believe the result of sanctioning this measure would be to raise the whole of the tribes in armed opposition to our rule—the maintenance for many years of a large force in the colony at the expense of this country—and perhaps finally the extermination of all the more warlike portion of natives.” The Duke ordered that the despatch withholding assent to the Bill should be written “in a reasoning rather than dogmatic tone—putting forward shortly all the objections without disputing the abstract advantages of the plan, but mainly resting my decision upon my inability to reconcile it with entire good faith to the natives—and concluding by the promise of sending out by the next mail counter propositions.”

Sir F. Rogers, in a minute dated March 21, on a modification by Fortescue of the Assembly's proposals, said: “It seems admitted that in Maori affairs everything depends on the handling. If the Native Minister has the power of appointing, removing, advancing, instructing, praising, censuring, and paying the Native Department subject only to the Governor's power of saying no to anything that is very bad, that Native Minister will have the power of causing peace or war—of affronting or conciliating chiefs—of preventing or arresting the progress of a particular tribe or of the whole native race, and the Governor and Council will only be able to prevent definite strong acts in a mischievous direction and to make general laws which they have no powers to enforce—against the possible opposition of the European commonwealth and Native Department which will soon be made to take their cue from their new masters. The circumstances of the colony render it natural that New Zealand should be a kind of military

Sir George Grey headquarters in the Southern Hemisphere, and on this account a regiment (perhaps) might be furnished free of charge. But the colony (it appears to me) might be informed with perfect equity that, after a certain not very remote date, they would be required to pay for all troops in excess of the regiment. And some considerable contribution might be asked (without much hope of getting it) towards expenses already incurred…. If a parliamentary debate were sure to bring out strongly the indisposition of Parliament to recognize the duty of Great Britain to defend New Zealand, it would very much strengthen the hands of the Secretary of State against the Colonial Government. But the mischief might be that the objections of Members of Parliament might be rather stronger than is convenient.”

C.O. 209, 156.

In his outline of the proposed despatch, Rogers wrote: “I would shew at some length that the defence of New Zealand from internal wars was plainly a New Zealand affair.” Fortescue made the following comment in the margin: “It would be dangerous to carry this doctrine too far, remembering Caffre wars.”

A long despatch—82 pages of manuscript—was prepared and printed privately at the Foreign Office on May 10, 1861. It contained the reasons of the Secretary of State for declining to recommend Her Majesty's assent to the Bill for the establishment of a Native Council in the form submitted to him by the Governor, and outlining other proposals for the establishment of a Council. The despatch was later marked “Cancelled. See to Sir George Grey 5 June.”

In this despatch to Sir George Grey (dated June 5, 1861) the Duke of Newcastle wrote: “In calling on you to proceed to New Zealand they (H.M. Government) have been mainly influenced by the hope that your intimate knowledge of the natives, the reputation which you enjoy among them, and the confidence with which you formerly inspired them, may enable you to bring this deplorable warfare to a close earlier than might be in the power of any other man…. It will be your duty, while avoiding all unnecessary severity, towards men who can scarcely be looked upon as subjects in rebellion, to take care that neither your own mission, nor the cessation of hostilities, when it arrives, shall carry with it in the eyes of the natives any appearance of weakness or alarm. It would be better even to prolong the war, with all its evils, than to end it without producing in the native mind such a conviction of our strength as may render peace not temporary or precarious, but well-grounded and lasting…. It will be your further duty, and that one of no little difficulty, to endeavour to place the administration of native affairs upon a more satisfactory footing than that upon which it has hitherto stood.” The Duke added that he would not advise the Queen to bring the Native Council Act into operation until he had received Grey's report upon it. “I look forward,” he added, “to the introduction by you of some institutions of civil government and some rudiments of law and order into those native districts whose inhabitants have hitherto been subjects of the Queen in little more than in name, notwithstanding the well-meant Colonial legislation of the last few years.”

C.O. 209, 156.

The Duke of Newcastle wrote to Gore Browne officially on May 25: “The present conjecture renders it necessary for Her Majesty's Government to leave no expedient untried which is calculated to arrest the course of events, now unhappily so unpromising, and at the same time to provide for the future difficulties which there is only too much reason to anticipate even if the war should happily be soon brought to a conclusion. Having regard therefore to the peculiar qualifications of Sir George Grey, now governing the Cape of Good Hope, I have felt that I should be neglecting a chance of averting a more general and disastrous war, if I omitted to avail myself of the remarkable authority which will attach to his name and character in New Zealand. I trust therefore that you will not feel it as a slight on yourself that I should have determined to place the Government of the Islands in his hands at a moment when your own term of office has all but expired and when you would have no opportunity of providing against those future difficulties to which I have referred. I hope that in doing so I shall not deprive the Crown for any long period of the advantage of your services…. I have only to add that in case you should be disposed to accept another Australian Government, it may be convenient that instead of repairing to this country you should remain for a short time in Sydney, until I am able to communicate with you more definitely on the subject.”

C.O. 209, 163.

Gore Browne was notified on September 6 of his appointment as Governor of Tasmania.

In a despatch to Sir George Grey of June 3, 1861, the Duke of Newcastle wrote: “Her Majesty's Government… feel that there is no servant of the Crown on whose resources and experience they can so entirely rely as on your own for averting, if possible, the dangers with which the Colonists and Maoris are alike threatened.”

On the draft of the despatch appears the following important Colonial Office memorandum, with the Duke of Newcastle's decision: “Should Sir G. Grey's offer be noticed? I have avoided noticing it in the despatch to Col. G. B. because it would seem as if Sir G. Grey had been suggesting his (Col. G. B.'s) displacement.” “Better not notice it in a public despatch.”—N.

Ibid. Cf. The Case of New Zealand, 1865, reprinted from the Nelson Examiner, in which it is asserted that Grey offered “to come and restore peace at Taranaki, with the title, we believe, of Commissioner.”

It is clear from this hitherto unpublished memorandum that Sir George Grey had volunteered to return to New Zealand—a revelation interesting in itself and not without value in weighing the evidence in the subsequent controversy between Grey and the Colonial Office.

Gore Browne's reply to the despatch notifying him of Sir George Grey's appointment was dated August 5: “I am grateful to Your Grace,” he wrote “for the expression of approbation contained in this despatch, and am persuaded that the appointment of Sir George Grey, who has so much personal influence with the Maoris, and is so deservedly beloved by them, affords the best hope of a peaceful solution of the present difficulty. His return will also silence the opposition of those who have hitherto not thought it wrong to draw a distinction between armed resistance to the local Government and disloyalty to the Queen. I trust that the experience gained during my period of office will induce Her Majesty's Government to give Sir George Grey those full powers and that command of money without which success can hardly be expected.” The Colonial Office minute was: “Nothing could be better than the tone of this despatch, though no doubt Governor Browne for some reasons is glad to be released from a very awkward position.”

C.O. 209, 163. Cf. Newcastle to Gore Browne, May 27, 1861: “I cannot but feel that in some respects you will be glad to quit New Zealand. Circumstances have occurred, more especially the unfair conduct of some of the Clergy and the desertion of your old friend, Sir William Martin, which must be painful to you” (Martineau, op. cit., p. 320).

In Gore Browne's final months of office efforts were made to supply one want long felt by the Maoris—a reasonably comprehensive system of courts. On March 1, 1861, the Governor forwarded a report from H. B. White, the resident magistrate, on the working of the Native Circuit Act, 1858, in the district of Mongonui. Courts, he stated, were held at intervals of about six weeks at Whangaroa, Wai Kainga, and at Ahipara. The natives attended regularly on the day appointed. White stated that he had not encouraged the formation of an Assessors' Court. “I find the feeling of the people opposed to it,” he said. “They have more confidence in the impartiality of the European magistrates. Moreover, I found that for many years the chiefs in settling disputes always inflicted a penalty, which was appropriated to their own uses, often both parties being fined. This I found a great difficulty. On the one hand the people complained bitterly of the exactions of the chiefs, on the other the payment in the way of annual presents to the assessors did not cover their expenses…. It will be very necessary to pay these men some regular salary…. I cannot fairly state that I have met with any great success. Indeed I never expected it. But I am fully justified in reporting that some advance has been made.”

Chichester Fortescue made this comment: “It will be a question which will have to be decided not here but in New Zealand whether to adopt the system of European magistrates with paid native assessors, or that of paid chiefs with European magistrates attached to them (like Indian Residents), which is Sir G. Grey's system in Kaffraria. Chieftainship, however, is stronger among the Kaffres than among the Maoris. At all events it is plain that more funds are wanted, if there is to be any real system of government introduced into native districts.” The Duke of Newcastle's minute was: “Without money this scheme cannot be carried out and with money it can only be arranged, so as to work well, by an able man on the spot.”

C.O. 209, 161.

The Governor forwarded on March 1 a letter from H. T. Clarke, resident magistrate at the Bay of Plenty, containing a report of a conversation he had had with William Thompson, (Wiremu Tamihana) who, the Governor stated, was considered the most intelligent chief in New Zealand and the most influential in the King party. Thompson said: “My dissatisfaction first commenced with the loose manner in which the signatures were obtained for the Treaty of Waitangi…. Many old men were heard to say: ‘Let us go and make our mark in order that we may receive a blanket.’ I complain of the manner in which the land sales were conducted…. Then again we were alarmed at the rapidity with which the Government were buying up the natives lands.” Referring to the King movement, Thompson said: “This King was to be in close connection with the Governor to stand in the same relation to the Maoris as the Governor does to the Pakehas.” He added that they did not like all the magistrates sent among them. Fenton, he said, “separated us into two parties. He set up assessors without any references to the wishes of the people: and altogether I was dissatisfied with him.” The Colonial Office comment was: “The conversation has rather the appearance of being ‘doctored.’ Thompson's dislike of Fenton may be that Mr. F. was felt by Thompson to be breaking up his party and spoiling his game.”

C.O. 209, 161.

On March 2 the Governor reported that he had received several contradictory reports of the movements and intentions of William Thompson, who announced that he was proceeding to Taranaki but who was believed to be about to attack Auckland. On the same day the Governor wrote to General Pratt: “There is, it would appear, reason to fear that the insurrection is likely to become general. The state of affairs in this neighbourhood has become so critical that the New Zealand Govern- ment have thought it advisable to embody 725 men of the militia and place them temporarily on pay.” The Governor added that he thought Sir James Alexander was not active enough for the command of the troops in the province and requested that Colonel Warre should return to Auckland to assume command. Fortescue's comment was: “There seems great reason to fear that the native insurrection is spreading.” The Duke of Newcastle said: “The symptoms of it are for the first time alarming.”

C.O. 209, 161.

War of a much wider scope than the Taranaki campaign now began to appear inevitable. The first impressions of Lieutenant-General D. A. Cameron, C.B., on arrival, are contained in a letter to the Military Secretary, Horse Guards, from the headquarters at Auckland on May 6, 1861: “If the tribes of the Waikato should persist in refusing to acknowledge the Queen's supremacy, and in setting up a King of their own race, I shall doubtless receive instructions to carry the war into their territory. My first object would then probably be to penetrate into the angle formed by the Waipa and Horotiu rivers and to take possession of a point near their confluence called Ngaruawahia, which is understood to be the focus of the King movement agitation…. I learn from persons well acquainted with the subject that the Waikato tribes alone can bring from 4,000 to 5,000 fighting men into the field; and I therefore think that we should have a field force of not less than 2,500 Regular Infantry to oppose them, exclusive of the detachments required to guard the depôts necessary for so long a line of communications in a country wholly destitute of supplies.”

C.O. 33/10.

Cameron enclosed a letter, dated April 14, in which the Governor said that, according to Tamati Waka Nene, it would be useless to attempt to deal with the Southern tribes for the present: “He does not think you would see a single native or find anything to destroy; that they could sow their crops in the bush where we could not reach them, whereas if we wait until they have sown in the usual place we might get at them; that an attack upon them now would endanger the settlers about Whangunni [sic], etc.; that they have appealed to the Waikatos, who might possibly interfere in their favour, and create a diversion by attacking Auckland before we are prepared.” In his reply of April 15, from the camp at Waitara, Cameron stated that he concurred in the Governor's memorandum: “At the first meeting of the Executive Council which I attended after my arrival in the colony, I strongly recommended that they (the Waikato tribe) should be called to account, without loss of time, for their participation in the rebellion, and that they should not be allowed more than a few days to give in their submission…. These views being opposed by yourself and every member of the Executive Council, I willingly adopted the plan of a descent upon the Ngateruanni [sic] coast, because I could see no better way in which Her Majesty's troops could be employed, and not with any idea that such an operation, however successful, could be productive of any decisive results.” Cameron inquired whether it was intended to maintain martial law in Taranaki “now that hostilities have for some time ceased, and, so far as I can judge, are not likely to be renewed soon.”

W.O. 33/10. (Strictly confidential despatch and enclosures printed at the War Office, September 16, 1861.)

On May 6 there were 2,172 troops at Auckland, 910 at Taranaki, 191 at Napier, 178 at Wanganui, and 279 at Wellington, in addition to 16 field officers, 31 captains, 73 subalterns, 48 staff, 253 sergeants, and 83 drummers. Discussing the extraordinary success of the Maoris in resisting the troops, The Times said on May 23, 1861: “Their strength has been found to consist in an instinctive knowledge of fortification—a knowledge at once so perfect and so true that all the skill of scientific engineering has been taxed to match it…. There is no place so strong but it must fall in time, and we can only capture a ‘pa’ by such proceedings as would bring a modern citadel to terms.”

Commenting on a speech by Earl Grey in the House of Lords on May 28, The Times said that, in Grey's view, “Wiremu Kingi is a kind of Maori Gracchus or Hampden, battling against the territorial and political usurpations of a tyrannical oligarchy. The remedy, of course, is obvious and Lord Grey is not the man to shrink from recommending it. It is to send out Sir G. Grey again, armed with the powers of a dictator, to suppress the New Zealand Assembly for three years, and to concentrate in Sir George Grey and a Council to be nominated by the Crown all legislative and executive authority. By this coup d'état, supported by an adequate military force, and followed by certain appropriations of revenue in favour of the Maoris, he flatters himself that the knot of the difficulty would be cut, and that in a short period representative institutions (considerably modified) might be once more established in New Zealand.

“We are not much surprised that the Duke of Newcastle did not close at once with this bold and slashing proposal. At the same time, we hear with satisfaction that the Government had already anticipated that part of it which consists in the reappointment of Sir George Grey as Governor of New Zealand…. The terms in which the Duke alluded to the interference of the Bishop and his clerical coadjutors were wholly unjustifiable unless… capable of explicit proof. Unfortunately we are not left to conjecture on this subject. The facts which have reached us from time to time, and which were alluded to in the debate on Tuesday, the spirit of the letters emanating from that party which have appeared in our own columns, and the candid criticism of Lord Lyttelton, no hostile critic of ecclesiastical pretensions, alike convince us that Governor Browne has had quite as implacable enemies among the Church party as among the promoters of the Land League and ‘Maori King’ movement, or the most unscrupulous members of the Provincial Councils…. No measure of conciliation, nor even the presence of Sir George Grey, will be of the least effect, so long as the Maoris can count on the support of a party who in their jealousy for tribal rights connive at open rebellion against the Crown.”

One of the most discussed writings of those who sided with the Maoris was Sir William Martin's “Memorandum on Our Relations with Waikato,” dated May 3, 1861. He wrote: “At the outset of the Taranaki proceedings this old course of communication (with Potatau and the Waikato chiefs) was not followed…. At the same time threatening intimations were current (circulated especially by the Examiner newspaper) of an intended change of the policy of Government towards the natives. A vigorous policy, as it was called, was about to be commenced…. The entrance of a military force on their soil, especially when believed to be in violation of the Governor's word, would combine the various sections of the population…. I learn from Mr. Gorst that he saw William Thompson about a fortnight ago. In conversing with him Mr. Gorst assumed that the Maori King was intended to be independent of the Queen, and he endeavoured to point out the evils which would arise from any attempt to set up a separate and independent Power in this island. William Thompson answered him promptly by act and word. He stuck in the ground two sticks. ‘One’ (he said) ‘is the Maori King; the other is the Governor.’ He then laid on the top of the sticks a third horizontally. ‘This’ (he said) ‘is the law of God and of the Queen.’ Then he traced on the ground a circle enclosing the two sticks. ‘That circle is the Queen, the fence to protect all.’ William Thompson and his party have acted very foolishly and offensively in assuming for their chief the title of King even though they use it in a sense of their own. Still I see no ground for believing that they intend to repudiate the Queen's Sovereignty.…. Any fusion of the two races under one system of government is not at present possible. The establishment of separate institutions for the native race is the only alternative and this is the very thing which they crave at our hands.”

C.O. 209, 162.

In a despatch of May 16 on Sir William's “Memorandum,” the Governor wrote: “I cannot believe, as Sir William Martin does, that ‘the Maoris do not aim at a system wholly separate or independent’; nor can I agree with them in thinking that ‘the so-called King movement has been, and is even now, a movement which the Government should rather welcome as a God-send than attempt to crush as an enemy.’”

The Colonial Office minute, by Sir F. Rogers, was: “The story of William Thompson is interesting but I do not think Sir William Martin brings into view its real significance. What he (W.T.) in effect says is this: ‘I am ready to acknowledge the supremacy of the Queen—the distant authority which cannot act effectively on me. But I am not ready to acknowledge the immediate and effective authority of the Governor.’ The question is—how then is the authority of the Queen to be brought to bear upon the Maori King. And till this question is answered we do not know how far the term King is a mere ill-chosen phrase to signify a harmless idea and how far it is a real claim to independent and inadmissible power. Submission to the Queen which disavows submission to her representatives is no submission at all. But having said this much, I must say that Sir William Martin's views as to the course to be pursued appear to me very impressive. It is plain, I think, that the mass of the Maoris cannot really know their own meaning in the matter and will take a harmless or a dangerous view respecting their own independence, i.e. respecting the degree of independence to which they are entitled—according to the skill with which they are treated by us. I dread the whole class of expressions which appear in Mr. Smith's memorandum (forwarded by the Governor with the pamphlet): ‘We must settle the question now once for all.’ This must mean one of two things. Either ‘we must avail ourselves of the presence of superior force to extort a verbal admission of the Queen's rights and an abandonment of obnoxious phrases.’ Or—‘We must avail ourselves of the presence of superior force so to break the power of the Maoris as they shall never dare to be able again to set up the claim of independence of Colonial authority.’ The first would be merely nugatory; a form of phrase imposed by superior force will never prevent the Maoris from reclaiming (if they are inclined to do so) substantial independence, the moment that force is removed. The second means a desperate and tedious and expensive war of extermination—I do not see that anybody really doubts this.

“I should say (with Sir W. Martin) that nothing could be more impolitic or clumsy than to allow a quarrel of this kind to spring up on a matter of language, with savages who do not half understand the significance of the term which they use (or which we use). Whatever terms they use or are allowed to use, I should hope (with Sir W. Martin) that skilful and just government would, by giving the Maoris what they want, throw the King movement into the shade. (Remember the success of Mr. Fenton's movement.) And I think that the great object to be gained by the presence of a large force is not to terrify, but to give confidence in our just intentions by shewing that the demands which we make upon the Maoris, when we have them, to a certain extent, at our mercy, are not oppressive or vindictive, but are regulated by a desire for their own well-being. My own impression is that the Maoris should not be forced to commit themselves on the King question, one way or the other, but that their minds should be diverted from it by the exhibition of the power and dignity and pay which we are prepared to give to their chiefs acting in conjunction with the Queen's officers, and that the chiefs thus set up should be gradually brought under European government by always strengthening the European influence. This is no new mode of proceeding but one which has succeeded under the most varied circumstances—with Indian Rajahs, medieval feudatories, and African chiefs. Nor, I suppose, if the Royal authority were alone concerned, would there be any extraordinary difficulty whatever in bringing the colony (in the course of years) into the desired shape. The real difficulty is to carry on this system of manipulation in the face of a body of British colonist possessing responsible government. However, the necessity of considering these questions is superseded by the appointment of Sir G. Grey.”

C.O. 209, 162.

The Duke of Newcastle made the following minute: “As there is not a word in Sir F. Roger's excellent minute to which I do not entirely accede I will ask him to draft a despatch in accordance with it. None of the Governor's despatches renders very clear the exact present state of this question of the ‘Maori King,’ but so far as we know no act of violence or insurrection is threatened by the natives in support of this ‘idea.’ On the other hand it would appear that we are proposing to attack them in vengeance for a name. I say this appears, for I cannot believe that such is really Governor Browne's intention, and must suppose that he expects an appeal to arms by the natives under cover of this name. If they merely honour their King whether his name be Potato or Brian Boru and commit no breach of the Queen's peace, I agree with Sir W. Martin that such folly should be left to the influence of time, but if ever it be commenced, even though in a ‘cabbage-garden,’ then there can be no mistake and force must be met by force.”

C.O. 209, 162.

A despatch of September 22 embodied the minute of Sir F. Rogers.

On June 3, 1861, Archdeacon Hadfield wrote to F. W. Chesson, Secretary of the Aborigines Protection Society: “The attempts made to represent the condemnation of the war by all the ablest men in the Colony—Featherston, Fox, Fitzherbert, etc., as the result of party warfare, are quite false; the truth being that the ablest men of all parties, who had never before acted together, united to oppose what was so grossly tyrannical. …It is quite impossible that the Aborigines Protection Society could ever have a case which more imperatively calls for their decided action…. I regret to say that since the arrival of a large number of troops, the war feeling has increased, or rather, the desire for commissariat expenditure; for I believe few or none of the settlers (except perhaps, a few new-comers) have any hostile feeling towards the natives. Bear in mind (what Mr. Fox brings out) that this war is the act of the Governor, and is supported by the Colonial Office.” The Society had already, on April 24, petitioned the House of Commons for a special commission of inquiry into the Taranaki War, and it continued an active campaign in the interests of the Maoris.

On August 28 The Times wrote of the struggle in New Zealand: “There is so much inequality in the conflict as to rob it of all glory. There is so much difficulty and danger as to make it by no means an easy achievement, and we have, above all, the uneasy reflection that we have not the poor privilege of deciding upon and declaring the war which we are about to wage. To posterity, possibly to ourselves a few years hence, it will seem incredible that we should have been engaged in such a struggle, so useless, so impolitic, so discreditable—and that by a series of blunders and follies which would render the present war a just punishment, did its miseries really fall on the heads of those who have occasioned it.” On August 30 The Times pursued the same theme, and asserted that New Zealand was not colonized for Imperial purposes but settled by a private company.

The events leading to the colonization of New Zealand by the New Zealand Company, under the inspiration of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, are fully described in England and New Zealand.

“Let us give to the local Government of New Zealand,” the article concluded, “the power of dealing with the natives, as we have already given it all other powers; but let us accompany that gift with the distinct intimation that, as they now have the management of native affairs, they must undertake the settlement by their own means of all quarrels that may arise out of them, and by way of giving significance to this intention, let us signalize the return of peace by the withdrawal of our troops from a position in which they ought never to have been placed.”

On September 12, 1861, The Times published a letter from a Canterbury colonist (probably J. E. FitzGerald), in which the justice of the war was impugned, and in a leading article commented: “There is one feature of the case which the colonist puts very clearly and in more forcible language than we should have ventured to use. It is the injustice of leaving the real power of declaring war in the hands of men who ‘fight by proxy and pay by deputy.’ Sydney Smith tells a story of a person who was so much affected by a charity sermon that he thrust his hand into his neighbour's pocket and poured the contents of it into the plate. The zeal of colonists for the honour of the British flag is apt to resemble this gentleman's benevolence.”

On September 19 The Times published a two-column article on “William Thompson, the New Zealand King-Maker.” In this article it was stated: “Thompson returned from Waitara mortified and disappointed. He went down with intentions friendly to the English, desirous of distinction, no doubt, but of the distinction of a peacemaker; his advances were rejected, he was accused of promoting war and rebellion, he was forced into the position of a belligerent, though he had never fired a shot, and he came back under the threat of war…. There is no doubt that William Thompson is at present engaged in active preparations for war. He is visiting the natives from Tauranga to East Cape, probably to ascertain what support in men and ammunition he can count upon. He still expresses a strong desire for peace, and a determination not to be the first to commence a struggle, which he is aware must end in the destruction of his race, but for the consequences of which he does not consider himself in any way guilty.” The Times comment was: “That anyone should be found among so-called savages capable of playing the part of Warwick is sufficiently remarkable, and we think our readers will agree with us, after perusing this account, that in not employing such a person as a mediator a great opportunity of pacifying the natives without bloodshed has been missed….If so important a man, after deprecating the Waitara War, and scrupulously standing aloof till he found that his presence might be conducive to peace, has at last become disaffected, it seems to argue great want of tact on the part of the New Zealand Government.”

When opening the first session of the third Parliament of New Zealand on June 4, 1861, Gore Browne said: “The terms offered to the Taranaki and Ngatiruanui tribes will be laid before you. Their aggravated offences can only be pardoned on their giving such tangible proofs of submission as will at once afford a means of reparation for their unprovoked aggressions, and be a memorial to themselves of the punishment due to lawless violence. The Declaration which I have made to the Waikato tribes will also be laid before you. It requires submission without reserve to the Queen's Sovereignty and to the authority of the Law, whilst from those who have arms I have insisted upon restitution of plunder, and upon compensation for losses sustained at their hands by Her Majesty's subjects, Native or European.”

C.O. 209, 162.

The terms of peace for Waikato were opposed by Donald Maclean and T. H. Smith, but their objections were overruled. On July 6 the Governor asked for a Royal Proclamation with reference to the insurrection “because it has been industriously circulated, and believed by the Maoris, that I am not acting in accord with the views and wishes of Her Majesty's Government…. It might also be desirable that the natives should be informed that those who join the insurgents and take up arms against Her Majesty must in future expect that their offence will be visited by confiscation of land.” Sir Frederic Rogers's comment was: “This request is practically answered by the appointment of Sir George Grey. The Maoris cannot doubt that his proceedings will be such as the Queen approves.”

Ibid., 163.

William Thompson, on June 7, made this reply to the Gov- ernor's Waikato proclamation: “I do not desire to cast the Queen from this island, but from my piece (of land). I am to be the person to overlook my piece. Enough.”

The following resolution of a secret committee of both Houses in conference was adopted on July 5, 1861: “That no doubt exists that a large majority of the natives of the Northern Island, residing south of Auckland, are firm adherents of the Maori King, and that the allegiance of others of them to Her Majesty is not to be relied upon…. That the employment of a force adequate to put down speedily and effectually all resistance to Her Majesty's authority would be the most humane, the most beneficial to both races, and by far the least costly to the Imperial Government. That at all events the Commanding Officers in the several districts should be sufficiently reinforced to enable them to avoid being compelled to abandon everything to the insurgents except the garrison towns.”

The Duke of Newcastle's comment was: “I fear two things, equally to be deprecated, are developing themselves. 1st, The Governor seems to be gradually departing from his former policy and yielding to the anti-native feeling of a large number of the settlers. 2nd, There are amongst the Maoris evil spirits who mean to have a King in substance as well as in name and to resist the law…. I have already intimated that I will not advise further reinforcements and there is nothing in these papers to shake my opinion that we have done enough by sending 6,000 men, and the colony can, and ought to, do the rest.”

A memorandum prepared for the Governor and forwarded to the Colonial Office, set out: “The King movement originated with the chiefs. The people would have been content with law and order, with English magistrates and English guidance. The chiefs wanted Maori rule and a separate nationality. The work attempted in the Waikato by Mr. Fenton brought out more clearly the difference between the parties. The endeavour to establish civil institutions was frustrated by the King chiefs. They saw the danger to their agitation of allowing English institutions to be founded in their midst.”

C.O. 209, 163.

If we accept the contentions of the memorandum much of the subsequent course of events is more comprehensible, and Sir George Grey's policy of diminishing the power of the chiefs seems foredoomed to failure.

On August 2, 1861, Gore Browne reported that E. W. Stafford's ministry had resigned after being in office more than five years and that William Fox had taken his place. Stafford had been defeated on July 5 by 24 votes to 23, the issue, according to Saunders, being between a “War” policy and a “Peace-at-any-Price” policy.

See his account, op. cit., I, 438-48.

On August 9, Gore Browne forwarded a memorandum by C. W. Richmond, lately Native Minister, on the King movement. Sir F. Rogers made this note: “The question is in short whether William Thompson is to become a Jefferson Davis or a Smith O'Brien.”

On August 24 Gore Browne forwarded a copy of a confidential memorandum he had written for Sir George Grey. In this he said: “I have no desire to re-open the much vexed question of the Waitara purchase, but I must repeat that Teira and his friends had established so good a prima facie claim to the land that it would have been a gross injustice to them not to have called on Wiremu Kingi to plead; and, when he refused to do so, to have yielded would only have invited further encroachment;—nor should it be forgotten that Kingi's interference between land sellers and land leaguers had been the cause of the disgraceful feuds and disasters which I went to Taranaki to suppress in 1859. Unfortunately those who considered Wiremu Kingi to have been aggrieved, spoke and wrote in a manner which (when added to our ill success in the field) could not fail to encourage the insurgents to persevere in their resistance. Even Sir William Martin advised reference to the Queen and the English Parliament in a letter to a Waikato chief, and in an official document he speaks of a ‘temporary estrangement from the Colonial Office (being) followed by a strong and abiding attachment to the Government of England,’ thus making a marked distinction between the Governor and Her Majesty's Government whose servant he is. Even if the Government have been wrong in treating with Teira (which I deny), it is not the less certain that the Maoris could not be permitted to assert their right by force of arms; and if the Europeans, and more particularly the clergy, had adopted this view, and united in advising the Maoris to submit, it is more than probable they would have been successful in persuading them to do so.”

Gore Browne noted that General Cameron, “who,” he said, “had not then gained the experience which he now has,” had strongly recommended that the Waikato tribes should be called to account without loss of time. “He considered,” the Governor added, “that we had received abundant provocation, and that the Waikato should be required to submit after three days' notice. He did not then realize the difficulties attending such an undertaking and wrote officially that ‘much valuable time had already been lost in dilatory negotiations.’ I am led to believe that ere long the Middle Island will desire separation from the North, and although the demand may be put off for a time, it will be necessarily acceded to sooner or later. Advantage should be taken of any such change to replace the Provinces by counties, hundreds and muncipalities, taking care to localize the expenditure of funds derived from the sale of land.”

C.O. 209, 163.

Gore Browne's term of office had not been a very successful one, but by studying his acts and despatches in detail, we have at least seen that he tried to do his best in very difficult circumstances. He had many sound ideas, but he lacked appreciation of the Maori character and proved too amenable to the conventional versions of what British sovereignty entailed, which were pressed upon him by interested parties. William Fox severely criticized him for leaving unvisited “the larger part of the native territory,” and said that he had gone as far wrong in one direction as Sir George Grey in the other.

The War in New Zealand (1860).

A later writer says of Gore Browne: “Naturally simple and retiring, he was quick, intelligent, and had great moral courage….His weak points were that his mind lacked robustness and that he had a too nervous temperament, one almost femininely sensitive. He felt more than he reasoned. He could never be coerced to do what he thought wrong, but he was apt to be misled by adroit persuasion…. His soul abhorred meanness and all duplicity.”

William Gisborne, New Zealand Rulers and Statesmen (1897), p. 84.

It was the Governor's misfortune to have to try to guide New Zealand in a period of transition for both the settlers and the Maoris. He failed to avert a conflict, but his failure was due more to defects in the system of government than those in his own character. The considerate private letter written to him on May 27, 1861, by the Duke of New castle, shows that the Colonial Office attitude towards him was sympathetic: “I have all along said that it may be questionable whether the question of Teira's land could not have been settled without recourse to arms, but I believe that if it had, the natives would soon have fixed on some other question which would have brought on the same result, as opposition to British supremacy was really at the bottom of the proceedings. Your difficulties were great, and upon the whole I am fully prepared to continue to defend, as I have hitherto defended, both your administration of the Government before the breaking out of the rebellion, and what you have done since.”

J. Martineau, op. cit., p. 320.

Chapter 5Uneasy Peace

Before we describe Sir George Grey's eventful second term of office in New Zealand, it is necessary to outline his experiences in South Africa, which undoubtedly influenced both his attitude to native affairs and the attitude of the Colonial Office towards him. It is, perhaps, not entirely fanciful to imagine that the vastness of South Africa and its native problem caused Grey to lose something of the personal magnetism which had stood him in such good stead in South Australia and New Zealand. To travel everywhere and see everything personally was impossible, and he lost to some extent the common touch. At first he worked on familiar lines.

In South Australia and New Zealand “he had learnt to regard the Colonial Office as a pliant set of men, who were not disposed seriously to question his acts and decisions.” He decided to follow the plan which had succeeded in New Zealand—to gain an influence over the tribes by employing them upon roads and public works and by establishing schools, hospitals, and “institutions of a civil character.” He planned military settlements among the Kaffirs of British Kaffraria. In default of English army pensioners, he secured 2,000 German mercenaries who had been recruited for the Crimean campaign.

“In South Africa,” writes de Kiewiet,

British Colonial Policy and the South African Republics, p. 95.

“Grey very largely overlooked the significance to the natives of a secure possession of sufficient land.” His New Zealand plan for making land available for settlement at a low price, which drew upon him the wrath of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, showed the same tendency, and one cannot but be struck by the parallels between South African and New Zealand history in this decade. Between the Orange Free State and the Basuto, land was the root cause of the conflict. “The Kaffirs see that now or never is the time to fight the land battle, otherwise it is lost for ever,” wrote John Burnet, Civil Commissioner, on February 22, 1858. In New Zealand the Maoris were coming at the same time to a similar decision, and when war was declared by the Orange Free State against the Basuto on March 19, 1858, we have the additional parallel that the tribes were “emboldened by the possession of guns” illicitly sold to them. But there was one great difference. In South Africa the white invaders took large areas and did not cultivate them. In New Zealand the white settlers could not get enough land. It was the Maoris who held large areas and did not cultivate them.

Grey quickly became imbued with the idea that federation alone could solve South Africa's problems, but circumstances could scarcely have been more unfavourable than they were in 1858 for the adoption of any scheme which involved colonial expansion. The year, as de Kiewiet points out, “opened gloomily with an increased national debt, distress following upon a recent financial crisis, rebellion in India and a war in the Far East.” Reduction of expenditure was the chief aim of the Government, and its refusal to accept the cession of the Fiji Islands showed that an increase of Imperial responsibilities was far from welcome. Bitter experience had taught the lesson that the infancy of colonies is an expensive period for the mother-country, and there was little but the faith of a few enthusiasts to combat the belief that after infancy they would set up independent houses for themselves.

Grey's grant of £40,000 a year for native purposes was reduced by half in the budget of 1858, the year which may perhaps be taken as a crucial one in his relations with the Colonial Office. It is much easier to understand later events in New Zealand when we know something of the details of South African events at this time. “Grey's outspoken denunciation of the Home Government's policy, his pertinacity in desiring to extend the sphere of British influence into the interior, his wilful independence of action, and his neglect of instructions were rapidly undermining the confidence which the Colonial Office had in him. Between the Colonial Office and its once favourite Governor there was a growing estrangement. The minutes written by the Colonial Office officials upon the Governor's despatches became angry and sarcastic, almost hostile.”

de Kiewiet, op. cit., p. 128.

Grey's famous despatch of November 19, 1858, advocating South African federation including the Boer republics, envisaged a self-governing dominion as we know it to-day. Needless to say, this conception was far in advance of public opinion at the time, and it is probable that in the circumstances of the time it was impracticable. We are more immediately concerned with the actions of Grey before he received the Home Government's verdict on the plan. Disregarding his instructions, he brought resolutions of the Free State Volksraad in favour of federation before the Cape Legislatures. The Home Government's veto arrived in the midst of the discussions, and Grey was recalled in disgrace.

By the time he arrived in England the Derby ministry had fallen and Lytton had been succeeded as Secretary of State for the Colonies by the Duke of Newcastle. The Duke was much more sympathetic to Grey's plans and he took the remarkable step of reinstating the Governor. Though the Duke was as emphatic as any of his predecessors that “expansion and extension of influence must not take place at British expense,” we are conscious during his term of office of a more liberal attitude to colonial aspirations. Sir George Grey, however, was not to be long in South Africa before events in New Zealand, which we have already described, led to his return there.

This recall to New Zealand, though welcomed generally, was not regarded by the Duke of Newcastle as a certain solution of the problems confronting the country, and there is an underlying note of anxiety in a very long private letter which he addressed to Sir George on June 5, 1861. In this he wrote: “One of your private letters to me some five or six months ago showed that, with such information as you had, your impressions were strongly adverse to Colonel Gore Browne's proceedings in the case of Taranaki. I trust you will endeavour to forget past impressions, and reform an opinion from this complete series of documents I send you, for I cannot help thinking they will much modify your views….Let me earnestly press upon you the importance of winning over to your support and confidence the New Zealand politicians. I do not expect you to be pleased to find the system of responsible government in full work. I know your habits of mind and views of government of a colony are not strictly attuned to these ultra-popular institutions, but for good or evil they exist, and I cannot agree with Lord Grey that it would be desirable, even if it were possible, to change them, and I trust you will prove how good a workman you are by turning out a good job, even though you are provided with tools to which you have not been accustomed and which you do not like.”

J. Martineau, op. cit., pp. 322–3.

Sir George Grey proceeded from Capetown to New Zealand in H.M.S. Cossack, arriving on September 26, 1861. From the ship he wrote on August 15: “The intelligence received of the terms of peace offered to the natives at the Waitara renders it probable that war must break out in some other part of the Islands.” Against this passage is the following Colonial Office marginal note: “Surely this censure would have been better delayed or suppressed.”

C.O. 209, 164.

In a despatch of October 9, Grey wrote: “Two of the three parties of natives we were treating with have arrogantly and contemptuously refused the terms proposed by my predecessor, and the third party have already broken the terms they seemed to have accepted.” Grey enclosed a memorandum by Fox on the Government's policy. Fox stated that in the three years following the relaxation of the ban on the sale of arms and ammunition the natives had spent a sum approaching £50,000 on them. “This may seem almost incredible,” he said. “It is a fact, however, that small parties of natives have purchased at one time whole tons of gunpowder.”

A Colonial Office memorandum summarized Fox's policy thus: “To conciliate the Waikatos, but to assume a stern and decisive attitude towards the Ngatiruanuis and Taranakis,” “But,” the writer added, “if that attitude leads to hostilities, will the Waikatos remain quiet? The second paper urges that the control over native matters now possessed by the Governor solely should be made over to the Responsible Ministers, a position which it may be said the Responsible Ministers had in fact usurped previous to Governor Browne's removal from the Government.”

In this second paper Fox wrote: “Ministers are bound to state that they regard the existence of the Native Secretary's Department, free as it is from all control on the part of the Responsible Ministry, as a very serious evil. While its existence paralyses all independent and vigorous action on the part of the Ministry, it is itself inefficient and powerless. Receiving no sympathy, and little support, at the hands of the Assembly or the Responsible Ministry, it neither originates nor can it carry out any persistent or large policy.”

On December 16, 1861, The Times, in columns black lined in mourning for the Prince Consort, published a despatch from its Melbourne correspondent recording the arrival of Sir George Grey in Auckland and the expectation of peace which it had aroused: “His idea is (as I am informed) to break down the distinctions of race, to create an administration of native affairs, worked by the natives themselves with European help, and under the direct control of responsible ministers.”

Grey, in a despatch of October 10, 1861, stated that he had not complied with instructions regarding a reply to a petition of the natives of Otaki in the terms set out by the Secretary of State. Sir F. Rogers noted: “It seems to me that whether Sir George Grey is right or wrong is a matter on which it is quite impossible for the Colonial Office to judge. In such matters we must be content to see through his eyes—unless we are ready to run the risk of embarrassing him. At the same time it is almost absurd to have this very early and unequivocal intimation that wherever Sir George Grey goes he will be most unmistakably Sir G. Grey.”

C.O. 209, 164. Cf. Life of Lord Norton (Sir Charles Adderley), p. 173. Lytton, writing on October 21, 1859, to Adderley about Grey after the Duke of Newcastle had succeeded Lytton at the Colonial Office, said: “I saw much in Grey that I admired … though I felt that he was a most troublesome public servant … and his haughty self-opinion and his way of dealing with public money were like those of a Roman Proconsul.”

On November 2 Grey forwarded reports by J. E. Gorst and others on the state of the Waikato. Referring to the Governor's despatch, the Duke of Newcastle wrote: “This and others are only the overture to the grand opera which I presume Sir G. G. is preparing.”

C.O. 209, 164.

On November I Lieutenant-General Cameron wrote that he had been confidentially informed by Sir George Grey that “no definite arrangements have yet been made with any of the native tribes; that he entertains no present intention of entering into any treaty with them; but intends gradually to do what he thinks right and expedient. That he has good grounds for hoping that the great majority of the natives will, by degrees, acquiesce in the steps he intends to take. That the difficulties in his way are a sullen spirit of disaffection which appears to have spread widely amongst them, and the strong party feeling existing between the two parties of Europeans in the country. That he hopes time and prodence will overcome all these difficulties, except, he fears, in the case of the Taranaki natives. That, if his expectations turn out to be just, no general war will take place, nor need my further preparations for such be made. But, under any circumstances, a considerable time must elapse before the country can be in such a state that the presence of a large military force can be dispensed with.”

W.O. 33/16.

In a despatch of November 2, Grey said that his policy was—not to be hurried into a renewal of military operations if these could be avoided, to introduce into all possible parts of the island institutions suited to the present growth of the country, and to secure all the friends he could among the natives, “so as to reduce the number of our enemies.” Grey estimated at about £43,000 the annual cost of administering the native institutions he proposed.

C.O. 209, 164. For comment on the introduction of Grey's scheme for the self-government of the Maoris on the East Coast, see East Coast Historical Records, by W. L. Williams. The Commissioner proceeded somewhat hasily to make various appointments without taking any of the principal chiefs into his confidence.” This caused “a great disturbance among the people,” the salaries being regarded by many “at money paid with a view to getting possession ultimately of the land.”

In another despatch of the same date he stated that ministers thought that the only course open to the colony was to wait until the existing native difficulty was removed, ascertain what proportion the colony must pay, and apply for a guaranteed loan extending over a period of years.

A Colonial Office note read: “The N.Z. Ministry do not suggest the idea of imposing any new taxes.” The Duke of Newcastle's comment was: “There is an obvious desire on the part of Sir George Grey to make the military expenditure appear as large as possible. We shall probably see the motive soon.”

C.O. 209, 164.

On November 28 Grey sent a sketch by a young lady who had just visited the Waikato. It showed the dwelling of the Maori King—the large ordinary reed house of a chief, with one small door and one window. Grey explained that there was not one fortified place for the troops to attack. “The contest,” he said, “if it unhappily takes place, will simply be one in which every swamp, stream, wood, and naturally strong position will be defended by men completely concealed in artfully constructed rifle-pits and breastworks.” This drew the following Colonial Office minute by Sir F. Rogers: “A young lady's sketch—one of the cloud of sharpshooters under cover of which the main body of Sir G. Grey's argument is advancing upon us.”

Ibid., 165.

In a despatch of November 3, Grey wrote: “I do not for the present deem it for the good of Her Majesty's service to carry out the publicly expressed determination of my predecessor to compel the Waikato tribes to submit to the terms, a compliance with which was specifically demanded from them on the 21st of May last.” Here followed a passage omitted from the despatch printed for Parliament: “Careful inquiries, and repeated conversations with those natives most attached to us have convinced me that the Waikato natives will not submit to these terms at present, and that any attempt at this time to enforce them by troops will instantly lead to that general war which my predecessor anticipated. For such a war no adequate preparation has yet been made, and it must under the most favourable circumstances be attended with results most disastrous to us.” Grey also said he did not propose to repeat the native conference but hoped to induce the native tribes in detail to accept the institutions he proposed.

The Duke of Newcastle's minute was as follows: “There is much of calm good sense and self-reliance without over-confidence in this despatch…. As regards the ‘Conference’ of chiefs, I confess that more recent events have led me to doubt the wisdom of the approval which I gave to a repetition of this experiment (guarded though it was) to Governor Browne some sixteen months ago. I fear the tyrant maxim of ‘Divide et Impera’ may be (humanely and) more safely applied to the Maoris than our own more civilized and constitutional notions of combination of wisdom and power.”

C.O. 209, 165.

On November 30 Grey intimated that he had arranged to consult his responsible ministers in relation to native affairs “in the same manner as upon all other subjects, and in like manner to act through them in all native matters.” Fortescue's minute was: “I think that the transfer of the Native Department to the Responsible Ministry cannot usefully be opposed. I believe the amount of Imperial control retained by the former arrangement was more nominal than real, and while it did not prevent the Governor from really acting under the influence of Ministers, it gave them and the colonists good (apparent) grounds for calling the native policy Imperial, and war growing out of it an Imperial war. A strong Governor will probably have as much power under one system as the other and will be more likely to obtain funds. I must say that the Colonial Government and Sir G. Grey do not seem to recognize, as they ought to do, the full obligations which the present crisis in the history of the colony imposes upon them.”

The Duke of Newcastle wrote: “Nothing could be so bad as a nominal independence of his Advisers in matters of Native Government and a real subjection to their general views…. The financial part of Sir G. Grey's plan for future Native Government is ingeniously contrived so as to throw the whole burden on the mother-country—for whilst we are to give up to the colony £25,000 now payable for soldiers, they are to pay only the same sum as they now pay (as I understand it) for native purposes, and moreover our soldiers and officers are to do civil work as well as fight for them. I think we shall have to forgo the £25,000 for a few years to be applied to native purposes, but it must be on strict conditions. It would be quite fair to insist that the monstrous arrangement by which the surplus revenue is divided among the Provinces and applied to municipal purposes should be given up. The towns in New Zealand are quite as capable of having Municipal taxation as those of any other country…. It seems to me that we must insist upon repayment of the sums which have been advanced from the military chest for militia and volunteer purposes.”

The Treasury made this memorandum: “My Lords fear that the readiness with which Sir George Grey has evinced to throw on Imperial funds charges of this nature may lead to and confirm the local Government in the spirit of resistance to the fair requirements of Her Majesty's Government which had previously been shown, and the recollection of the large debt which was thrown on the Treasury Chest at the Cape of Good Hope on account of expenditure for local objects greatly exceeding the authorized amount is calculated, they fear, to create an impression that Sir George Grey is prompt to claim for Her Majesty's Government the reputation of liberality—without sufficient calculation of the cost.”

C.O. 209, 165.

The sentence was long, but the verdict, if we may so express it, not unjust.

On December 6, 1861, Grey reported that he had visited the Bay of Islands, Waimate, and Hokianga, to introduce native institutions among the tribes, and that the visit had been in all respects a successful one. On January 7, 1862, he forwarded reports of a visit he had paid to the Lower Waikato district. “Your Grace will find that on the whole there is great reason to be satisfied with the state of the feelings of tribes who inhabit those districts which I have visited.” Some of the chiefs, however, “shewed a quiet determination to adhere to the position they had taken and to strive to live in their own territory under officers of their own.” They said that we should find it as difficult to draw them back under our rule as the fowler did to catch the bird which had escaped from a snare. “They shewed,” Grey added, “an entire distrust and want of confidence in the Government.” He stated that he had requested General Cameron to remove the troops from Otahuhu to the line of the Waikato and employ them in completing the road from Auckland to that river, and in putting it in such a state that troops could move rapidly along it at all seasons of the year. A marginal comment of the Colonial Office on this proposal was: “A very good move? Excellent.”

Grey also added that care would be taken to select a good site for a military post on the banks of the Waikato in such a position as to command the river. “The post,” he said, “will be only about forty miles from the residence of their so-called King, and the Waikato River will be quite open to our attacks.” Fortescue's comment was: “I would decidedly approve of the formation of the road.” The Duke of Newcastle wrote: “Certainly! The more roads made the more probable is future peace.”

C.O. 209, 167. Cf. The Provincial System of Government in New Zealand, by W. P. Morrell, who questions (p. 118) the wisdom of pushing on with the road. At this juncture the establishment of the post and the formation of the road do seem to have been unduly provocative.

Grey, in a despatch of January 8, reported that several Maoris who had been promised Crown grants of land on selling tracts to the Crown had never received them. “It is certainly anomalous and wrong,” wrote Fortescue in a Colonial Office minute, “that the Governor should be charged as he is by the Constitution Act (that most imperfect piece of legislation) with the sole right and responsibility of acquiring land from the natives for the use of the colonists and yet should not possess the power of giving the seller a Crown grant for a portion of the land sold, as a condition of the sale.”

The Duke of Newcastle wrote: “Two years ago I attempted Imperial legislation on native affairs in New Zealand. The House of Lords gave an unwilling assent. The New Zealand colonists in this country got up an adverse agitation. The House of Commons threatened refusal and the Bill was withdrawn. And the measure was no less condemned in the Colony, not because its purport was bad but because it was Imperial. There is no use in raising these storms again.”

C.O. 209, 167.

Grey was given permission to apply to the local legislature for an Act to meet the case.

Grey, in a despatch of February 8, objected to the sudden withdrawal of all naval force from New Zealand by Commodore Seymour, who wished to concentrate his forces at Sydney as war with the Northern States of America seemed probable. Grey said that it would be “better not to station such a force here” if it were liable to be withdrawn at a moment's notice. This drew a sharp Colonial Office marginal note: “Nonsense. How disgusted he would be if he were taken at his word.”

Sir F. Rogers, in a minute, wrote: “I should reply…that the Imperial Government had hitherto freely aided the colonists of New Zealand in their conflict with the natives, or rather had as yet taken upon itself with comparatively trifling assistance from the colonists, the expense and responsibility of carrying on that conflict; but that so long as the inhabitants of New Zealand relied for their defence upon aid furnished by the mother-country they must remain subject to the possibility that that aid might be suddenly withdrawn or diminished in consequences of Imperial exigencies.” The Duke of Newcastle said: “Commodore Seymour was quite right and this grumble is very unreasonable.”

Affairs at New Plymouth were by now in a parlous state, judging from an article in the Taranaki Herald of January 25, 1862: “This unfortunate little province is doomed to bear the chief burden, not of the war only, but also of the present truce or peace. The war dragged its weary length along until we had little left to lose, until almost the last of our cheerful homesteads had been reduced to a heap of ashes, rusty nails, and melted glass; and now it is our fate to live on through tedious months, perhaps years, in utter uncertainty as to when the time will arrive when we may safely begin rebuilding them, and how we are to find the means to do so…. We have not even the poor satisfaction of being able to blame any one in particular for our misfortunes. We know who to blame, indeed, for the conduct of the war, but for its origin the blame must be shared amongst almost all, both here and at home, who have been concerned in the government of the colony since its foundation. All failed to comprehend the nature and difficulties of the problem which lay before them, and whilst aiming like the sons of Ulysses By slow prudence to make mildA rugged people, and thro' soft degreesSubdue them to the useful and the good, they seem to have succeeded in adopting only the slowness and softness of this process, altogether omitting the prudence.”

In a despatch of March 7, 1862, Grey wrote: “In the attacks made in some newspapers upon the natives, and upon all acts of fairness performed towards them, consists at present the greatest difficulty in this country.” Writing to Cameron on April 8, he said: “The native King's party is constantly declining in numbers and influence; but on the other hand, they being irritated at perceiving this, are making strenuous exertions to maintain their ground. I believe that they will altogether fail in their efforts to do this; but the state of the island is still such as to require the most constant vigilance and care on all our parts. I am sure that any reduction of the force serving here, or the slightest false step on the part of the Government, would bring on an immediate war, which, however, prudence and a show of sufficient force, will, I believe, avert.”

W.O. 33/16.

On May 8 Cameron reported that Grey had appointed him Deputy-Governor during his absence in Wellington for the meeting of the General Assembly.

In June 1862 J. E. Gorst made a general report on the state of the Upper Waikato.

C.O. 209, 168.

The Taranaki Herald wrote of this on August 2: “The conclusions which Mr. Gorst draws from the present aspect of the King movement our late Governor and his advisers arrived at some years since, from a general view of the condition of the native race. A singular combination of real, but blind, philo-brown-anthropy, on the part of the Bishop of New Zealand and Sir W. Martin; a mixture of this, with much bile, self-righteousness, and deliberate unfairness, in Mr. Swainson (see his little book passim) and others of his stamp; unscrupulous thirst for political power in Mr. Fox and his associates, the extreme tenderness of our respected parent, John Bull, in the region of the purse; and last, but not least, the wonderful and incredible incapacity of some of the military officers to whom that worthy individual entrusts the carrying out of his decrees—these influences combined have succeeded in bringing into temporary disrepute the doctrine first enunciated by Governor Browne and his Ministers, namely that for both his own sake and that of the colonists, it is necessary that the Maori should be governed.”

Grey acknowledged on July 24 a despatch from the Duke of Newcastle of April 28, 1862, expressing “surprise at the want of energy displayed by my Government in not using any effort to maintain the usefulness of the militia force,” and adding that His Grace accordingly felt he had a right to assume that there were more soldiers in the colony than were required. Grey said that to enforce militia service would create a war of races. His Ministers in a memorandum stated that it would lead to a general exodus from the colony. The Governor said he proposed to create a permanent armed police force, composed of both Europeans and natives.

Fortescue, in a minute, said that it was all the same to the Imperial Government whether British settlers prospered and consumed British manufactures at Auckland or at Canterbury or at Melbourne. The Duke of Newcastle wrote: “The reason assigned by Sir George Grey is good so far as it goes. The reason of the ministers—fear of an exodus to avoid military service—is good for nothing.” The Duke approved the project of a police force.

C.O. 209, 169.

On August 9 Grey reported that Fox had resigned on July 27 after failing to carry a resolution affirming that the interests of the colony required, while reserving to the Governor both the initiation and the decision of questions where Imperial interests were concerned, that the ordinary conduct of native affairs should be placed under the administration of responsible ministers. A ministry had been formed by Domett on August 5, and on the evening of the same day Grey had received the Duke's despatch of May 26 sanctioning the placing of the management of the natives under the control of the Assembly.

C.O. 209, 169.

The correspondent of the Nelson Examiner wrote from Wellington: “Nobody showered wreaths on Mr. Fox, so he threw some on himself; nobody spoke an oration on his virtue, so Mr. Fox spoke one himself. ‘His mission was accomplished; he had intended to retire in 1860, but came back to rescue the country from an evil Governor and evil counsellors. He had upset the war party, dismissed Governor Browne, brought out Sir George Grey, given him a policy, and left the country so that such evils could hardly recur, for he had drawn the British lion's teeth.’ Thus fell Mr. Fox, ranting to the last. He brought to the public affairs of New Zealand many good qualities; an unimpeached private life, no venal taint, great readiness and lively wit, much administrative ability, great fluency of tongue, great industry, and a memory above average. But he has shown not a sign of high or comprehensive views; his best political notions have been echoes, his mind is a receptive mind, and that not of the finest quality, often he reverberates most hollow principles; and his practical action has been untrammelled by any fine scruples. His tongue, rarely checked by generosity, has made him hundreds of enemies; it has always been more potent in invective than in argument; and his invective has been directed against the weak oftener than the strong. That noble maxim (the converse of Chesterfield's), ‘Treat a foe as though he might one day be a friend,’ is a maxim on which Mr. Fox never has acted; his wars have been to the knife.”

Examiner, August 23, quoted in Taranaki Herald, September 20.

A very different view was taken by the New Zealand Spectator in an article quoted with approval by the Aborigines Protection Society in its journal:

The Aborigines' Friend, January—December 1862, p. 306.

‘We would fain have seen Mr. Fox finish his work in person. But, as he truly said, he has fulfilled the mission which was laid upon him in 1860. He has … exposed a great fraud on the Imperial Government, arrested the hand of the wrong-doer, saved the native race from extermination, rescued the European population of this island from beggary and ruin, and redeemed the British name from the stain of a crime which centuries would not have washed away.”

On August 26 Grey forwarded a resolution of the House of Representatives of August 19 affirming that “Ministers should in conformity with the Royal Instructions advise the Governor in native affairs (as well as in Colonial affairs) whenever His Excellency desires to obtain such advice, and should also tender advice upon all occasions of importance when they deem it their duty in the interests of the colony to do so; that

Flag Of The Maori King

“The King Maker” Two portraits of William Thompson—Wiremu Tamihana, “The greatest and best of his race” Black and white photograph of Wiremu Tamihana (William Thompson)

“The King Maker” Two portraits of William Thompson—Wiremu Tamihana, “The greatest and best of his race” Black and white photograph of Wiremu Tamihana (William Thompson) Ministers should at His Excellency's request, undertake the administration of native affairs, reserving to His Excellency the decision in all matters of native policy; that, as the decision in all matters of native policy is with His Excellency, the advice of ministers shall not be held to bind the colony to any liability past or future in connection with native affairs beyond the amount authorized by the House of Representatives.” The Duke of Newcastle's comment was: “This attempt to appropriate all the power and advantage and still keep the Home Government bound to pay is mean and contemptible and cannot be allowed…. To shew them that power and responsibility means payment is the simple answer to these evasive resolutions, and that on the part of England any such refined system of dividing the oyster and the shell will be repudiated as inconsistent alike with equity and the principles of constitutional government.”

C.O. 209, 169.

In a long despatch of February 26, 1863, the Duke gave the views of the British Government on the question of the payment for administering native affairs. In preparing it, Fortescue said: “The despatch should be laid before Parliament and (I think) should be damaging to the colonists in public opinion—so damaging as to make the New Zealanders feel that they cannot be guilty of this gross disingenuity and paltering without suffering from it, and (if possible) to make them understand that candour will be the best policy.”

“The despatch should set out: (1) that it is not the duty of Great Britain to educate, govern, civilize any savages among whom British subjects choose to plant themselves; (2) that the government of the natives by the British Government (even with the limited help it has received from the settlers) has been an unparalleled success. Never, I believe, in the history of the world, except perhaps in Paraguay, have savages and whites in contact with each other made such progress in 30 years. The Home Government has discharged its trust honestly and wisely and is therefore not unhandsome in now handing on that trust to the colonists; (3) that the present war was not chargeable on the Imperial Government—but was brought on by the anxiety of the Imperial officer to act in accordance with the confessed wishes of the colonists. It might be pointed out,” Fortescue added, “that there is no present intention of wholly withdrawing—but only of reducing the Imperial Forces.”

C.O. 209, 169.

In the Daily News of September 13, 1862, Goldwin Smith wrote: “In the case of New Zealand, as of other dependencies, that which is officially styled the ‘Empire’ is patronage to a few, but to the nation expense, weakness, humiliation; while to the colony it is a protection which cannot last for ever. With danger lowering on our own shores, with the war income-tax almost hopelessly fixed upon us—with France mistress of the destinies of Europe, and trampling international rights under her feet—with the defence of the Canadian frontier on our hands—with a cotton famine to cripple our resources as well as to afflict our people, we are keeping up an army of 5,000 or 6,000 men, at an expense of more than half a million, to carry on a war against a horde of naked savages in New Zealand.”

On September 20 The Times wrote: “Recent correspondence respecting the affairs of New Zealand gives Mr. Goldwin Smith an opportunity of reverting to his old theme, and insisting that England shall break the connection which exists between her and her dependencies, and shall stand again, after 300 years of Colonial dominion, alone in the world. Mr. Smith, we are glad to find, does not on this occasion indulge in anticipations of new and victorious Sepoy revolts which are to drive us from India, nor does he claim any approach to the fulfilment of his prophecy that we are becoming too weak to hold Gibraltar and Aden. Tempering the extravagance of his former rhapsody, he discourses of a practical matter—namely the expense which this country undergoes in keeping up a military force to protect the colonists of New Zealand from the native Maoris. As the question of colonial government and colonial wars has been discussed in this journal for the last fifteen years, and as we are glad to believe that we have borne no small part in placing the relations between the mother-country and the colonies on a sounder basis, we should be glad to hear any reasonable arguments or proposals with respect to one of the most important of the problems that yet remains unsettled. But Mr. Goldwin Smith is one of those who would cut off the child's head to cure it from squinting…. We must, however, say in justice to the colonists of these beautiful islands that they may fairly expect something from the mother-country in the way of military protection. They have settled among a race of savages which unites great energy and cunning with the natural qualities of a people who have been only reclaimed from cannibalism within a generation. The Maoris, having shown considerable ability, are under the patronage of a large body of philanthropists at home, and the conflicting rights or claims of the two races necessarily lead to many disputes…. We are sure that if the total cost of the New Zealand garrisons for the last twenty years were placed before the English people, they would not grudge the amount when they called to mind that by this outlay they have established their race in one of the finest regions of the globe, and given it a new life in the Southern hemisphere.”

In a memorandum sent with the Government's request for a further guaranteed loan of £500,000, Reader Wood wrote on October 20, 1862: “In applying for this loan Ministers desire to to be distinctly understood that they do not regard the payment of the militia expenses, the reinstatement of the Province of Taranaki, or roads constructed for strategical purposes, as fair charges against the Colony.” A Colonial Office marginal note read: “Monstrous. This ought to be specially noted in the despatch.”

C.O. 209, 169. For a similar controversy between the Colonial Office and Canada upon the question of payment for barrack accommodation, transport of troops, etc., see Stacey, op. cit., pp. 198–9.

In a memorandum of October 31 ministers thus set out the objects of a mission abroad undertaken by Crosbie Ward: (1) Extension of steam postal service from Great Britain to New Zealand via Panama;(2) Business in connection with second guaranteed loan of £500,000;(3) Settlement of accounts between Great Britain and New Zealand in connection with the insurrection;(4) Construction of electric telegraphs.

The Native Lands Bill, 1862, was considered in the House of Representatives on August 25. The general effect of the Bill, according to the Colonial Office minute, was “to enable natives, under certain circumstances, to alienate their lands directly to the European settlers without the necessity of a precedent sale to the Government.”

C.O. 209, 170.

On January 19, 1863, The Times published the petition of the New Zealand House of Representatives praying for a reconsideration of the decisions announced in the Duke of Newcastle's despatch of May 26, 1862, concerning the granting to the colonists of the administration of native affairs. Commenting on the petition on the same day, The Times stated: “Instead of accepting with gratitude the right conceded to them by the Colonial Minister, the New Zealand Assembly respectfully decline to undertake the task imposed upon them. They recognize the difficulty of governing the two races by two agencies responsible to different authorities, but they cannot accept the power offered them if it is to be attended with any greater liability than at present for their own defence. They ignore the fact that the proposition came originally from their own responsible ministers, and they quote the unsatisfactory condition of affairs in New Zealand at the present moment as a reason why the system under which that unsatisfactory state of affairs has arisen ought to be indefinitely continued. We have never seen a public document less convincing in its statement, or more entirely divested of the graces of modesty and self-respect. The simple meaning is that the colonists have got a good thing, and intend to keep it. They alone of all the people of the earth have the privilege of making war at other people's expense…. We have a right to demand on behalf of the heavily-taxed people of this country that this burden shall be removed from their shoulders, and we therefore rejoice to find that Sir George Grey, in his speech to the New Zealand Parliament, announces that he has hitherto had no occasion, and hopes to have none hereafter, to employ the forces in any active field of operations. Our policy in New Zealand towards the natives is comprised in a single word—wait. Temporizing expedients, delays, dilatory negotiations, all manner of devices which are of little avail in ordinary cases, are of the greatest use when we have to deal with a race that is continually decreasing on behalf of a race that is continually increasing. It is easier to grow into the undisturbed sovereignty of New Zealand than to conquer it.”

Chapter 6War In Taranaki And Waikato

The Maoris could see as clearly as The Times that time was against them and they were determined to put their fortunes to the test of war. On February 6, 1863, Sir George Grey reported that he had received information of a plot by some of the natives of the Waikato district for the destruction of the European out-settlers. “The act that was to cause the breaking out of this plot,” he stated, “was the entrance of a steamer into the Waikato River. The natives generally had at one time agreed, at a meeting I held on the Waikato with them, that the so-called Maori King should be the head of a Native Council, and that, like the heads of other Native Councils, he should send on the laws his Council made for my assent; but they subsequently withdrew from this arrangement on the general plea that a grievous wrong had been done to them in the attempt that was made to take the land at the Waitara.” The Duke of Newcastle wrote: “A private letter from Sir George Grey is by no means satisfactory as regards the natives, but it is so querulous in tone as to my not ‘supporting’ him, etc., that I hope it is only the result of temporary illness.”

C.O. 209, 172.

On March 25 a significant indication of the intention of the followers of the King to destroy all trace of British influence was seen in the raid on J. E. Gorst's station at Te Awamutu where he conducted a school for Maoris and issued a Maori newspaper. The printing press was seized and Gorst was forced to leave Te Awamutu in April.

See Cowan, I, 229, 232. Weld, in Notes on New Zealand Affairs (1869), referred to “well-meant but indiscreet efforts of a stipendiary magistrate, Mr. Gorst, which added to the irritation of the King party.”

On April 6 Grey reported that he had visited Taranaki and that the troops had occupied the Omata block “not only without any opposition from the natives, but with signs of good will on the part of many of them.” A redoubt was constructed at Poutoko and Grey requested General Cameron to employ troops in constructing a road from it to New Plymouth. On April 4 a cavalry force having been secured from Auckland, they marched for the Tataraimaka block, again receiving no opposition. The Governor said he was greatly indebted to the energy and ability of General Cameron. This sentiment, interesting in view of what was to follow, drew a Colonial Office marginal note: “Fortunate he is to remain there.”

There had been some question of sending him to Canada to take charge of the British forces in view of the probability of war with the Northern States of America.

Sir F. Rogers wrote: “This seems to me an admirable despatch because it describes with the utmost simplicity, clearness and truth a wise, firm and successful policy.”

C.O. 209, 172.

Grey, in a despatch of April 24, said that he had altogether failed to shake the “dogged determination” of the natives on the Waitara question. “A great part of the native race,” he wrote, “may be stated to be at the present moment in arms, in a state of chronic discontent, watching our proceedings in reference to this Waitara question. Large numbers of them have renounced the Queen's authority, and many of them declare openly that they have been so wronged that they will never return under it. Other most influential men state that they will not aid the Government in any war that may arise out of this Waitara question; the great majority of them declare that if war arises from this cause, they will rise and make a simultaneous attack upon the several European settlements in the Northern Island. The reasons they urge for such proceedings are, that they did not take up arms to prohibit the alienation of territory to the Crown, or to maintain any seignorial rights, but that the people of the Waitara, without having been guilty of any crime, were driven at the point of the sword from villages, houses, and homes which they had occupied for years. That a great crime had been committed against them. That through all future generations it will be told that their lands have been forcibly and unlawfully taken from them by officers appointed by the Queen of England…. They argue that they have no hope of obtaining justice, that their eventual extermination is determined on; but that all that is left to them is to die like men, after a long and desperate struggle; and that the sooner they can bring that on before our preparations are further matured, and our numbers increased, the greater is their chance of success. It cannot be said that there are no grounds, however unreasonable they may be, for these suspicions being excited in their minds. For other persons have entertained them, and this is known to the natives….

“Your Grace must be well aware that this Waitara question was from the first made a party question, regarding which the most violent controversy raged, and men's passions were most excited. Like all other questions between races in a state of hostility, it was by many taken up as a question of race, and it will I fear even now be difficult for any European to allege that the natives are in the main right in their answers to the allegations made against them regarding the Waitara purchase, without raising a feeling of violent hostility in the minds of many people. Leaving apart, however, those far higher considerations which influence Your Grace, I know that we are both to stand at the bar of History when our conduct to the native race of this country will be judged by impartial historians, and that it is our duty to set a good example for all time in such a most important affair. I ought therefore to advise Your Grace, without thinking of the personal consequences which may result to myself, that my settled conviction is that the natives are in the main right in their allegations regarding the Waitara purchase and that it ought not to be gone on with…. I must add that although I have been eighteen months in the colony, the most important facts connected with this Waitara purchase were unknown to me until a few days since, and must still have remained so had it not been for personal inquiries made by myself and the Native Minister on the spot, that from accident, oversight, or some other cause these facts have not been made public, or reported to Your Grace, and that I have seen nothing to make me think that my predecessor knew them.”

Fortescue agreed with Sir F. Rogers that it was impossible for the Home Government to interfere with the decision of Sir G. Grey and his ministers with respect to the surrender of the Waitara, “embarrassing as it will make it in future to discuss the origin of Governor Gore Browne's unfortunate war.” The Duke of Newcastle made this minute: “I confess I cannot bring myself to the conclusion that the purchase of Waitara was an act of injustice, though it may have been imprudent and impolitic. If it really was unjust, Sir G. Grey is right in abandoning it, even at this late hour. If it was only impolitic, then I fear its surrender now will look like an act of fear and will lead to fresh encroachments on the part of the natives. Be this however as it may, there is nothing for it but to support the Governor. Even to hesitate as to the wisdom of his course would seriously embarrass him at a most critical moment.”

C.O. 209, 172.

On May 5 Grey reported that “a terrible and shocking murder” committed by the natives on the land between Omata and the Tataraimaka block, Taranaki, had much complicated affairs. “A small party of men were coming along the beach bringing into New Plymouth a military prisoner for trial; they were accompanied, for the sake of the protection numbers gave, by two young officers, Lieut. Tragett and Assistant Surgeon Hope of the 57th Regiment, coming to town on private business. The party was fired on by a body of natives lying in ambush, and at a single volley all of them but one or two were killed or mortally wounded; the wounded were brutally cut about the head with tomahawks. Two officers, two sergeants and four men were thus murdered on the very day month we took possession of the Tataraimaka block. I fear that I cannot now prevent war by acting in the manner I believed justice required in regard to the land at the Waitara. I take great blame to myself for having spent so long in trying to get my responsible advisers to agree to some general plan of proceeding.”

Gorton, in Some Home Truths re the Maori War 1863 to 1869, states that he forwarded to Grey on April 27, 1863, a warning from a native chief about an ambuscade between the redoubts at Tataraimaka and Poutoko. No notice was taken of the warning, and a week later, on May 4, Tragett and Hope were ambushed.

On May 7 Cameron reported the murder of Lieutenant Tragett and his party: “I have sent to Auckland for a rein- forcement,” he wrote, “but in the present disposition of the natives towards us it would be imprudent to withdraw hastily a large number of men from that or any other province in the Northern Island. The purchase of the disputed land at the Waitara, in which the last war originated, and which facts recently brought to light prove to have been an act of injustice and oppression on our part, has so entirely alienated the native race from us that we have hardly a single tribe south of Auckland on our side. We have received intelligence that a powerful tribe is marching against New Plymouth from the north, and altogether the aspect of affairs is so threatening that Sir George Grey has considered it advisable to apply to Her Majesty's Government by this mail for a reinforcement from India of one British and two Sikh regiments, and, looking at the serious danger to which every settlement in the North Island will be exposed in the event of a general insurrection of natives, I fully concur with His Excellency as to the necessity of sending the reinforcements without delay.”

W.O. 33/16.

Two days later Grey reported that there was great reason to apprehend a general rising of the native population “with a view to the total expulsion of the white race from this Island.” He asked for an additional force of 3,000 men. He requested that one European regiment and two regiments of Sikhs should be sent, as the latter would be better qualified than any other troops to perform the military duties required in New Zealand. Ministers had undertaken to propose to the House of Assembly that the colony should defray the whole of the pay of the Sikhs. Sir F. Rogers made this comment: “We should have a terrible warfare I am afraid.” Fortescue wrote: “It is generally said that Sikhs only fight well when there is plenty of ‘loot’ to be had. They will certainly find none in New Zealand. The New Zealand Ministers and Sir G. Grey ought to know what they are about. But I confess I much doubt the wisdom of bringing coloured troops from India to fight the Maoris. It might, I should think, both exasperate them, and lead them to think that our power of sending white troops was exhausted.”

The Duke of Newcastle's minute was: “I am not insensible to the objections to Sikh troops raised by Mr. Fortescue, but I think they must be over-ruled by other considerations. Sikhs consider themselves unfit for warfare unless they can shoot down their enemy under cover of their own shoes and this will make them more than a match for the Maoris. They fight well for ‘loot,’ but they fight hardly less well when they know there is no loot—it is when they are restrained from loot that they sometimes fail. In order to save time, which is all-important, I have requested Sir Charles Wood to send out by to-night's mail instructions to Lord Elgin to send without delay one European regiment and two Sikh regiments—made up to the number of 3,000 unless he has heard in the meantime from New Zealand that all is quiet. He will be informed of the terms offered as respects the Sikhs. Write at once to the War Office, sending a copy of this despatch, and with a general reference to the contents of the others, and request Lord de Grey to move H.R.H. the Commander-in-Chief to send out orders to India in conformity with the instructions sent this evening privately to Lord Elgin as mentioned above. Write to Sir G. Grey informing him of what has been done—and say that the decision has been come to without a moment's delay in full confidence that the colony will make good its offer to pay for the two Sikh regiments. Express at the same time an earnest hope that such intelligence may have reached India before these regiments are embarked as may render their aid unnecessary.”

In the Duke's letter to the India Office a passage was added to the effect that Her Majesty's Government considered itself responsible to the Government of India for all reasonable expenses incurred in preparing and sending the force to New Zealand if it should be necessary to do so, as no charge ought to be imposed on the revenues of India for such purpose. This passage was marked: “Shown to Mr. Gladstone and approved by him.”

C.O. 209, 173.

A despatch informing Grey of the decision was sent on July 25, 1863, but two days later the Duke of Newcastle informed Grey that the Government had not considered it desirable to send from India the two Sikh regiments for which he had applied. The Governor-General had instead been asked to send to the colony two of the regiments which would other- wise have returned home.

C.O. 209, 173.

The reason for the change of plan was given by the Duke in a private letter to Grey on July 27. According to precedent troops serving with Indian native regiments would have to be placed on Indian allowance, at a cost of £65,000 a year for the troops already in New Zealand. Moreover “some good Indian opinions” doubted the superiority of Sikhs over Europeansfor warfare in New Zealand. Finally the Sikhs “are all armed with smooth bores, and must carry with them separate ammunition.”

J. Martineau, op. cit., pp. 324–6.

It may be noted that the reorganized Indian Army was employed overseas in 1868 “in the almost bloodless conquest of Abyssinia by Lord Napier.”

G. M. Trevelyan, British History in the Nineteenth Century.

On May 13 Grey reported that General Cameron had that morning proceeded to the Waitara to withdraw the detachments quartered there, “the local government having determined that it ought not any longer to hold the land it claimed there.” On May 27 Grey forwarded a copy of a proclamation dated May 11 declaring that the Government would not proceed further with the negotiation for the block of land at the Waitara. The proclamation set out that “circumstances connected with the said purchase unknown to the Government at the time of the sale of the said land have lately transpired which make it advisable that the said purchase should not be proceeded with.” The Duke of Newcastle concurred in the decision, but expressed the view that Wiremu Kingi had been guilty of rebellious conduct even before the Waitara affair and that he and his followers had brought upon themselves the misfortunes of war by their own conduct.

The Taranaki Herald, discussing on May 16 Grey's proclamation abandoning claim to the land at the Waitara, wrote: “We confess that we cannot imagine the object of this monstrous act. If it had been done eighteen months ago it would have been the honest avowal of an unwise and mischievous policy. If it had been done a month ago it might have been looked upon merely as the crowning act of a policy that was (at some distant time) to triumph by conceding everything that was demanded, but coming as it does close after the brutal massacr of last week it will only be interpreted as a sign of abject fear, and is as foolish as it is disgraceful.” The Press, Christchurch, wrote of the proclamation on June 9: “All we can say, now we have seen that document, is that Louis Napoleon himself could have penned nothing more entirely unintelligible. On every patent and obvious ground the act is one worthy of the utmost condemnation.” On December 19 the Taranaki Herald wrote concerning the statement that Wiremu Kingi gave reasons for objecting to the sale of the land at Waitara by Te Teira, “insisting on his possession of it.” 'This, no doubt, is one of the ‘new facts’ spoken of last May, for it is quite new to us, though we were present at the meeting when the land was offered. We need hardly repeat that W. Kingi made no claim of any kind upon the land, but simply said that Teira should not sell it, and then calling to his people he turned his back on Colonel Browne, and they all abruptly left the meeting.” C. F. Hursthouse, in his Letters on New Zealand Subjects (1865), said that the Taranaki colonists held that Grey's abandonment of the Waitara was “a mere bit of his old ‘Tract and Treacle’ policy.”

On June 8, 1863, Grey reported a sharp encounter at Katikara near New Plymouth on June 4: “The natives occupied a very strong position from which they were driven with heavy loss. I never saw such a rout before—they ran for miles. Our losses were one private killed, two mortally wounded, and three severely wounded.”

C.O. 209, 173.

A War Office report put the number of Maoris engaged at 600 and their killed at 28. H.M.S. Eclipse, with Sir G. Grey on board, assisted in the engagement. A toll board taken in the action set out a scale of charges demanded by the Maoris for passing the gate into the realm of their King, Matutaera Potatau. The fee for a Pakeha policeman was £500, for a Maori disciple of the Governor £200, for a letter “badly tempting” the tribe £500, for newspaper mail £300, for wealthy pakehas (“don't let them go through the gate, if they do”) £5, a preaching Maori minister £55, and a King's letter in the mail 5d. For the Maori people the tolls were not so heavy. To bring in a pig in a cart cost 9d., to drive a pig in 6d. Cows and horses cost 2s. each.

W.O. 33/16.

Discussing General Cameron's success of June 4, the Taranaki Herald asked on June 6: “On what principle are the wounded men and others of the hostile natives who fall into our hands to be treated? It is certain that some at least of those returned as dead in the fight on Thursday would have been among the wounded if the battle had been between two civilized nations; that is to say that some wounded Maoris were killed by our men. Is this the principle which is to be adopted hereafter throughout the war? We will not say absolutely that it is wrong, morally and politically, though we firmly believe it to be so—to be neither right nor expedient.”

On July 17 the Dunedin correspondent of The Times described the situation in Taranaki resulting from the reoccupation of the Tataraimaka block and the murder of Lieut. Tragett and his party. Commenting on the account, The Times said on the same day: “It is more than probable that at this very moment the Government of New Zealand is engaged in another war. After all that has passed, the thing may appear incredible, but it is almost certain, and, what is more, our present information does not enable us to point out how it could have been avoided. We sent out to Auckland the ablest and most conciliatory Governor that we could find, who succeeded by good management in patching up the last quarrel with the natives and has since established friendly relations with the most powerful tribes. He had every motive for maintaining a pacific policy, having been warned by the Colonial Secretary in the plainest terms that this country would not guarantee the disputed titles of settlers in outlying districts. To recognize conquest as a valid title to lands which had been deserted by their owners, and ravaged by the Maoris while in a state of insurrection against the Queen, would have been inexcusable on the part of Sir G. Grey, and it was his clear duty to reoccupy Tataraimaka…. It has been determined to take possession of the district upon which the late murders were committed, in order that a settlement may be placed thereon of persons able to protect themselves. In other words, a considerable extent of native land is confiscated, and has been offered in lots of fifty acres to ‘active young men’ who may be willing to hold it ‘on a system of military tenure’…. Here we have a bold scheme for garrisoning the disturbed parts of New Zealand, as the Romans garrisoned their northern and eastern frontiers. We have no fault to find with it from a military point of view—indeed it seems an excellent plan for colonial self-defence—but it is scarcely consistent with attributing to the Maori onslaught the character of a civil crime.”

The Times, on August 17, printed an account of the war in New Zealand from a correspondent: “It is a peculiar feature of the present struggle that the natives have taken up arms in the face of conciliatory conduct carried almost to excess. Sir George Grey, keenly alive to the responsibilities of his position, has left no stone unturned to stave off a recourse to arms. He has procrastinated, conciliated and yielded until he had exhausted at once the patience of the colonists and his own, and now that he finds he must adopt a more vigorous policy, he is not slow to embrace the opportunity of proving he can punish as well as conciliate…. Under General Cameron the troops and civilians have fully retrieved the disasters of the last war. We hear no more of pompous field-day marches of troops, with all the impedimenta of scientific warfare, to positions of the enemy which are found deserted on arrival…. All that skilful disposition of force and rapid action can accomplish is being done. The soldiers are divided into small parties, and scattered about the country with orders to pick off any stragglers they may come across; the militia and volunteers are doing patrol duty, day and night, in the town of New Plymouth and the outskirts, and the sentries have orders not to challenge any natives but to fire on them at once. The most perfect entente cordiale exists between the military and the civilian forces, and all are actuated by a common enthusiasm. General Cameron is immensely popular and the success which has hitherto attended his operations has enlisted for him the confidence of the whole colony.”

The correspondent described the engagement of June 4, and commenting on this on August 18, The Times said: “Moderate as the achievement may appear to us, it was substantial, timely, and full of promise…. A force of 200 is rather a large force for a rebel army in New Zealand. The natives understand their work better than to fight in great numbers …. General Cameron, who enjoyed the special confidence and esteem of the late Lord Clyde, appears to have divined with happy instinct the exigencies of the crisis.”

The Taranaki Herald wrote on June 20: “When we speak of what Sir George Grey does, it is not that we wish to ‘censure’ or ‘attack’ him, but because we wish the colony to consider whether it should not relieve him from the responsibility of the conduct of native affairs. The change will be a great one, but we believe it to be full time that it was made. For what guarantee have we that His Excellency will so prosecute this war that there shall be no possibility of another? As far as we can see, we have none. England and New Zealand are too near a dissolution of partnership to make their interests in the matter identical; and it must not be left to England, or to a Governor responsible only or chiefly to England, to say when peace shall be made and settle the terms of it…. Those who would still wish the colony to decline the control of native affairs should remember that we are certain to have to pay largely towards the expenses of the war, and may have to pay for what we do not get, and afterwards have to get it at our own cost. The safest rule in government, as in any other business, is that they should have the direction of affairs who are most interested in the result.”

In his report of July 1863, the Deputy Quartermaster-General, Lt.-Col. D. J. Gamble, wrote of the Taranaki position: “Much inconvenience arises from the presence of ‘friendly natives,’ many of whom no doubt are faithful to us, but others are of at least questionable fidelity; hence there is much difficulty in keeping any important movement secret, while it is at the same time often impossible to obtain reliable information about the enemy, his supplies and plans. At the Katikara, for instance, we had no certain intelligence as to the nature of his defences and works. Much of the native land, moreover, has never been regularly surveyed, and our knowledge, therefore, of its military features is limited to descriptions by persons who have passed over it…. A letter from Hapurona, the fighting chief of the last war, was received in the afternoon (June 25, 1863), challenging us to come out and ‘fight by the light of the sun.’ This, no doubt, was mere bravado, but it intimated a feeling of hostility which might show itself at any moment in the way of ambuscade or murder of out-settlers.”

W.O. 33/16.

After a visit by Cameron to the Governor at Auckland, 300 troops were withdrawn from New Plymouth to Auckland “in consequence of reported intentions of aggressive movements on the part of the Waikato tribes.” New Plymouth was left on the defensive with a garrison of 1,500.

W.O. 33/16.

In a despatch of July 30, 1863, Cameron stated that so many reports of impending insurrection had reached the Governor that he (Grey) considered it necessary to remove all disaffected natives from the vicinity of the European territory in the Waikato. “With this view, on the 9th instant, I assembled a considerable force at Drury, while magistrates were sent round to the native villages, with instructions to call upon the inhabitants either to take the oath of allegiance or to remove into the interior of the country. All refused to take the oath of allegiance (as I thought was to have been expected), some deserted their villages, others had to be expelled by the troops, and the greater part, instead of removing into the interior, retreated into the bush lying between Drury and the Waikato, from which, on account of its great extent and density, it will be a very difficult task to expel them.

Gorst, in The Maori King, says that the goods of the fugitive Maoris were looked by the colonial forces and the neighbouring settlers. He criticizes Grey's policy in the whole matter, and his account of it led the Royal Commission of 1928 to decide that “a grave injustice was done to the natives in question by forcing them into the position of rebels and afterwards confiscating their lands” (N.Z.P.P., 1928, G—7).

They have murdered and plundered several harmless settlers living near the bush. Foreseeing this danger, I had proposed to march detachments suddenly on the same day, without previous notice, to disarm the natives and compel them to retire up the Waikato. The consequence of this plan not having been adopted is, that the bush is now so infested with these natives that I have been obliged to establish strong posts along our line of communication, which absorbs so large a portion of the force that until I receive reinforcements it is impossible for me to advance further up the Waikato.” The possession of Koheroa, Cameron stated, secured communication with the Bluff Stockade and another post lower down the Waikato, at Tuakau. “I earnestly hope that before this letter has reached your Lordship, orders will have been given for the despatch of the reinforcements demanded by Sir George Grey in May last, as it is most desirable on every account that this insurrection should be speedily suppressed and so effectually that the peace and prosperity of the colony may not again be interrupted.”

W.O. 33/12.

The battle of Koheroa was fought on July 17. In a despatch of July 20, Cameron stated that he had caught up with the troops during their advance. The enemy slowly retreated to well-selected points where he had constructed rifle-pits: “These he defended with great obstinacy; and, as we had no artillery in the field, we could only dislodge him from them with the bayonet, which was done with great gallantry by the young soldiers of the 14th led by the Commanding Officer, Lieutenant-Col. Austen, who, I regret to say, received a wound in the arm during the action. After we had driven them from the second line of rifle-pits, where they made their most determined stand, a large number of them left the ridge, and turning to the right retreated down a narrow and deep gulley, where they were exposed for a long time to a close and destructive fire from our men on the heights above, by which many of them were killed. The rest were driven before us until they reached the Maramarua, a small tributary of the Waikato, which they crossed precipitately, some in canoes and others swimming. Having no means of effecting the passage of the river, we were obliged to discontinue the pursuit, and I accordingly ordered the troops back to camp.” The British lost 2 killed and 9 wounded in the action. The Maoris lost more than 30 killed, including one of the uncles of the Maori King.

W.O. 33/12.

Of Cameron's “conspicuous gallantry” Grey wrote on December 8 to the Colonial Office: “I was in Auckland at the time, but many concurring witnesses have assured me that our force halted in the face of the heavy fire from the enemy, and that this momentary indecision on their part was brought to a close by General Cameron, with only his whip in his hand, advancing at least twenty paces in front of the men, and that distance ahead of them, leading them rapidly on against the enemy, who fled in confusion as they advanced. Had any other officer performed such an act I feel sure that the Lieutenant-General would have recommended him for the Victoria Cross. Of his own acts and gallantry he could not speak. I think, however, that it is my duty to press the conduct of the Lieutenant-General on the occasion to which I allude on the notice of Her Majesty's Government, for it certainly is not fitting that such an act should be passed over in silence.”

W.O. 33/16. The battle of Rangiriri is described later, pp. 183–8.

On January 5, 1864, Cameron forwarded resolutions of the Legislative Council and House of Representatives of December 1, 1863, thanking him “for the energy and ability with which he has conducted the military operations in New Zealand, and especially for the decisive defeat of the rebels at Rangiriri.”

W.O. 33/16. The battle of Rangiriri is described later, pp. 183–8.

On February 18, 1864, the War Office notified the Military Secretary that the Secretary of State had submitted Cameron's name for a Knight Commandership of the Military Division of the Order of the Bath.

On July 17, 1863, a convoy under the charge of Captain Ring, 2nd Battalion, 18th Regiment, was attacked on the road between the Queen's Redoubt and Drury by an ambuscade of not less than 140 natives. The British loss was four killed and ten wounded.

On July 4 Grey wrote: “It has now been clearly proved that some of the chiefs of Waikato ordered the recent murders at Taranaki, and that being thus responsible for them, they have determined to support the people who carried out the orders which they issued.” On July 28 he stated that he entertained a hope that the existing insurrection would be only a partial one, but added that “no permanent peace can now be hoped for until the Waikato and Taranaki tribes are completely subdued.”

C.O. 209, 174.

On August 1 he reported the cruel murder of Michael Murdoch and his young son, on July 15, in the vicinity of Drury. On the same date he reported the Koheroa Heights engagement. The following Colonial Office minute appears on the despatch: “This may, I suppose, be considered the beginning of the anticipated war.”

C.O. 209, 174.

On July 22 another skirmish with the natives took place at Kiri-Kiri near Drury. The enemy were repulsed with loss. The militia's services were commended by the General. The colonial steamer Avon had entered the Waikato and was co-operating with General Cameron. On August 8 Grey reported that William Thompson, chief of the Ngatihaua tribe, had told Archdeacon Brown that he had determined to join the natives in arms against the Queen, and that he “deliberately announced his intention to spare no one, not even the unarmed.” The Duke of Newcastle made the following comment: “It is melancholy to read such language from such a man as William Thompson.”

C.O. 209, 174.

On July 24 two settlers, Sylvester Calvert and Cooper, were shot by natives near Papakura. On August 15 Colonel Warre, writing to Grey from Taranaki, suggested that a useful corps of friendly natives might be formed. The Duke of Newcastle wrote on this: “Colonel Warre's proposal to arm certain ‘friendly’ natives seems questionable. Thompson was a friendly native.”

On October 16 The Times published a letter from its Melbourne correspondent, dated August 25: “I grieve to say that at Auckland our fellow-countrymen seem to be fighting almost pro aris et focis. The Waikatos, and allied tribes of congenial cannibals, are in arms to the number of some 7,500 in the neigh-bourhood of that town, and a general rising of tribes is apprehended…. The Maoris now plainly see that this is their last chance. They are accordingly using every effort…. The utmost enthusiasm prevails among civilians as among soldiers, and unbounded confidence is felt in General Cameron.” On the same day The Times said in its first leading article, after referring to the “very disagreeable news from New Zealand”: “We are happy to find there is no doubt of the spirit of the colonists. They have sprung to arms with an alacrity equal to that which the mother-country would exhibit if threatened with foreign invasion. The volunteers and militia of the province of Auckland amounted already to 4,000 men, fully armed. There is a permanent colonial corps of cavalry which will be actively employed. Drill was going on everywhere; the first class militiamen and volunteers had been sent to the front, while the care of the city had been left to the second levy…. The colonists are now in arms to protect themselves against one of the most cold-blooded schemes of extermination that was ever devised. The plot has been long hatching, and the crime is the most patent, the danger so great, that even Bishop Selwyn, one of the most earnest friends of the Maoris, has no word to say in their defence.”

In his report of October 3, 1863, Gamble stated: “Some tons of supplies brought inside the Waikato heads by the barque City of Melbourne, had reached Cameron (village), en route to the Mangatawhiri for the Queen's Redoubt. This day (September 7) the hostile natives attacked Cameron with a force of 200, took the place from Kukutai's people, destroyed the commissariat supplies, consisting principally of bran, oats and maize, and set fire to the pa.” James Armitage, the district magistrate, stationed at Cameron, was killed by the enemy. Captain Swift, with an officer and 50 men, started from Tuakau to relieve the village. McKenna, a sergeant, went forward and heard the Maoris talking. He “believed from their tones and manner that they were partly intoxicated.” “Captain Smith then directed his party to fix bayonets and charge into an open space, where the enemy were really on the qui vive and awaiting them. As our men, led by their officers, came to the clearing, they received a close volley in front and on the left flank. Here Captain Swift fell mortally wounded, but directed Lieutenant Butler, the only other officer, to charge the enemy. As this officer was leading the men on, he received a severe wound across the abdomen, after which he is reported to have shot two men with his revolver. Sergeant McKenna then assumed command of the party, which he handled, as Lieut. Butler states, with admirable coolness and skill. The natives were driven back, and our men, having first covered with fern the body of one of their fallen comrades who was killed, retired under fire, bringing with them Captain Swift, Lieutenant Butler and two wounded men who were removed to a place of safety in rear.”

W.O. 33/16.

A proclamation of the Maori King dated October 3, 1863, laid down, inter alia, rules under which all plunder was to be held and ultimately distributed. “Let the plunder of each tribe and of each man be brought to one heap. One for Waikato, one for Maniapoto, one for Ngatihaua, each having its own guardian. Let the name of each man be written on the property (plundered by him). It will be marked with the King's seal.” The proclamation was signed: Matutaera Potatau.

C.O. 209, 175.

The Melbourne correspondent of The Times, in a letter of October 24, published on December 15, 1863, described the new flying column system inaugurated by General Cameron: “The natives…must be kept by these flying columns in a continued state of unrest. Moreover, although they have a good supply of powder, they are short of bullets, and especially of percussion-caps. They have been known to buy marbles off little boys in the street to use in lieu of leaden balls. They purchase eyelet holes and wax vestas, and out of the two they ingeniously construct percussion-caps. They also pick up our spent balls with great diligence. All this is very illustrative of Maori ingenuity and would excite our admiration if we were spared from reading an adjoining paragraph headed ‘Another little boy shot by the Maoris,’ but the result of this ingenuity is certainly not lasting. So precarious a supply cannot compete with ours, which is practically inexhaustible. Their commissariat is also a great difficulty, and more so under this system of bush warfare than when defending a pa. A few carts for transport they certainly have, they have also learnt from us the value of pack-horses and pack-bullocks, they have also food stored in many places; but when a Taua, or war party, is compelled to shift from place to place by our ‘flying columns’ and ‘forest rangers,’ their food has to be transported on the backs of women.”

Troops of Forest Rangers were formed from New Zealand volunteers in 1863. The first was commanded by Lieut. William Jackson and the second by Captain von Tempsky…. Pay was at first 10s. a day, later reduced to 4s. 6d. and rations, “with a double ration of rum owing to the rough character of the work.”

Cown, The New Zealand Wars, 1, 258.

On October 23, 1863, the Governor transmitted a memorandum by Thomas Russell, the Minister of Defence, showing that nearly 10,000 settlers were under arms. The number included 5,937 at Auckland and 1,196 at Wellington. The Colonial Office comment was: “The colony has moved in the right direction at last, and Mr. Russell, of course, makes the most of it.”

C.O. 209, 174.

On October 28 Grey reported that Domett's ministry had resigned and he had sent for Fox. A ministry was formed with Whitaker as Premier and Fox Colonial Secretary. Henry Sewell made the following comment in his Journal: “Whitaker is the real governing man. He is Attorney-General and a bold shrewd subtle reckless man, careless of means and careless of consequences, only looking to the particular ends before him. He is a man of great resolution, and by a powerful will he bends the weaker men by whom he is surrounded (Fox included) entirely to his designs. The policy is Whitaker's policy.”

II, p. 411.

On October 2 a severe engagement with the Maoris took place at Poutoko, Taranaki. Further murders reported included those of Job Hantin at Henderson's farm near Wairoa on October 13, 1863; William John Jackson at Papakura on October 14, and two boys, Richard and Nicholas Trust, one only eight, at Kennedy's Farm, Turanga Creek, on October 24.

C.O. 209, 175.

Gamble, in his report of November 5, wrote: “The Waikato Militia enrolled at Melbourne, Sydney and Otago, are for the most part a fine body of men, and are already well advanced in training. A good spirit, too, seems now to animate the local militia of the country. The colonial troops raised and organized in emergency have altogether done very creditably, and are a most valuable addition to the force.”

A reconnaissance of the Waikato River was conducted by Cameron and Commodore Sir W. Wiseman in the new iron steamer Pioneer, draught three feet, on October 30, 1863. “Rangiriri (anglice, ‘Angry Heavens’),” wrote Gamble, “is situated very low, and the entrenchment from the position from which we saw it, about half a mile below, appeared to be open to enfilade from the river, beside seeming to be otherwise not formidable. It is just a common embankment thrown up with a trench cut in front of it also. After careful reconnaissance for a landing point on the right bank, one or two places presented themselves; and the Lieutenant-General at once determined on moving a force that same night to a point about nine miles above Meri-Meri.

Meremere.

Accordingly the force named in the margin (21 officers and 642 men) marched the same night from Queen's Redoubt and Koheroa, and were embarked at the Mangatawhiri, in flats

Lighters with one mast and lug sail.

made by the Royal Navy, and placed on board the Pioneer and four gunboats. The decks of the Pioneer above and below were crammed with men; tents, etc., were piled up round the bulwark to give cover to the men on the upper deck as we ran the gauntlet under the enemy's fire. A week's provisions, entrenching tools, etc., were shipped and some time was necessary for the embarkation as the boats had to convey their loads two miles down the Mangatawhiri to the Pioneer, which lay in the Waikato and had (most of them) to make a double trip.”

When the Maoris found they were to be attacked in their rear they evacuated their position: “The enemy was completely taken aback by the movement to his rear; he saw that his almost total destruction must have resulted from his maintaining his position, and therefore he abandoned the ground on which he had spent so much labour…. Although, had we caught the whole of the enemy at Meri-Meri, an overwhelming blow might have had the effect of putting a speedy end to the war, yet, as we have gained the place without the loss of a life, and gained it with a solid advantage, the result is on the whole one for congratulation. Differing from the ordinarily unimportant results of the loss of a Maori position, which is usually followed by taking up another without any felt damage in the way of prestige, the fall of Meri-Meri carries with it a most significant meaning. Here the greatest efforts were expended in fortifying a commanding position of considerable natural strength. The Maori saw that here was a happy point at which to dispute our passage into his country, which he succeeded in doing for two whole months; here, at the very gateway, he appeared bent on a fight; but when he found that his retreat for which he always intelligently provides was in serious jeopardy, he gave up all hope of attempting a defence. Consequent on the fall of Meri-Meri, we have now free access by land to the Waikato country, while the steamers running over the river with impunity afford the best evidence that there is no longer any real barrier to our progress.”

On November 20 the troops advanced. “At 3 p.m.,” wrote Gamble, “we sighted the enemy's entrenchment from a ridge at about 600 yards from the works. These consisted of a line of entrenchment with double ditch, drawn across the narrow isthmus dividing Lake Waikare on the east from the Waikato River on the west. The extent of this front line was 500 yards, and at the highest point, the centre, it was strengthened by a very formidable redoubt, having a ditch 12 feet wide and parapet 18 feet to the top from the bottom of the ditch. Behind the enemy's left centre of the front line, and perpendicular to it, ran a rifle-pitted entrenchment facing the river, the approach from which (along the rear of the main entrenchment) it commanded. The right and rear of this position was defended by high ground, also honeycombed with pits. 500 yards to the rear another ridge was occupied and similarly fortified. It was to gain possession of this ridge that the 40th were to land in the rear. As we came near the position the steamers arrived in good time, and everything promised fair for the combined attack. While, however, the troops were taking up their formation, it became evident that the Pioneer had become unmanageable, just at the most critical juncture. She was unable, against wind and current, to gain the point indicated for the landing of the 40th, and not only so but got in the way of the gunboats, the fire of all of which but one, and occasionally a second, was thus completely masked…. At 3.30 p.m., just before the signal was made to the steamers to attack, the enemy opened along his whole line, but without damage to our men, who were covered by the crest of the ridge. Mercer's Armstrongs and the naval six-pounder made beautiful practice, the enemy meanwhile keeping up a desultory musket fire. Perplexing and trying as was the unfortunate position of the steamer with the 40th and of the gunboats, it was hoped every moment that it would be right. The preconcerted signal, however, ‘Land the Troops,’ was made in vain; and, after waiting till 4.45 p.m., the Lieutenant-General determined to wait no longer and gave the word for the assault. The troops dashed with ardour down the slope of the ridge and went fairly at the entrenchment.

“At about fifty yards the skirmishers were instructed to halt, to cover the ladder party in planting. While the 65th were scaling on the left, the 12th and 14th were to keep down the fire in the centre. Eager as the men were to pass over the long interval from the point of formation to the enemy's position, they had considerable difficulty, from the broken nature of the ground and the heavy fire poured on them during the advance. Lieutenant-Colonel Austen, 14th, Captain Phelps, 12th, and many others were wounded directly on becoming exposed. The enemy's fire was sharp, quick and heavy, but nothing could check the impetuosity of the assault. The ladders were planted, the 65th were immediately seen forcing their way into the enemy's works. As the troops passed the front line they wheeled up to the left, from which direction the enemy's fire was now brought to bear upon them from the entrenched line of rifle-pits facing the Waikato. It was only the work of a few minutes to storm and carry this, when the enemy fell back on the centre redoubt and adjacent works. Happily, when our men were passing the first line, the 40th began to disembark not very far from the place selected for their landing. As fast as they got ashore they were sent at the ridge in rear already described, and carried it, driving before them the defenders who fled for the swamp of Waikare, in attempting to cross which several perished under the fire of our rifles. A part of the 40th now held the hill, and the remainder joined the main body of the attacking force under the Lieutenant-General.

“The main line and some of the inner works having been taken as described, the troops closed on the enemy towards the centre redoubt, where he now fought with desperation and held his ground against every attempt to dislodge him. Two distinct assaults were made on this work, the first by the Royal Artillery, who, being armed with revolvers, were selected for the work. They were led by Captain Mercer, commanding. They were, however, unable to overcome the difficult nature of the work, under the heavy fire brought to bear on them. Captain Mercer received a severe wound through the jaw and tongue, the shot having been fired through a narrow opening in the enemy's works, facing to the rear, and which he was crossing in search of a point favourable for making an entry. Every man who attempted to pass that opening afterwards was killed or wounded, except Lieutenant Pickard, R.A. Captain Mercer and the other wounded men who fell after passing this opening, could not be removed until it was masked with earth and plants. A second assault was made by 90 seamen of the Royal Navy, also armed with revolvers, and led by Commander Mayne, of Her Majesty's ship Eclipse. They went against the front of the work and were received with a deadly volley, and were also unable to effect an entrance. It was now dark. The Lieutenant-General, therefore, determined on suspending further operations until daylight, the troops to remain meanwhile in their respective positions, in which they almost surrounded the enemy.

Cf. Cowan: “The General was compelled by the darkness to cease the waste of brave men's lives.”

Picking the parapet down by pick and shovel was suggested by Colonel Mould, C.B., Commanding Royal Engineers, and the next morning, at daybreak, this was being done, when a white flag was hoisted by the enemy and he surrendered unconditionally. 183 prisoners, with their arms and ammunition (of which latter they seemed to have a plentiful supply),

Cf. Cowan, I, 326. A veteran of the engagement is quoted as saying that want of ammunition was the reason for surrender.

fell into our hands. They at once cordially fraternized with our men, and were particularly good-humoured under their reverse.

“Their immediate leader was Te Priori,

Tioriori.

a remarkably fine-looking Waikato chief, and among the prisoners were several chiefs of note. They have been sent to Auckland, and, as a temporary arrangement, placed on board H.M.S. Curacoa…. The natives of this country have never received such a blow as at Rangiriri. The capture of prisoners and arms they have been not only unaccustomed to but must regard as a heavy misfortune. It is hoped that it may have the effect of re-estab- lishing peace on a permanent basis.” The British casualties were 2 officers and 37 men killed, 13 officers and 80 men wounded. Forty-one Maori killed were found.

W.O. 33/16. Cowan gives slightly different figures. J. W. Fortescue states that more of the British casualties might have been avoided “by abstaining from the unnecessary assault of the central redoubt.”

After the battle Grey received a letter from a secondary chief suggesting peace. He refused to treat while the Maoris remained in arms. The disposal of the prisoners captured in this engagement was to bring about a very complicated situation. They were confined on the hulk Marion and a long controversy ensued between the Governor and his ministers as to whether they were being properly treated.

C.O. 209, 175.

Discussing the result of the engagement at Rangiriri in its first leading article on February 12, 1864, The Times said: “The firm, decisive and successful measures which General Cameron appears to be successfully carrying out will be the best security for the subsequent negotiation by Sir George Grey of a permanent and a mutually satisfactory peace. At all events, English blood in this instance has not been shed in vain, and the friends of those who have so unfortunately but so honourably sacrificed their lives will have the consolation of reflecting that the sacrifice has been made in both a brilliant and a useful service.”

On November 7, 1863, Grey reported that the new ministry on that day had accepted responsibility for native affairs, at the same time recognizing, “with the deepest gratitude, the great interest which Her Most Gracious Majesty has always taken in the welfare of all races of her colonial subjects, and the thoroughly efficient aid which Her Majesty's Imperial Government is affording the colony.”

C.O. 209, 175.

On November 17 Grey reported that on November 7 the signal staff at the heads of Manukau Harbour had been cut down by disaffected natives.

On December 8 Cameron's forces moved forward to Ngaruawahia, the Maori King's residence, 12 miles from Rangiriri. They found that it had been evacuated. The British flag was hoisted on the King's flagstaff and an encampment formed. “The moral, political and strategical importance of the occu- pation of this place,” wrote Deputy Quartermaster-General Gamble, “can scarcely be over-estimated. Following closely on the enemy's defeat at Rangiriri, associated as the place has been with all the hopes of Maori sovereignty, and standing at the confluence of the great arteries of the upper country, its possession becomes identical in meaning with an important success. The King's flagstaff, eighty feet high (regularly fitted with cross-trees, etc.), has been regarded by the natives as the great type of the ‘King’ movement.”

W.O. 33/16.

On January 16, 1864, “in consequence of reports received of the east coast natives joining the enemy, the Lieutenant-General decided on sending an expedition to Tauranga, under Colonel Carey, to create a diversion.” The expedition consisted of 26 officers and 669 men, who landed at Tauranga on January 22 and occupied the mission station.

The combined main body troops consisting of 122 officers and 2,393 men set out from Tuhikaramea and Whata-Whata on January 27. On February 1 a reconnaissance was made of the enemy's position at Pa-te-rangi. On February 13 General Cameron described an encounter with the natives on February 11 at Warari on the Mangapiko River. The officers engaged were Lieut.-Colonel Sir Henry Havelock, Bart., Captain William Jackson, Forest Rangers, and Captain D. F. G. von Tempsky, Forest Rangers. The natives lost 35 killed and wounded and the British 6 killed and 5 wounded. The gallantry of Captain Charles Heaphy of the Auckland Rifle Volunteers was referred to. He took charge of a party and ably directed it. In assisting a wounded soldier of the 40th, who had fallen into a hollow among the thickest of the concealed Maoris, he became the target for a volley at a few yards' range. Five balls pierced his clothes and cap, and he was slightly wounded in three places. He continued, however, to aid the wounded until the end of the day.

C.O. 209, 179. For his bravery Heaphy received the Victoria Cross.

On February 20 a flank night march to Te Awamutu, “with a view to turning all the enemy's pas at once,” was begun by 63 officers and 1,163 men. The advance guard consisted of von Tempsky's Forest Rangers (4 officers and 99 men). The march was undetected and the next day Cameron pushed on to Rangiaowhia, where the inhabitants were taken completely by surprise. A few made a desperate resistance,

See Cowan, I, 344–7.

twelve being killed and twelve taken prisoner. The force them moved back and encamped at Te Awamutu. On February 22 a report was received that the enemy had begun to entrench at Rangiaowhia. A force of 66 officers and 1,162 men was immediately sent against him. The Maori position was assaulted and taken.

On March 4 Cameron wrote of these engagements at and near Rangiaowhia: “The immediate result of our late movements has been the abandonment by the enemy of a series of fortified positions which could not have been taken without a heavy loss; the possession by us of a large tract of fertile country between the Waipa and Upper Waikato Rivers, and the retreat of the enemy into the interior with the loss of the cultivations on which he chiefly depended for his supply.”

W.O. 33/16.

On March 31 an attack was begun on the native position at Orakau, on the Upper Waipa, fortified against the judgment of Rewi Maniapoto, who, however, led the defence.

Cf. Cowan, I, 355–97.

Three successive attempts were made to carry the place by assault, but in vain, and sapping was then begun. “On the third morning (April 2), the Lieutenant-General and staff proceeded at an early hour from this camp,” wrote Gamble, “and on reaching Orakau at 9 a.m. found the work of sapping still progressing and now within eight yards of the work. The Lieutenant-General, on inspecting the position, sent an interpreter to the camp, who, by the General's authority, communicated with the garrison of the place as follows:—

“Hear the word of the General. You have done enough to show you are brave men. Your case is hopeless. Surrender and your lives will be spared.”

“To which answer was given: ‘And the word of the Maori is, we'll fight for ever, for ever and ever.’

“They were then told—‘Send away the women.’

“To which they answered—‘The women will fight too.’

“By mid-day an entrance was effected into the ditch of the outwork … and in the afternoon, by 3.30, the approach was pushed up close to the main entrenchment, to which the Maoris now confined themselves, and into which hand-grenades (in the absence of mortars, which were at or on their way to this camp, Pukerimu, for the projected attack on the Pukekura pas) were skilfully thrown by Sergeant McKay, R.A. At 3.30 the enemy suddenly came out of their entrenchment in the open, and in a silent and compact body moved without precipitation. There was something mysterious in their appearance as they advanced towards the cordon of troops, without fear, without firing a shot, or a single cry being heard, even from the women, of whom there were several among them. They had been already more than two days without water; they had no food but some raw potatoes; an overwhelming force surrounded them, and all hope of relief failed; but still with an extraordinary devotion to their cause, calmly in the face of death, abandoned their position without yielding.

“The troops now converged to the direction in which the Maoris retired, and after they had passed the cordon, through which they succeeded in breaking, poured a murderous fire on them as they went through and beyond the thick ti-tree in rear of the position.” The Maoris lost 101 killed and the British 16 killed. About 250 colonial and 750 regular troops were engaged. The total number of Maoris “did not probably exceed 300,” according to Gamble.

W.O. 33/16. Cowan states that at least 160 Maoris were killed. Cf. Sir James Alexander, Bush Fighting (1873): “Some may remark it ‘would have been generous to have held one's hand, and not pursue and fire at the retiring column of Maoris.’ Certainly it would, but it is to be considered that the soldiers had suffered, too, from the determined resistance of the enemy, and their blood was up.”

On April 6, 1864, Grey reported the engagement at Orakau and forwarded an account by R. C. Mainwaring. His version of the answer to the surrender offer was: “We will fight ake ake ake (for ever).” Later he said: “The Maoris behaved most splendidly, calling for admiration on every side. They were without water from Thursday till this (Saturday) afternoon…. Rewi was in the pa, but I cannot say whether he escaped untouched.”

C.O. 209, 179. For Rewi's description of his escape unwounded, see Cowan, I, 387–8. In a newspaper article in 1934 Mr. Cowan stated that Te Huia Raureti, a nephew of Rewi and one of his bodyguard in the retreat, was still living a few miles from Te Awamutu.

In his account of the battle, Cameron wrote: “I cannot in justice refrain from paying a tribute to the heroic courage and devotion of this band of natives, who, without water and with but little food for more than two days, and deprived of all hope of succour, held out so long against a vastly superior force, and at last, disdaining to surrender, silently and deliberately abandoned their position under a terrific fire from our troops.”

W.O. 33/16.

The admiration of the Imperial troops for the valour of the Maoris is shown by the inscription on a tablet in St. John's Church, Te Awamutu: “This tablet was erected by the soldiers of H.M. 65th Regiment as a memorial of the New Zealanders who fell in the actions at Rangiaohia on the 21st and 22nd February, 1864, and at Orakau on the 31st March, 1st and 2nd April, 1864. I say unto you, love your enemies.”

It is pleasant to note that before the 65th left the North Island after its long service there, it was presented by the colonists with the regimental plate known as the “New Zealand Plate.”

The British campaign in the Waikato had been hampered by commissariat difficulties of an exceptional nature which deserve some description. In a despatch of October 29, 1864, to the War Office, Commissary-General H. Stanley Jones detailed some of the difficulties which had been experienced:

“I would like to condense into a glance the means adopted to convey supplies into the wilderness and the causes which led to losses in transit: 6 miles from Auckland to Onehunga in carts of the Commissariat Transport Corps.35 miles to Drury, in hired boats and by the commissariat steamer Lady Barkly. 15 miles to Mangatawhiri, by the carts of the Commissariat Transport Corps.5 miles to Meri-Meri, by boats, in the first instance, worked by the sailors, or towed by the Avon and Pioneer. Subsequently worked by the men of the Commissariat Transport Corps, or by sails, when practicable.15 miles to Rangiriri. Pack-horses. When the ground was dry, in bullock-carts, assisted subsequently by the diagonal boats pulled by twenty men of the Commissariat Transport Corps, or towed by them from shore, or when wind was favourable by sails.

General Sir Duncan A. Cameron, G.C.B.42nd Royal HighlandersEnsign 1825. Lt.Col. Commanding. 1843-1854.Colonel of Regt. 1863.Died 8th June, 1888. 5 miles to Paitai. Boats pulled by sailors, and subsequently by men of the Commissariat Transport Corps.15 miles to Rahiri Pokeka. Boats pulled by sailors, but towed by the men on shore, in places, subsequently boats towed by horses of the Commissariat Transport Corps when a horse-track was cut. Canoes were also employed, worked by friendly natives.15 miles to Ngaruawahia, by the steamers Pioneer and Avon, the river here being deep enough to admit of the use of steamers.

“The losses of supplies on this long line of journey were necessarily heavy; but, considering the peculiar circumstances, they are certainly not more than might have been anticipated.

“The following circumstances should be considered: 1st. That in this country more rain falls than in most parts of the world, the atmosphere and ground being generally saturated with moisture;2nd. That there were no store-houses, beyond Drury, at any of the places named during the period under consideration;3rd. That the utmost energies of the Department at each place were constantly employed in pushing forward supplies without intermission, even the worst weather permitting of no delay;4th. That there were not sufficient experienced officers of the Department in the country;5th. That the subordinate establishment was not trustworthy, experienced, or sufficient, and labour very difficult, and sometimes impossible to be procured in the quantity required;6th. That the divided responsibility in the transport service between the Navy and Commissariat Transport Corps precluded the possibility of detecting theft, and consequently encouraged and fostered it to a large extent;7th. That almost every description of accident was unavoidably of nearly daily occurrence on some part of the line, both by land and by water;8th. That every handling and every meeting-place tended to augment losses.

“Many other causes might be enumerated, but I think that there can be no occasion to go further into details.”

W.O. 33/16. For a tribute to the work of the Commissariat, see Fortesce, History of the British Army, XIII, pp. 517–18.

In an enclosed report on the Commissariat Department, dated September 7, 1864, Deputy-Assistant Commissary-General J. Leslie Robertson wrote of the position at the out-break of hostilities: “The number of Commissariat Officers was just sufficient for the performance of ordinary duties in time of peace. A subordinate establishment had positively to be created, and from the worst materials. There was a mere nucleus of a Land Transport Corps, and there were no steam vessels procurable adapted for river navigation. Excepting within a short distance of Auckland, there were no roads. The country was infested by guerilla bands of the enemy, and contractors could not be induced to undertake deliveries at the various posts. All the supplies, excepting fresh meat and groceries, had therefore to be issued in detail by the Commissariat, and there being no internal resources available for the maintenance of an army, everything had to be conveyed through the country, even to the forage for the transport animals. … From Auckland to Mangatawhiri Creek this department had the whole control of the transport service. So far, therefore, no difficulty would be found in tracing losses in transit whether from dishonesty or neglect. But at the Mangatawhiri Creek the Royal Navy took up the transport service. They refused to become responsible for the safe conduct of supplies when on board their boats, and refused to give receipts for the consignments. It is true that the Commissariat sent a conductor, but, even supposing him to be honest, he could not possibly prevent peculation by the sailors, who notoriously appropriated everything they could lay their hands upon, and were particularly partial to rum.”

In a report on the Commissariat Department in the Waikato 1863–4, dated August 23, 1864, Robertson had stated that the department was first called upon to ration 1,200, but the number increased rapidly to 3,000, 5,000, and finally 7,000 men “without timely notification.” “A very large number of civilians,” he stated, “was constantly employed in Auckland, directly or indirectly, in carrying out commissariat contracts. Hitherto any man who could produce a certificate from the Deputy Commissary-General to the effect that his services were actually and necessarily required in connection with contracts obtained exemption from militia duty. As soon as the Lieutenant-General requested the militia to be called out, these exemptions were cancelled. Personal representations to the local authorities were of no avail. The building of boats, the preparation of harness and other transport equipment, the manufacture of biscuit, and, in fact, all the important works for the Commissariat—rendered at this juncture more urgently necessary—were at once suspended. Supplies could not be forwarded from Auckland, for the merchants had to shut their stores; and while the flow of food to the front was interrupted, the small reserves at the different posts were being exhausted with alarming rapidity. The Lieutenant-General Commanding was communicated with by telegram, but the Government would not yield even to his representations. The men were marched out from Auckland to the various posts, some a distance of twenty-three miles, and it was not till they had reached these posts and were handed over to the control of the military authorities that Major-General Galloway, commanding the local forces, at the urgent request of the Deputy Commissary-General, permitted all the men to return to Auckland, whose presence there was necessary in connection with commissariat contracts, and, in about a week, things were going on in their usual routine.”

Fish-fed pork, Robertson wrote, caused some trouble with the troops. It looked excellent in the cask, but when cooked, “it was quite nauseous, emitting a powerful fish-like smell.” A vegetable ration issued to the troops, for which 1½d. a day was stopped from pay, was “very unpopular with the men. The small pickle ration was a source of constant grumbling, and it was not unusual for a soldier to be seen going about with half a diminutive onion on the point of a fork saying ‘look at the ration I'm charged 1½d. for,’ quite forgetting that he had had, in addition, a pound of potatoes for his money.” Rum and tobacco thefts caused the commissariat great trouble. “The divided responsibility in the inland transport service still continued. It is true that early in 1864 the boat companies of the Commissariat Transport Corps relieved the Navy from the boat transport, but the Navy still continued to work the steamers, and it also cannot be denied that the Commissariat boatmen were not far behind their naval predecessors in their attacks upon the rum casks.”

W.O. 33/16.

Deputy Commissary-General Bailey, Director of the Commissary Transport Corps, in a memorandum of July 26, 1865, wrote: “I have accompanied (from England) nearly every force that has been engaged in active operations since 1851, and I have never seen the troops land with the necessary transport, or with arrangements for a proper transport, to enable them to undertake a campaign.”

W.O. 33/16.

The Kaffir War of 1846 furnishes another precedent for the New Zealand muddles. The British forces were hampered “by costly and defective transport…and by endless bickering between the colonists, whom the regulars despised for their lack of discipline, and the regulars whom the colonists accused of stiffness and lack of adaptability.”

Cambridge History of the British Empire, vol. viii, p. 337.

The total force in New Zealand on January 1, 1864, was: Imperial 8,630, Colonial 3,209. On May 1, 1864, the totals were 11,335 and 3,682; on September 30, Imperial 9,927, militia and volunteers 12,073. Total 22,000. Colonial Office comment:!!

C.O. 209, 182.

After the Battle of Orakau, Cameron's next operations were directed against Mangatautari, where the Waikato Maoris, under William Thompson, had retired after their defeat at Rangiriri. The Maoris abandoned the position on April 5, 1864, and dispersed in all directions. But “the fire in the fern” suppressed in one quarter was immediately ablaze in another. On April 6 a reconnoitring party fell into a strong native ambuscade about ten miles from New Plymouth, 6 being killed and 12 wounded. The head of Captain Lloyd was cut off and dried and exhibited to other tribes. The Colonial Office decided that the despatch was too shocking to print, and hoped that it might be possible to inflict some exceptionally severe chastisement on the natives engaged in the affair.

Ibid., 179. One sequel to the affray is thus recorded in the Taranaki Herald of April 16: “Provincial Council, Monday, April 11. The Council met at 6.30 p.m., but owing to the absence of our reporter on military duty, this portion of the history of the Province has, we regret to say, been lost.”

On April 16 Cameron went with the Governor to Auck- land en route to Taranaki where the 70th Regiment was to proceed on account of the disaster to Captain Lloyd's party. A flying column of more than 500 troops, including 300 of the Taranaki Militia, then devastated the country south of New Plymouth. Such methods, which might have intimidated a less warlike race, only confirmed the Maori in his resolution to fight to the end.

Chapter 7A Confiscation Policy

The determined nature of the Maoris' hostility caused widespread discussion of the possibility of confiscating their lands as a deterrent. The colonists incurred considerable criticism in later years for adopting this policy, and it is therefore of importance to note that, writing to the Duke of Newcastle on December 17, 1863, Sir George Grey said: “I ought to mention to Your Grace that I believe I was the first to recommend the forfeiture of lands by those natives who took up arms against us, and I did so for the following reasons:—Because such a proceeding is in conformity with their own customs. It will affect lands of those who have forced us into war, and leaves secure to the native owners who have remained at peace their large landed possessions in other parts of the island.”

T. C. Williams, A Letter to the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, being an Appeal on Behalf of the Ngatiraukawa Tribe, p. 39.

That Sir George Grey, with his intimate knowledge of the Maori character, should have believed that confiscation of lands would be effective in subduing opposition is surprising, especially as that opposition was based on a policy of retaining all Maori lands for the Maori people. It was on July 31, 1863, that the New Zealand ministers, in a memorandum signed by Alfred Domett and presumably suggested by Grey, formally proposed a policy of confiscation: “The Gold Fields of Australia and Otago have attracted to these colonies a large number of men in every way fitted to supply the population required—men hardy, self-reliant, accustomed to a bush life, expert in the use of fire-arms, and as a body, fully impressed with the maintenance of law and order. Many of these men, tired of the digger's life, are looking round to establish for themselves a permanent home and only require the inducement of the offer of a suitable locality and liberal terms to select the Northern Island of New Zealand.… It is impossible for the District of Auckland to bear for an indefinite length of time the strain to which it is at present subject. A great proportion of the whole population is now under arms. It is now difficult, and will soon become scarcely possible to procure the necessaries of life. Bakers, butchers and others, who are required to supply the daily wants of the community, are actively engaged in militia and volunteer service.… Homesteads have been laid waste, houses pillaged, unarmed men and boys brutally murdered in cold blood in the immediate vicinity of Her Majesty's Forces; a battle has been fought, a large escort attacked and almost overpowered, and skirmishes have been of almost daily occurrence, entailing a serious loss in killed and wounded.… Nothing will tend so much to confirm the allegiance of the doubtful and prevent their latent disaffection from taking the form of open hostility as some sharp punishment speedily inflicted upon the Waikato. If we wait for the arrival of reinforcements from England, the opportunity of trampling out the insurrection before it has kindled the whole country will be lost.”

Ministers expressed the view that one of the results of the policy would be that the colonists, with a satisfactory and permanent peace established, would cheerfully fulfil the promise made by the General Assembly to undertake the responsibility for native affairs.… “There will be amply sufficient land left them (the Waikato tribes),” ministers added, “for all useful purposes.… The present will be the first occasion on which an aboriginal native of New Zealand will be deprived of a foot of land against his will, and we feel assured that it will be the last.” To counteract the preponderance of male settlers, ministers stated that they had arranged with the Superintendent of Auckland to expend money on the introduction of women imigrants as soon as they could be safely introduced.

C.O. 209, 174. The German mercenaries who were introduced by Grey to South Africa had complained bitterly of the shortage of women.

On August 29, 1863, Grey transmitted a memorandum of his advisers containing the details of a plan for the introduction of 5,000 men, who were to hold 50-acre farms of land on military tenure, having first performed military duties in the colony for such period as the Government might require their services. Grey stated that the plan was based upon that which he had adopted in British Kaffraria. “The land upon which it is proposed to locate these military settlers it is intended ultimately to take from the territories of those tribes now in arms against the Government.”

Colonial Office comment (by W. Dealtry) was: “The memorandum of ministers…appears to me to establish conclusively the expediency of the plan which they recommend, the cost of which, I apprehend, will be borne entirely by the local Government.” The Duke of Newcastle wrote: “Upon the whole I believe the policy of confiscating the lands of the Waikatos who appear in arms against us is right, provided that it is exercised with justice and scrupulous desire not to involve the innocent with the guilty. It is not, however, free from danger. If the other tribes are persuaded that it is a new and flagrant proof of the greediness of the settlers for land and not adopted as a just punishment for murder and rebellion, it may make them desperate and aid the efforts of the King Party to effect a general rising. In conjunction with the confiscation of the rebel lands the proposed military settlement seems right. It is not likely to retain its character long, as, unlike the Cape and other countries where it has been tried, the necessity for it must soon cease. In a very few years the natives must become an insignificant minority. Sanction should be given to this measure in accordance with this minute. Its responsibility must rest with the Colonial Government for all depends on the spirit in which it is carried out.”

C.O. 209, 174.

The minute is a good example of the reasonable way in which the Duke carried out his duties. So keen and well-informed a critic as George Higinbotham spoke of him in his celebrated speech in the Legislative Assembly of Victoria on November 2, 1869: “The distinguishing characteristic of the despatches of that nobleman is their perfect straight-forwardness, simplicity and sincerity. He was always able to speak his mind without reserve, and at the same time, so far as I know, without giving offence on a single occasion.”

Memoir of George Higinbotham, by E. E. Morris, p. 167.

When Domett's ministry was replaced by the Whitaker—Fox combination in October 1863, the confiscation policy was continued. W. F. Monk says

In an unpublished thesis on Sewell's Journal.

that most writers agreed that Whitaker's policy was sound. The great objections to it, he remarks, were “its lack of definition, its absolute subjection of the natives to the mercy of the whites, and the fact that it was open to much abuse.” These were indeed formidable objections, and it is perhaps no wonder that Sewell called the “Suppression of Rebellion Bill” the “Spreading of Rebellion Bill.”

A Colonial Office minute on this measure said that it provided “that the Governor in Council (i.e. the Executive Council) may order all persons whom they may think fit to take the most vigorous and effectual measures for the suppression of the rebellion which shall appear to be necessary, and to punish and arrest for trial all persons assisting in such rebellion according to martial law by death, penal servitude or otherwise, and to execute the sentences of all such courts martial. It is based on the model of the Irish Acts of 1798, which I apprehend are hardly to be taken as desirable precedents at the present time.”

The New Zealand Settlements Act—known as the “Confiscation Act”—was severely criticized in the Legislative Council debate of November 16, 1863. Dr. Pollen characterized wholesale confiscation as politically immoral and as a financial project utterly delusive and unsound. Mr. Stokes feared that the results of the measure would be to render the natives reckless and desperate.

Aborigines' Friend, January 1863—December 1864, p. 360.

The Act was characterized by Sir F. Rogers as “a thoroughly bad one.” Fortescue was not quite so critical: “There can be no doubt of the sweeping and despotic nature of this Act, nor of the opportunities which it supplies for an oppressive treatment of the natives, if the New Zealand Government is so disposed and is not controlled. I am not, however, prepared to condemn it so entirely as Sir F. Rogers seems to do. It was passed when war was raging in the Waikato country and when there was reason to fear it would extend to other parts of the island—so that it was not to be expected that the Act could be so confined to the districts then actually in rebellion…. I think the Home Government may be able to secure moderation and justice through an able Governor known to take a deep interest in the Maori race and backed by a large Imperial force which cannot act without his orders. … If the confiscation is not excessive and is discriminating, I believe it will be a justifiable and wise measure [I agree… F. R.]…. I would instruct the Governor accordingly to satisfy himself of the justice and propriety of every proceeding under this Act (as well as the Suppression of Rebellion Act) and to refuse his consent to any particular confiscation of which he could not personally approve…. With regard to the part of the plan which has been most condemned by Professor Goldwin Smith and others (tho' without accurate knowledge or close examination of the case), namely the taking of the land of innocent natives, with compensation, there can be no doubt that it is a startling provision of the law, and will require strict control on the part of the Governor.” Fortescue concluded, however, that “confiscation without this power would be impossible, except in the case of every joint owner being proved to have compromised himself in rebellion.”

C.O. 209, 178.

He thus showed an appreciation of the difficulties of the local Government.

On October 23, 1863, The Times supported the contention of the Sydney Morning Herald that part of the lands of the Maoris must be confiscated to indemnify “the men on whom they have enforced the cost and labour of self-preservation by conquest.” A report from a Dunedin correspondent, dated September 18, published in The Times on November 17, 1863, stated that “the voice of the colony has been so unanimous regarding the confiscation of the land of the rebels that it is accepted as a measure fully decided on.” “The question is, however, one of great difficulty,” the correspondent added, “for it is almost impossible to carry out the confiscation of the lands of rebellious tribes without engendering an idea among the natives generally that we are fighting for land, and that land is the cause of all the troubles. It is well known how jealous the Maoris are on the subject of land, and if once the opinion gains ground among them that land is our only object, a war of extermination will certainly be the result. There is no security against such a contingency, for certain of the colonial Press do not disguise the feeling of hankering after the fertile land of the natives. In Auckland particularly is this the case, and the papers there already descant on the value of the Waikato plains and discourse with great unction on the probable transfer. It is thus the opinion is created in England of the greed of the colonists for the land of the natives, although I am quite sure the General Assembly of New Zealand would not sanction any measure affecting the deprivation of the natives of their land, other than as one of stern necessity. … The native tenure of land is so intricate that it is impossible to avoid punishing the innocent with the guilty, when that punishment consists in the forfeiture of land.” The correspondent referred to the Government's story of the reason for the abandonment of the Waitara claim, and stated that Teira denied having made the statements attributed to him by F. D. Bell, upon which the change of policy was said to be based. In his despatch of November 26 the Duke of Newcastle wrote: “It will be evidently very difficult to control within wise and just limits that eagerness for the acquisition of land which the announcement of an extended confiscation is likely to stimulate among old and new settlers and which if uncontrolled may lead to great injustice and oppression.”

C.O. 209, 174.

The struggle was now assuming a more general character and the Maoris were waging indiscriminate warfare against the white population. Incidents of the time included the following murders of settlers: W. C. Scott, at Pukekohe on August 27, 1863; Robert Watson, aged 15, at Burtt's farm, September 14; Hugh McLean, at Hamilton's Farm, September 14; Margaret Fahey, barbarously murdered near Drury on October 16.

On August 25 a sudden attack was made by a large body of natives on a party of 25 men of the 40th Regiment engaged in road making on the Great South Road. In nine skirmishes about this time ten soldiers were killed and fifteen wounded. On January 4, 1864, Grey reported that on December 21, 1863, “most barbarous murders” were committed by a native in the Kaipara district. Mrs. Thomson and one of her daughters were murdered. Fox demanded that the tribe should give up the murderer, which they did after he had been identified by another daughter.

C.O. 209, 174.

Discussing the new methods of bush warfare forced on the British by the atrocity of the conduct of the Maoris, The Times in a leading article on December 24, 1863, said: “There may be something revolting to European notions in the ambuscades which are a feature in this kind of warfare, but the ferocity of the natives, and the danger which arises from allowing bodies of them to lurk in the neighbourhood of settlers, must be the excuse for any departure from the usual practices of arms. As to the conduct of the settlers themselves, it is worthy of all commendation, and the same may be said of the people of New South Wales and Victoria, who have given all the help in their power to their threatened brethren…. A correspondent…points out the faults of our administration, and it certainly seems that there has been a strange mixture of weakness and false security.” In another leading article on January 19, 1864, The Times said: “Nobody at home turns with any satisfaction to the progress of the New Zealand war. Laurels are won from equals, and this is a conflict with savages; laurels are supposed to be entwined with the myrtle, and this is a war of extermination…. There is no vision more delightful than that of an indigeneous race finding themselves the wiser and happier and better for the arrival of the civilized stranger, bearing grateful testimony to his virtues, and yielding a mutually beneficial homage. This is what we all want, and what till lately we had thought we had seen glimpses of in New Zealand. … The justification of the colonists must rest with themselves; and it is enough for us if they appear to be doing, on the whole, the best they can under the circumstances. But, if we choose to censure them, we ought at least to remember their difficulties. What is to be done with aborigines who neither make use of the soil nor sell it; who lay immense tracts under imaginary claims; who are so disunited that it is impossible to conclude either a political or a commercial arrangement without it being contested by some claimant always in reserve?”

The New Zealand Ministers' plan of 1863 for disposing of native lands may be set out as follows: (1) Rebel lands to be dealt with thus: Left to natives, 600,000 acres; granted to Military Settlers, 700,000 acres; confiscated and sold, 1,492,000 acres (valued at £2,792,000). Total area: 2,792,000 acres.(2) Loan of £4,000,000, £3,800,000 guaranteed by the Imperial Government, to be employed in roads (1,000 miles); immigration (20,000 people), expenses of war and £200,000 for compensation to natives for various reasons.

Sir F. Rogers wrote this minute on the plan: “I hope the settlers will recollect that sometimes the most obstinate wars have been with tribes who were supposed to be completely broken but were driven to desperation by harsh treatment after submission.”

C.O. 209, 175.

The settlers, however, were in no mood to listen to the voice of experience.

A memorandum by Sir W. Martin on the Confiscation Policy and Fox's minute thereon was submitted to the Colonial Office, and Sir F. Rogers made this comment: “Mr. Fox observes that the supreme authority of every civilized people possesses the power of taking lands for public purposes—with compensation, and among these public purposes he includes in New Zealand the establishment of military settlements. This appears to me the announcement of tyranny. The extra-legal intervention of the Legislature is plainly allowable only in extraordinary cases and becomes oppression when it is applied without carefully devised rules to the ordinary operations of the country. But it is now claimed that a Legislature of settlers should practically exercise the power of taking the lands of individual natives or native families for the purpose of making them the private property of individual settlers, under the cover of ‘military settlement’—which may mean, and will in the ordinary course of events, of course, be made to mean, any settlement containing men capable of handling a rifle—i.e. any settlement whatever.”

Chichester Fortescue wrote: “Sir William Martin's paper is interesting and creditable to the writer. But I own he seems to me, like Mr. Gorst (in his recent book), to take a very one-sided view of the strange and anomalous relations which subsist between the two races in New Zealand. The legal status of the Maoris is that of subjects.

In a letter to the writer Professor A. Berriedale Keith thus replied to a query on this point: “There is no doubt that in law every Maori who took up arms after the proclamations of Hobson, confirmed by the new Commission or Charter of November 16, 1840, was guilty of rebellion, even though his tribe had never accepted any treaty. Of course the Crown might waive its right or might recognize the Maoris as belligerents. … The moral claim to consideration of the non-treaty tribes was obviously very strong” (May 13, 1936).

It is true that the British Government had done but little ‘to impart to them (practically) all the rights and privileges of British subjects.’ But if this failure has been caused partly by negligence, ignorance, vacillation (for our sins against the Maoris have been almost altogether sins of omission), it has been caused much more by want of power and the refusal of the natives to accept the condition of the subject with all its duties of obedience. The state of things, then, which has arisen must not be used altogether against the Government and in favour of the natives, as I think the advocates of the latter are apt to use it. We must not be told, for instance, that the hostile natives must not be treated as ordinary rebels (which is true and right) and in the same breath, that it is iniquitous to take their lands from them, except under the scrupulous application of English law, because they are subjects. In the same way it seems to me absurd for Sir W. Martin first to prove elaborately that the natives are British subjects, and then to complain of the troops crossing the Mangatawhiri and to justify or excuse ‘resistance to invasion’ on the part of W. Thompson, as though Ngatihauas and Ngatimaniapotos were two independent neighbouring nations, one friendly the other hostile, and the Governor had unjustly attacked the former, making them suffer for the sins of the latter…. William Thompson is a fine fellow and I hope he will be gently treated, and receive a different measure from that meted to Rewi. But he and his tribe must expect to suffer—and that whether we choose to regard them as subjects or foreigners—for having made common cause with Rewi and the war party from the moment that General Cameron crossed the Mangatawhiri.”

C.O. 209, 178.

In a letter published in The Times on December 24, 1863, J. E. Gorst traversed the causes of Maori distrust and hatred of the Government. The duty of governing the Maoris, undertaken in the Treaty of Waitangi, had been “absolutely neglected.” There had never been a “properly organized native service in New Zealand.” The only department of native government “which had any life” was that devoted to land buying. The new value acquired by land caused the revival of “old dormant claims.” War and bloodshed ensued, but the Government “looked quietly on.” No provision was made for the education of the Maoris beyond subscriptions to the mission schools. “Most of these schools were extremely bad.” The only attempt made for many years to give political instruction to the natives was the publication of a newspaper called the Maori Messenger, “composed of such contemptible trash as alone to explain and justify the conduct of the Maoris in thinking themselves politically wiser than their rulers.” The Europeans of the lower order settled in remote districts “were as lawless as the natives themselves.” The Maoris were made to feel grievously “their social inferiority to the Europeans.” The colonial newspapers were full of affronts to the natives. “It is easier for a savage to forgive a wrong than an insult,” Gorst continued. “The Maoris have a firm persuasion, derived, I believe, from the lessons of mischievous and treacherous Europeans, that as soon as ever the white race is sufficiently powerful their lands will be seized and they will be reduced to a condition of servitude as other aboriginal races have been before. … The above are some of the grievances under which the Maoris suffer, or at least imagine they suffer. No permanent peace can ever be secured in New Zealand until one of two things is done—either the natives must be exterminated, or those of their grievances which are real must be redressed and those which are imaginary must be proved to be so to the satisfaction of the natives themselves.”

The Times, in a leading article of April 27, 1864, on the debate in the House of Commons on the previous evening, said that it could not follow Mr. Mills and Mr. Buxton “in setting the whole trouble down to the fault of the colonists: the utmost that can ever be done is to buy off one chief's alleged rights in the soil. On this being done, another starts up, to be disposed of in his turn, but only to give place to another.” Referring again on the next day to the debate, The Times said that it had failed to bring out clearly one all-important thing—“that for some time past, at the present time, and for we know not how long a time to come, the lives of 10,000 English soldiers and more than £1,000,000 of money raised by taxes in the United Kingdom annually have been and will be under the control of the Legislature of New Zealand, which contributes not one penny to our taxes, which gives not one soldier to our army, which makes and unmakes its own Ministers, passes and repeals its own laws, and pursues its own policy, without the least reference to our wishes, our convenience, or our interests. We doubt if the whole history of the world can afford a parallel to this portentous phenomenon. … What possible benefit do the people of England derive from the most successful campaign against the Waikatos, from the most signal victory over the Ngatiruanui tribe? What does the poor man, whose sugar, tea and beer are taxed for such a purpose, receive as an equivalent for what he expends? What justification can be urged for the conduct of the House of Commons in thus delegating its own duties to a remote assembly, the names of whose members it does not know, with whose constitution it is not acquainted, and over whom it can exercise no manner of influence…. We have lost all Imperial control in this portion of the Empire, and are reduced to the humble but useful function of finding men and money for a Colonial Assembly to dispose of in exterminating natives with whom we have no quarrel, in occupying lands from which we derive no profit, and in attracting to their shores a vast Commissariat expenditure which we have the honour to supply out of the taxes of the United Kingdom, and from which they derive enormous profits…. The next Maori war must not be fought with British troops nor paid out of British taxes.”

In a leading article on Sir William Martin's memorandum against confiscation, The Times said on June 1, 1864: “If we would prevent wars for the future, we must teach the natives that war is a losing game. They have but one possession which they value, which is their land, and this they have hitherto retained, whatever have been their transgressions against us. We cannot wonder, therefore, that it has occurred to the colonists of New Zealand to inflict upon the natives almost the only penalty of which they are really sensible, and that they have conceived the idea of making the lands of their enemies the means of remunerating their defenders.”

A memorial signed by a large number of influential people connected with the Aborigines Protection Society in England urged the Government not to pursue a policy of confiscation. The New Zealand ministers in reply said that the custom of confiscation had always been recognized by the Maoris themselves, and they did not consider themselves conquered unless their land was taken.

C.O. 209, 180.

The Society strongly contested this in a reply which included the following passage: “The truth is that confiscation is persisted in because the colonists want the land, and they would rather that the last Maori should cease to exist than forgo their insatiable cupidity.”

The New Zealand Government and the War of 1863–4 (London, November 1864).

In their reply to the Duke of Newcastle's despatch of November 26, 1863, concerning the limiting of confiscation, the New Zealand ministers said they did not feel any apprehension that confiscation could not be confined “within wise and just limits.”

On February 29, 1864, Grey reported that the colonial forces of New Zealand amounted to 4,028 officers and men, all enlisted for three years. The Colonial Office “noted with pleasure” the efforts made by the Government to provide for the security of the colony.

C.O. 209, 179.

On September 26, 1863, the Duke of Newcastle had reproved Sir George Grey for not stating when he applied for reinforcements that he had also made application to the Australian colonies. He had also expressed “surprise and disappointment” at the failure of the New Zealand Government to call out the militia.

In a leading article of February 6, 1864, the Taranaki Herald wrote: “The substantial answer which England has given to our demand for help deserves the recognition and hearty acknowledgment of the whole colony; and as we were not backward in asserting our claims upon the mother-country when the question was whether we should be left unaided in the midst of difficulties and troubles not our own making, let us be as ready to acknowledge the liberality and promptness of the aid afforded, which has been far greater than we had any right to expect. There are now in New Zealand ten regiments nearly all complete—the 12th, 14th, 18th, 40th, 43rd, 50th, 57th, 65th, 68th and 70th; besides these there are two batteries of Field Artillery, Engineers, and Military Train—in all, certainly not less than 10,000 men. There are moreover four ships of war—the Curacoa, Eclipse, Esk and Miranda, the crews of which, and in some cases the ships themselves, in one capacity or another, have been actively and most usefully engaged ever since they have been here; and in addition to all these it is reported by this mail that there are three more regiments under orders to come here, if not already started. Happily, too, this army (for it is now nothing less) is not wanting in the most essential particular—an able leader. General Cameron is possessed of the two opposite qualities not often found together—boldness and caution, and the rarer one in military men of his standing, of being able to adapt himself to altogether new conditions of warfare.

“The General Assembly in its last session passed an address of thanks to the Queen; but its gratitude took also a practical form. The £3,000,000 Loan, the calling out of the Militia in all the Provinces of this island, the raising of the Defence Force, the introduction of military settlers from Otago and Australia, and the building and equipping of the steamers for the Waikato—these are the colony's contributions to its own defence, and they show that in asking for help it was not unwilling to help itself.” The Herald asked that if Grey, whose “wait” policy had failed egregiously, were transferred elsewhere, Colonel Gore Browne should be allowed to return to New Zealand. “But whatever may be done in this respect the debt we owe to England is a great one; not only for the help itself, but for the ungrudging spirit in which it has been given.”

The New Zealand ministers, in 1864, proposed confiscation of the following areas: (1) Of the Waikato country as far as a line across the island from Raglan to Kawhia to Tauranga, excepting certain portions to be reserved for such natives as might return to their allegiance;(2) Of a portion of the country of the Ngatimaniapoto tribe;(3) Land on both sides of the town of New Plymouth to an extent not defined;(4) Land north of the Waitotara River to a point 10 or 20 miles north of the Patea River, including Waimate.

C.O. 209, 181.

Ministers thus set out their four objects in confiscating lands: (1) Permanently to impress the natives with the folly and wickedness of rebellion; (2) to establish a defensive frontier; (3) to find a location for a European population which may balance the preponderance of the natives who occupy the rebel districts; (4) in part to pay the cost of the war forced by the natives upon the colony. “While achieving these ends they would reserve for the future use of the natives so large a portion of the confiscated land as would enable them to live in independence and comfort, and they would secure it to them by such individual titles under the Crown as might tend to elevate them above that communal system (orno system) of life which likes at the root of their present uncivilized state.”

Ibid., 182. In Taranaki the total area originally confiscated was 1,275,000 acres, while the final areas confiscated was 462,000 acres. As compensation for this the Royal Commission in 1928 recommended a yearly payment of £5,000. In the Waikato the area originally confiscated was 1,202,172 acres and the final confiscation 887,808 acres. The Commission regarded this also as excessive and recommended as compensation a yearly payment of £3,000.

Cardwell, who had become Secretary of State on April 8, stipulated in a despatch of April 26, 1864, that the Confiscation Act should not apply for more than two years, that a Commission should be set up to inquire what lands might properly be forfeited, and that afterwards a general amnesty should be proclaimed except in the case of certain outrages which should be specified.

A ministerial memorandum on this despatch and one of May 26 took exception to the following passage in the latter despatch: “It is my duty to say to you plainly that if unfortu- nately their (Ministers') opinion should be different from your own as to the terms of peace, Her Majesty's Government expect you to act upon your own judgment.” Ministers stated that they did not claim the right to enforce their policy with Her Majesty's Imperial troops: “In this respect His Excellency has a negative power which is not disputed, but His Excellency's advisers do insist that the Governor has not the right to carry out a policy of his own irrespective of his responsible advisers…. His Excellency's advisers deem it to be an imperative duty to place on record without delay their protest against the introduction of a new form of government, under which the native affairs would be administered, partly by His Excellency and partly by his advisers … a system far worse than that which the Duke of Newcastle pronounced to be a failure, and which could not but operate mischievously alike to both Imperial and Colonial interests.”

C.O. 209, 182.

When forwarding the memorandum on August 26, Grey wrote: “My Responsible Advisers think that practically no difference of opinion as yet exists between the Governor and themselves. What constitutes a difference of opinion admits of question. I think that several discussions which have taken place between my Responsible Advisers and myself, regarding the confiscation of native property, the entering upon military operations and other cognate subjects, constitute differences of opinion upon important points connected with Imperial interests…. Since the direction of native affairs was originally assumed by the Colonial Ministers, a great change has taken place in this country. Then a war had recently been in appearance concluded, and there seemed ground to hope that peace between the two races might be permanently preserved. Now a very different state of things prevails. What may with justice be regarded as a civil war is raging in New Zealand. The parties engaged in this conflict are the whole of the European population and a part of the natives on one side, the remaining portion of natives on the other…. The Colonial Ministers are responsible to the General Assembly for colonial matters, but, as I will presently show, the General Assembly does not even in such matters exercise such an active supervision of control over their acts and proceedings as the Parliament of Great Britain exercise over those of the British Ministry…. The members of the General Assembly are collected from great distances, are drawn away from their own private avocations to which they are anxious to return as speedily as possible. … The sessions of the Assembly are also not only short, but far too infrequent to enable them to exercise such control over public affairs as is exercised by the Governments of Great Britain. For instance the General Assembly met at its last session on the 19th of October, 1863, and was prorogued on the 14th of December of the same year, after a session of only 56 days, and it may probably not meet again until the month of March 1865, that is, not until after an interval of 15 months…. The present cabinet consists of five ministers, one of whom has been absent in England during the greater part of the time of the existence of the present ministry. Two other members of the ministry have been frequently absent from the capital, so that the direction of affairs, involving largely the interests of Great Britain in the employment of her military and naval forces and the expenditure of her funds, has rested at such times in the hands of the two remaining members of the ministry, who are the two partners who compose one of the leading legal firms in the town of Auckland.”

Replying on November 26, Cardwell said: “It never was intended by H.M. Government to place the direction of native affairs in the hands of the colonial administration in any such sense as to give them the control of H.M. Forces, either directly or indirectly.” He reiterated, in respect to confiscation, that no land should be taken unless Grey was personally satisfied as to the justice of such procedure in each particular case.

C.O. 209, 182.

On January 26, 1865, Cardwell, in a despatch to Grey, wrote: “It must be clearly understood that Her Majesty's Government do not acknowledge the obligation to carry on war at the expense of this country till the natives are so broken or disheartened as to render further war impossible.” Cardwell pursued the same policy of restricting expenditure in South Africa. A reduction of four companies in the Cape Corps had been ordered, and on August 5, 1864, Cardwell instructed Wodehouse, the Governor, that “the shadowy British dominion over the Transkeian territory be withdrawn.” “This was not the only occasion in South African history that an unpopular intervention by the Colonial Office saved the colonists from the evil effects of ill-considered ambition.”

de Kiewiet, op. cit., p. 169.

Cardwell's attitude towards confiscation in New Zealand may be regarded as equally salutary.

On June 8, 1864, Grey informed the Colonial Office that ministers had published a notice to the Maoris setting forth terms of peace and stating: “This power is to be remembered—the disposal of their lands is with the Governor.” “I understand,” Grey wrote, “that in the opinion (of Ministers) they had, under the system of responsible government, a right to make use of the Governor's name personally—and then to require him to take and act on their advice, on the very point which they seemed by a public proclamation to have left to his discretion.” The marginal minute of the Colonial Office was “This appears to be a preposterous assumption on the part of the Ministers.”

The Wellington correspondent of The Times, in a letter dated December 14, 1864, and published on February 17, 1865, wrote: “Why should not the Maori pay for his war? The Colonists say he ought for the following reasons: (1) The natives were the unprovoked aggressors in this revolt.(2) On our side it has been a war of self-defence, literally a struggle for life or death.(3) Unless such events are to be chronic, substantial punishment must be inflicted, and material guarantees taken.(4) The natives care little for loss of life and crops. Until a few years ago their whole career, from generation to generation, was a succession of wars.(5) They do not care for loss of territory by war.(6) It is consistent with their own custom.(7) They never consider a belligerent conquered until his territory is taken.(8) The war will cost the colony £2,000,000 or £3,000,000 in war expenses and in other ways.(9) There is nothing contrary to natural equity, moral law, or Christianity in requiring the Maori who has inflicted such loss and suffering on us to make restitution.(10) The land is the only source from which he can make restitution.(11) No real injury would be inflicted by the confiscation of ‘large territories’ of the rebels. The tribes responsible for the war number from 10,000 to 15,000 souls. They own 8,000,000 to 10,000,000 acres—they have never cultivated or used 100,000. If we took half or a third it would not be more than a just punishment, nor do more, after deducting the cost of survey, immigration of military settlers, etc., than repay the loss and suffering we have been involved in by them.”

There is something perhaps to be said for the logic of these contentions. The difficulty was that the Maoris saw the fears of many years being realized before their eyes. The lands handed down by their ancestors were in danger and they were ready to adopt any means to save them.

Chapter 8Rise Of Te Ua And The Gate Pa Disaster

Te Ua is a fruitful branch; he is a fruitful branch by the water spring, and his branches extend over the fence.

His parents brought him up in evil and his relations were evil towards him.

But his bow will still be strong, and the sinews of his arms are made powerful by the hands of Rura, whose sceptre is the stone of Canaan.

This fateful year, 1864, saw two notable events of ill-omen from the British point of view. The rise of the “Pai Marire” religion was linked closely with political happenings and its spread was encouraged by the leaders of the King movement. The British disaster at the Gate Pa, though soon avenged, could scarcely fail to encourage Maori resistance.

On May 26, 1864, Grey forwarded a letter from Wanganui containing a report of a body of fanatics which had recently arisen among the Maoris in that district. John White, Resident Magistrate, reported that he had suspended Rimitirui,

? Retemanu.

a native assessor, who had joined a party of men (inveterate rebels) who professed to have been favoured with a revelation from some of the heavenly beings:

“A few days after the death of Captain Lloyd,

See above, p. 196.

whose blood had been drunk, the Angel Gabriel appeared to those who had partaken of the blood and by the medium of Captain Lloyd's spirit ordered his head to be exhumed, cured in their own way and taken through the length and breadth of New Zealand; that from henceforth this head should be the medium of man's communication with Jehovah. These injunctions were carefully obeyed, and as soon as the head was taken up it appointed Te Ua to be high priest and Epanaia and Rangitauira to be his assistants, and communicated to them in the most solemn manner the tenets of the new religion—namely:

The followers shall be called Pai Marire. The Angel Gabriel with his legions will protect them from their enemies. The Virgin Mary will certainly be present with them. The religion of England as taught by the Scriptures is false. The Scriptures must all be burned.

All days are alike sacred, and no notice must be taken of the Christian Sabbath. Men and women must live together promiscuously, so that their children may be as the sand of the sea for multitude.

The priests have superhuman power and can obtain for their followers complete victories by uttering vigorously the word ‘hau.’

The people who adopt this religion will shortly drive the whole European population out of New Zealand. This is only prevented now by the head not having completed its circuit of the whole island.

Legions of angels await the bidding of the priests to aid the Maoris in exterminating the Europeans. Immediately the Europeans are destroyed and driven away, men will be sent from heaven to teach the Maoris all the arts and sciences now known by Europeans.

The priests have the power to teach the Maoris the English language in one lesson, provided certain stipulations are carefully observed—the people to assemble at a certain time, in a certain position near a flagstaff of a certain height, bearing a flag of certain colours.

“However absurdly such ideas present themselves to the European mind, they nevertheless prevail and obtain among the Kingites of the Patea portion of this district, and as Rimitirui has given his assent to such, I recommend his dismissal. I would instance some of the cruelties and absurdities practised by the followers of this religion. While Rangitauira was at Waiota Pa, a native attempted to steal Lloyd's head, for which he was so furiously beaten that his life was despaired of. Another native for the same offence was taken to a creek and drawn to and for under a canoe and left to all appearances lifeless.”

C.O. 209, 180.

The origin of the Hauhau fanaticism was described by R. Parris, Assistant Native Secretary, in a letter to the Colonial Secretary of December 8, 1864. The originator was said to be Horopapara Te Ua, who, Parris said, had gone “wrong in his mind” after his tribe had rejected his advice not to interfere with the wreck of the Lord Worsley. After Te Ua had used violence towards the wife of Te Meiha, the latter beat him severely and tied him hand and foot. He released his bonds, and after being seized and chained, did the same thing again. His tribe began to be afraid of him. In a trance Te Ua was commanded to kill his son. He broke one of the boy's legs and was then told to spare him. The Angel Gabriel then said: “Take your son and wash him with water.” So he took his son to a river called Wairau (in the Upper Taranaki district) and washed him, and the leg was restored whole as the other. The Angel Gabriel then sang a hymn which was used in the daily service of the devotees of the new religion.

W.O. 33/16. See Te Hekenga, p. 117, for a description of one of Te Ua's meetings. The first niu, or tall pole, around which the disciples of Te Ua marched chanting their hymns, was part of the mast of the Lord Worsley (S. B. Babbage). See frontispiece.

On May 30, 1864, Grey reported that a body of Hauhau fanatics (“Gabrielites”) had attempted to descend the Wanganui River with a view to attacking the town. On May 14 they were opposed at the island of Moutoa by a party of friendly natives and nearly wiped out, their high priest being among the killed. The Colonial Office gratefully acknowledged the help of the friendly natives and expressed the hope “that the action may have effectually suppressed the detestable fanaticism described in these despatches.”

C.O. 209, 180.

“While all this was going on,” wrote Deputy Quartermaster-General Gamble, “matters began to assume gradually a more serious aspect on the East Coast…. It must be here stated that down this East Coast there are two tribes, the Ngatiporou and the Arawa, who regard each other with deadly hatred. The Government sympathized with the Arawa, and promised them assistance and arms, and Captain Drummond Hay of the Auckland Militia, attached for general purposes of interpreting, etc., to this department, and Lieutenant McDonald of the Colonial Defence Force (both of whom are excellent Maori linguists), were sent with some of the Forest Rangers to aid and try to discipline the Arawas.”

On March 28, 1864, Henare Wirimu Taratoa sent a letter “from all the tribes” challenging Colonel Greer to fight on April 1. On the same day another letter from several chiefs set out laws for regulating the fight: Rule 1. If wounded or captured whole, and the butt of the musket or hilt of the sword be turned to me, he will be saved.Rule 2. If any Pakeha, being a soldier by name, shall be travelling unarmed and meets me, he will be captured and handed over to the directors of the law.Rule 3. The soldier who flees, being carried away by his fears, and goes to the house of the priest with his gun (even though carrying arms) will be saved. I will not go there.Rule 4. The unarmed Pakehas, women and children, will be spared.

In view of these developments troops were sent to Tauranga

Cf. William Fox, The War in New Zealand (1866:) “Tauranga was in fact the harbour of Waikato, and the only harbour it had. It was through it that the rebels in the latter district received supplies, and it was the easiest route by which east coast contingents could reach Upper Waikato. Thompson was well aware of this, and used every exertion to keep this important port open for himself.” See also Gorton, Some Home Truths re the Maori War. General Cameron ascribed to orders of Grey the freedom allowed to the Maoris to construct the Gate Pa.

instead of Taranaki. The force in front of the enemy position, the Gate Pa, on April 28 was 79 officers and 1,616 men.

“On the following morning, soon after daybreak, fire was opened from the batteries on the enemy's position and was kept up for eight hours…. At 3.30 the Lieutenant-General resolved on storming the position…. On the appointed signal the assault was commenced in gallant style, and the men, splendidly led by the officers, dashed into the work, where they were quickly and desperately resisted by the Maoris, and hard fighting with personal encounters ensued. Colonel Booth and Commander Hay, who led, were both mortally wounded. Captain Hamilton, R.N., jumped on the parapet, and as he called on his men to follow him, was shot through the head. Lieutenant Hill, R.N. (one of the survivors from the wreck of the Orpheus), was killed and four captains of the 43rd, viz. Glover, Mure, Hamilton, and Utterton (than whom there were probably no finer officers in the service), also fell, and several others were wounded. When the position seemed to be on the very point of being carried, our men, from some inexplicable cause, fell back before the Maoris, who fought to the death, and they re- tired from the work under a heavy fire from the parapet, leaving behind several officers.

“The work, it must be observed, was, in the interior, honey-combed with rifle-pits and underground passages, and the enemy, lying concealed, had no doubt considerable advantage in shooting our men from concealed positions, while the assailants no doubt got into confusion, which must have been increased by their suddenly being deprived of so many of their leaders. The Lieutenant-General, hastening to the front on seeing the repulse, ordered the immediate commencement of a line of entrenchment at about 100 yards from the left angle of the pa, and where many of the men sought the cover of a fall in the ground. Evening now closed in, the formation of the entrenchments continued, and the Lieutenant-General intended to resume operations next morning. About two hours after nightfall (as we have since ascertained) the enemy abandoned the work under cover of darkness, leaving behind some of his dead and wounded. The manner in which the natives defended the position proved them to be an enemy anything but despicable, either in intelligence or courage…. The readiness with which they stood to their posts and met the assault, as well as their endurance during the bombardment, would reflect credit on disciplined troops.

“When the guns opened on them a voice in the pa (probably Rawiri's) was heard from the 68th side saying: ‘Tena, tena, e mahi i to mahi.’ ‘Go on, go ahead, carry out your work.’

“And again: ‘Ko te manawa-rere, ko te manawa-rere, kia u, kia u.’ ‘Trembling hearts, trembling hearts, be firm, be unshaken.’

“When our men had retired from the work, a man stood on the parapet and said: ‘Pakeha e, ka kapi ahu parepare i o hipapaku.’ ‘Oh! Pakeha, my trenches are blocked with your dead.’ It is doubtful on account of the distance from which it was heard, whether this was said in triumph, or whether it was not said to intimate that the bodies might be removed.”

For Maori accounts of the assault and a description of the chivalrous conduct of the defenders to the fallen, see Cowan, I, 415–23.

On June 21 a force under Colonel Greer engaged a force of some 500 Maoris at Te Ranga, Tauranga. He reported that the “men reserved their fire in the most steady manner, and moved as upon parade.” “Both the light regiments,” wrote Gamble, “did credit to their old good name, and it is a matter of special satisfaction that the 43rd had an opportunity of proving that the regiment was still the same as it ever was, notwithstanding the unfortunate repulse at the Gate Pa, within so short a time and distance of their present success.” The Maoris lost 108 killed and 43 wounded, 15 of whom died later. The 43rd Regiment lost 5 men killed and the 68th 4.

Colonel Greer's report ended thus: “I must not conclude without remarking on the gallant stand made by the Maoris at their rifle-pits; they stood the charge without flinching, and did not retire until forced out at the point of the bayonet.”

W.O. 33/16.

Grey, reporting the engagement in a despatch of July 1, also referred to the great bravery of the Maoris. Rawiri, who was slain, “was a brave man and behaved like a chivalrous gentleman.”

C.O. 209, 181.

In his despatch of May 3, 1864, Cameron dealt with the operations at the Gate Pa. The despatch was illustrated by a sketch by Lieut. H. Robley, 68th Regiment. Referring to the retreat of the 43rd Regiment after the position seemed to have been taken, Cameron wrote: “This repulse I am at a loss to explain otherwise than by attributing it to the confusion created among the men by the intricate nature of the interior defences and the sudden fall of so many of their officers.”

Fortescue, History of the British Army, XIII, p. 502, writes: “The sight of some scores of heads, taking the assailants by surprise, over-whelmed them with the imagination of a countless host, and so caused them to turn.” In a note he says: “The best opinion (of those consulted in New Zealand) favoured the explanation in the text; though who can account for a panic?” As the Maoris had no water, “there was no occasion to assault it at all. Indeed, friendly Maoris with Cameron pressed him not to do so.”

Horatio Gordon Robley, afterwards Major-General, who was born in 1840 and died in 1930, left on record scores of drawings and water-colours depicting scenes in the New Zealand war. He published Moko, a monograph on tattooing, and Pounamu, Notes on New Zealand Greenstone.

Brief news of the reverse sent by electric telegraph, now available on part of the route via Australia, was published in The Times on July 7. In a leading article the following comment was made: “The loss considering the numbers engaged is really dreadful…. One officer appears to have been killed for every two men, the numbers being as 10 to 21. We must wait for fuller accounts before we can explain this strange and distressing peculiarity, but it would seem as if some extraordinary call had been made on the energies of those in command when we find the leaders of the naval and land forces meeting with the common fate, which seems to show that they found it their duty to expose their valuable lives in the place of the sharpest conflict and the greatest danger. What may have led to this heroic but unfortunate resolution we are in no position to say; but it certainly looks as if the officers could not have been efficiently supported by their men. The disproportion of loss is too enormous…. Formidable, indeed, must have been the fortification which these savages had thrown up, if it was not too dearly purchased by the effusion of so much precious blood. We should not be surprised to learn that the murderous struggle in which we are engaged with the natives of New Zealand is regarded by the troops with almost as much dissatisfaction as our recent campaign against the King of Ashantee. There is in this mountain warfare against savage tribes much danger and hardship, with little of that honour which makes danger and hardship tolerable…. It is to be remembered that the very arms and ammunition which have been used against us have been sold to the natives by the colonists, with the express permission of the Colonial Government, in defiance of the protest of the officer commanding the forces, the object being to give all the merchants and settlers the benefits of the traffic. The commerce has been lucrative, and large sums have been made by arming the natives with good English guns, supplying them with good English gunpowder, and thus enabling them to protract a war fraught with so many solid advantages to New Zealand.”

The Times of August 15 reported from the Melbourne Argus of June 25 an affair at Auckland when sailors of the Esk had attacked the New Zealander office, owing to a statement that they had deserted Captain Hamilton at the Gate Pa. They were only restrained by the publication of an extraordinary edition “with a ridiculous denial of the charge against the Naval Brigade, and attributing the panic which caused the retreat to a mistake of the 68th Regiment.” An officer of the 43rd, in a letter to a relative published in The Times of September 3, 1864, said: “When we had been in the place a quarter of an hour, the sailors called out, ‘The Maoris are coming down on us in thousands,’ and immediately turned tail and ran, and then there was a regular panic, and our men followed their example.”

The Melbourne correspondent of The Times, in a despatch written on May 26 and published on July 14, 1864, gave the “main facts” of the Gate Pa disaster as follows: “Our troops having entered the pa found it, to their surprise, almost deserted. Only two or three wounded natives were seen inside. Thrown off their guard the men dispersed, and it is said fell to plundering. In an instant there opened from beneath and from every side a tremendous fire of musketry, pointed by unseen hands. The whole ground was alive with Maoris, and the air was rent with savage yells. A panic seized the 43rd, and the whole party, in spite of the heroic efforts of their officers, fled in terror from the deadly place. The second force despatched to their support, under Captain Hamilton of the Esk, arrived just in time to share their fate. Their gallant leader himself, while standing on the parapet and waving his sword to the bluejackets, was shot through the head, almost all the other officers being either wounded or killed. The men poured headlong out of the breach like a flock of sheep. To complete the story of the disaster, the 68th who had gone round…by the rear of the enemy's position, were also repulsed in an attack on another face of the pa. Thrice they were led to the assault, and thrice driven back by the deadly cross-fire. The night of the 29th closed on a scene perhaps unparalleled in British military annals. A regular force of infantry, supported by the crews of three or four men-of-war and by 13 large guns, had been beaten in a hand-to-hand conflict with a horde of savages. A British regiment had fled in terror from perhaps an equal number of Maoris.… The 43rd Regiment lost in officers alone as many as, perhaps, any single regiment at the battle of Alma.”

On December 14, 1864, a letter from Colonel H. H. Greer, commanding the 68th Light Infantry, dated October 1, was published in The Times. He referred to the Melbourne correspondent's despatch on May 26. Of the paragraph about the repulse of the 68th he wrote: “In that statement there is not a particle of truth; nothing of the sort occurred. The 68th did not attack any face of the pa. It was not repulsed, it was not led to the assault, and it was not once driven back; nor was the 68th ordered to attack, nor was it any part of its duty to do so; in fact to have attacked such a position as the Gate Pa in front and rear simultaneously could only have resulted in the mutual destruction of the assaulting parties. The 68th were sent to the rear of the Gate Pa by a difficult march the night before the attack (not, as your correspondent states, by a road during the attack) for the purpose of cutting off, or preventing, the escape of the Maoris. The Lieut.-General had stated in his despatch how the 68th did its duty.… It is evident that your correspondent when he wrote had not seen the position, had no personal knowledge of his subject, and was unfortunate in the selection of his intelligence.”

Gamble concluded his report of July 7, 1864, on the military situation, by observing: “There does not seem just at present any immediate prospect of the Maoris, as a people, coming forward to make peace, although it is more than probable they do not contemplate any aggression if let alone. The effect so far of the operations has been that the enemy, who were at one time infesting the bush in the vicinity of Auckland, have been driven back beyond a line 120 miles distant from it; that military settlements are being at the present moment established on the frontier, and that nowhere now do hostile natives venture to show themselves near our ports, while simultaneously with all this, the safety of the other settlements in the Northern Island had been effectually provided for. If the enemy has not yet formally yielded, he appears at least to have resigned himself to our armed occupation.

“The measures at present contemplated by the Colonial Ministry, in whose hands, as the responsible advisers of the Governor, the administration of native affairs was lately placed by the Imperial Government, amount, I believe, to the following:

Te Ua (Founder of the Pai Marire Religion) (1) Establishing a southern frontier across the island, by producing the present line within the delta of the Waipa and Horatiu Rivers to Kawhia, on the west, and to Tauranga on the east coasts, and the confiscation of all hostile native lands within that line; (2) the occupation of part of the country of the Ngatimaniapoto tribe, beyond the above line; (3) the confiscation of land north and south of the town of New Plymouth, in the Province of Taranaki, to an extent to be determined on, and of the country from Wanganui to a point northwards on the coast, about fifty or sixty miles from the settlement of Wanganui.

“Without entering on the special difficulties of carrying out quickly the first and second of these plans, and the impossibility of executing all together, it will be enough to say that the third project appears to be the most likely to be undertaken, if the policy of confiscation be not meanwhile arrested by the arrival of prohibitive instructions from England. Though as yet the Maoris have made no offer to yield, it still remains to be seen whether the sufferings of the present winter and the indications of easier terms in Mr. Cardwell's first despatch (published since the transmission of last month's journal) will not have the happy effect of bringing about the termination of a war which is accompanied by more than ordinary difficulties for us, and which, though it has assumed large dimensions, is not, in its result, really identified with Imperial, so much as with Colonial, interests.”

The Duke of Newcastle died on October 18, 1864, aged 53. He had been Secretary of State for War during the Crimean War, and The Times, in an obituary notice on October 19, said: “The Duke had so generously borne himself when he was expected to endure all the brunt of our Crimean disasters that when in 1859 Lord Palmerston offered him the Secretary-ship of the Colonies, every one was glad to hear again of his accession to office…. The war in New Zealand was almost the only serious colonial difficulty with which we have had to contend. The dispute was a complicated one, but perhaps most persons in this country would be inclined to regard it as curious and vexatious rather than important. Whatever be its real character, the Duke left office without the satisfaction of seeing his policy rewarded in an end to the dispute, and the Maoris have submitted under Mr. Cardwell's rule.”

This impression that the Maoris had submitted was founded on a telegraphic summary of the surrender of the Tauranga Maoris to Colonel Greer, and on October 25, 1864, The Times, after enlarging on the wonders of the electric telegraph, said that one of its drawbacks appeared to be due to the impossibility of correctly summarizing long reports: “Thus we have recently laboured under the agreeable mistake that the war in New Zealand is at an end, and now awake to the chilling conviction that out of the many tribes which have taken up arms against us it is only one section that has laid down its arms…. Still there can be no doubt that the merciful treatment extended to the first tribes which have made their submission will have the very best effect upon native opinion throughout New Zealand. There is no excuse now for the argument of desperation—for the feeling that all is lost by surrender and therefore nothing is endangered by continuing the war. The best argument is thus taken out of the mouths of the native agitators…. The announcement that after the close of the present year the burden of the war expenditure will fall in a great measure on the Colony has, we have reason to believe, operated a most beneficial change, if not in the opinions, at any rate in the projects of the Colonial Government. They are disposed to be moderate because it has been made quite clear to them that the cost of a violent and aggressive policy will have to be borne by themselves. No amount of confiscated land, the only property of which it is possible to deprive the natives, would compensate the colonists for a few months of that expenditure which has hitherto been borne by the Home Government. It is their interest to conclude the war just as they conceived it to be their interest to continue it, and we doubt not that they will govern themselves accordingly.”

Chapter 9Governor v. Ministers

The Wellington correspondent of The Times, in a letter of September 14 published on November 17, 1864, said that the motive of the Tauranga natives in agreeing to sell much of the land left to them arose “from the wish to abandon New Zealand and settle at one of the South Sea Islands.” “The terms accorded to the Tauranga natives,” the correspondent added, “have been everywhere regarded as lenient, and this leniency has been attributed by some to the influence of recent despatches from the Home Government and to the debates in Parliament, on the strength of which Sir George Grey is supposed to have coerced his ministers. Such, however, is not the case. The proportion proposed by Ministers to be confiscated was much less—far less than the Governor thought sufficient to be of use in deterring others;

But cf. W. P. Morrell, Provincial Government in New Zealand, p. 133: “Sir George Grey used his authority … to oppose with all the stubbornness and ingenuity at his command the extensive confiscation schemes on which the ministerial plans were based.” Grey, as we have seen, was not opposed to the principle of confiscation, but it seems unlikely that he wished to confiscate more land than did his ministers.

and it must not be forgotten that the Tauranga natives are the last that have come into the field, and so far from being guilty of atrocities to the wounded or even maltreating the bodies of the dead, they have acted bravely and honourably throughout.” In a postscript of September 17, the correspondent reported the escape of the Maori prisoners from Kawau on September 10, and referred to the lack of restraint they had enjoyed there. On one occasion in the previous month six or eight of the prisoner chiefs had manned the lifeboat and taken the Governor, some officers, and their ladies for a pleasure trip round the island. “Without arms this party visited all sorts of out of the way nooks, leaving the boat to the charge of the natives, who if they had chosen might have made good their escape, even if it were not in their power to have done serious mischief.” On December 3, 1864, The Times, commenting on a brief telegraphic message that the escaped prisoners were fomenting rebellion, expressed the view that the escape would not be “altogether displeasing to the war party at Auckland.”

The Wellington correspondent, in a letter of October 14 published in The Times on December 15, said: “The question as to who is guilty of the neglect that led to this escape has been fiercely debated in the Auckland press. Ministers declare that Sir George Grey alone is culpable, while Sir George declares that none but his Ministers are.” The correspondent went on to refer to the dispute between ministers and the Governor as to the conclusion of peace. “Certainly no man could be more unpopular than Sir George Grey now is, both among colonists and natives. The Assembly would instantly petition for his recall, and if the Home Government are wise they will anticipate such a measure by an early withdrawal of His Excellency to some other sphere. Unfortunately, Sir George is not the man physically he was a few years ago, and is not equal to the government of a disturbed colony like this, unaided by a popular ministry.

“The debates in Parliament on the guarantee proposed by Mr. Cardwell last July, and the instructions to Governor Grey contained in the papers laid before the House of Commons, have filled the colonists with dismay. The manner in which Mr. Cardwell and the other members of the Government spoke out for the colonists is gratefully acknowledged, but the condemnatory tone of independent members and of the greater portion of the London press has excited considerable indignation. The British public can have no conception of the drawback which war is to our progress. The land we are accused of coveting would be dear at an immeasurably less cost than the mere money which the war has already absorbed…. When everyman in Middlesex from 16 to 40 is marched about its streets and encamped upon its commons, or on those of an adjoining county for weeks together, and every man from 40 to 55 is employed keeping guard or doing some kind of military service, leaving the ordinary daily duties of life to be discharged by Government employees, old men and incapables, then will the Home Government have some conception of the hardships which the New Zealand colonists in the Northern Island have had imposed on them, and learn how ruinous a method war would be of acquiring land, and how preposterous is the suggestion it has indulged in that it is to the colonists' greed in this direction that the present New Zealand war is owing.”

Commenting on the correspondent's defence of the colonists, The Times, in a leading article on the same day, said: “Our grievance is expressed in the simple fact that an army of 10,000 British soldiers is maintained at the Antipodes for the support of a policy over which we have no control. We do not deny that the colonists suffer also. We dare say the picture drawn by our correspondent of the drain upon the settlement is by no means exaggerated. But these wars are not of our making, and it is hard to convince people here that they are entirely the making of the Maoris, however injudiciously those savages may have been treated.”

On November 7 Gamble referred to the escape of the prisoners from Kawau: “The escape of these men at the particular time it took place was very unfortunate; for there was no knowing to what extent it might encourage the Waikato and other tribes to which they belonged to continue in arms, in addition to the still greater danger of the whole of the Northern natives, hitherto loyal, being drawn into the strife.” Gamble discussed the refusal of the Colonial Government, “which was essentially a war ministry,” to assent to the Governor's offer of terms to the Maoris and their resignation. They were holding office until the meeting of the Assembly on November 21. “The Governor has meanwhile himself published a proclamation which allows the natives, except those implicated in certain murders, until the 10th of December next to come in and submit, ceding such territory as may be determined on by His Excellency and the Lieutenant-General Commanding. Concerning the success of this proclamation in inducing the natives to submit, there is much contrariety of opinion, but it is to be regretted that it could not be published earlier, when its success would have been more general and immediate. Now, though the favourable time for active operations has arrived, none can be undertaken for a month, but until the danger in the north

From the escaped prisoners.

is past, the large numbers of troops at present at Otahuhu, near Auckland, though inactive, are in the most convenient position, and ready for any emergency that may arise.”

On October 7, 1864, Sir George Grey reported that ministers had resigned because (Sir F. Rogers stated) “the Governor had accused them of prolonging the war.” Sir F. Rogers wrote this minute: “The interest of the Imperial Government lies in an immediate pacification, even on terms which will not ensure the colonists against further trouble—so long as that pacification is substantial…. It seems to me that Sir G. Grey has thoroughly the best of it throughout this controversy with Ministers…. The bulk and emptiness of the Ministerial minutes, I think, shew clearly the absolute incompetence of the Ministry to carry on business under difficulties.”

Fortescue wrote to Cardwell: “The first thing which strikes me in these papers is the unsound and mischievous form which Responsible Government has assumed in New Zealand—the next thing Sir G. Grey's failure to improve, or to make the most of, the system of government which he found there. It is monstrous, for instance, that Mr. Fox's proclamation to the natives of March last should have been issued without the personal concurrence of the Governor…. This state of things I take to be owing partly to the system of government in New Zealand, partly to the character of the present Governor, who, not being able to do what he wished in all respects, has chosen to avoid responsibility by separating himself from his ministers and negotiating with them in diplomatic fashin, rather than endeavour to guide and influence them in native affairs from day to day by requiring constant information and taking constant part in their native administration. Some part of the blame is certainly due to the Ministers, but it is hard to believe that an able Governor, well acquainted with the country he governs and directing an Imperial army and squadron, could not have exercised a more constant and useful influence over those gentlemen, or could not, since the receipt of our despatches, have decided some of the questions which have produced all the special pleading, the clever fencing, and the pro- voking retorts contained in these despatches. The result of all this is that when the present mail left the colony, no proclamation had been issued to the natives to tell them the terms on which their submission would be accepted, no cession or confiscation of native lands (except at Tauranga) had been declared and the prisoners had escaped…. I should be inclined to impress upon Sir G. Grey the necessity of putting an end to discord and uncertainty if he shall not have done so already by proclaiming such terms of submission as he thinks expedient—if possible in conjunction with a Ministry, if unavoidable without one….”

C.O. 209, 183.

A ministerial memorandum of October 21, 1864, stated: “Ministers are placed in this unfortunate position: The Governor neglects their advice when he thinks fit and makes it appear at other times that he is suffering a species of martyrdom from the way in which he would have it supposed that he was bound by the smallest expression of their opinion.” (“True enough, I think,” was Fortescue's comment.)

C.O. 209, 183.

A whole volume of documents

Ibid., 184.

is devoted to the controversy between the Governor and his ministers concerning the treatment and escape of the prisoners.

On October 27 Grey forwarded a copy of his proclamation (dated October 26) notifying terms to persons involved in the rebellion. On October 31 he forwarded a report of operations in Taranaki on October 8 and 10. The Maoris had been expelled from positions at Mataitawa and Te Arei, near New Plymouth.

In a memorandum of November 2, signed by F. Whitaker, ministers said: “Of all the difficulties that ministers have had to contend with since they accepted office, one of the greatest has been the Governor's vacillation and infirmity of purpose.” In another memorandum two days later Whitaker wrote: “Unfortunately alike for Great Britain and the colonists and the natives, Sir George Grey in his anxiety about the opinions of the world and the judgement of posterity, shrinks from pursuing the wise and just policy which he himself devised as necessary to ensure a satisfactory termination of the rebellion.”

Ibid., 185.

Grey had certainly supported confiscation in principle, but he might well have been fearful of the results of its application in the wholesale manner desired by ministers.

In a despatch of February 27, 1865, Cardwell observed “with great satisfaction that the meeting of the Assembly had brought to a close those differences between yourself and your former advisers which have occupied so large a portion of your late correspondence, and have been attended with such unfortunate consequences to the colony.” “I learn with pleasure,” he went on, “that Mr. Weld had formed [on November 24] a new Colonial Ministry, on principles which you regarded as being in conformity with the instructions you had received…. I am gratified to see that the Assembly recognize the assistance rendered to them by the mother-country and cordially appreciate the gallant services performed by H.M. Land and Naval Forces. I have great pleasure in acknowledging on the part of H.M. Government the gallant and effective services of the Forces raised in New Zealand and the spirited exertions which the colony has made to meet the very heavy expenditure which has been thrown upon it…. You rightly attach great importance to these resolutions of the Assembly. In admitting the claim of the Imperial Government to exercise a reasonable control over policy upon which the restoration of peace must necessarily depend, whilst the colony is receiving the aid of British troops for the suppression of internal disturbances, they have, I trust, re-established harmony between the authorities whose divided counsels were a cause of so much regret…. I trust that now, in conformity with Mr. Weld's proposal, plans of the land, part of the territory belonging to the insurgents and now in military occupation, which you propose to obtain either by cession or by confiscation, will be made public without delay.” Cardwell concluded by saying that instructions had been sent to General Cameron “which contemplate that he will make arrangements for sending home five regiments.”

C.O. 209, 185.

In a letter to C. B. Adderley, written on November 14, 1864, from Christchurch, and published in The Times on January 25, 1865, J. E. FitzGerald wrote: “If we may judge from the number of letters to The Times, and from the speeches in Par- liament, the inclination of the English is now to throw the whole of the odium and the blame on the colonists, and to describe them as a greedy and rapacious race, whose sole object is to destroy the natives, and to occupy the land in their room. On the other hand it seems to be the fashion to exalt the character of Sir George Grey and to represent him as standing between the natives and their oppressors and as only hampered in his benevolent designs by the greed and violence of the colony…. Whatever interest Auckland may have in the continuance of the war, with the prospect of acquiring native lands, or with the immediate gain of a large military expenditure, to the Middle Island the war has been a heavy burden without a single redeeming feature…. You can have little idea of the galling effect of that perpetual cry that Sir G. Grey is the saviour of the natives, and that to him alone the Government must look for that fair and righteous dealing which the colonists are not disposed to accord to their native neighbours. Whatever policy the colony has adopted since Sir G. Grey returned to this Government has been either his own, or has received his full assent. Nor can any distinction be made between the Governor and the colonists in the action taken towards the natives.

“On the contrary, as one of those who have ever advocated a peaceful administration of the Government of the natives, and who hailed the arrival of Sir G. Grey in the colony in the hope that his old reputed influence with the natives might be of service in winning back their confidence, I, together with others, now denounce Sir G. Grey as the sole cause of the renewal of the native war, and as having pursued a course of conduct which has destroyed the last shred of trust and confidence which the hostile tribes entertained in our faith and honour…. At the first meeting which Sir G. Grey had with the Waikato tribes he used an expression which the natives have never forgotten. He said he did not intend to attack the Maori King; ‘he intended to dig round him so that he would tumble down.’ On every occasion when they complain of some unexpected move they quote this expression. They are always anticipating some new crafty dodge on the part of the Governor. They are in a state of morose distrust. ‘Browne,’ they said, ‘was a hawk. We could see him in the air. Grey is a rat—we do not know where he will come up.’ At that meeting the Governor had talked of many things; but he said not a word of making a military road to the Waikato. Three days after he came back an immense body of soldiers were at work making the road. The natives felt that they had been deceived, and they said, ‘Do you think we are fools? Do you think we don't know that the Governor means to attack us? What is the use of his coming here and talking peace? What does he make that road for unless he means war?’ This was the language used to a friend of mine; and it proved that Sir George Grey had managed to instil into the natives at an early period an utter distrust of his pacific intentions—a distrust which the event fully justified. I will mention another fact. Sir G. Grey obtained permission to erect on some land in the Waikato, belonging to a man named Te Wheoro, a school-house and court-house. He then had a plan made of a strong bullet-proof military redoubt, capable of containing a strong body of troops. This was sent up into the Waikato, but the moment it was commenced the natives saw what was meant and took alarm. They pulled it down and threw the timber into the river. You can well imagine the effect of such an act of treachery on the native mind. And yet this is one of the acts of violence in the Waikato which is quoted as justifying the attack on that country. Yet this was done by Sir G. Grey himself, for the Prime Minister did not even know of it when I mentioned it in the House.”

FitzGerald proceeded to traverse Sir G. Grey's proceedings at Waitara, criticizing the delay in dealing with the case and the seizure of the Tataraimaka block before justice had been done at the Waitara. “How this extraordinary man can after this have contrived to hoodwink the English public into the idea that the administration of this colony has been one of peace I cannot even guess…. If you had given us full responsibility years ago and had steadily refused us all military assistance beyond your normal contribution to our defence, we should have had no war. The colony is now rapidly changing and joining in against the war. Why? Because it is suffering in its pocket. Why has my party—the peace party—never been able to carry its views? Because you deprived us of our strongest argument—that the war would not pay—that we could not afford it. You not only made war for us, relieving us of the expense for some time, but by the enormous commissariat expenditure you made it a good speculation—at all events, to a part of the colony—to continue the war.

FitzGerald scarcely does justice to the strenuous efforts made by the Colonial Office to induce the New Zealand settlers to finance the war for themselves.

You give us responsible Government with the one hand, and with the other destroy all the influences by which party Government operates. You give us an enormous temptation to do wrong, and then abuse us for doing it…. The Duke of Newcastle could not have known what he was doing when he offered us responsibility without giving us the command, and requiring us to pay for, the troops. It was a farce. But it cannot go on. You must suspend the Constitution of the Northern Island, and govern it like a Crown Colony, leaving the Middle Island as a separate colony, or you must let the whole thing alone, and let the colony manage its own affairs, which I have the most perfect confidence it can do perfectly well.”

The Times, referring on January 26 to the charges made against Grey, described them as “highly coloured statements,” but accepted as valid the alternatives set out by FitzGerald: “We do not think the nation would long hesitate between the profitless offer of a mountainous land, with a war settled upon it by way of mortgage, and leaving to the Colonial authorities the management of a war, certainly the most important of their own affairs. We are well content that Imperial control should cease with Imperial interference and only wish that the person who makes the suggestion could be supposed to speak the feelings and wishes of the united colonists of New Zealand, instead of a particular party, and, at the most, a particular island.” Several correspondents disputed FitzGerald's charges against Grey, notably “An Old New Zealand Settler,” on February 6, 1865.

In a review of Grey's policy and the war to 1864 the Nelson Examiner said: “Mr. Chichester Fortescue, especially, has from the first to last refuted any attacks on the colonists and displayed a real knowledge of the subject in all its details rarely exhibited in the discussion of a merely colonial question. Even Mr. Gladstone, cautious as he is where expenditure is in question, thinks that the policy of the war was not exclusively that of the colony, but one which the Home Government had approved and were responsible for; and further that New Zealand was the only colony in modern history which paid a moiety of the expenses of the war in which it was engaged. Mr Cardwell, too, though sorely baited, defended the colonists against the imputation of having provoked the war.” Cardwell was criticized for regarding as still unsettled questions such as the responsibility of the colony in native affairs which had been disposed of by his predecessor. The Colonial Government could show “that it must either have, once for all, the direction of native policy, or it must put off and disavow all responsibility for that policy, pecuniary or otherwise…. There is a limit in the passive obedience of colonists to the dictation of the Imperial authorities, and it may as well be understood at home that, with respect to the New Zealand native question, the limit has been reached.”

C.O. 209, 188.

In a leading article on December 1, 1864, The Times said: “Sir George Grey is a most excellent and amiable man. The colony loves and respects him. Knowing him well, it hailed his return with hope and joy. It is not denied that, ever since that return, he has done his best under the most difficult circumstances. But we submit that the post requires a soldier accustomed to deal with difficult countries and with savage warfare, vested with the fullest powers, supplied with the amplest means, and only instructed to bring the war to the speediest possible end, and make some good arrangement with the natives that shall promise a lasting peace.”

The colony's “love and respect” for Grey were not obvious in several of the newspapers. Under the heading “Character of Sir George Grey by a Late Admirer,” there appeared in the Taranaki Herald of September 24 a quotation from The Press, Christchurch, of September 3. The Press referred to Grey as “that wily and treacherous Pro-Consul.” “His great and mysterious reputation as a Governor lives, not on the labours of his own genius, but, like the churchyard ghoul, on the buried remains of the blunders of those around him. And so this man, to whose insidious treachery as much as to any other cause is owing the renewal of the war—who came to settle the error of Waitara and left it for eighteen long months a neglected sore, festering to gangrene in the side of the Native; this man, who, under the pretence of establishing a school and court-house in the Waikato, tried to smuggle in a bullet-proof redoubt—this man, who repeated at Coromandel precisely the same blunder which Colonel Browne made at the Waitara; this man, lastly, who pledged the sacred honour of the Crown to treat with the broken remnant of the tribes at Ngaruawahia, and broke the pledge—this man, for whom the hatred of the natives is only surpassed by the mistrust and suspicion of the Europeans—cold, unimpassioned, watchful and truthless, this man will once again leave our shores, radiant with the glory of having ended a war which he never took one honest step to prevent—the hero and apostle of a peace which he took no part to bring about.” On October 22 the Taranaki Herald quoted the following newspapers concerning the resignation of the Fox ministry: Hawke's Bay Times: “There would seem to be but one opinion on the subject, and that opinion is that Sir G. Grey doesn't know what he is about, and that, to put the mildest construction upon his proceedings, he must be in a state little short of imbecility.” Lyttelton Times: “Surely the Imperial Government will not bear long with so imbecile a representative.” Christchurch Press: “Sir G. Grey has not been the minister of peace but of war. Let there be no mistake about that. From the day on which he rode back from the Waikato and pondered over the fatal truth that his influence with the Natives was gone, that man had war in his heart; and the Natives, with all the keen perception of instincts sharpened by fear—the Natives knew it…. Sir G. Grey has betrayed all who trusted him, and falsified all the hopes he raised and the promises he made.”

Chichester Fortescue, Under-Secretary for the Colonies, speaking at a Liberal demonstration at Maldon, Essex, on December 15, 1864 (reported in The Times on December 17), devoted much of a long speech to the state of New Zealand. He confessed, he said, that he did not believe in its being the desire of the New Zealand colonists to continue the war longer than could be helped. His knowledge of the great sacrifices they had made and were making, of the shedding of colonial blood, of the spending of colonial money, of the paralysis of colonial trade, convinced him that neither the Colonial Government nor the Colonial people would be inclined to continue the war a day longer than could be avoided.

“Could we be blamed for having assumed the government of New Zealand? Any one acquainted with the history of that colony would know that we were open to no blame on that point. Our people had already gone there in considerable numbers before we assumed the government. It was perfectly certain that these magnificent and beautiful islands, almost equal in extent to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, could not be left in the possession of a small, sparse and diminishing native people, but must have been inevitably seized and occupied by some European power. In fact, it was well known that it was a race between Great Britain and France which of these powers should obtain possession of New Zealand.

The French plan is fully described in England and New Zealand, pp. 94-138.

… Let any one examine the history of our dealings with the Maoris and he would find that, however much we had failed in other respects, we had not oppressed them. … Our sins had been those of omission much more than of commission. … It was amusing to read the early despatches of some of our greatest Ministers directing the Governors to treat the natives as British subjects, and above all things to enforce law and order. The fact was the natives of New Zealand declined those privileges when coupled with the obligation of submission to law and order. … He was ready to maintain that, looking at the relations subsisting between any other European power and any barbarous race at any period of history, our rule in New Zealand would bear a favourable comparison.”

The Times, on January 25, 1865, devoted a leading article to “The Case of New Zealand,” which it described as “a circumstantial statement of facts put forward on behalf of the colonists by some of themselves.” “The colonists proclaim that whereas they have been absolutely without any participation or concern in the declaration of war or the policy which produced it, and have confined themselves to supporting, with much cost to themselves, the authorities placed over them by the Home Government, they are now accused by their countrymen at home of having fomented and promoted the quarrel for purposes of their own. They tell us that a policy which was none of theirs was upon the point of becoming successful when it was rudely condemned, and that they are thus left in a position of perplexity and danger with the additional infliction of a bad name and most unmerited obloquy. Such, in substance, is ‘The Case of New Zealand,’ which has been carefully composed and transmitted to this country for circulation. We give it the publicity which is desired, but we need scarcely be at pains of remarking how much more evidence will be required before a conclusion can be safely reached.”

On the next day The Times said of the war in New Zealand: “It is astonishing, considering how long these operations have continued, and how voluminous are the accounts we possess concerning them, that we should know so little of the causes that originated them or of the motives with which they are carried on. We are bewildered with the intricate geography of an unsettled and little explored country, and with the combinations and divergences, the clashing and the coincidence of a number of interests, the power of which we have no means of estimating, and the validity of whose charges and counter charges we are quite unable to measure. We have the same transactions described to us by persons equally worthy of credit and equally above the suspicion of wilful misrepresentation in colours and lights so different from each other that we can scarcely recognize them as attempts to describe or to account for the same event. Who caused the war? Who has prevented the conclusion of peace? Who has an interest in the continuance of hostilities? Who was responsible for the escape of the 200 native prisoners? These are questions which we ought by this time to be able to answer, but on which we can as yet give no opinion by which we should be willing to be bound.”

The colonists' case was strongly argued by Charles Hursthouse, in his Letters on New Zealand Subjects:

London, 1865.

“To hear the language of Messrs. Buxton, Mills & Co., one would almost imagine New Zealand to be some barren rock in the South Pacific where every second man's chance of a meal depended on his catching a shilling tossed from the mother-country's Commissariat Chest.” The war, he argued, was disastrous to the colonists as it dammed up or diverted the “auriferous stream of emigration.” Hursthouse disclaimed insensibility as to the assistance given by the mother-country: “With a Molesworth, a Merivale, or a Fortescue at the Colonial Office, the amount of military and financial help she has given us would have been far greater—with a Mills or a Buxton ‘meddling and muddling’ there, it would have been far less—therefore, we are grateful to Mr. Cardwell for his half loaf.”

Chapter 10“Self-Reliance”

The New Zealand ministers, in a memorandum of December 30, 1864, described by Chichester Fortescue as “an excellent state paper, which does great credit to the Weld Ministry,” contemplated the removal of the Imperial troops:

“There may be partial disturbances, there will be imaginary alarms, the timid and those who have largely benefited by the presence of the troops will raise the usual outcry. But it is hoped that the war in the Waikato has practically come to an end. His Excellency the Governor has, by the advice of Ministers, and, as they understand, fully concurring, issued a proclamation which is virtually a declaration of the cessation of active operations at least in the Waikato, a district [which] is now occupied by no less than 2,500 military settlers, armed, organized and capable of self-defence. The operations at Taranaki … may be carried on with a local force, which, when the troops are withdrawn, the colony must supply. Ministers are of opinion that that spirit of self-reliance which constitutes real strength, and the surest guarantee for the future of a country, would be fostered by the withdrawal of Her Majesty's Forces and by the substitution of a small colonial force, partaking of the nature of an armed constabulary, officered, equipped and disciplined with especial reference to the services it would have to perform, and to the country in which it might be called upon to act.… It is confidently hoped that when the troops are withdrawn, the entire control of all its internal affairs, native as well as others, will be left to the Colonial Government. The system of double government, has, in the opinion of ministers, been fraught with the most disastrous consequences to both races of Her Majesty's subjects in this colony.”

Reference was made to the proposal for the separation of Auckland from the rest of the colony and other alternatives— division at Cook's Strait, or into three colonies—Auckland, Wellington, and the Middle (South) Island. Such schemes, the ministers affirmed, would “dwarf the political intellect of the colony, confining it to the consideration of narrow and personal interests, whilst there is no slight security for the future of the native race in the fact that the questions affecting them and their relations with the Europeans are influenced by men beyond the reach of local passions and interest.” (Colonial Office comment: “True.”)

C.O. 209, 188. For a description of the separation movement, see W. P. Morrell, Provincial System of Government in New Zealand, pp. 139–44. A petition from the Provincial Council for the separation of Auckland from the rest of the colony was forwarded on January 5, 1865. It was supported by Sir George Grey, but rejected by the Home Government.

Discussing Weld's programme on February 17, 1865, The Times expressed the view that it would be received with “little dissatisfaction by the great majority of Englishmen.” “Mr. Weld,” it said, “appears to think that a moderate standing force would suffice to control the Maori tribes.… For the rest he relies upon strong and well selected military posts, and, above all, on military roads. He would drive these roads straight through the districts in which the Maoris entrench themselves, not fighting except upon compulsion, but completing the road at all hazards, and paying the natives themselves for working at them, if they could be induced to do so. Then he would establish military settlements on lands to be taken from the tribes actually in rebellion, and thus by one and the same act remunerate the auxiliaries now in the field, and raise a barrier against invasion in future.”

The New Zealand ministers in a memorandum of January 3, 1865, stated that they had under consideration “the expressed intention of the Imperial Government to insist on immediate repayment of all advances to the Colony on account of the war, to withhold from it all future pecuniary aid, and to require for the future a rate of payment per man upon a greatly increased scale for all Her Majesty's Lands Forces employed in the Colony.” “If from any cause the withdrawal of Her Majesty's Land Forces should be delayed for any lengthened period, and the terms now composed by the Imperial Government insisted on,” they wrote, “ministers are of opinion that the Colony will be wholly unable to bear the burden and that financial ruin will be the result.… The colony has incurred a debt of nearly three millions. It is maintaining on full Colonial pay a force of about 4,500 men, besides volunteers and militia.”

On January 7 Grey reported that “almost the entire native population at Tauranga, who recently submitted to the Queen's authority, have become infatuated under the influence of the fanatical faith which has been propagated by the false prophet who has appeared in this country, and that, abandoning all their property, they have betaken themselves to the mountains where the rebel natives are.”

In his Journal dated January 7, 1865, Deputy Quartermaster-General Gamble noted the spread of the “new Maori superstition called Pai Marire.”

See above, pp. 216–18.

Its influence was seen in the action of Nukumaru, near Weraroa Pa, on January 25, 1865, when the Maoris made a spirited attack on the British camp, apparently believing themselves invulnerable. Gamble wrote: “Although the commencement of operations in this district (on the political wisdom of which it is beyond my province to speculate) has led to another collision with the native race, and the early termination of this protracted war may have thus become more unlikely, yet, as the great native meeting held at Rangitoto appeared to lean generally on the side of peace, and all is quiet elsewhere, it may be hoped that the hostilities unfortunately occurring here may continue to wear a purely local aspect, that they will ere long be brought to a close, and that the story of the last field of contest in New Zealand will then have been told.”

W.O. 33/16.

Deputy Commissary-General Strickland's report of March 1, 1865, stated: “On the 24th and 25th January the fight at Nukumaru took place. Nothing like it has ever occurred before in New Zealand. There for the first time an army of New Zealanders, numbering not less than 600, appeared in the field, and in broad daylight measured their strength against the Pake-has. Their plan of attack is admitted by all military men here to have been very good. The work was commenced with great vigour and spirit, but resistance soon became feeble; the army of savages lost its cohesion; it was beaten by the steady discipline of the British troops, and the excellence of their arms as compared with the very inferior weapons in the hands of the Maoris. They did more mischief to our army in the first five minutes of the fight than in the whole of the rest of it. Still, the result of the fight has been to raise the Maori in our estimation, and to prove to us how quickly we are teaching him the art of war.” The British force consisted of more than 900 officers and men. Thirteen British were killed, and about 70 Maoris were believed to have fallen.

A translation of a “Pai Marire” prayer, found in the village of Manutahi on March 15, was sent to the War Office: By belief in the Ruler, all men shall be saved in the day of the passing over and the pouring out of blood, lest they should be touched by the destroyer, the enemy, the Governor, and his soldiers. The many thousands of the skies shall close up the mouth of the enemy, the Governor. To you, O Ruler, belongs the power to destroy his thoughts, and the sources from whence they spring, and all his works. You alone, O Ruler, are the strong stone slung at the Governor, his works, and the thoughts of his heart. To you only belongs the power to darken his eyes lest he should see the brightness, so that his thoughts may be troubled. By your power alone shall the Governor be completely overcome, because his works are evil. Be you strong, O Ruler, because your people, like men of Canaan, are naked people, possessed of nothing. You know it. With you alone, O Ruler, is the correctness (of this). This is my earnest striving to you, O Ruler, that the heart of the Governor should be drawn forth by you that it may be withered up in the sun, not to see any brightness because he is the bad Devil of the world, the destroyer of the men.

W.O. 33/16.

On February 6, 1865, Sir D. Cameron, in a despatch to the War Office from Waitotara, stated that if the Home Government approved of the objects aimed at by the Colonial Government, he recommended that a reinforcement of 2,000 men should be sent from England. On February 27, however, the War Office instructed Cameron to send home at once 5 battalions of infantry.

W.O. 33/16.

On March 10 the arrest of Hauhau fanatics on the East Coast was reported.

On the same day Grey forwarded instructions concerning the payment to the Imperial Treasury of £500,000 Government debentures with a view to the adjustment of the debt due by the colony. This was regarded by the Colonial Office as very satisfactory.

A memorandum of ministers rebutting the impression that the war in New Zealand was continued for the profit of the colonists was signed by F. A. Weld and dated March 20, 1865. It stated that ministers had advised the Governor to oppose the demand of Lieut.-General Cameron for reinforcements from England and that they would not advise any operation which might involve the retention of Imperial forces in the colony. They submitted the opinion that a colonial force of Bush rangers and cavalry united with the loyal natives would be sufficient for all necessary operations. Ministers thus described their defence policy: “To settle the country already held by troops; to identify the friendly natives as far as possible with their European fellow-citizens by the issue of Crown grants and certificates to them for land; and by measures generally calculated to improve the condition of the native race; to open the country by roads as occasion might serve and to secure the safety of the settlements of Taranaki and Wanganui by making a road, and by securing a military post or posts in the intervening hostile districts. Ministers believe the success of their policy to depend upon the willingness of the European settlers and those natives who live amongst them, to come forward in self-defence, aided for a time at least by an armed constabulary force under the direction of the Civil Government.” An outline of the scheme for an armed constabulary followed. It was to consist of thirty companies of fifty men each.

C.O. 209, 189.

The Times referred on March 13 to the debate in Parliament of March 10, 1865: “The debate on New Zealand is an epoch in the history of British colonization; itself a movement which ranks in importance with the first dispersion of the human race, the invasion of the Northern races, and the discovery and settlement of the New World. New Zealand has had the full benefit of our liberal politics, our philanthropy, our poetry, and our religion. It was colonized at that fortunate juncture when everything that existed was found to be wrong, and we could not be too thankful that we knew how to mend it. The first colonists were to govern themselves and were some of the most enlightened men of the age. The favourite clergyman of his day gave up all his prospects here to found the Church there. More recently an entire Church of England city has been carried out and planted in one of the choice parts of the Southern Island.… For this dear, and, we must say, spoilt child, we have done all we can and tried every resource…. The position of affairs to which we had brought ourselves by trying to give equal satisfaction to every condition of the problem is so ridiculous as even to have drawn on us the scorn of the natives.” The decision to leave the management of the natives to the Colonial Government was the only possible one.

In his journal of March 7, 1865, Gamble described the truce negotiations at Weraroa Pa and the exchange of communications. One sent out from the pa was a manifesto from the high priest of the “Pai Marire” (“goodness and quietness”) religion.

W.O. 33/16.

“It is written,” wrote Gamble, “under some strange delusion about the arrival of Germans in the country. In their new superstition they make use of gibberish unintelligible it is believed even to themselves. ‘Rire rire hau’ is an illustration, and is like a terminating ‘chorus.’ Their religion is also called the ‘Hau-Hau’ religion from the barking sound with which they articulate the word.

“The friendly natives of Wanganui, flushed with their recent success, have asked permission to attack the Weraroa Pa, which has been granted. It is possible they may succeed. There is always a mystery about these native battles, which it is hard to understand. Relatives and friends are divided, and thus the friendly natives, in fighting their own countrymen, are not only on equal terms with them in knowledge of ground and other matters, but may probably bring them to reason through the influences of kindred and race. It is to be hoped that it may prove to be so in the case of Weraroa, which is a formidable work, and formidably situated. If it be defended, as it no doubt would be against ‘Pakehas,’ then the friendly natives have a hazardous task before them. The pa is on a commanding ground within the bush. It is protected on either side by a deep wooded ravine, and in its rear by a steep precipice, which at that point forms the left bank of the Waitotara River. On its left bank the bush is interminable, and the country so broken as to forbid the possibility of military operations in that direction. Under any circumstances the capture of this position by a European force would involve a heavy loss of life, while there was no likelihood of inflicting an equivalent or any loss on the enemy, whose escape at any moment it was impossible to prevent.”

Gamble described the advance of the troops along the West Coast from Wanganui to the Waingongoro River, from the camp at which place he wrote on April 6: “In these Wanganui districts alone is war carried on, and, though it may not be immediately within my province, I cannot help placing on record that it had been better for the peace and prosperity of the country and the mutual welfare of both races, as it certainly would have been more to the interest of the Imperial Government, if the further acquisition of territory, and the other ends which the Colonial Government appear to have in view had been left to time and gradual development, instead of being prematurely forced at the point of the sword.”

W.O. 33/16.

On July 7, 1865, a leading article on the murder of the Rev. Carl Volkner at Opotiki on March 2, appeared in The Times. Volkner was crucified according to the laws of the “New Canaan” by followers of the “Pai Marire” faith, and Kereopa, the ringleader (afterwards hanged) swallowed the missionary's eyes as a symbol of the treatment he would mete out to Queen and Parliament. “Intelligence more horrible than that which has reached us has never been received, even from New Zealand,” stated The Times. “A most atrocious murder has been deliberately committed upon one of the missionaries, and this, moreover, in cold blood, with every sign of deliberation, and with all the most revolting circumstances of cannibalism. It has been committed, moreover, not by a rebellious tribe of savage natives, who had never been brought under civilizing influences, but by the very flock of the minister himself, among whom he had resided for years, and within the sight of his own house…. The source of this horrible reaction is the new superstition which we have lately had occasion to mention, called Pai Marire, words which, with a strange mockery of the reality, are said to mean ‘good and peaceable’.… The colonists will most wisely be left to themselves to manage this war with the energy which their sense of danger and their experience will suggest to them. It is obvious, at all events, that the cumbrous operations of our regular troops have wholly failed.”

Levy's diary of the Volkner murder is in The Times of July 19, 1865. The Wellington correspondent's account appeared on July 6. The Illustrated London News of July 29 contained an account of the affray, with sketches. A good bibliography is included in Haubauism, a thesis by S. B. Babbage.

Sir George Grey issued a proclamation against the Hau hau religion on April 22, 1865. The doctrines of Te Ua produced a frenzy among his followers, as may be seen by the Rev. T. S. Grace's account of their behaviour after the murder of Volkner: “They were eager to taste his blood, and many rubbed it on their faces. Some of his old friends took part in all this! From my own observance, the people appeared to be half-lunatic, and so worked up by their religion as to be ready for any work of the devil.” But a prophet who promises invulnerability to bullets is too readily put to the test, and it was not long before Te Ua's followers were disillusioned. As a political factor Hauhauism retained importance for some time, while as a religion it was to provide a basis for the Church founded by Te Kooti, whose reputation was based on performance rather than promise. “The missionary clergy,” as Bishop Selwyn told the Christchurch Synod in 1865, “were believed to be the agents of the Government in a deep-laid plot for the subjugation of the native people.”

In a letter to Bishop Selwyn (in the possession of Selwyn's grand-daughter, Mrs. Will Spens, Cambridge) Archdeacon Hadfield wrote from Otaki on June 8, 1865: “I am much obliged for your kind note. There could be no use in your coming here: these miserable fanatics would not listen to any one. I do not hear that they have gained any converts, but the Kingites are giving them some countenance and support…. The state of things is not pleasant and arguing with fanatics seems not very profitable.”

Hence the rise of new religions blending old Maori beliefs with scriptural and other teachings. Bishop J.R. Selwyn, son of G. A. Selwyn, has recorded

In Personal Recollections of Bishop G. A. Selwyn, privately printed, 1894.

that the Maori misunderstanding of his going with the troops as chaplain nearly broke his father's heart. As he accompanied his father on his journeys in 1866 he was able to give a clear picture of the pioneer Bishop's activities: “With a little tent that weighed 4 lb., with some biscuits wrapped up in a craftily contrived bag which rolled up in a waterproof sheet with a spare suit, with a piece of bacon on one saddle bow, and a tin pot and a couple of plates on the other, he moved from post to post, holding endless services, visiting the sick, comforting the dying.… Again and again he used to start on Sunday morning from a post on the river thirty-five miles from camp, and ride into camp before night holding seven services on the way. But it was not only for the soldiers that he thus cared. The scattered settlers all along the line felt his love and his watchful protection. Not once but many times did he ride, at the risk of his life, to warn some outlying farmstead of an impending attack and help to remove the women and children to a place of safety.” The great Bishop, who had not been afraid to take the part of the Maoris when he believed them badly treated, saw them now in the grip of a superstition from which he could not save them. They had lost faith even in those who had spent years in their service.

Chapter 11Governor v. General

With the bitterness of the struggle greatly accentuated by the rise of the Hauhau fanaticism, the sharp difference of opinion between Grey and Cameron, which developed into open controversy, was disastrous.

The Aborigines Protection Society published in its journal a letter dated February 4, 1865, written by an officer from Headquarters, New Zealand: “Here we are in the field again! Everyone is heartily sick of it, from the General downwards. How long are the people at home going to allow this to go on? If they depend on the Governor they are placing confidence in a broken reed, for it is apparent to every one here that he is seeking popularity among the colonists by retaining the troops, and will not allow a single man to go out of this island unless he is ordered unconditionally and unreservedly to do so. So long as he has ten regiments at his entire disposal he is a great man; but directly he allows them to go, he is shorn of all his splendour and greatness, and sinks down to the comparatively insignificant level of a constitutional Governor, with all power lodged in the hands of his responsible ministers.” The officer strongly criticized the attempt made to purchase the Waitotara block.

On February 7 General Cameron wrote to the War Office: “I find my health so much impaired by the arduous and harassing duties which have devolved upon me since the commencement of the war and particularly by the great heat of the last two summers, which I have passed under canvas in the field, that I consider myself no longer justified in retaining so important a command.”

W.O. 33/16.

The campaign was strenuous, but Cameron's sickness was probably more than physical. It must have been galling for one who had commanded the 42nd Highlanders at the Battle of Alma and the Highland Brigade at Balaclava to be forced by an uneasy conscience to win from the Maoris the title of the “Lame Seagull.” On January 28, in a private letter to Grey, he expressed the opinion that the war was being carried on for the profit and gratification of the colonists.

This led Grey to write the following memorandum to his ministers on March 4: “The Governor, hearing that an impression prevails in some quarters that the present war is carried on for the profit and gratification of the colonists, trusts that his responsible advisers will in all instances, whether in recommending measures for the Governor's adoption or acquiescing in those he may recommend, make such a full and explicit statement of the objects they have in view and of the reasons on which the proceedings they advocate are based, that no misunderstanding can take place in the minds of just and unprejudiced persons regarding the propriety and necessity of the course which may be adopted.”

W.O. 33/16.

In their memorandum in reply, signed by F. A. Weld on March 20, ministers said they could not but admit “that it would have been for ‘the profit’ of the colonists if the Lieutenant-General Commanding had found it possible by vigorous action so to carry on war in the headquarters of fanaticism as to have ensured submission and thus put a stop to a rebellion which had incalculably retarded the progress of New Zealand.”

W.O. 33/16.

Cameron wrote to Grey on May 3: “Sir, I was much surprised at seeing in one of the local newspapers a memorandum by Your Excellency to Ministers, dated 4th March, in which you thought proper to quote certain expressions contained in a private letter from me to Your Excellency of the 28th of January last. The memorandum of Ministers in reply, which is a personal attack upon myself, shows that they were fully aware of the person to whom your memorandum was intended to refer and that they fully understood the object you had in view in sending them that memorandum. I intend to forward copies of these memoranda for the information of Her Majesty's Government that they may know what Your Excellency, in concert with the Colonial Ministers, was doing behind my back, whilst I was engaged in operations in the field.”

In forwarding the memoranda to the War Office on May 7, Cameron wrote: “I am aware that, as Sir George Grey and myself are public officers, our private letters are so far public documents as that they are liable to be produced before the Government we are both serving; but I conceive that he made a most unfair and unauthorized use of my letter in quoting it in a memorandum addressed to the Colonial Ministers, apparently with the intention of prejudicing them against me, and exciting an ill-feeling against me in the colony generally, which, though it can be of little concern to me personally, yet, as I command the troops in the colony, cannot but be injurious to the public service. It appears to me very important that Her Majesty's Government should express their opinion upon the proceedings of Sir George Grey, as no British officer will willingly retain command for a single day in a colony, where his private letters to the Governor are liable to be used against him for the purpose for which they have been used against me by Sir George Grey.”

W.O. 33/16.

In his reply to Sir George Grey's despatch of April 27, in which the Governor traversed the General's criticism of his (Grey's) actions, Cameron wrote: “Of the value of Sir George Grey's former services, to which he appeals, Her Majesty's Government must be fully cognizant. I have no doubt they must have been meritorious, and I only wish it was in my power to say that I had always received from him the cordial sympathy and straightforward support which an officer in command of Her Majesty's troops might have expected from a Governor in the circumstances of this colony.… I cannot conclude without observing that it was scarcely wise of Sir George Grey to undertake to depreciate my services, whatever may have been their real merit; for it should be remembered that all his political measures, from the first moment of his arrival in the Colony to the present day—namely, his native institutions, his cession of the Waitara block, his blockhouse on the Waikato, his native newspaper, his scheme of military settlements, his treatment of the Rangiriri prisoners, his proclamations, etc., etc., have signally failed; and I believe that the present distrust which the natives entertain towards him is now one of the chief obstacles in the establishment of a permanent peace in the country.”

W.O. 33/16.

Cameron had written in a letter to Grey of March 30 (to “My dear Sir George”): “What is it to Mr. Mantell

W. B. D. Mantell was Minister of Native Affairs. He resigned as a result of Cameron's comments. See below, p. 265. Cf. Rusden, History of New Zealand, II, 293: “The General was unhappy in singling out Mr. Mantell for reporbation. His voice and pen were often used more eloquently than the General's in demanding justice for the Maoris.”

or to any other Colonial Minister how many British officers and soldiers we lose in any operation they recommend, so long as the policy they advocate is carried out? And I confess that this is a point which, it appears to me, has never sufficiently entered into your calculations, for I remember your wish that I should attack the pa at Paparata, and I have reason to believe that you were of opinion that I ought to have attacked the pa at Mere Mere and Paterangi, and that you and the Colonial Government were as much disappointed on those occasions as you appear to be in respect of the Weraroa Pa. For my own part, I have a great responsibility in this matter; and, having already lost a great many valuable officers and men in attacking pas, I think I may be excused if I am somewhat cautious in undertaking operations of that description without the most absolute necessity. At all events I consider it my duty whenever you propose to me an operation which I think likely to be attended with serious loss, to let you know my opinion, and leave it to you to decide whether the political object to be gained is worth the cost.” This letter brought a rejoinder of Sir George Grey, dated April 17, and beginning “Sir,” which expressed the view that he could not continue private correspondence with the General.

W.O. 33/16. The whole of the correspondence between Grey and Cameron is in C.O. 209, 189.

The Wellington correspondent of The Times in a despatch dated March 14, published on May 16, 1865, referred to the Wanganui-Taranaki campaign: “General Cameron has a European reputation, but, however fitted for the style of warfare to which his long lifetime has been devoted, the stern logic of experience proves that he is not the man for such warfare as he is now engaged in. His advanced age, if it does not dull the power to conceive, prevents him from adopting movements that require the energy of a younger frame personally to carry out, and, if this wretched war is ever to be thoroughly crushed, if the British power is speedily to regain its prestige, the task of doing so will have to be entrusted to other guidance.”

The Times wrote on June 23: “For the first time for a long period we have offical information from that disturbed settlement of our cause being actively espoused by friendly natives, of debt adjusted, and troops recalled…. A more decisive success appears to have been achieved by a skilful employment of the friendly natives than by all our dearly-bought military achievements.”

In a letter from the camp at Te Awamutu on May 28, 1865, Brigadier-General G. J. Carey described the submission to him, on the previous day, of William Thompson. This event was of more significance than the taking of many abandoned pas. That it occurred at this early date confirms the belief that the great Maori leader's heart was never really in the war and that it was only tactless treatment which forced him to take up arms.

On June 7, 1865, Gamble wrote in his regular report to the War Office: “It will, of course, have been expected that the five regiments (65th, 70th, 68th, 43rd and 40th) ordered to return to England (in compliance with the expressed wishes of the Colonial Government), or some of them, are in course of embarkation by this time. The present Colonial Ministry, when initiating their policy, of which one of the leading features was to rely for the defence of the country on their own resources, spoke very confidently of their desire and ability to dispense with Her Majesty's troops, and they seemed to be so much in earnest that the delay necessary for communicating with England appeared to be the only obstacle to the immediate gratification of their wishes. It is now, however, a month since the Lieutenant-General received the instructions of Her Majesty's Government for the withdrawal of five regiments at his discretion, but a strong protest received from His Excellency the Governor against any immediate reduction of the force, has placed it out of the Lieutenant-General's power to carry out those instructions. There can be no doubt that if the duties of the Imperial troops happened to have been limited to the defence of the main European settlements, or if the Colonial Government, when deciding on an extensive plan of confiscation, had at the same time made preparations to relieve the Imperial troops in those posts of occupation where they are holding territory on which there are no settlers to place, considerable reduction of the force would have been practicable. At the time, however, when the Colonial Government were declaring their intentions to carry out their policy without the aid of Imperial troops, they were advisedly advocating operations in the south, which must, of necessity (if nothing worse), lead to the detention of the troops with whom they professed their desire to dispense; and there can be no resasonable doubt that but for these operations a part of the force would now have been on its way to, if not arrived in, England. Now His Excellency has formally protested against any reduction, which he considers would be ill-timed, when the natives appear disposed to submit, and the Lieutenant-General has been obliged under these circumstances, to postpone the embarkation of the 65th and 70th Regiments, which he had hoped to order.”

W.O. 33/16.

On May 26 Cameron wrote to Grey: “I can see no reason to expect that the natives will ever make a formal submission; and I think that all we can hope for is that the punishment we have inflicted on some of the rebel natives will induce the others to remain quiet for the future.” On June 10 Cameron declined to supply Grey with copies of certain despatches he had sent to the Secretary of State for War. In reply to Grey's protest he wrote on June 12: “Looking at the spirit which has actuated your Excellency's proceedings towards me during the last three months, it is a matter of no surprise or concern to me what construction your Excellency is pleased to place on my actions.”

Ibid., p. 418.

On July 7, in consequence of a dispute as to the power of the Governor to give orders to Colonel Warre, O.C. at New Plymouth, who was acting as Government Agent, Cameron informed Grey that he could not allow Warre or any other officer under his command to act as a Government Agent. The “grave displeasure” of H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge, at Warre's action in taking orders from Grey to the subversion of Cameron's authority, was expressed in a letter to Cameron from the Military Secretary to the Horse Guards on September 26. Warre was directed to apologize.

Military expenditure in New Zealand for the month of June 1865, was estimated roughly by Commissary-General Jones at £80,539, regimental pay accounted for £22,298, general staff pay £639, commissariat staff pay £1,701, provisions £23,226, forage £12,663, and transport £4,989.

Major von Tempsky, leader of the Forest Rangers, writing from “opposite Weraroa” on June 24, protested against the interference of Imperial officers with the plan to attack Weraroa with colonial troops and friendly natives, and tendered his resignation of his command.

C.O. 209, 191.

Cameron, in a report to the Secretary of State for War, dated July 5, wrote: “The unpleasant relations existing between the Governor and myself rendered it advisable that all occasion of unnecessary correspondence between us should be avoided.”

Ibid., 194.

On July 6 Grey wrote concerning Cameron's allegation that Grey was responsible for the loss of the three best months of the year in the operations contemplated in the Wanganui district, “for the confiscation and occupation of territory.” He dealt also with Cameron's failure to attack Weraroa Pa. “The plea,” he wrote, “of not attacking an entrenchment occupied by only about 250 natives, without artillery and badly armed, within a few miles of a British settlement, upon account of the winter season, is in a climate such as this difficult to understand.… The natives themselves do not ever think of going into winter quarters. As you will find from other letters, the fanatics are using this interval of absolute inactivity on our part to attack our allies on the East Coast, and will, I have reason to fear, involve us in another war.”

On July 13 Grey reported that his advisers had decided to resign as soon as the Assembly met owing to “the line of proceeding followed by the General in Command of the Forces.” The resignation was later withdrawn. Ministers in a memorandum stated that “it is clear that so long as the Im-

Tauranga In 1864 A sketch by Brigadier-General Carey, showing the camps of the 43rd and 68th Regiments, published in the Illustrated London News perial Forces remain in New Zealand the colony is and will be precluded from exercising that control over measures essential to its defence and safety, the attainment of which was one of their main objects in assuming office. The Imperial Government issues instructions to the Lieut.-General investing him with an absolute discretion to retain or withdraw the Imperial Forces. The Lieut.-General influences, if he does not guide, the mind of the Imperial Government, by secret communications conveying hostile criticisms of the policy and imputations of the motives of the Colonial Government, and when called upon for explanations or for information, refuses to afford either.… In the actual conduct of the operations in the field, not merely have the instructions given by His Excellency to the General been disregarded, but the efforts of the colony to bring the war to a close by the capture of the Weraroa Pa, the centre and focus of disaffection (as admitted by high military authority), have been frustrated by military interference.”

C.O. 209, 191.

On July 26 Lord de Grey and Ripon wrote to Sir D. Cameron from the War Office expressing regret at the differences which had arisen between the General and Sir George Grey. “It is with great pain,” he wrote, “that I have learnt that you consider you have grounds for complaining that Sir George Grey has made a use of your letters to him which you did not intend to authorize, and which you regard as having been unfair towards you and calculated to prejudice the Colonial ministers against you. Irrespectively of the scrupulous care which ought always to be observed when public documents are founded upon private communications, it is evident that the publication of such minutes as those of Sir George Grey and his ministers in the Colonial newspapers could not but impair the influence of the officer commanding Her Majesty's troops in the Colony of New Zealand, and that nothing short of absolute necessity could therefore justify such a publication. Sir George Grey appears to have concluded from your expressions that your private letter to him had been sent home officially, but this impression, if it existed in his mind, was erroneous.” As Cameron had applied for leave to return home, the Secretary of State did not pursue “this painful subject,” merely forward- ing a copy of the despatch which Mr. Cardwell had transmitted to Sir George Grey by the same mail.

W.O. 33/16.

In this despatch, also dated July 26, the Secretary of State for the Colonies wrote: “It is impossible to read without profound regret that which has passed between yourself and General Cameron and to see that in the midst of difficulties and dangers like those by which you have been surrounded, it has not been possible for two very able and distinguished men filling positions of great responsibility and importance to maintain unbroken those friendly and confidential relations with each other which, in such circumstances, are so essential for the public good. It now appears that the real origin of that difference has been an opinion on the part of yourself and your ministers that after the Waikato Tribes had been reduced the safety of the Southern Settlements required that the tribes between Taranaki and Whanganui, who were amongst the most guilty of all the tribes and that in a great measure without cause, should also be reduced to submission, while, on the contrary, General Cameron has considered it undesirable to recommence hostilities, has thought it inexpedient to enter upon any further aggressive operations—has regarded it as necessary to consolidate what we had got, and especially has objected to your employing the troops in aggressive operations in the manner you have desired in the neighbourhood of Taranaki. It is painfully evident that two campaigns have been more than enough of a contest in which ten thousand of the Queen's troops, aided by a Colonial force sometimes nearly equal in number, have been engaged in war against a body of natives, never exceeding, as you have led me to understand, more than 2,000 in number at one time.”

On July 21 The Times wrote: “Our own correspondent tells us much of discord believed to exist between the Governor and Commander of the Forces, of a precipitate retreat of Sir George Grey to the island of Kawau, in order to avoid an interview with the General who shares his cares and responsibilities, and of a total change of opinion and feeling on the part of Sir Duncan Cameron, who, having begun the war with the determination to bring the natives to reason by the most stringent military measures, has now, we are told, changed his opinion, and become a convert to the policy of inaction.” The Times refused to credit Grey's desire to avoid an interview and Cameron's belief that inaction was justified because he considered the war unrighteous.

Referring to the dispute between the two on August 17, The Times said: “It is sufficiently provoking that this quarrel should be added to all our other difficulties.” In the same article the surrender of William Thompson was welcomed as that of “a man who is always on the winning side.” “William Thompson,” the article stated, “has always appeared to us somewhat of a trimmer.” To call him a realist would perhaps be more fair. The King-maker had a shrewd idea of the limitations of Maori power.

The Times published on August 16 Weld's memorandum of April 8, which, according to its Wellington correspondent, was “nothing more or less than a dismissal of the General so far as the Ministry is concerned.”

In his journal of July 7, 1865, Gamble expressed the view that the natives would quietly give up Weraroa Pa, “for the surrender of which they have negotiated more than once.” On August 2 he wrote: “The pa is now in our possession; but the circumstances attending its fall are unique in the annals even of New Zealand warfare, with all its peculiar characteristics, military and political.… The natives in the pa were informed by a native messenger of the submission of William Thompson, and that several Ngatiruanui and Te Ua (the ‘Pai Marire’ priest) had had an interview with Mr. Parris and were inclined for peace. The native who communicated this to them was well received, and reported that the Weraroa natives were disposed for peace, but they wrote back: ‘Come and take away your soldiers from the coast, and then we shall know you mean it to be a true peace. We will then come and talk with you.’ On June 23 Brigadier-General Waddy informed them by letter that the troops would not be withdrawn. That if they (the rebels) wished for peace, as they said, the chiefs must come and see him and the pa must be given up. Soon after the letter was received, a white flag was hoisted on the pa, and they were talking over the matter when the native contingent and some other friendly natives came in sight of the place. The rebels called out ‘Here is a war party coming on us,’ and the white flag was taken down. The native messenger, Kereti, was in the pa at the time. On the 24th the rebels and friendlies had a long talk, which, however, resulted in nothing. When Lieutenant-Colonel Logan, 57th Regiment, who was then acting as Government Agent at Wanganui, heard that the surrender of the pa was un fait accompli (as reported by Major Rooke of the Militia), he sent out, but only to find that it was still in the enemy's hands.”

Logan had thereupon ordered the native contingent and Forest Rangers to retire, as they had gone there without the sanction or knowledge of the Brigadier-General Commanding. On June 20 the principal chief, Pehimana, had come to see General Waddy and declared that he desired peace. Waddy said he must prove his sincerity by giving up the pa. A meeting of the chiefs and Waddy was held at Nukumaru on July 3 but was without result. On July 16 the Governor arrived at Wanganui from Wellington and went to the camp of the Colonial forces with General Waddy. They approached the pa and Grey rode up to within some thirty yards of the palisades. He was urged not to enter, as the people inside were under the fanatical influence of the new faith and there might be treachery. He therefore returned to Nukumaru.

“There were said to be some 200 men in the pa, but some of these were expected to come out to join Pehimana and the other chiefs who had now surrendered. Mr. Parris, who is most experienced in the feelings and habits of the natives, as well as Captain McDonnell, who also knows them well, firmly believed the pa would be given up to the Governor. At all events the submission of the leading chiefs and the divided counsels of the defenders, showed a wavering and undecided state of mind utterly different from the spirit which animated them at the time of the action of the 25th January last at Nukumaru. His Excellency the Governor now, however, addressed to General Waddy, commanding the Wanganui district, the letter of the 19th July, marked ‘Enclosure No. 1’ in the attached printed paper, in which is published in detail His Excellency's despatch to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, reporting the operations which he conducted against the pa. His Excellency the Governor was aware that the Lieutenant-General was not in favour of commencing siege operations at the most inclement season of the year. Although the Lieutenant-General had communicated the opinion to His Excellency, he had also stated his readiness to undertake any operation the political necessity of which the Governor might consider paramount to such objections. The instructions of May 19 to Brigadier-General Waddy were never intended to interfere with any operations which the Governor might order. They cannot be construed as precluding even siege operations, much less as interdicting the active employment of Her Majesty's troops in operations of any other kind which might have appeared to His Excellency necessary for ‘the suppression of rebellion, and the preservation of peace in Her Majesty's Possessions.’

“It will be seen by the correspondence between the Governor and General Waddy, which followed His Excellency's letter of July 19 (Enclosure No. 1), that General Waddy stated his inability to undertake the particular service of the immediate reduction of the pa by regular operations without the orders of the Lieutenant-General, to whom he would refer. This reply expresses an unwillingness to undertake such a responsibility. It does not appear that General Waddy was called on for the active employment of Her Majesty's troops in any other way, or that he was requested to conduct the operations which ensued. The partial aid in the way of ‘moral support’ would, however, render the services of the colonial troops, if successful, the more conspicuous. It may be inferred from the correspondence between the Governor and General Waddy, and from the Governor's own despatch, that, in default of the regular troops to carry on siege operations, the small colonial force available was to undertake them, though with what means and appliances is not explained, for none had been yet collected at Nukumaru for the regular troops.… The story of the capture of the pa is fully told in the Governor's despatch. It is no detraction from the merits of the plan or from the services of the colonial troops to express a deep regret that the operations should afford ground for the further and more notable exemplification of the spirit which has of late manifested itself in depreciating the services, and acting independently of the opinion, counsel, and authority of the Officer Commanding Her Majesty's Troops. It would not be right in this place to trace to its cause the existence of a spirit so indefensible in itself and so injurious to the public service.

“It happened as an unfortunate coincidence that at the time when this lamentable spirit was most strongly betraying itself—when, moreover, the leading Weraroa chiefs had surrendered—when the union of the others seemed to be breaking, and when the most experienced in the traits of native character believed that the pa would be surrendered, or at least evacuated—that at that particular time His Excellency should have felt constrained to undertake operations against the pa, and that Her Majesty's troops, and their immediate commander, should have been allotted the part of ‘moral support’ on the presumption of a forced inactivity. The instructions to General Waddy which do not appear to have been called for, are on record, and give no ground whatever for the presumption, but the idea of ‘forced inaction’ suited the circumstances of the time and the occasion. Howbeit it is a matter of great satisfaction that the pa has fallen, and of congratulation that it fell in the happy way it did, without a man being wounded on either side—a result very different from what might have been expected had Her Majesty's troops attacked it immediately after the action of Nukumaru, when the enemy were in full force, thoroughly united, and animated by the highest spirit. The manner in which the pa fell (however objectionable may have been some of the preceding and attendant circumstances) proves the wisdom of not attacking it immediately after the action of Nukumaru, under circumstances which might have entailed a heavy loss without compensating advantages. The result also illustrated the benefits arising from the establishment of the post at Nukumaru, which evidently unsettled the natives, and made many of them anxious for peace.”

On July 31 Cameron addressed a letter to Grey with reference to his address at the opening of the General Assembly on July 26. He denied having given any orders to any officers which precluded them from taking an active part in the operations against Weraroa Pa.

“Lieutenant-General Sir Duncan Cameron,” reported Gamble in his journal, “who, on account of his health, had sent home his resignation several months ago, left New Zealand on August 1, to the inexpressible regret of the army, and with every demonstration of gratitude and respect on the part of the colonists in the province of Auckland, who were the most interested in the now really important operations of the war, and who had the best opportunity of appreciating the services of the Lieutenant-General and troops. A valedictory address (including the request that he would accept a sword and belt, to be presented in England) was presented to him by the inhabitants at a public assemblage in Albert Barrack Square, at which all the public bodies attended; and every manifestation was made of the high esteem in which the Lieutenant-General was held, and of the regret experienced at his departure. It redounds to the honour of the colonists in this part of New Zealand that, uninfluenced by political partisanship which has, for the attainment of its own ends, arrayed itself against the name and fame of Sir Duncan Cameron, they testified their admiration of his public services and private worth by an ovation which, for good feeling and good taste, would have done credit to any community, and must have been most gratifying to the Lieutenant-General.”

W.O. 33/16.

On Sir George Grey's despatch reporting the capture of Weraroa Pa without the help of the Imperial forces, except two detachments furnished by Brigadier-General Waddy after he had first declined to assist, Sir F. Rogers wrote: “Everything seems to have been extremely well planned by Sir G. G. and extremely well executed by the colonial forces.… There pears to have been great alacrity in facing risk, among others want of food, which is creditable to the spirit of the colonial troops.… It is a curious mode, however, of carrying on war. As the Queen's officers will not move effectively, the Governor comes on the spot in command of the colonial troops. This is not a state of things which should be allowed to form a precedent.”

C.O. 209, 191.

When opening the fifth session of the General Assembly on July 26 Grey stated that he would at once issue orders for the return to England of five regiments. The recent discoveries of gold on the West Coast of the Middle Island had offered new fields for colonization and given a fresh impetus to the development of the natural resources of the colony.

A further stage of the Grey-Cameron controversy was reached when Cameron handed to the Australasian (Melbourne) correspondence in which he stated that Grey's allegation that Waddy had been ordered not to attack Weraroa had no foundation in truth. The Colonial Office concluded that Waddy had been at liberty to attack Weraroa in his own way (by breaching and surprise) but not in Sir G. Grey's way “by investment and regular operations.” The Office therefore concluded that Cameron was correct and that it was difficult to avoid telling Grey that on his own showing he was wrong.

C.O. 209, 192.

In a letter written on the P. and O. steamer Jeddo on September 4, 1865, with reference to the capture of Weraroa Pa, Cameron said that the chief delay in attacking the pa had been the postponement of hostilities until January—“for which Sir G. Grey alone is responsible.” “Looking at the result,” Cameron continued, “I think there is no reason to regret that the pa was not attacked at an earlier period. Had I done so I have no doubt that I should have lost many officers and men without gaining any greater advantage than has been obtained by its evacuation. Nothing had occurred when I left the colony to warrant the Governor's statement that the delay had involved consequences fraught with disaster, and led to fresh outbreaks in other parts of the colony. The fact is that on the East Coast the natives had for many months remained on the defensive, and all the hostilities that had taken place in or near any of our settlements had been provoked by our invasion or occupation of their territory.”

W.O. 33/16. For a strong criticism of Grey for interference with Cameron, see Some Home Truths re the Maori War, 1863 to 1869, by Lieut.-Col. Edward Gorton (New Zealand Militia, late Captain 29th and 57th Regiments), London, 1901. He gives correspondence with Cameron in 1886 in which Cameron wrote: “I was very unfortunate in serving under a Governor who was constantly interfering with my plans.”

Grey replied to this letter in a despatch of January 1, 1866. “It was my belief,” he remarked, “that an altogether faulty system of warfare had been pursued in this country, which had unnecessarily entailed a great loss of life, a vast amount of human suffering, an enormous and useless expenditure and waste of materials upon Great Britain and this colony. I thought it was my duty under such circumstances to give a practical proof that more important results than had ever hitherto been attained could be gained with a much smaller sacrifice of life, with a much smaller force, and at a very trifling cost. I think I succeeded in doing so, and all that has taken place in this country has shewn the soundness of my conclusions. No other principle has since been acted on.… I know that I have done my duty, and that knowledge will sustain me under any attacks that may be made upon me, or under any censures or inconveniences which Her Majesty's Government may from want of information subject me to.”

In a despatch of August 14, published on October 17, 1865, The Times correspondent described the capture of the Weraroa Pa in detail and added: “The colonies are not insensible to what they owe to England for the generous manner in which troops were poured into the colony in time of need. Nor are they ungrateful for what those troops have done, and while they consider that more ought to have been done, they know that what has been left undone is mainly the fault of the system.”

The correspondent reported that he understood that J. E. FitzGerald had accepted the ministership of Native Affairs which W. B. D. Mantell had resigned “because General Cameron had used language in writing of him to the Governor which no gentleman could brook.” “FitzGerald,” the correspondent said, “is extreme in his views on native matters, extreme in the sense of treating them precisely as if they were Europeans in everything. It was generally thought that the views expressed in his letter in The Times (to Adderley) would have rendered it incompatible for him to work with Governor Grey. It is, however, more than whispered that Governor Grey will not remain long in New Zealand, having applied by last mail, in a very earnest manner, that he might be relieved from the governorship.” On October 31 the Otago Daily Times thus referred to recent despatches from the Colonial Office reproving Grey: “The surprise is that the Governor is not recalled, and a man of more decision sent in his room. The events of the last twelve months have been sufficient to prove his incapacity, and nothing that has occurred has tended in the slightest degree to give confidence that his future administration will redeem the faults and follies of the past.”

The War Office in a letter to the Colonial Office of September 20, 1865, referred to Grey's despatch of May 23 (No. 73): “In that despatch Sir George Grey appears to question the right of a general officer in the position of Sir D. Cameron to furnish the Secretary of State for War with any information that he thinks may be useful to Her Majesty's Government regarding the management of affairs in a colony as far as they relate to the manner in which the troops are employed, unless the despatches containing such information are forwarded through the Governor of the Colony. I am to request that you will inform Mr. Cardwell that, after a careful consideration of the subject, Lord de Grey is unable to acquiesce in the views entertained by Sir George Grey.”

W.O. 33/16, p. 483.

On October 25 H.R.H. the Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief (the Duke of Cambridge) wrote from the Horse Guards to the War Office: “I think that the time has now arrived when it becomes my duty to bring to Your Lordship's very serious notice the utter confusion into which military proceedings in New Zealand have been thrown by the lamentable differences which for a considerable time have been going on between the Governor of that Colony, Sir George Grey, and Lieutenant-General Sir Duncan Cameron, who has been in command of Her Majesty's Forces. The painful position in which the Brigadiers in that country find themselves placed, and the truly humiliating attitude which was assumed by the troops at the recent taking of the Weraroa Pa, when they had to look on and give their so-called ‘moral support,’ whilst the colonial forces were detailed for active operation of assaulting the pa in question, under the immediate direction of the Governor, as represented in the New Zealand Herald of July 31, 1865 (herewith transmitted), containing extracts from Sir George Grey's despatches, … demonstrate the necessity for some immediate decision being at once come to by Her Majesty's Government as to the relative positions of the Governor and the officer commanding the troops, in this as in all other colonies in which active operations are being conducted.

“The views I have always understood as guiding the conduct of the civil and military authorities under such circumstances are these: that whereas the Governor is supreme in all matters affecting the government of Her Majesty's colonial possessions, and as such is in a position to indicate the line of conduct to be adopted by the military, the commander of the forces is bound to carry out, to the best of his ability, the instructions he may receive from the Governor; and that though no doubt perfect concert ought to exist between these two high functionaries, still the Commander of the forces is in duty bound, without reference to his personal views or feelings, to obey such instructions as may be conveyed to him in the proper channels. Had this line of conduct been adopted, we should not now have to deplore a state of things which I believe to have no parallel in our colonial or general history. Without in the slightest degree entering into the question as to who has been in the wrong in producing this lamentable want of accord between such high functionaries, I deem it to be essential to the public service, and to be only just to the officers and troops employed in New Zealand, that a very clear and defined line of conduct should be laid down by the Government as to the mode in which it is thought right that the service of the Crown should be conducted; and I therefore trust that such instructions may be sent out, as well to the Governor as to the officer commanding the troops in New Zealand, by the next mail, as may restore harmony, when the confusion and discord at the present moment are so great, and may prevent a recurrence of complications which are alike detrimental to Imperial and Colonial interests as also to the discipline, I might also say the honour of Her Majesty's forces.

“The early return of Lietuenant-General Sir Duncan Cameron to England can have no bearing on the absolute necessity for the decision which I earnestly press upon your notice.”

C.O. 209, 196.

Lord de Grey replied on November 22 that he had given the subject his careful consideration and was in communication with the Secretary of State for the Colonies with regard to it. In a letter to the Colonial Office of November 20 Lord de Grey expressed the view that “as the supreme authority in each colony is entrusted to the Governor, it is for him to determine the general nature of the operations to be undertaken by Her Majesty's troops for the suppression of the rebellion. … But it does not appear to Lord de Grey to form any part of the functions of a civil Governor of a colony to take the personal direction of military operations in the field, or to issue any orders to Her Majesty's troops engaged in such operations other than those conveyed in the instructions given by him to the officer in chief command.”

C.O. 209, 196.

In a leading article of February 23, 1866, The Times discussed the papers on New Zealand affairs presented to Parliament. After referring to the provision in the instructions for the withdrawal of the troops which gave Cameron discretionary power to retain them, The Times said: “Sir George Grey would put such a stress on the Commander-in-Chief as would compel him to retain the troops; but the Commander-in-Chief could keep the troops so inactive that, for all the good they did, they might as well be on the high seas. The upshot was a quarrel between these two authorities, degenerating into a bitter and even violent correspondence, which both parties by this time must sufficiently regret. It is plain from the papers before us that more is to be said for the ‘forced inaction’ ascribed by Sir George Grey to the British Army under General Cameron's command than was at one time imagined; or, perhaps, we should rather put the case this way—that General Cameron had, for what he did, or left undone, more authority than was supposed. The great and very laudable object of the Home Government was to withdraw the army from New Zealand altogether, and to leave the colony to its own military resources. But this could obviously be done only at a period of peace; and, therefore, the Commander-in-Chief was instructed to discourage all operations which might have the effect of extending or protracting the war. Sir George Grey and his Ministers thought the time was come for a decisive advance and a final blow, but it was excusable in the Commander-in-Chief to be incredulous about any finality in New Zealand wars.” The Times concluded by saying that the military and political deadlock had at least the happy effect of inducing the colony to organize its volunteers, who were taking pa after pa and “making short work of the war.”

A Colonial Office memorandum of April 26, 1870, thus summarized the quarrels between Sir George Grey and General Cameron: “In the later stages of the New Zealand war, the Civil and Military authorities quarrelled bitterly and openly. ‘The campaign between Sir George Grey and General Cameron,’ Mr. Fox says (The War in New Zealand), ‘seems to have been by far the most “vigorously prosecuted” of any which was ever carried on in New Zealand. If these “two very able and distinguished persons” had exhibited as much energy and determination in fighting the rebels, as they did in fighting each other, the war might perhaps have been brought to a much earlier termination.’

“During the campaign of 1863 and 1864 the relations between General Cameron and Sir George Grey were harmonious. The General had been a party to the plan of invading the Waikato, and neither he nor those under his command ever alleged that they were being engaged in a service which was not entirely just and proper. But when the General was ordered in the end of 1864 to reduce the Wanganui country, he and his army became possessed of a feeling that the colonists were making use of them for selfish purposes—in fact that they were needlessly and wickedly prolonging the war, partly for the sake of commissariat expenditure and partly for the sake of acquiring land gratis by confiscation. The army made no secret of its suspicions and resentment. The first outbreak of ill-feeling was a controversy between the General and the Governor as to the character of the war. The General pronounced it an aggressive war. The Governor declared it to be a defensive war. The General said the motive of it was the confiscation and occupation of land. The Governor said its motive was the punishment of tribes guilty of great crimes, the security of the lives of Her Majesty's loyal subjects by the planting of military settlements, and the restoration of Her Majesty's authority. The General wrote to the Governor saying that since he had been in the Wanganui country he had heard that a purchase of land called the Waitotara block was a more iniquitous job than the purchase of the Waitara block, and that the old Waitara dodge was being played ‘for getting up a war and the consequent military expenditure at Wanganui.’ The Governor demanded the General's authority for the statement. The General refused to give it, or as he expressed it refused to collect information for the Governor. The Governor laid his private correspondence with the General before the Colonial Parliament. The General wrote home to the War Office detailing his views as to the policy of the Governor and his Ministers—refusing to show them the drafts of his letters, at which they were naturally enraged. The whole colony took part in the quarrel. The General declared that the reduction of Wanganui would take 20 years, and that instead of sending troops home as Mr. Cardwell and Lord de Grey wished, he must ask for a reinforcement of 2,000 men. The Governor on the other hand maintained that no reinforcements were necessary, and that the troops under the General's command, if properly handled, could reduce the country in one campaign. The colonists became loud in their complaints of the General's advance. They wondered how he contrived to do so little. And slow as his progress was, he was leaving on his flank unattacked, a strong place the enemy called the Weraroa Pa, which, as long as they held it, placed the whole of that country, not actually held by troops, at their mercy. Sir George Grey called on the General to attack it. The General declined, pronouncing it too strong. Sir George Grey asked if he might take it himself. The General assented. Sir George got together a scratch force of friendly natives and colonial levies, and carried the place with a rush in a few hours. This was proof positive to the colonists that the army was not doing its best. This may or may not have been so. The Army was certainly without the stimulus, which an army usually has, of desiring the applause of the people for whom it is fighting. It despised and disliked the colonists, and its hostility to the natives may have been tempered by a sentiment of sympathy and commiseration.”

Reference was made to allegations by Colonel Weare.

See Chapter 13.

“It is of no importance whether the charges were true. The important thing is that what Colonel Weare wrote was nothing but the new's current in the camp.”

“It was a quarrel, not only between Sir George Grey and General Cameron, but between the whole army and the whole colony. In such a war the interests of the Imperial and Colonial Governments cannot be identical and the army will naturally take the Imperial side, and its service to the colony will be given grudgingly and inefficiently. Both the civil and military authorities in New Zealand were in an entirely false position. Neither trusted the other and each felt themselves constrained to intrude on the province of the other. The result was disaster.”

C.O. 209, 212.

A letter from FitzGerald to Adderley, written on October 13, 1865, and published in The Times on December 20, paid tribute to the fairness with which Grey had treated him when he was in charge of native affairs before the resignation of Weld. He held that Grey was right in his disputes with the Whitaker Cabinet and with Cameron, and maintained that it was monstrous to accuse the Governor of violating the confidence of a private correspondence, when that correspondence included all the public business of his station.” This is true, but for some of his other complaints Cameron had more substantial grounds. In the great Governor v. General controversy neither party emerges with complete credit. The situation in which they found themselves was in some respect unprecedented and it cannot be said that either showed great tact in meeting it. The General, by asking for recall on the grounds of ill health, perhaps did all in his power to end an intolerable position, damaging to the British cause in more ways than one. “If we have to send out another General,” wrote the Army and Navy Gazette, “we can only assure Mr. Weld and our New Zealand friends that we can find no man with a higher reputation than General Cameron when he was selected to do battle for them.” The General might have spread fire and destruction throughout the land of the hostile Maoris. That his conscience made his sword less keen should not diminish his reputation to-day.

Chapter 12“Peace” By Proclamation

“A New Zealander must certainly be the most remarkable creature in existence,” wrote The Times in a leading article on September 19, 1865. “He combines every characteristic of the wild beast with the faculties of civilized man. We call him a savage, and, as far as nudity, fierceness, and scarcely abandoned cannibalism can make him so, he is one; but no being of human race is so intelligent. He can live in the mountains or in the bush like a wolf; but he meets his pursuers with all the resources of military art. He manufactures excellent rifles out of old ships' muskets, and makes percussion-caps out of soldiers' buttons. He has never studied at a military academy; but he is a greater master of the science of fortification than the average British Engineer. If there was one thing that might have been expected of modern artillery, it was that it would render a Maori pa untenable; but the Maori sappers and miners counterplotted us in a moment, and added a work or two to their redoubts which completely defeated our Armstrong guns. Our soldiers actually respect them for their extraordinary talents and eminent valour. With all this, too, they are singularly given to rhetoric and debate. They would as soon talk as fight—sometimes even rather, and they display incredible proficiency in negotiations and conferences. We must add to this sketch of the New Zealander that though his real conceptions of religion would probably be satisfied by the African Fetish, he has contrived to make a conquest of Christian Bishops and missionaries; insomuch that these good people support him with a devout fidelity, even against their own fellow-country-men and friends. That we should find some difficulty in dealing with this creature is natural, but the trouble is even greater than it ought to be.”

The article proceeded to describe the incident at Weraroa when Colonel Logan refused to allow the friendly natives to attack the pa: “We cannot pretend to fathom the motive of this policy, but if events ever carry a lesson, this story of the Weraroa Pa ought surely to teach us that the colonists can do more for themselves than we can do for them.”

On September 26 The Times quoted a “curious story of smuggling war materials to the Maoris” from the Hawkes Bay Times: “The writer of this was in the employ of a noted trading firm engaged in the native trade, owning a small schooner running from Auckland to the Bay of Plenty, trading with the natives with gunpowder, lead and rum, arms of all sorts, from a George II musket to a minie rifle, tomahawks and cartouch boxes; in fact, all the implements of war coveted by our dusky customers. One of their common tricks to cheat the customs was to enter the vessel with pork in casks, and to clear out with empty casks and salt, the said casks containing six or ten kegs of sporting powder and bags of salt, containing each about 100 lbs. of old lead, boxes of caps, etc, all these shifted in the open day, rolled through Auckland streets, left standing on the wharf, and sold in the Bay of Plenty. The old files of Auckland papers need only to be consulted to tell tales of cargoes of empty casks and tons of sash weights (lead, of course) for building purposes, in places where the only buildings going up were raupo whares. The writer of this knew of one whare containing at one time 72 kegs of powder headed up in the way mentioned, and close alongside an old potato hole with about a ton of leaden sash weights in it. And all this carried on by a firm whose principal held office next to the Superintendent, and he went Home and with other Auckland merchants who had made their pile by Tower muskets and other honest merchandise, went in deputation to the Secretary of State for the Colonies and hoped that the war would be carried on with vigour, and cruisers stationed to prevent the extensive smuggling by the Yankees.” The failure of the Government to suppress trading in war materials was probably due more to inefficiency and inadequacy of staff than to corrupt motives, but it was in any event inexcusable.

On September 23 the text of an address of the Aborigines Protection Society to the Maori people, dated November 1864, was published in The Times in reply to a letter from William Fox. Fox's rejoinder appeared in The Times on September 27: “The leading ideas of a practical tendency which are embodied in the address are that a very small number of the colonists are friendly to the Maoris; that the great mass stand ready to destroy and by any means to rob them of their lands; that the natives must on no account sell their lands to them, and, even if they let some portions, they must exercise the greatest caution in the selection of their tenants, remembering that the men they have to deal with are rogues, and that other rogues elsewhere have robbed other people.… It is not, in my opinion, too much to say that the prolongation of the war for the last year and a quarter has been due to the encouragement given to the rebels by the interference of the Society on a previous occasion.”

Replying in a letter published on September 30, F. W. Chesson, Secretary of the Society, characterized this statement as “monstrous.” The former occasion was that on which the Society had protested to the Governor against the wholesale confiscation of native lands which was threatened. In a leading article on September 20 The Times said that the people of England would not accept the Society's view of the rights of the Maoris—acquitting them as savages of rebellion, yet promoting them to the rank of civilized men when it came to a question of their title in land.

The strictures of The Times led the Society to make the following statement of its policy: “We urged the breaking up of the tribal system as regarded the tenure of land, and then the allotment to individual families of certain pieces, which, for their own protection, should be subjected to a species of entail. That was the limit of our proposition; and every one conversant with the history of native tribes must know that unless they are protected during the transitional stages of their existence, their land will go for a mere song, and they and their children must starve, or like many of the Indians of America, become wretched outcasts.”

Aborigines' Friend, January—December 1865, p. 457.

The task of equitably dividing tribal lands among individual families would have required great knowledge of the Maori mind and superhuman patience, but the Society was right in urging that some measures should be taken at once to protect the Maoris from the menace of landlessness.

On September 2 Sir George Grey had issued a somewhat optimistic proclamation of peace: “The Governor announces to the natives of New Zealand that the war which commenced at Oakura is at an end. The Governor took up arms to protect the European settlements from destruction and to punish those who refused to settle by peaceful means the difficulties which had arisen, but resorted to violence and plunged the country into war. Upon those tribes sufficient punishment has been inflicted. Their war-parties have been beaten, their strong-holds captured, and so much of their lands confiscated as it was thought necessary to deter them from again appealing to arms…. The Governor will take no more lands on account of the present war…. The Governor is sending an expedition to the Bay of Plenty to arrest the murderers of Mr. Volkner and Mr. Fulloon. If they are given up to justice the Governor will be satisfied; if not, the Governor will seize a part of the lands of the tribes who conceal these murderers, and will use them for the purpose of maintaining peace in that part of the country, and of providing for the widows and relatives of the murdered people.”

W.O. 33/16. See pp. 247–8

The operations against the East Coast fanatics were successfully carried out. Opotiki was taken on September 11.

C.O. 209, 192.

On October 13, Gamble thus referred to the Governor's proclamation: “There were critical moments in the war when a proclamation of this type would, by a timely publication, have been gladly received, and been regarded as the announcement of a determined and lenient policy, such as the strong and victorious can well afford to exhibit. There were occasions when it was both their interest and duty to decide, with determination and generosity. We let these opportunities slip, and now when the hostile natives, as a rule, stand sullenly aloof—when in some places they are not even so harmless, but kill and shoot whenever and wherever they can (and this it must be remembered is their way of waging war, and we cannot call it murder)—at this particular moment we announce that war is at an end. All these proclamations suit some, though they may be few, and certainly there appears to have been nothing else left to be done (as the natives generally did not seem inclined to establish a regular peace), but for us to say that the war was over. Though incongruous and inopportuneapparently, it will no doubt be a source of satisfaction and some encouragement to the natives to know (if they will only believe us) that no more land is to be confiscated—except indeed if it be necessary on the East Coast; but again the opinion has been ventured that the very mention of that contingency in the same document which proclaims the cessation of the confiscation policy, may raise a doubt of our sincerity even now, in the minds of men already sufficiently distrustful of us. Certain it is that there is at the present moment no solid ground whatever for expecting a speedy and satisfactory termination of the insurrectionary movement. Even where no open act of hostility is committed, there is no evidence of the rebellious spirit having died out.”

A native bearer of the peace proclamation, Kereti, was killed soon after leaving the Weraroa Redoubt. Another who went out returned to report that the rebels near Patea would not receive peace at any price. “They said they would not cease fighting, and would not give up their king; that they would have nothing to do with the Governor's peace; he wanted too much land. One native remarked: ‘The sea is the Queen's highway, and the land is ours, and we intend to keep it.’”

W.O. 33/16.

Gamble reported that Major-General Chute arrived at Auckland on August 27 to succeed Sir Duncan Cameron.

The correspondent of The Times, in a letter of September 14, published on November 14, said that the proclamation of peace signed by Grey and Weld “narrows down to eight the numerous murders that have been committed during the past five years. Ministers consider that some twenty of them should be removed from that category into that of the chances of war, and in some cases they are undoubtedly right. But as two former proclamations (so late as October and December last) have declared that the whole of them, each distinctly specified, should be punished whenever they should be captured, the question naturally forces itself as to how much a Governor's proclamation can be worth in native eyes. Was the chief far wrong in reckoning that some concession was sure to be obtained when a change of Ministers took place?” In a letter of October 14, published on December 19, the correspondent reported that the proclamation had not only been treated with contempt by the natives but that they had treacherously murdered the agents employed in its circulation. “The friendly natives see with considerable surprise that every proclamation is more favourable than the one that preceded it, and I am serious in saying that there is a conviction in the minds of many of them that if the rebels continue to hold out they will get all their confiscated lands returned and seed potatoes into the bargain.”

On November 27 Cardwell notified Grey that he had received a copy of the New Zealand Gazette with the intimation that the “war which commenced at Oakura is at an end,” and also the financial statement of the Treasurer, which left it “no longer open to doubt that your Ministers decline to propose to the Assembly the capitation charge” for the maintenance of Imperial troops. Her Majesty's Government had accordingly decided that the number of troops must be immediately reduced to a strength not exceeding three battalions of infantry and one battalion of artillery. Even this force would not remain unless ministers undertook the required capitation charge. “It is the fixed purpose of Her Majesty's Government that no Imperial troops shall remain in New Zealand for whom this appropriation shall not have been made.”

W.O. 33/16.

Orders to this effect were sent to the War Office to Major-General Chute on the same day.

The Imperial Government, influenced no doubt by the Grey-Cameron controversy as well as the general principle of reducing commitments overseas, was by now determined to withdraw its forces as rapidly as possible from New Zealand, leaving the vexed question of the rights of the Maoris to be settled by the local Government as best it could. In South Africa, also, a determined effort was made to reduce the number of troops, but Wodehouse, the Governor, in a private letter to Cardwell of December 11, 1865, emphasized the dangers of withdrawal and secured a postponement.

On October 14 Sir George Grey reported that Weld and his colleagues had resigned after being virtually defeated on a question of finance and accordingly not considering themselves secured of sufficient support “to succeed in that policy of self-reliance and self-defence by which they had determined to stand or fall.” Cardwell intimated that no change of ministry would alter the fixed policy of the Home Government.

C.O. 209, 192.

Stafford formed a ministry and adopted Weld's policy as to the removal of troops.

The Wellington correspondent of The Times in a letter of November 15, 1865, published on January 13, 1866, wrote: “The Ministerial crisis which existed when the last mail left speedily terminated in the assumption of office by Mr. Stafford, a hurried wind-up of business and a prorogation. I have before explained fully the causes that led to Mr. Weld's resignation. His Ministry carried their oft-repeated threat of resignation into execution in the confident belief that, as no one was likely to be found willing to take their places, the éclat of returning to office would furnish them with sufficient political capital to carry all their measures without further trouble. It was a bold stroke and it would have proved a successful one if they had not had to deal with a Governor who can exhibit supreme contempt for constitutional courses whenever it pleases him. When Mr. Weld advised His Excellency to send for Mr. Stafford, he seems to have forgotten how much Sir George Grey delights in troubled waters, and how valuable these constant changes of Ministry and consequent weakening of authority in the eyes of the natives, must prove when His Excellency shall finally have to account for the personal failure of the mission he was detached from the Cape to execute. Always loth to send away the troops, the Governor was at that moment particularly desirous to receive Ministerial sanction for directing General Chute to employ them in punishing the Ngatiruanuis for their recent atrocities in the case of Mr. Broughton and Kereti. On this point Mr. Weld had persistently refused to take any responsibility. If General Chute did not think it consistent with his Imperial duty to avenge the brutal treachery to his own interpreter, Mr. Weld was content to employ colonial troops for that indispensably necessary purpose, but he was unwilling to compromise the colony by assuming any control over the movements of the Imperial troops, lest he should thereby furnish a pretext for screwing out of it the payment of the ‘head money’ demanded by Mr. Cardwell. The gain, therefore, to Sir George by a change of ministry was this—either the delay would furnish the General or himself with a reason for acting on his own responsibility, or the new Premier might be more complacent.” The correspondent said that Stafford had always expressed his determination to refuse office while Sir George Grey remained Governor. His acceptance was probably “only because His Excellency is expected to be relieved in a month or two.”

The correspondent described the exploits of Lieutenant Biggs and his 30 volunteers and 100 natives in capturing the pa at Pukemaire on the East Coast and pursuing the rebel natives until 200 men and 300 women and children surrendered. In a leading article on January 15, 1866, The Times described this as “a capture almost without precedent, we fancy, in a New Zealand war.”

Cf. Cowan, II, 116–18. He states that “about five hundred of the rebellious Ngati-Porou were taken here with three hundred stand of arms. The prisoners were all fighting men; none of the women or children had been taken to this mountain retreat…. Many of the Ngati-Porou so summarily weaned from the Hauhau craze became in after years loyal supporters and soldiers of the Government in the campaign against Te Kooti.”

Cardwell's increased “head money” for the Imperial troops was the subject of a memorandum in which the New Zealand ministers wrote on January 8, 1866: “Should the Home Government arbitrarily insist upon it, it will undoubtedly hereafter be a matter for regret that a great country should have so treated a helpless dependency, already weakened by the efforts it has made and is making for its military defence.”

C.O. 209, 196.

In a paper on the situation in New Zealand, Sir William Martin, the former Chief Justice, referred to the motives and the growth of the Hauhau movement: “The new superstition, having gained strength in the south-west, began to spread northward and eastward. Everywhere, very many were predisposed to welcome it. Some accepted it in faith, many in wilfulness and bitterness. Some thought it true; others thought that it might be useful. Some men severed themselves from their missionaries in perfect calmness and quietness. One of the chiefs of Opotiki informed Bishop Williams of his conversion to the new creed in these words, ‘Bishop, many years ago we received the faith from you, now we return it to you; for there has been found a new and precious thing by which we shall keep our land.’ A common feeling united fanatical believers with cool politicians who believed nothing, but who kept up the fervour of their brethren by false reports of miracles wrought at Taranaki and of great losses sustained by our troops. The new religion combined men of every sort from the ferocity of Kereopa to perfect inoffensiveness—some of the best as well as some of the worst of the race. It was accepted as the religion of all who were no longer willing to accept religion at the hands of the Pakeha. As in all times of national ferment, the fiercer and more determined natures got the lead.

“In the beginning of the war, the Kingites had prayed for their King after the form in our prayer book, and that sometimes with great feeling and earnestness. Now a new form of prayer was put together, and the new worship was accepted as the bond of union amongst all who still adhered to the cause of the Maori King. No spot in the island was better prepared to receive this fanaticism than Opotiki in the Bay of Plenty. The people of that place had sympathized with Waikato, and some of them had taken part in the war. Various circumstances had caused their Minister, Mr. Volkner, to be suspected of being in secret correspondence with the Government on the subject of their disaffection. The feeling of the people became more bitter when their leading chief Aperotanga, who had been wounded and taken prisoner by our allies, the Arawa, was murdered by a woman of that tribe (the widow of Pehama Tohi) in revenge for the death of her husband, who had fallen in the war.

“The Hau Hau fanatics who visited the West Coast harangued the Maoris there on the subject of the missionaries. ‘These men were always telling us: “Lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven,” and so, while we were looking up to heaven, our land was snatched away from beneath our feet.’”

After a description of the murder of Volkner, Sir William went on: “The state of the case is this. We have put too great a pressure upon these people, more than they can bear. More than we can continue to exert. We have driven many natives into a state of determined resistance bordering on desperation. We have brought upon ourselves the necessity of bearing burthens beyond our strength.” Sir William made an appeal for moderation and generosity and proposed: (1) That the war be brought to an end speedily on terms of cession of land instead of mere seizure;(2) That no bill affecting the natives be brought forward until a draft has been published in every Maori district which has accepted our system;(3) That no laws affecting land under native tenure or in any way specially affecting the natives be brought into operation until the Royal Assent has been given and duly notified in the colony;(4) That the “Public Works Land Act” and the “Outlying Districts Police Act” be not brought into operation.

In a despatch of February 2, 1866, Grey referred to the disagreement between Sir William Martin and the ministers. “Sir William states,” he wrote, “‘the object of the war in this country was to repress and terminate the efforts the natives were making to set up a separate nationality, an effort dangerous to both races. But though that effort was a great folly, it was not a great crime.’ This view of the case seems to me only to embrace a part of the problem…. It might be said that to proclaim that a barbarous nationality had been set up in a country circumstanced as this is, is to proclaim that every man who pleases to acknowledge that nationality may do as he likes, and that all law is abolished.… When once the serious and terrible evils which spring from such an attempt are made manifest, I think it becomes the bounden duty of the European population and of the well-disposed amongst the native population, to take every precaution within their power, which they can take without acting unjustly or unmercifully, not only to repress and terminate such an attempt but to prevent such an attempt from being ever made again. This is no less necessary for the protection of the natives than of the Europeans. Not to do it, would be to ensure the ultimate destruction of the native race. To this end my aims have been mainly directed. In these views I have been thoroughly supported by the General Assembly and the whole talent and influence of the country. In fact, my views were their views; there has been no essential difference of opinion between us. I do not mean to say that there may not be violent men in New Zealand, but even in the midst of the worst outrages, and during times of the greatest excitement, the General Assembly has shown a scrupulous care for the rights both present and prospective of the native race, instead of waiting for the termination of hostilities to make provision for the future of that race. I feel sure that, upon the whole, the debates, the legislation and the Acts of the General Assembly will hereafter be admitted to be creditable to their humanity, and to the nation to which they belong.”

Sir F. Rogers commented that Sir W. Martin's paper seemed founded on an accurate knowledge of the facts, “but at present it comes accompanied by comments which may be shortly abridged into the two words ‘Pooh-pooh’; i.e., the Minister says his views are opposed to some of those entertained by Sir W. M. while Sir G. G. furnishes an able oration, of the general principles of which the relevance is not very clear.”

C.O. 209, 196.

Cardwell, in a despatch of April 26, 1866, said that he had no doubt that the knowledge and forethought exhibited in the documents drawn up by Sir W. Martin would secure for them the consideration they deserved. He added, however, that H.M. Government did not feel that it could profitably assume “that responsibility or require that delay to occur which would be involved in Sir William Martin's proposal that acts affecting the natives should be reserved for the significance of Her Majesty's pleasure.”

C.O. 209, 196.

It may be noted here that formal notification of disallowance of Act No. II of 1866, entitled “An Act for indemnifying persons acting in the suppression of the native insurrection” was sent on June 1, 1867. The notification was in the name of Richard Plantagenet Campbell Temple Nugent Brydges Chandos Grenville, Duke of Buckingham and Chandos. The Law Officers had reported that they thought the Act “too wide in its terms in indemnifying persons who may have destroyed or damaged property of a rebel, or suspected rebel.”

C.O. 209, 204.

On February 13, 1866, Grey reported that General Chute had completely subdued the natives of the West Coast. On the same day the Wellington correspondent of The Times, in a letter published on April 12, wrote: “General Chute's continued vigorous procedure has alike surprised and charmed us. Within the short period of five or six weeks he has completely redeemed the character of the service and wiped out the stigma to which it has so long been subject.” The operations against Otapawa Pa

About five miles from the present town of Hawera. Cowan gives the Hauhau losses as 30 killed and many wounded. The British had 11 killed and 20 wounded in the assault on the pa (II, 62). For a full description of the march, see A Campaign on the West Coast of New Zealand under … Major-General Chute, Wanganui, 1866. Chute's force of 618 officers and men was drawn from the Royal Artillery, 2nd Battalion, 14th Regiment, Forest Rangers, and Native Contingent. (Sketch, opp. p. 320.)

were described and the subsequent bush march to Mataitawa, to which, the correspondent said, it was scarcely possible to do justice “without appearing to use the language of hyperbole.” The march took nine instead of three days as anticipated and for part of the time the troops had to live on horseflesh. The return journey to Wanganui was made by the sea coast route. At Opunake, Te Ua, the Hauhau high priest, and some 20 followers surrendered and were released, after taking the oath of allegiance. Te Ua remained in camp. “At the outset of last year's campaign,” the correspondent wrote, “Te Ua stood on the parapet of the first pa that lay in General Cameron's route, and (to native eyes) by the mere force of Hauhau incantations drove him and his large force to the sea coast and ever after kept them there. Now this once powerful priest submits to General Chute and supplicates the Governor's clemency for his misguided people.”

A Melbourne telegram of March 24, published in The Times of May 11, 1866, said: “The advices received here from New Zealand state that the success of General Chute's expedition was much questioned.” The Wellington correspondent, however, in a letter of April 14 published on June 14, said: “Week by week the good effect of General Chute's campaign becomes more and more apparent.” The correspondent also reported: “The first batch of the prisoners who surrendered themselves to Lieutenant Biggs and others on the East Coast several months since have been landed at the Chatham Islands where the resident natives received them well, and agreed to provide them with land for cultivation.”

On March 23 Grey reported that the Hauhau fanatics at Napier had submitted, taken the oath of allegiance and given up their flags. On March 29 he reported that Te Hauhau and Herekiekie had made complete submission on his arrival at Ohinemutu. On May 3 he reported an interview he had had with William Thompson at Hamilton on May 1. Thompson had stated that Rewi was very jealous because he had made his submission to the Government alone. Rewi and his people had marked out boundaries for themselves and Rewi had stated that he would never again look upon a European face. Thompson had agreed to go to Wellington when the General Assembly met, in order to give evidence before any committee set up on native affairs. He also expressed a great desire to visit England with the Governor when he returned there.

C.O. 209, 196.

At the opening of the first session of the fourth parliament at Wellington on July 3, 1866, Grey said: “By the expedition of General Chute on the West Coast important results have been obtained. Our prestige has been restored, and the Maoris have been convinced that the British soldier, when properly led, can follow them to their fastnesses, and is nowhere to be successfully resisted. Recent occurrences have, however, proved that this campaign—so ably conceived, and so gallantly and vigorously conducted—has not sufficed, owing to its abrupt termination, to secure the tranquillity of that district; nevertheless a valuable service has been rendered by the Major-General to the colony and to the Empire. The unbroken success which has attended the operations on the East Coast, of Her Majesty's Colonial Forces, largely aided by loyal natives, has resulted in the surrender or capture of most of the hostile natives. My Government has eagerly watched for, and gladly accepted every indication on the part of any of these natives, of a desire to live peaceably with their fellow-subjects, and with the view of removing any cause of irritation the larger portion of those who had been taken in arms have been restored to liberty; while at the same time, the more prominent ringleaders have been temporarily removed to the Chatham Islands and those who had been guilty of wanton and unprovoked murders, committed in cold blood, have been dealt with by the ordinary civil tribunals.”

C.O. 209, 196. This “temporary” removal to the Chatham Islands was to have disastrous consequences.

On August 17 Grey reported the resignation of Stafford's ministry, following a vote of no-confidence. Stafford formed another Government. On October 15, 1866, reporting the murder of a trooper by natives, Grey ascribed the growing boldness of the Maoris “to the attitude of inaction observed by the Imperial Forces.” “Any power of taking any effective measures is completely paralysed by the recent orders from the Secretary of State for War directing the Major-General to reside at Auckland, fifteen days distant in point of time from myself

Wellington had replaced Auckland as the capital in 1865.

and from the seat of the disturbances which are breaking out.” The Colonial Office referred to this as a “querulous complaint”

C.O. 209, 196.

In a letter of September 8, 1866, published on October 30, The Times correspondent recorded that William Thompson had returned from Wellington to the Waikato. “A few evenings before his departure he was invited to dinner by several leading members of the Assembly. In replying to the toast of the evening, he spoke feelingly of the poverty and distress which war had brought on the natives, and said that he should be ashamed to invite his entertainers to Waikato, because they had nothing now to set before them. He hopes that a few years of peace would make them again comfortable, when he should be glad to return the hospitality he had received at Wellington. Most of the natives are capital hands at a game of draughts, and Thompson especially so. During the evening he proposed to the Superintendent of Auckland (Mr. Whitaker) to play him for Waikato, and on this being declined he played Mr. Whitaker, Mr. FitzGerald and others for ‘love,’ and beat them all in the most off-hand manner.”

On January 8, 1867, The Times correspondent at Wellington, in a letter published on March 2, reported the untimely death of Thompson: “Thompson was in every sense a great man. He was the prime moulder of the King movement, not intending that it should be inimical to the whites, but hoping to make it the means of preserving the nationality of the Maoris. The movement grew too large for his control and as he was always leaning to the side of peace, and active in preventing a resort to the barbarities of native warfare, he gradually lost his influence, and latterly possessed comparatively little. By those who can see no good under a dark skin he was regarded as double-tongued, and questionable acts have often been ascribed to his authority of which he was entirely ignorant. He was the most distinguished Maori throughout the island, one of the greatest friends of the northern colonists they have ever had, and not a few persist in declaring that he manifested in the whole tone of his morals and behaviour that he was every inch a gentleman.” Grey did not report Thompson's death until April 2, 1867. He gave the date as December 27 and the cause consumption. “My own belief,” wrote Sir F. Rogers, “is that he was a remarkably noble character. About his talents and energy there is no doubt whatever.… It was the old story—when fighting was once in the neighbourhood the doctrinaires could not stand against the party of action. At the same time, William Thompson never lost his influence. He was always the long-sighted statesman of the Maori race, and always exercised his power, so far as was compatible with the necessities of a popular leader…to keep himself and his adherents in the right.” This generous verdict is endorsed by J.C. Firth, who writes of Thompson in his book Nation Making (1890): “As he has often expressed to me, he desired to make his people into a nation, capable of existence among the increasing numbers of the whole colonists, without being either demoralized by their vices or crushed by their power!” Firth describes the death of Thompson, “the greatest and best of his race.”

In a letter of November 8, published on January 1, 1867, The Times correspondent said that the regular troops were reduced from 9,420 to 5,073 between October 31, 1865, and August 1, 1866, and the colonial forces were reduced in the same time from 3,441 to 1,439. “It is to be feared,” he said, “that any new insurrection would make considerable headway before a force could be organized sufficient to check it.” The fear was well-founded.

In a despatch of November 3, 1866, Grey complained about military officers writing to the Home Government when opposed to his views, without letting him know what they had written, although editors and newspapers received the information. The Colonial Office comment was: “Sir G. Grey is self-willed and tortuous but his complaint…is just.” Chute later referred in detail to Grey's allegations. He indignantly denied the charges of taking sides in political questions in the colony and of communicating information to editors of Auckland newspapers which was not sent to the Governor.

C.O. 209, 205.

On November 17, in a letter printed on January 12, 1867, The Times correspondent wrote: “The Governor and General (Chute) have not been hand in glove for the past month or two and since they met at the front last week they have been at daggers drawn.” In a letter of March 8, published on May 16, the correspondent wrote: “The Governor's peculiar idiosyncrasy seems to put him in perpetual antagonism to some one or other. In the very difficult position in which the Governor has been placed—responsible to the Imperial Government for prolongation of hostilities, yet dependent, it may be, on the caprice both of the General Commanding and the Colonial Government for the means wherewith to bring about peace—in this very difficult position the strong will which it has often been necessary to exercise has naturally raised up an opposition to him for which he would have been to blame had he not resisted to the utmost. This was especially the case in the quarrel with General Cameron. There can be no doubt that the Governor did his duty on that occasion, and the sympathy of the colony supported him; but in the misunderstanding which has arisen with General Chute the sympathies of the colony are enlisted against His Excellency, and universal regret is manifested.”

Grey, in a letter to General Chute of May 10, 1866, requesting the General's presence in Wellington, had said: “The additional charges on account of military expenditure entailed on Great Britain and the colony by your non-compliance with my request on this subject, must in my belief have already been considerable.” On February 17, 1867, Grey wrote to the Secretary of State: “I have the honour to report that the Officer Commanding the Forces still resides at such a distance from the Seat of Government that the greatest inconvenience results to the public service. No common effort can be made for the general good. The local government has lost all control over Her Majesty's Colonial Forces.… I hear indirectly of movements of troops going on, of the most important kind, for which I should have made due provision, and except for newspaper reports or rumours, I have no more knowledge of these movements than if they were being made in some distant colony which was in a state of profound peace.” A further despatch on the same subject, dated from Dunedin, February 19, 1867, was characterized by Sir F. Rogers as “mere unfair petulance.”

The controversy between Grey and Chute was but one more in the long series of disagreements and misunderstandings which makes the story of the Maori Wars so difficult to summarize fairly.

Edward, Viscount Cardwell National Portrait Gallery “He inaugurated the new policy of withdrawing from the Colonies in time of peace all imperial troops for which the Colonies would not undertake to pay, thereby promoting colonial self-defence and self-government, as well as economizing the forces of the empire and relieving the British taxpayer of an expense which in the case of the wars with the Maori had amounted to a million a year.”—Goldwin Smith in Dictionary of National Biography. Cardwell became Secretary for War in 1868 and reorganized the British Army.

Chapter 13War “Atrocities” And The Fall Of Grey

It had been for some time obvious that relations between Sir George Grey and the Colonial Office were so strained that an early break was not unlikely, but the events which produced the final rupture were not the least strange in this decade of unexpected happenings.

On June 30, 1866, Grey acknowledged the receipt of a confidential despatch from Cardwell (dated April 26) enclosing copies of a letter from the Rev. T. W. Weare and extracts of a letter written to him by his brother, Colonel H. E. Weare, C.B.

“These letters,” he wrote, “contain the gravest allegation against myself, the Government of the country, and against the General Commanding the Queen's Forces, and the officers and men composing those forces. Generally I would remark that they are, in so far as Her Majesty's Forces are concerned, charges of enormous and atrocious cruelties, practised either by the troops or with their knowledge, such as partially disembowelling prisoners and then roasting them whilst still alive, etc. Now what is done by Colonel Weare, C.B., under such circumstances? Does he, justly filled with righteous indignation, instantly report these acts to the Governor or the Government of the country that an immediate stop may be put to them and their perpetrators punished? No, he does not do this. Does he instantly write to the Government at Home, forwarding his letter through the Governor and pray that instant orders may be sent out to put a stop to such atrocities? No, he does not do this. Or does he, as a just man and officer should have done, openly, boldly and instantly make an official report of these alleged atrocious acts to his General, and at once stop them in this way?

“No, he does none of these things, but in private letters addressed to a person in England, he details horrid atrocities which he states have been committed, and alleges that since the leaving of Sir Duncan Cameron the true sentiments of the Governor and his Government have come out towards the Maoris, in their urging on General Chute to all these atrocities, and that he hopes the degrading and brutalizing manner in which this war is being conducted may be known in England, and the troops no longer allowed to be demoralized by the colonists for their sole [sic] selfishness. That is, according to the system pursued when Sir Duncan Cameron was in this country, by private letters, or statements to editors of newspapers, or other persons, even sometimes from officers at his Headquarters or on his Staff, and indeed by Sir Duncan Cameron's own confidential and private letters, to persons in authority at Home, people in England were to be prejudiced in the most violent manner against myself, my ministers and the people of this country. Ample proof of the justice of the statements I thus make will be found in previous despatches of mine. The result of this system was, for the Empire, a disastrous war, great and unnecessary loss of life, and expenditure of money. For the colony almost ruin. For those who pursued it a large participation in honours and rewards; for myself repeated censures at least implied, and an absence for years of that public sympathy from those in authority, so requisite to enable a man to struggle with cheerfulness and hope against great difficulties; whilst, unjust and wrong as was the conduct of those who were the cause of my experiencing this treatment, I am not aware that they were ever subjected to the slightest censure or reproof.

“I could have wished that Her Majesty's Government had, in this case of Colonel Weare's letters, so manifestly a shameful one, at last peremptorily put a stop to a system at once so unjust and pernicious, by refusing in accordance with the rules laid down for the guidance of Her Majesty's service, and hitherto for so long a series of years carefully and beneficially observed, to receive reports made in this manner, and by directing and requiring Colonel Weare to make them through the proper channel, and at the same time at least subjecting him to the reproof which he so justly deserved, for having made statements privately against his superior officers, which he should have made instantly and openly or not at all.… On reconsidering these imputations and the manner in which they have been made, you will, I am sure, agree with me that I ought not to be expected to make a complete reply to them, and that I act for the good of Her Majesty's service in respectfully but decidedly declining to do so.… For my part I will not deign to deny such a charge so made, for it is only by denial such a charge can be met; and with all due respect for your position, I must maintain my own, and I decline to answer or in any way notice the imputation against myself. I also think that I ought not to lower my Ministers by attempting to make a complete reply to such an imputation, so made as against myself and them. Nor will I make any reply to the imputation that in consequence of pressure from myself and the Government, Major-General Chute and Her Majesty's Forces have committed atrocities in this country. If I had been base enough to have desired that they should commit attrocities, I should have known better the noble nature of many of the officers and men of Her Majesty's Forces than to have desired to have striven to put a pressure on them to attain such ends. Let any man try to do so who doubts what the result will be. If in consequence of treacherous murders committed on their messengers of peace, and on officers or men, they have judged any act of severity necessary as an example, and to save life hereafter, I feel assured, with sorrow and sadness they came to that conclusion.

“Though I have thought it due to myself and my position so decidedly to refuse to notice the imputations to which I have been directed to furnish a complete reply, I beg to state that if any cases of cruelty are brought to my notice, I will see that the fullest inquiry is made into them, and that ample justice is, in as far as possible, done. I will also throw no obstacle in the way of the fullest publicity being given to your despatches, and to Colonel Weare's allegations against myself, the Government and the troops. Everyone shall have full freedom to make complaint of cruel acts, or of pressure put upon them directly or indirectly by myself or my Ministers, to force or induce them to commit acts of cruelty, and a patient hearing of his or their complaint shall be secured to them, and full copies of all such complaints, if any, of the evidence taken upon them, and the decision come to, shall without delay be transmitted to you.

“I mentioned the subject of the atrocities of which they were accused to some Whanganui natives, stating how distressed I was at the allegations made. They replied: ‘Why should you distress yourself? It arises from jealousy. These are just such stories as we should tell amongst ourselves if we were jealous of each other's actions. We thought the Europeans were superior to us. We now see that they are as jealous a people as we are.’

“I beg that you will set your mind at rest that no open or good land is being kept for the natives between Whanganui and Mount Egmont. The Government assure me that their wants will be amply cared for. At present little or none of that country is occupied by Europeans. I have the honour to be, Sir, Your most obedient humble servant, G. Grey.”

C.O. 209, 196.

Grey's refusal to treat Cardwell's communication on the subject of Colonel Weare's allegations as confidential drew a rebuke from Sir F. Rogers, who, in a minute of October 23, stated: “He pointedly adopts a tone of authoritative censure towards the Secretary of State, and in order to justify this, misrepresents the nature of the communication to the Secretary of State (which, as he was told, was not Col. Weare's but his brother's). I would exhibit Sir G. Grey's complaints in his own words in such a way as to bring into clear light their injustice and their want of respect…and say Mr. Cardwell would probably not have disapproved the communication of the confidential despatch to his Ministers, and would have been satisfied with the completeness of his reply to their charges, but that it was impossible to overlook the tone, which was equally inconsistent with his own position and that of the person whom he addresses; that it was to be hoped that cooler consideration would shew him the propriety of withdrawing these two despatches and cancelling his minute, and that unless this was done it would not be possible for him to retain his present position as representative of H.M. in N.Z.” Lord Carnarvon, now Secretary of State, wrote; “I agree entirely in Sir F. Rogers' minute. My only doubt is as to the concluding paragraph. Draft accordingly. It can then be considered.”

The despatch was dated November 1, 1866. It recapitulated the circumstances of Colonel Weare's charges and their retraction and quoted extensively from Cardwell's and Grey's despatches. It referred to the Governor's “repeated and studiously direct refusal to comply with what you represent as being the Secretary of State's instructions to you—a refusal which becomes even more pointed, because what on the 30th June you thus peremptorily refused to do in compliance with instructions, you seem in fact to have done independently of such instructions on the 29th. I wish it were open to me to misunderstand the character of that refusal or to put a more favourable construction upon it. My strong sense of the public services which you have at various times rendered and of your high character, my recollection even of the circumstances attending your temporary recall from the Governorship of the Cape during my former connection with this department,

Carnarvon was Under-Secretary to Bulwer Lytton in 1858.

all combine to make it personally very painful to me that my first communication of importance to you from this Office should be a despatch of this nature.

“I endeavour to make every allowance for the feelings of an officer who is conscious that he has rendered important services to H.M. and who conceives himself to have been left without due protection from cruel and unfounded imputations. But it is wholly impossible that the Government of the colonies can be carried on, if such language as you have addressed to my predecessor is to be applied on such grounds as you have alleged by an officer representing Her Majesty (I repeat my words) to the Minister whose function it is to communicate to him Her Majesty's commands. I will add no more now. I hope that a cooler consideration of this painful question will have convinced you of the impropriety of the language that you have used and will lead you to take what appears to me the course which is due not less to yourself than to others, viz. that of recalling both your minutes of June 13 and your despatch of the 30th. In this hope I now refrain from considering what would be the duty of Her Majesty's Government should you unfortunately come to a different conclusion.”

On July 3 Grey wrote that he had received from Major-General Chute the copy of a letter from Colonel Weare stating that his letters were private, “written to a near relative in the freedom of family correspondence” and “that these letters merely mentioned certain camp rumours that were in circulation at the time.” “He now believed that there were no grounds for the rumours that certain prisoners were disembowelled and then thrown on the fire alive, or that a Maori was shot by soldiers of the 14th Regiment after an officer had tried to save his life.” Grey said that the letter confirmed the view which he from the first took of the case and shewed that the course he pursued in relation to it was the proper one.

Colonel Weare's letter was dated June 6, 1866. In it he said: “I certainly myself understood that the Major-General did not wish prisoners.”

C.O. 209, 196. For Rusden's view of Weare's allegations, see his History of New Zealand, II, 354–61.

In a long despatch of January 12, 1867, Grey wrote: “I think that Colonel Weare, in attributing to me such wicked motives, and a connivance in shocking crimes, brought about at my instigation, and in then passing me by without calling attention to them, and in allowing such crimes to continue unchecked, until people in England could be appealed to, when it would be too late to stop that which should have been instantly repressed, virtually reaffirmed the wickedness of my motives, and made it apparent that it would, in his belief, have been useless to appeal to me. I also think that Her Majesty's Government, in leaving this point unnoticed and taking his charges up, did not do me justice. The imputations made against me were—that, entertaining the most wicked hatred of the native race, I had concealed my real feelings whilst there was any one in the colony to keep me in check, but that after General Cameron had left the colony, my own true sentiments and those of my Government towards the Maoris had come out in our urging General Chute on to atrocities—that most shocking atrocities were being committed under pressure from the Colonial authorities, and that Her Majesty's troops were allowed to be demoralized by the colonists for their sole selfishness.

“Then specific acts of the most revolting cruelty were stated to have been committed and in the plainest terms it was alleged that an attempt was made to force officers to murder prisoners who had surrendered and given up their arms, Colonel Weare himself having been made to feel that he was under the General's displeasure for not having committed a crime of this nature.… I was an officer on distant service, acting as Mr. Cardwell's representative, and I think the imputations I have quoted were of such a character that I was entitled to his instant protection from them.”

[C.O. marginal note: “What protection so effectual as informing him of them?”]

“… I think he might instantly and indignantly have stated that he did not credit and could not entertain such suggestions of evil motives. Had our places been reversed, I would to the last have supported him against accusations of the kind, and in stern but becoming language have expressed my opinion of the officer who made them.… I do not think if such accusations and imputations had been entertained at all, that they should have been confidentially entertained, and have been made the subject of a confidential despatch. This fact was more painful to myself and my responsible advisers than any other. I feel sure Your Lordship will, on full consideration, admit that knowing that such accusations against myself and my Government are on record in the Colonial Office, where here-after they will be certain to be found by some historian, who must naturally conclude [C.O. marginal comment: “Qu?”] that there must have been some ground for believing them to be true…that I only shewed a just jealousy of the good name of my Government and that of the people of this country in putting them on record here as a public document. This proceeding could have injured no one, if the accusations were in good faith and (in)the manner in which they ought to have been, and I believe that I did my duty to the Queen, and to the race to which I belong, in this publicly and indignantly dealing with the question.

“I beg now to remark upon my minute to the Executive Council of the 13th June last—Your Lordship expresses to me your opinion that I should withdraw that minute, and then, in language the meaning of which I think I do not mistake, intimates to me that if I unfortunately come to a different conclusion, the probable result will be that I shall fall under the serious displeasure of Her Majesty's Government.… I have at the end of this despatch enclosed a copy of that minute, in which at the end of each paragraph, I have briefly stated why that paragraph is essential to my defence or that of my Government, and could not in justice to myself or my Government be withdrawn, whilst the accusations against us stand on record. I earnestly request your Lordship, before coming to a decision, to read that enclosure, and I feel satisfied that you will find that each paragraph contains what is necessary to exonerate my Government from a specific charge, and that there is really not an unnecessary word in the paragraph.… If its language is too curt, as also that of the letter in which I enclosed it, I was at the time beset by business and cares, and the fault, if such there is, should rather be attributed to those who forced upon me the necessity of making any defence against such accusations than to myself.…

“In reference to the opinion Your Lordship has expressed that I have made use of improper language in the despatch and minute to which you refer me, I conceive that I should submit at once to your decision on this point, as you are the Head of the Department under which I serve. I cannot myself detect this improper language, but I may be a very wrong judge in my own case. Wherever, therefore, Your Lordship may decide that any improper language may occur, I beg it may be withdrawn, and I offer the fullest and most unreserved apology for any such language of which I may have made use.… On a point on which my whole future reputation rests, I ought to and must decide for myself, and I believe that hereafter it will be admitted if not now, that the course I have taken was becoming to my office, to the great powers with which the Queen and nation had entrusted me, and to my own long service, and I still trust that Your Lordship will concur in this view of the subject.”

C.O. 209, 200.

A Colonial Office minute by C. Cox on this despatch set out: “The tone of Sir George Grey's despatches was such that Lord Carnarvon felt himself compelled to call Sir George Grey seriously to account for them, giving him an alternative for recalling a minute dated 20th June which he addressed to his ministers and one particular despatch dated 30th June.… Although he leaves Lord Carnarvon to withdraw such passages of the despatch as he might consider improper (rather an odd method of proceeding) he does not withdraw but justifies his minute.”

Sir F. Rogers, in a minute to C. B. Adderley, the Under-Secretary, dated March 25, said: “All I have to remark is this: That the propriety or impropriety of Col. Weare's conduct has nothing to do with the matter; that it is quite open to Sir G. G. to withdraw what I venture to call his offensive minute and despatches and yet to place on record his defence—so far as he thinks any defence needed; that I wholly disagree from the principle that when accusations against a public officer reach that officer's superior, the superior is at liberty to put them aside in mere reliance on the public officer's character.… It may or may not have been right to mark the despatch to Sir G. G. ‘confidential’..… It is admitted by Lord Carnarvon that Sir G. G. might have been right in communicating that despatch to his ministers—but not in the tone which he therein and thereupon adopted to the Secretary of State. Now the matter stands thus: Sir G. Grey has been called upon to withdraw his minute and despatch with an indistinct intimation (which he understands) that if he does not do so he will be recalled. He replies by saying that he considers the minute and despatch quite right and will not withdraw them, but he authorizes the Secretary of State to withdraw anything that he considers improper. Is this answer (1) to be taken as a refusal and followed by a recall; (2) to be taken as a refusal and submitted to; (3) to be taken as a submission with expression of satisfaction.”

Sir F. Rogers expressed the view that as Sir G. Grey's 6-year term expired in June it would be possible to reply that his term of office would not be renewed. Finally, consideration was left over till the next mail. In a despatch of May 1, the Duke of Buckingham, who had succeeded Lord Carnarvon as Secretary of State in March, noted with satisfaction Grey's apology for the passages in his despatches which his predecessor considered to have been couched in improper language.

C.O. 209, 200.

Lord Carnarvon, in a letter to the Secretary of State, dated November 28, 1868, dealt with Sir George Grey's complaint that the Rev. T. W. Weare's letters were not communicated to him in extenso: “I cannot admit that the non-communication of this letter of 19 March affords to Sir George Grey ‘a complete justification’ for the course that he adopted in laying Mr. Cardwell's confidential despatch before his responsible advisers with the minute declining to receive the communication addressed to him by the Secretary of State as a confidential one, or in the general tone of the subsequent despatch, and the almost reprimand which Sir George Grey, as Governor of New Zealand, thought it not unbecoming to address to Mr. Cardwell as the Minister who had conveyed to him Her Majesty's commands.”

Ibid., 209.

A Colonial Office despatch of December 1, 1866, had vested the control of the troops exclusively in the hands of General Chute “in consequence of a want of hearty co-operation between the civil and military authorities in giving effect to the instructions of the Home Government.” On February 4, 1867, Grey wrote: “I have received your despatch of the 1st of December last deposing me from a large portion of my powers, placing them in the hands of General Chute and requiring me to assist him in carrying them out. I feel keenly this disgrace, but I shall do my duty under it to the best of my ability.” Sir F. Rogers made the following comment: “In 1865 the Governor and General were ordered to begin sending away the troops and ever since order has followed order to the same effect. In April 1867 we are not yet informed that they are reduced to their normal state. It is the Governor only who has the power to retain them and who does hitherto retain them, or rather was doing so at the date of Lord C's [Carnarvon's] despatch. The question is—shall he be compelled to part with them. If he is to be compelled, it cannot be by instructions to him which (as everybody knows) he will continue to disregard, as he has hitherto disregarded them. It can only be by depriving him of his authority in this respect, and handing it over to somebody who will obey Imperial orders, instead of carrying out a Colonial policy of his own. This is what had been done—and this is the reason for it, which should not be permitted to disappear under a pile of special pleading.”

C.O. 209, 200.

On February 4, 1867, Grey reported a native outbreak at Tauranga. “The confiscation policy is bearing its natural fruit,” remarked Sir F. Rogers.

C.O. 209, 200.

On a further despatch from Grey of February 12, 1867, Rogers wrote: “The object of the Home Government must be steadily borne in mind. That object is to get the Imperial Troops (or all but one regiment) out of the colony—first, in order to put an end to the intolerable expense to which this country has been subjected and secondly to force the colony to make provision, at their expense, to meet any disturbance which may arise out of their confiscation or other native policy.

The Derby Government had taken an equally strong attitude in South Africa. “Really peremptory instructions were sent to Wodehouse. Of the five regiments stationed at the Cape, one was to be withdrawn immediately; another was to be allotted to Natal and St. Helena. In 1868 the Cape Colony was to assume responsibility for one regiment at the rate of £40 per man; in the next year two regiments had to be paid for; for the three following years the whole remaining force had to be paid for at the rate of £70 for artillerymen and £40 for infantrymen.” In default troops would be withdrawn as the Home Government thought fit. These demands caused consternation both to Wodehouse and the Cape Parliament. Wodehouse thought a Governor with dictatorial powers was necessary. He “felt that self-government and entire independence were ultimately synonymous terms.” In his eyes Canada and New Zealand were visibly alienating themselves from the Mother Country. (C. W. de Kiewiet, op. cit., p. 218.)

… The broad facts are that whereas the Home Government has since 26 October, 1865, been requiring (1) the departure of the troops, and (2) since November 1865 has been requiring their withdrawal from confiscated land and their concentration, (1) there were still in September 1866 five regiments in the colony and (2) the Governor was refusing to allow of their concentration.… The cause of the delay was either with the Governor or the General. But on the one hand the General had no reason for delaying the departure of the troops and showed no inclination to delay it—on the other hand the Governor was under the strongest inducement—in the interest of the colony and his own authority—to delay that departure. He is a man who notoriously acts upon inducements of that kind (which may be taken as praise or blame) and in the correspondence which comes home the delays all appear at least to proceed from him. It is plain, therefore, as a matter of prudence and safe policy that the Government cannot depend upon the Governor and General in their present relations for executing what in fact they have not executed—and they cannot depend upon the Governor alone with any certainty, while they can depend on the General. The only real way of securing that the thing will be promptly done before it is too late is to enable and require the General to do it.…

“Even if it is granted that Sir George Grey is influenced by purely public motives, it is clear that in weighing colonial safety and prosperity against Imperial expenditure, his scale of measurement is not the Imperial scale. He evidently considers that the Imperial resources should be made use of to an extent to which the Home Government has decided that they ought not to be made use of. He may be excusable and even right and the Home Government wrong. But the difference is clear, and the Home Government has to take care that in respect to their troops, their view prevails.… Lord C.'s decision was not based on allegations made by Gen. Chute to the Home Government, which may have been correct or incorrect—but on copies of correspondence forwarded by General Chute, of which it is impossible to deny the authenticity and which the Governor might, if he had chosen, have sent home with an explanation. As he did not send home any explanation of his apparent disobedience of orders—and as the matter would not brook delay, it was for him to take the consequences of the omission.… A more substantial answer to the charge of delay is contained in paragraphs from 26 to 31, viz. that the safety and well-being of the colony required him to do what he did do. But what do these paragraphs really amount to? They menace us, in a manner familiar to readers of Sir G. G.'s very able despatches, with various disasters—but with disasters arising (as we hold) out of colonial policy, and which ought to be provided for out of colonial resources, but which he, notwithstanding the most peremptory instructions from home, refuses to believe that he is not to provide for out of Imperial resources. He makes an effective statement by making much of the possible disaster to the colony and making little of the risk and expense to Great Britain—but at bottom his argument is a declaration that he will continue to carry out a Colonial not an Imperial policy.” Sir F. Rogers concluded his minute by suggesting that the best policy would be “to avoid any unnecessary entanglement in the civil and military controversies” and “to get Sir G. Grey and General Chute out of New Zealand as soon as is practicable without expressing censure on either.”

C.O. 209, 200.

A long memorandum by the New Zealand ministers on a despatch of December 1, 1866, in which Lord Carnarvon referred to two alleged attacks on unarmed natives, was issued on April 17, 1867: “The Imperial Government has ignored the constitutional position of the Governor and has in successive despatches displayed a sense of irritation, and a proneness to take and give offence which is much to be deplored. Ministers are unable to perceive either equity or good policy in such a course of action. It is unworthy of the great Empire to which New Zealand colonists are proud to belong; it is unjust to the colony and it is dangerous to the welfare of the aboriginal race to which the faith of the Crown has been solemnly pledged. …Grave charges against the Colonial Government and the colony, and an objectionable system of secret calumny have not, Ministers feel bound to say, met at the hands of Secretaries of State for the Colonies that indignant rejection which the Governor and Her Majesty's Colonial subjects had equally a right to expect when their reputation and conduct were attacked.”

Ibid., 201.

The two engagements referred to by Lord Carnarvon were described in the New Zealand Gazettes of October 11 and October 26, 1866. The first dealt with the affair at Te Whenuku, near Patea, and the second with the engagement between the militia and volunteers and the Hauhaus at Omarunui and Petane,

From Cowan's accounts (II, 136–7) it would appear that the Hauhaus were armed.

Hawke's Bay.

In a despatch of April 28, 1867, Sir George Grey stated that in all his service as Governor from 1840 to 1863 “the most harmonious relations always existed between myself and the very many military officers, of varied ranks and characters and of different dispositions, who were, from time to time in command of Her Majesty's Forces in my Government.” “During that long period of time also, Her Majesty's Dominions, wherever I might be, suffered no serious injury. No province was laid waste, no large loss of life or great expenditure was incurred. No rebellion ever spread to a great extent—Her Majesty's subjects soon returned to their allegiance and became among the most loyal of those under Her extended sway; Her Troops never sustained the slightest repulse, even of a moment's duration, their confidence was never for an instant shaken so that it became doubtful if they would follow their officers. No debt incurred in military expenditure was ever entailed upon a colony where I was. [C.O. marginal note: “He made the Imperial Government pay.”]

“It is true that differences have arisen between myself and two officers commanding the forces in New Zealand since 1863. But it should be remembered that although there have been two Generals here in that time, there has only been the. same military staff in this country. That is an important point. My differences with these Generals arose, in part, from powers which belonged to me having been assumed by the military authorities, under the sanction of the War Department, and from my efforts to get an end put to a system which led to an expenditure of life, money and resources, which, when measured by the insignificance of the enemy and the results obtained, is, I believe, unparalleled in our history; which led to disastrous repulses, to a wavering of confidence in our men, to the spread of rebellion, the ruin of parts of the country, the contraction of an enormous public debt upon military objects, which will cripple the resources of New Zealand for many years—and to other evils not less serious than those I have named. At last, amidst all difficulties, and notwithstanding the frequent attacks made upon me by the military authorities and the support which has invariably been given to them from home—I have had the happiness of seeing a sounder system again established, and of witnessing the first fruits of its success; and I can bear with tranquillity all the odium to which I have been subjected, especially as I feel that an impartial examination of the correspondence which has passed, will shew that I have throughout preserved the equanimity of my temper, and that I have been, in all instances, the assailed party, and that no man, who had the interests of the Empire at heart, could have refrained from feeling deeply grieved at the misfortunes, the useless waste of life, of money, of resources, which I was obliged to witness; or from doing his utmost at all risks to himself to have a wiser and sounder mode of proceeding established.” This despatch was merely acknowledged on July 29.

On April 4, 1867, Grey reported that the New Zealand Government had declined to acquiesce in the conditions under which the Home Government was prepared to allow one regiment to be retained in the colony. Ministers in their memorandum of rejection, dated March 15, 1867, stated that they did not believe “that it is either consistent with constitutional practice, or for the interests of either race of Her Majesty's subjects in these islands, that the determination of questions of peace and war, and the power of fulfilling engagements with the native race, should thus virtually be withdrawn from the control of the Queen's representative, and given to an irresponsible officer having no constitutional authority with respect to such questions, and necessarily unacquainted with the ever-varying disposition of that portion of the native race so lately in arms against Her Majesty's authority.”

C.O. 209, 201.

The Duke of Buckingham directed that the implied offer to carry on without troops should be closed with at once. “The only doubt is how the Governor can be continued for the short remainder of his time.” The despatch sent on June 1, however, stated that a reply would be delayed until further expressions of view promised by the Governor and his advisers arrived.

The Duke, in a memorandum of June 4, on Grey's despatches respecting the removal of the Queen's troops, wrote: “In these despatches Governor Grey has made certain statements and given certain explanations in answer to Lord Carnarvon's despatches—and has protested very naturally against the transfer of the greater portion of the troops to the sole control of General Chute—thus depriving him, as he contends, of a certain portion of the power entrusted to him by the Queen's Commission. It seems to me to be very doubtful whether the Governor who, it was considered, had failed to obey and who could not be trusted to carry out the orders sent to him should not have been at once recalled. But a different course was decided on and Sir George Grey has accepted the position, and has not thought it necessary to resign. The statements and explanations in these despatches do not appear to me to be such as would have materially varied the opinions formed by Lord Carnarvon. I can, however, see no possible advantage which can accrue to the public or to any individual from a continuance of the correspondence, and therefore I should:

“Simply acknowledge the whole of the despatches containing certain statements and explanations upon matters alluded to in Lord Carnarvon's despatch No. 49 of the 1st December last. (State that the removal of the troops in question and the consequent departure of General Chute which probably has taken place, viewed in connection with the approaching termination of Sir G. Grey's term of office, render it unnecessary for me to take up and peruse the questions connected with the control of the troops.)

The passage in brackets was crossed out in the draft. The elimination of the reference to “the approaching termination of Sir G. Grey's term of office” was unfortunate.

“Add that General Chute and Her Majesty's Forces in New Zealand with the exception of one regiment will in pursuance of their instructions have left the colony before Sir G. Grey receives this despatch. The Regiment will, as he was informed by my predecessor, remain while in the colony under the control and direction of the Governor. State that with regard to the ultimate disposal of that Regiment I await the arrival of the next mail in the expectation of receiving by that opportunity the expression of the views of your responsible advisers on the subject of those of my predecessor's despatches which refer to military operations in New Zealand. Remark that I shall then also be able to inform Sir G. Grey of the person selected as his successor in the Government of the Colony.”

The despatch as finally drafted was as follows: Downing Street, June 18, 1867 Governor Sir George Grey, K.C.B. Sir, I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your despatches of the Nos. and dates noted in the margin containing certain statements and explanations upon matters alluded to in my predecessor's despatch, No. 49, of the 1st of December last. As all Her Majesty's regular forces in New Zealand, with the exception of one Regiment, will, in pursuance of instructions from the Secretary of State for War, probably have left the colony before your receive this despatch and as it is very possible that General Sir T. Chute may also have left, I deem it unnecessary to review the correspondence with regard to the control of the troops in question. The Regiment which will be left in the colony will, as you were informed by my predecessor, remain while in the colony under the control and direction of the Queen's representative. With regard to the ultimate disposal of this Regiment I await the arrival of the next mail in the expectation of receiving by that opportunity the further expression of your views on the subject of my predecessor's despatches referring to military operations in New Zealand which your despatch of 4 April promises. I shall then also be able to inform you of the appointment of your successor in the Government of New Zealand and of the time at which he may be expected to arrive in New Zealand. I have, etc. (Signed) Buckingham and Chandos.

C.O. 209, 201.

Discussing Lord Carnarvon's questioning of the Duke of Buckingham in Parliament concerning the withdrawal of the troops, The Times, on July 17, 1867, expressed the view that Carnarvon should have recalled the Governor when he failed to send the troops home as ordered.

Commenting on the debate in a letter published in The Times of July 25, William Fox asserted that the colonists were in no way responsible for the retention of the troops. “Sir George Grey,” he wrote, “has always manifested a large amount of Wallenstein's faith in ‘big battalions,’ and was no man to denude himself of troops if he could help it. I think, however, he might have been compelled to do it without the step taken by Lord Carnarvon. Anything, the Governor's recall or any equally strong measure, would have been better than the provocation to conflict between the civil and military authorities, which ensued as the natural consequence of the transfer of power from the former to the latter. Stung by the implied slight, Sir George Grey at once threw himself into open opposition, and while forced to admit the General's power to remove the troops from the colony, he defied him to take the necessary preliminary steps of moving them in the colony.… The suggestion of the recall of the Governor on the ground of his contumacy was made by more than one noble lord. It would probably have been the wisest course to adopt, but the impending effluxion of his term of office will no doubt render such a step unnecessary. It is to be hoped that no consideration will induce the Home Government to prolong his tenure of office for another term. It seems to have been an axiom of the Colonial Office that so long as there are native difficulties in New Zealand Sir George Grey must remain Governor. The opinion of many of the old colonists is that so long as he remains Governor there will be native difficulties. He has never acted in native affairs on any principle, but has trusted solely to tact, diplomacy, and personal influence. During his first administration these sufficed to enable him to manage the natives, but before he returned to the colony in 1861 the temper of the natives was changed; he found his personal influence entirely gone, and no man has ever been regarded with more dislike and suspicion by the natives, as a body, than he has been since that period.”

In a despatch of August 22, 1867, the Duke of Buckingham informed Grey that Sir George Bowen, then Governor of Queensland, has been appointed his successor.

C.O. 209, 200.

Grey, in a despatch of September 7, 1867, wrote: “In one short paragraph of your Grace's despatch No. 37 of the 18th of June I am informed in one sentence that I had said that which I never said, and in the next short sentence I am told that my successor in this Government is to be appointed. After so many years' service such an intention so communicated bears until further explanation the appearance of intentional censure. This and other circumstances connected with the proceedings of the military authorities, and the position in which the action of the Home Government has placed me in reference to those proceedings make me anxious carefully to review the whole question and to hear further from your Grace before I write upon the matter.” C. B. Adderley made the following comment to the Duke of Buckingham: “He takes that as a recall which is simply the notice of expiration of term. No doubt invites discussion, which it is for you to accept if you please.”

Stafford, the Prime Minister, in a memorandum of September 16, 1867, wrote: “Ministers … recognize the absolute right of Her Most Gracious Majesty to appoint and recall at pleasure Her Governors; but they regret that Sir George Grey who has held for 26 years Her Majesty's Commission as Governor of various colonies and has rendered to the Empire great services which have been from time to time cordially recognized by the most eminent English statesmen, should be summarily recalled without one word of explanation in the despatch which communicated that recall. Ministers desire to express their sympathy with His Excellency at having been, by so unusual a proceeding, subjected to what appears to be a studied act of discourtesy, and they are unable to divest themselves from the belief that the recall of his Excellency has in a great measure resulted from the uncompromising manner in which he has upheld the constitutional position of the Representative of the Crown—a position upon the due observance of which the rights and liberties of Her Majesty's subjects so greatly depend.”

The Legislative Council, in an address expressing regret at Grey's recall, said: “We consider that the Imperial authorities have listened too creduously to accusations of the gravest kind, communicated by non-official informants, against your Excellency, your Government, and the Colonists generally.”

C.O. 209, 202.

An address of the House of Representatives recited: “We lament that the important constitutional questions connected with the Government of New Zealand, raised by your Ex- cellency, should be treated by the Imperial Government as a mere personal matter, and that it should apparently regard as a satisfactory solution of the whole difficulty the withdrawal of the Troops, and the retirement of the General Commanding and the recall of the Governor. In asserting the honour of the Crown, and maintaining the position of the Governor as the representative of the Crown, and the constitutional rights of the colony, as well as in vindicating its character from unjust aspersion, your Excellency has put aside all personal considerations and has not been dismayed by menace or misrepresentation.”

In a minute upon Sir George's reply to this address, Sir F. Rogers wrote: “What should be said upon this is a matter of personal feeling. A mere acknowledgment would be pointedly cold. If such coldness is not justifiable it is ungracious, and even if it is justifiable it might be represented as ungracious. I hold the state of the case to be that the policy of Sir G. G. has been a Colonial and not an Imperial policy—and that he has adhered to his Colonial policy, though he knew that he was thwarting the Imperial Government. Something might perhaps be said to the effect that the settlers do Sir G. G. no more than justice in acknowledging the vigour and resolution which he has displayed in advancing their interests.” C. B. Adderley wrote: “I should simply observe on the phrase ‘removal from Government’ and say that it was rather non-renewal and for customary compliment I should acknowledge the vigour and ability displayed in a difficult and special commission.”

C.O. 209, 202.

In his reply the Duke of Buckingham wrote: “I may observe that the intimation given for your convenience at the end of your term of office that your successor would very shortly be appointed seems to have been mistaken for a premature recall.” In reply to another ministerial memorandum dated October 3, 1867, pressing for a determination of the constitutional question involved in the independence of the military authorities of the Governor's actions, the Duke wrote this minute: “It seems to me an unconstitutional course for the Home Government to enter into controversy with the colonial ministers … that this correspondence is being kept up solely for the sake of making political capital for the ministers and Sir G. Grey; that the latter fails in the proper discharge of his duty in not dealing with the memorandum himself, having been made aware of the Home Government's views on all the points. But Sir G. G. is out of office or will be before this reply reaches him—and I do not imagine is likely to be re-employed—therefore no necessity to say more to him. It is exceedingly inexpedient to involve the new Governor in the correspondence. It is probably not politic to say directly that which I should be disposed to do—viz. that addresses of the legislature are the constitutional means of communicating direct with the Home Government.”

C.O. 209, 202.

The Wellington correspondent of The Times, in a letter of November 8, published on December 31, referring to the Governor's recall, said he had not received one word of explanation: “He has not been told whether he is simply relieved through effluxion of time, or whether he is to return in disgrace. A very largely increased sympathy for his Excellency has, in consequence, been evoked. It is not the change, but the manner of the change, that we find fault. The colony is fully prepared to meet the rising sun. Much that we hear of the newly-appointed Governor is in his favour. We hear with especial pleasure that he is frank and open-hearted, which will not only be a pleasant contrast to the wiliness with which his predecessor has always been credited, but will, under the circumstances, be considered a virtue covering a multitude of sins. Our only fear is, judging from what has happened in Queensland, that Sir George Bowen is just as likely to come into occasional collision with his Ministry as even Sir George Grey was.”

On October 30, 1867, Sir George Grey acknowledged the Duke of Buckingham's despatch No. 51 of August 22, “in which Your Grace briefly informs me that Her Majesty has been pleased, upon your recommendation, to remove me from the Government of New Zealand. … I beg to be permitted humbly to represent to Her Majesty that, in the year 1845, a rebellion prevailing in New Zealand, I was by Her Majesty's command, specially sent to the country, and that when I re- linquished the Government of it in the year 1854, it was my happiness to leave it in a state of tranquillity and prosperity;—that in the year 1861, a rebellion having again broken out in New Zealand, I was once more specially sent there, and that it is again my happiness, upon being removed, by Your Grace's advice, from this Government, to leave New Zealand in a state of tranquillity and returning prosperity; and that I humbly represent to Her Majesty, that I desire to claim no merit for these circumstances, but rather to attribute them to the blessing of Divine Providence and to the abilities and exertions of Her Majesty's subjects who have advised me and aided me in my duties. And further, that I humbly trust, that the almost unanimous voice of Her Majesty's subjects in New Zealand, amongst whom I have laboured in Her Majesty's service for a great part of twenty-two years, will satisfy Her Majesty that I have done my utmost to promote the welfare and happiness of the inhabitants of this part of Her Majesty's Dominions.”

C. B. Adderley wrote this minute: “I think the reply must not imply too complete approval: otherwise the brevity of the despatch announcing his relief and the previous supercession of the Governor in direct orders to the troops would be indefensible.” The Duke of Buckingham wrote: “Although I have had no reason to differ from Sir George Grey's acts since I have been in office, I cannot assent to the opinions that he has done his utmost. I think on the contrary he would have done better for the colony had he fulfilled his instructions and obeyed the directions as to removal of troops.”

C.O. 209, 203.

In a despatch from Kawau, dated January 14, 1868, Sir George Grey wrote: “I find from my successor's letter that I am not to have the honour and pleasure of receiving in New Zealand His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, for I had flattered myself that the delay in the arrival of my successor had arisen from your Grace's desire to accord me this honour and gratification, which many circumstances led me, I think not unreasonably to suppose, I was justly entitled to expect.” W. Dealtry, a Colonial Office official, wrote on this: “I have seen in the local paper an impression that Sir G. Grey would be allowed to continue as Governor some time longer to enable him to receive the Duke of Edinburgh. Sir G. Bowen's arrival must have been a disappointment to him, as it would have made a nice finish to his career.”

C.O. 209, 206.

On September 8, 1868, Bowen reported that Sir George Grey would leave Wellington for England by the Panama mail on that day: “Before his embarkation he will be entertained at a public function at which Sir David Monro, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, will preside. I have been invited to be present on this occasion, and shall feel much satisfaction in evincing my sense of the personal courtesy and consideration which I have received since my arrival in New Zealand from my able and accomplished predecessor, whose name will be inseparably connected with the history of the colony.” In a postscript he stated that “the demonstration in honour of Sir George Grey … was very successful.”

Ibid., 207.

The Colonial Office probably thought this postcript a little superfluous in the circumstances, though it was accustomed to popular disapproval of its verdicts. When Sir Charles Darling, recalled from Victoria, left on May 5, 1866, “it was more like a triumphal procession than the retirement of a Governor in disgrace.” But it can scarcely be said that the Office was unduly precipitate in its action against Grey. During his six years as Governor in New Zealand it had endured much from him in the way of passive resistance to commands, and we have seen that the approaching completion of his term of office was well understood in the colony. It is significant that no strong desire for his reappointment had ever been expressed. To offer him a less important Governorship would have been regarded as an insult. To offer him Canada, which he later coveted, was scarcely possible, since similar questions of defence policy to those which had caused such trouble with Grey in New Zealand, were involved there. Sir George's days as Queen's Representative were done. Later he was to become Prime Minister and lay the foundations of a Liberal party whose influence is active to this day.

Chapter 14Paying For The War

The Imperial claim against New Zealand for war expenditure was summarized by Sir F. Rogers on September 17, 1867, after reading the report of Major Richardson, the New Zealand Commissioner:

“The whole claim is £1,304, 963.

“The items positively objected to by Major R. roughly speaking are: Capitation to December 1864£75,547Capitation subsequent to December 1864£237,495New Zealand Fencibles to December 1864£68,029Interest (the bulk of)£167,278Charged by Major R. as£545,342Leaving due£759,621

“But Major R. admits provisionally only and under protest: Militia and volunteers from January 1862£74,807Two-thirds of cost of South Road£24,000£98,807
which, if allowed, would reduce the debt to £660,814.

“Per contra he states the debts of the Imperial Government to the colony at £906,856: Including Blockhouses and barracks for Imperial troops£43,115Roads made for military purposes£102,878Pay of transport corps and militia attached to commissariat£97,586Proportion of cost of Waikato transport service£91,993£335,572Adding £500,000 debentures paid to Imperial Government£500,000£835,572Smaller items£71,284£906,856Deducting Major R.'s first estimate of debts due to Imperial Government£759,621Balance due to colony£147,235

“The arrangement by which certain military allowances, etc., were commuted for £5 per head was allowed to drop in 1864 without coming to any other arrangement. It would therefore be difficult to charge it after December 1864, and still more difficult after the withdrawal of the troops had been consented to by the colony and ordered from Home. (This affects £237,000).… “Major Richardson's full expectations are—that the Imperial Government will allow balance due to the colony as matter of strict right£147,235“Balance due in equity (militia and south road)£98,807£246,042
and that the Imperial Government will further guarantee a loan of £3,000,000. The English of this, I suppose, is simply that they do not intend to pay us a farthing—and I am not aware that we have any means of making them do so.”

C.B. Adderley wrote: “I have all along thought we should have to make it quits for the past and start on a new system for the future, with the new Governor. If so, better not haggle.”

C.O. 209, 202.

In a despatch of April 1, 1868, the Duke of Buckingham, fortified by a Treasury minute of March 28, said: “The colony is oppressed by a heavy debt, to a great extent caused by the same circumstances which had led to the Imperial expenditure in the colony. The magnitude of that debt has raised the taxation of the colony to more than £6 5s. per head of the entire popu- lation, native and European, while the war has prevented that steady progress of settlement and industry which should have, during the same period, enriched the colony and increased its resources.

In nine years ending 1867 permanent charges rose from £20,265 to £305,365. A Treasury estimate of the cost of the Maori War was £2,750,000. Cf. The Poverty Bay Massacre, thesis by Marjorie E. S. Black, Victoria University College.

The colony, moreover, has taken upon itself the entire duties of future internal self-defence, thus relieving the Imperial Government from the former responsibility and the Imperial Treasury from the expenses incident to the maintenance of a large military force in New Zealand. It appeared to me that, under these circumstances, the Imperial Government might properly consent simultaneously with the removal of the troops, the installation of a new Governor, and the establishment of self-reliance, to close these accounts by a mutual release, waiving the claim which they consider might be established against the colony. In this view Her Majesty's Government concur. I have accordingly communicated with Mr. Fitzherbert who has assented thereto, and I enclose a copy of the letter in which the decision was conveyed to Mr. Fitzherbert, and a copy of his reply adopting the arrangement, thus finally disposing of these long pending matters.”

C.O. 209, 202.

The terms arranged were not regarded as just by the New Zealand ministers and Adderley, in a minute to the Duke of Buckingham, regretted that they did not take the settlement “as handsomely as it was meant.”

Ibid., 207.

The objects of Fitzherbert's mission to England had been set out in a ministerial memorandum of November 7, 1867: (1) The consolidation of the various loans of New Zealand;(2) The settlement of all claims between the Imperial Government and the Colonial Government;(3) The establishment of a mint in New Zealand;(4) The question of the defence of harbours and of the colony generally;(5) Organization of a survey of the coasts of New Zealand, under the direction of the Admiralty.

Ibid., 203.

In dealing with a request for the gift of old pattern guns not required by the War Office, Sir F. Rogers wrote: “It is a pity that an agent of the New Zealand Government cannot put forward a not extravagant request without exhibiting that unparalleled assurance which is (I think) the peculiar characteristic of N.Z. politicians. You would suppose from Mr. F.'s statement that the New Zealand war, instead of being carried on in the main at the expense of this country and exclusively for the benefit of the colonists, had been a purely Imperial war in which the colony had been good enough to lend the Imperial troops some guns. The fact that 10,000 troops were furnished them, besides naval assistance, that the result was to obtain for them all the land they immediately wanted and to break the strength of those who could have disputed the possession of what they might hereafter wish to take—and that in conclusion the Government abandoned some claims to the extent (say) of £200,000 for peace sake, are serenely ignored. That is what I call ‘assurance,’ and it is the one steadily maintained from the beginning to the end by the colonists.”

C.O. 209, 209. Cf. the elaborate programme of annexation in the Pacific put forward in 1875 by the New South Wales Government, which, however, declined to take any financial responsibility in what was “wholly an Imperial question” (Hall, Australia and England, p. 227).

In a letter of November 27, 1868, Fitzherbert suggested the creation of a system of naval defence for Australia and New Zealand. He proposed the constitution of a fleet under Imperial command, capable of guarding not merely the safety of the colonial coast but the free passage round Cape Horn. “What is wanted is a special Naval Station in the South Pacific under an Imperial officer with an independent command.” Fitzherbert stated that the cost, estimated at £500,000 a year, might be borne in equal proportions between the mother-country and the colonies concerned under a federal arrangement, the mother-country providing ships and munitions of war.

Sir F. Rogers made the following comment: “This is a spirited proposal. Of course it is a matter not for an Under-Secretary but for the Cabinet, but a few remarks occur upon it: (1) The advantage is that the colonies will relieve the Imperial Exchequer to the extent (supposed) of £250,000 a year; (2) the disadvantage is that in doing so they will acquire or think they acquire a right to dictate in some measure the movements of the fleet, or of parts of it, each for their own protection; and if any of them suffers from want of any protection which it has chosen to demand, they will consider that they have almost a right to compensation.”

C. B. Adderley commented: “This is a most important suggestion and should be favourably received, offering to send it to all the Australian Government for general discussion. … It will lead to federation, and ultimately to the Australians having a squadron of their own, as Canada ought to have now.” The Duke of Buckingham concurred. The Earl of Granville, on coming into office, stated that it appeared that the cost of the existing squadron was only £70,000 a year and he did not think it probable that the very great increase in the naval force contemplated by Fitzherbert would be sanctioned by Parliament in time of peace, even if a contribution of £250,000 a year were made by the colonies. He would, however, send copies of the correspondence to the Governors of the Australian colonies for their information.

C.O. 209, 209.

In a memorandum on a letter from Fitzherbert to Lord Granville written in London on February 5, 1869, concerning the guarantee of a loan of £1,500,000, Sir F. Rogers, after summarizing the early history of the colony, wrote: “Then the colonists wrest from the Home Government first, I think, the power of the purse, then responsible government—and then, possessed of the power of the purse and the power of making laws, they make it practically impossible for the Home Government to govern and take care of the natives satisfactorily, and loudly proclaim that they will govern the natives and that the Home Government shall not do so. Coincidentally with this—being greedy of land—and some of them (at Taranaki) being furiously greedy, they induce Col. Browne, an honourable but weak man, to abandon in that district the old cautious Imperial policy in respect to land buying, and so plunge—not as they suppose themselves but the Imperial Government into an expensive war…. They wanted—and always have wanted, and always will want—to control the natives at our expense.”

Ibid., 215.

We have seen that the first impression of Sir Frederic was that Gore Browne was in the right in his policy towards Wiremu Kingi and the Waitara purchase,

See above, pp. 67–8. In his book The Colonial Office: A History, published shortly before this volume went to press, H.L. Hall illustrates the views of Sir F. Rogers on several New Zealand topics. While Sir Frederic was “too blunt,” Mr. Hall's general impression “from studying several thousands of minutes” is “that the permanent officials were men of great talents and industry, with abundant good sense, possessed of a saving gift of humour, and actuated by a desire to do all they could for the benefit of the colonies.” This verdict seemed amply justified by our detailed examination of New Zealand affairs.

but this memorandum adequately summarizes (with his own pen) the attitude he maintained throughout the New Zealand controversies which bulked so large in the affairs of the Colonial Office during his period of office as Permanent Under-Secretary. If he makes inadequate allowance for the special difficulties of the Taranaki settlers, and appears to judge the colonists generally rather harshly, we can scarcely contend, after reading all the documents and more especially his own able minutes, that he did not have some grounds for his general conclusions.

Chapter 15War With Te Kooti And Titokowaru

Sir George Bowen's first despatch was written on February 6, 1868, the day after his arrival at Wellington. In his second despatch of March 3, he wrote: “It would, of course, be as yet presumptuous in me to pronounce any judgment on Native questions. It is obvious, however, that the old institutions and rules of the Maoris have crumbled away; and so, it is to be feared, has, to a deplorable extent, their recently adopted Christianity. When I visited Te Puni a fortnight ago at his own village, the old chief told me, in the presence of the Bishop of Wellington (Dr. Abraham) that he believed he was now almost the only real Christian in his tribe, for most of his kinsmen had become either ‘Hauhaus’ or drunken profligates.

For a discussion of this topic, see History of the Church Missionary Society (1899), II, chapter 67.

It is, moreover, a significant fact that the so-called Maori King has lately renounced his baptismal name of Matutaera (Methusaleh) and openly adopted the heathen appellation of Tawhiao. He is stated to have taken no notice whatsoever of certain overtures that were made to him before my arrival, with the object of inducing him to give his submission to the ‘Queen's Son’ (the phrase by which the Duke of Edinburgh is known to the Maoris) during the approaching visit of His Royal Highness to New Zealand. With regard to this sullen and hostile isolation, a loyal chief at a recent interview addressed me in the following terms: ‘O Governor, Matutaera is now like a single tree left exposed in a clearing of our native forests. If left alone it will soon wither and die. My word to you, O Governor, is to leave Matutaera alone.’ This is, in fact, the policy of my present ministers. Indeed, there is a feeling in some quarters in favour of the tacit, if not formal, revival in the native districts of this colony of a sort of ‘pale’ in the sense familiar to the readers of Irish history.” In acknowledging the despatch, the Duke of Buckingham stated that although the management of the natives was now transferred to the Colonial Government, the state and condition of this portion of the inhabitants of the colony had in no way lost its interest.

C.O. 209, 206.

A meeting of natives at Tokangamutu, the Maori King's headquarters, on January 20, 1868, had confirmed many of them in disaffection. James Mackay wrote on February 26: “I find that one result of the great meeting…is that the natives of the King or Hauhau side are more firmly determined than ever to oppose the opening up of the country for gold mining purposes, leasing of land and depasturing of stock, forming of roads, survey of native lands, etc.” H. T. Clarke, Civil Commissioner at Tauranga, thought the result of the meeting “anything but favourable to the peace of the country.” The word of Rewi had been “Fighting must cease. The sale of land must cease. Leasing land must be put a stop to.”

On March 7 Bowen reported that writs had been issued for the election of four Maori members of the House of Representatives. This had been provided for by the Maori Representation Act, which Sir F. Rogers had characterized as a “promising” development.

Ibid., 203.

The Act was, however, received by the greater part of the Maoris with indifference. “If each tribe could send its own representative it would be different,” commented W.K. Nesbitt, resident magistrate at Maketu, in a report of March 14.

On April 3, 1868, Bowen wrote: “The intelligence of the murderous attempt made at Sydney on the life of the Duke of Edinburgh has excited throughout New Zealand general horror and indignation, and has called forth enthusiastic expressions of the devoted loyalty to the Throne of the over-whelming majority of the people of the colony. I regret, however, to state that, previous to the arrival of the sad news from Sydney, a Fenian demonstration had been made recently by a section of the Irish miners on the gold-fields at Hokitika, a town on the Western coast of the Middle Island, distant above 800 miles from Auckland and above 300 from Wellington. There, on the 15th ult., a mock funeral procession was held as mark of sympathy with the Fenians executed at Manchester in last November, and was attended by about 900 persons headed by Mr. Larkin, a Roman Catholic clergyman, whose conduct has been censured in becoming terms by the Roman Catholic Bishop (the Right Reverend Dr. Viard), but who appears to have set episcopal authority at defiance. A Fenian newspaper, the New Zealand Celt, is also published at Hokitika; and its articles seem to be as violent as those of the Fenian organs in Ireland and America. The local authorities have arrested Mr. Larkin and the Editor of the New Zealand Celt, on a charge of sedition, and also two other persons accused of rioting.

Larkin and Manning the editor, were tried on May 18–20 and convicted.

A number of misguided Irishmen are reported to have assembled in arms to defend the office of the New Zealand Celt, and to protect the cross erected in the public cemetery at Hokitika in honour of the Manchester Fenians. On the other hand, the local militia and volunteers have been called out, and above one thousand special constables had already been sworn in when the mail left the Middle Island. The cross had also been removed and destroyed and the Government has forbidden its re-erection.

“Under these circumstances, and after consultation with the Colonial Ministers and with the Senior Military and Naval officers, I have arranged to despatch H.M.S. Falcon this day to Hokitika, with a detachment of the 18th Regiment on board to support the civil power, in case of necessity. It is hoped that the presence of this additional force will reassure the well-disposed majority, overawe the disaffected, and maintain the authority of the law.”

Against the last paragraph C. B. Adderley wrote: “The old story repeated.” W. Dealtry's memorandum was: “The Government has taken the necessary measures to support the civil power, but this does not look well for the removal of the Regiment stationed in New Zealand which has been decided on.” Adderley made the following minute to the Duke of Buckingham: “I confess I do not think Sir G. Bowen's sending the Falcon and detachment of the 18th Regiment ought to be approved. It is the old story decies repetita—as soon as removal of troops is threatened some necessity for retaining them (arises).” The Duke of Buckingham wrote: “The orders for

A Sketch Of Chute's Column On The March By Major von Tempsky embarkation had not reached Sir G. Bowen, and some months will elapse before the transport will be at New Zealand. I think approval should be expressed of the prompt measures taken.”

C.O. 209, 206.

Bowen, in a despatch of April 14, 1868, described his visit to Shortland in the Thames goldfield, where the Chief Taipari was drawing, he said, about £4,000 a year as landlord. His example was already exercising an influence upon many of his countrymen “who have hitherto lived in sullen and hostile isolation.”

On May 4 Bowen reported that he had returned from a very interesting visit to the Bay of Islands. He went, on the urgent advice of James Busby, in the Brisk corvette instead of a small unarmed steamer. Busby thought that his prestige as Governor would otherwise be affected. Bowen saw, with deep interest, Tamati Waka Nene, “this constant friend and brave ally of our race,” now in extreme old age, arise, and striking his staff on the ground, proceeded to remind his Maori countrymen that, standing on that very spot, he had counselled the fathers of the present generation to place themselves “under the shadow of the Queen and of the Law”—that he knew he had counselled them well, and now exhorted the sons of his former hearers to dwell in peace and brotherhood with each other and with the colonists.

C.O. 209, 206.

In a despatch of June 30 Bowen described a visit to the Waikato area, compared the Maoris to the Highlanders of the eighteenth century, and discussed the possibility of a recurrence of war: “Friendly natives have sent several warnings to the Government to the effect that the ‘King tribes’ are inclined to begin afresh a desultory warfare, and are waiting only for a favourable opportunity, such as would be afforded by any relaxation of vigilance on the part of the detachments of armed constabulary which now protect the settlements of the interior, or by the immediate withdrawal of the single regiment of regular troops which now garrisons the principal towns. I am further informed that the Arawas and other tribes that have fought gallantly and suffered much for the Crown are disposed to regard the entire removal of the Queen's Troops with alarm and dissatisfaction—as a sign that they can expect henceforth little moral or physical support against their hostile countrymen; and that (in their own phrase) the Queen is riri (i.e. angry) with the Pakehas—in other words that the Imperial authorities are displeased with the Colonists. It has been represented, in short, that the loyal clans in New Zealand at the present day would view the entire withdrawal of Imperial troops with feelings similar to those with which the Hanoverian clans in Scotland, 150 years ago, while exposed to the vengeance of their Jacobite neighbours would have regarded the removal to the English garrisons from Inverness, Fort William, and Stirling.

“The latest reliable intelligence tends to show that there exists among the disaffected tribes two parties; one, headed by Tawhiao and his family and kinsmen, disposed to moderate counsels; the other, headed by the Hau Hau prophet Hakaria, of a more uncompromising spirit. If Tawhiao is the Maori Saul, Hakaria is the Maori Samuel.… A distinguished colonist, who is generally believed to be more intimately acquainted with the natives of New Zealand than any other European, lately remarked to me that one of their seers may one morning allege that he beheld in a dream the Maoris hewing the Pakehas to pieces, and that the next day a war-party of Hau Haus may rush on the nearest British settlement to prove the truth of the vision. Much loss of life and property may be inflicted by such outbreaks among the scattered homesteads, in the districts bordering on the territory of the hostile tribes; but the settlers in those parts will always, as on several previous occasions, assemble speedily for their own protection, and they will be supported with all the strength of the Government. On the whole it appears to be very generally agreed that, since the authority of the Crown and of the law was not established throughout the interior of this country while there was an army of above ten thousand men in New Zealand, the attitude of the Colonial authorities towards Tawhiao and his adherents must and ought to be, in the main, defensive; that it is at once more politic and more human to outlive the ‘King movement,’ than to endeavour to suppress it by the strong hand; that the turbulent natives should receive every encouragement to live peaceably but that murderous onslaughts (such as that at Patea),

On June 9 a settler named Cahill and two others were murdered. Another man was killed within sight of the camp of the constabulary.

whether on the Europeans or on the friendly Maoris, should be punished with the vigour necessary to prevent a recurrence of unprovoked aggressions.”

Adderley's minute to the Duke of Buckingham was: “N.Z. will give even more material to Bowen's pen and imagination than Queensland…. The ‘outliving’ rebellion in N.Z. is the point of true and vital interest in this despatch and the proofs given that the English regulars are unsuited to the task of reducing it, and that the colonists left to themselves will take to defensive attitude and caution, and if force is required, to most effective action. Those who thought a Maori ‘Province,’ left to its own laws, would have led sooner to settled relations (as the Indian territory in U. States), must see that, soon after ill-conducted warfare, they are more likely to amalgamate than to live by the side of us. Whether they must not ultimately die out seems a less hopeful question. I would not give in to leaving the single Regiment. The reasons adduced are convincing the other way. It is said its removal would be taken by friendly tribes and colonists as a sign that they can expect no longer support from England—the very thing most desirable, and the state our early American colonists throve best in. ‘The Queen will be thought riri,’ which means that they are still babies. It is a sentiment only and a wretched one. Even if the colonists were made to pay the whole cost, transport and all, and learn that dipping their fingers in the Mother Country's pocket means taxing English labourers for what they should pay for themselves, still it would be undesirable—witness the feeling produced by the past services of English troops partly paid by them and wholly abused.”

C.O. 209, 207.

On September 19, 1868, the Duke of Buckingham, after thanking Bowen for the full and valuable information he had sent, wrote: “As regards the withdrawal of the Regiment of H.M.'s Troops … my despatch of May 30 will have informed you that the 18th Regiment was required in the ordinary course of relief to proceed to Australia and that no arrangements are at present contemplated for replacing it.”

On July 23 Bowen transmitted reports on the state of the Maoris which he had called for on his arrival.

C.O. 209, 207.

The first was from F. E. Maning, judge of the Native Land Court, author of Old New Zealand. He described the last few years as “years of war, followed by a doubtful armed truce, the result of physical exhaustion on the part of the natives, and of a great pecuniary expenditure impossible to be longer maintained, on ours.… I think the Maoris do not believe we would be left alone to deal with them in a second struggle. Should they eventually become of a different opinion, it would seriously diminish the chances of peace being established securely for several years, and it is certain that by a change in their tactics, which the natives are quite capable of adopting, they might, with half their former numbers, inflict as much or more loss upon the colony than they have already done.… In only one direction do I see a hopeful influence at work, powerful, if human calculation can be trusted, to produce in the future the permanent pacification of the country, and the dominion of law. I mean the action of the Native Land Court, which, by giving natives individual and exclusive property in the soil, stimulates industry, detaches them from tribal or national interests, disposes them to support and strengthen the law from which they have derived their rights.…”

Cf. J. B. Condliffe, in New Zealand in the Making, on the Native Land Court: “For more than sixty years this Court has functioned steadily and, within its limits, successfully.… Throughout its history, however, it has been a means of facilitating the separation of the Maori from his land as equitably and painlessly as possible.” See also Omapere Lake judgment of Judge F. O. V. Acheson, August 1, 1929: “The Native Land Court would not be worth its salt if … it failed in its duty to give the natives the rights guaranteed to them under the Treaty of Waitangi and confirmed by statutes.” (Quoted in Roberts, Land Problems of the' Forties (1936), pp. 229–30.)

H. T. Clarke, Civil Commissioner of the East Coast, wrote: “Hauhauism has been adopted as the Maori national religion, of which Tawhiao, ‘the Maori King,’ is the acknowledged head. Its objects and tendencies are inimical to the Queen's Government. Its first introduction was in blood and its subsequent pro- gress has been the same. The principal men teach their followers that they must obey implicitly the voice of their God, without fear or favour. There can be no security under such a system when it is remembered that the pretended revelations of the Hauhau God are made through such men as Kereopa, Hakaraia, Rewi and other kindred spirits.” J. H. Campbell, resident magistrate at Waiapu, said that the most obnoxious measure to the Maoris was “the scheme for taking blocks of land in certain localities, regardless of ownership, whether friendly or otherwise.”

On July 31 Bowen transmitted a memorandum from ministers praying that Her Majesty the Queen would be pleased to make New Zealand “the Sanatorium of the invalided troops of the British Army.” Adderley objected: “They would still hold the red cloth up to the Fenian bulls and keep up the appetite of the colonists.”

C.O. 209, 207.

On August 8 Bowen reported that Titokowaru, a Ngatiruanui chief, leader in the atrocities at Patea, and some of his followers had openly resumed the practice of cannibalism. “They cooked and ate the body of at least one of their recent victims—a trooper in the armed constabulary.” Titokowaru boasted of this act in a proclamation. A Maori force, Bowen stated, had surprised 25 troops under the command of Captain Ross, in a redoubt at Turuturu-Mokai, killing 8 and wounding 6. von Tempsky arrived in time to save the remainder.

Ibid. Cowan, II, 190–1, discusses the tardiness of the relief force.

Bowen, in another despatch of August 8, reported that on July 15 news reached Wellington from Napier by electric telegraph that about 150 Hauhau prisoners sent to the Chatham Islands two years before had made their escape and landed at Whareongaonga, Poverty Bay. “On the 23rd the Rifleman, a schooner belonging to a New Zealand mercantile firm, arrived at Wellington, under the command of the chief officer, Mr. Payne, who made a statement (the accuracy of which there seems no reason to doubt) respecting the manner in which the Hauhau prisoners had seized that vessel at the Chatham Islands, and forced the crew, on peril of their lives, to convey them to Poverty Bay.… It will be seen that, a storm having arisen during the voyage, the cruel Hauhau fanatics threw overboard one of their own countrymen, despite his cries and entreaties, as a sacrifice to the Atua, or ‘God of the Winds.’” Bowen reported that Colonel Whitmore now had under orders about 150 Europeans and the same number of Maoris. “Great importance is attached to his soon striking (if possible) a decisive blow; as otherwise it is feared that the escaped prisoners (among whom are many most dangerous fanatics) will be joined by the Ureweras and the other hostile and disaffected tribes of the East Coast. At the same time it is felt that it would be worse than useless to pursue the Hauhaus, if they should retire into the wild mountainous country of the interior.”

C.O. 209, 207.

H.M.S. Rosario arrived at Napier from Wellington on July 19. Colonel Whitmore and two officers embarked there for Poverty Bay with 31 men. In a report of July 21 Captain Westrupp described a reverse suffered by his men in a fight with the Hauhaus. Two were killed and seven wounded. Westrupp wrote: “I trust the Government will make due allowance for the privations and fatigue undergone by the men, who throughout the whole of this trying day were engaged with a very superior force almost all armed with Enfield rifles, and kept up so hot a fire that it was impossible to make head against it. It must also be considered how depressing on the minds of the men unused to war was the effect of the apathy (call it by no worse name), of the bulk of our native allies. For ten days the Force has kept the field without an opportunity of changing or drying their clothes, and with very scanty and irregular supplies of provisions.”

Whitmore discusses his failure to rouse these men to join his force in his book, The Last Maori War in New Zealand. He concedes that his language was impolitic and ill-chosen.

On July 24 Captain Richardson was attacked first by the advance guard of the Hauhaus and then by the main body, the action lasting three hours: “The friendly natives behaved most wretchedly. At the close of the action I found myself with 16 Europeans and four natives only remaining. After nightfall I withdrew the men and retired upon the Wairoa.” The reputation of Te Kooti, leader of the Hauhaus, was naturally enhanced by his successes.

The return of the escaped prisoners from the Chatham Islands was recorded in The Times on October 1, 1868, on the same day that the surprise of the constabulary under Captain Ross was reported. “To watch a population like this,” commented The Times in a leading article on October 2, “the only force the Government appears to have kept regularly trained, besides the single English regiment left in the island, has lately been a body of five hundred armed police, and they were on the point of letting the regiment quit them because they would not pay for its support. They have now to begin drilling recruits for a campaign which has already opened.”

Cf. Stacey, op. cit., p. 222: “The Imperial determination to throw the cost of the naval defence of the border upon Canada had merely resulted in the border being left undefended.”

On August 8 Bowen forwarded a resolution of the Legislative Council requesting that the removal of the last regiment might be delayed “until His Excellency shall have placed the present state of the colony before the Imperial Government and have received instruction thereon.” “I am aware,” the Governor said, “of some of the reasons which have led to the decision that the Queen's Troops shall be altogether removed from this colony notwithstanding the opinion to the contrary which His Royal Highness the Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief (the Duke of Cambridge) is reported to have expressed in the House of Lords in the debate on this question which took place on July 15, 1867, and which appears to have been relied on here to a considerable extent.

In a letter from the Horse Guards on December 28, 1867, the Duke also expressed the hope that “the important colony of New Zealand would not be left wholly without regular troops.”

I dare not conceal my own personal opinion that it is unfortunate on grounds of Imperial as well as Colonial policy, if the execution of this decision cannot be delayed at the present crisis; in the face of the recent demonstration of the Fenians, whose quarrel is avowedly with the Imperial rather than with the Colonial Government; of the existing serious native disturbances reported in my despatches Nos. 78 and 79 by this mail; and of the open defiance of the Queen's authority by the so-called Maori King and his adherents; of the large contributions paid by New Zealand for the special benefit of the Maoris, amounting to nearly one pound sterling for each individual of that race; and of the still larger expenditure for Colonial Defence; together with the very heavy taxation necessary for these purposes, and for the payment of the interest of the War Loan of three millions sterling.”

W. Dealtry's Colonial Office minute, addressed on this occasion to T. F. Elliot, was: “His Grace will I presume adhere to the decision with regard to the removal of the Regiment, to retain which Mr. Stafford, the present Premier, is still unwilling to accede to any formal conditions.” Elliot wrote to Adderley: “On general grounds I think it quite the right course (to withdraw the troops); and the New Zealand ministers who are letting them go rather than pay for them, ought to be the best judges whether there exists any crisis to render their presence indispensable. This seems a strong ground for letting things take their course.” Adderley's minute to the Duke of Buckingham was: “I have not the smallest hesitation in saying that the embarkation should take its course. Not a shadow of a reason has been assigned against it, nor any offer of terms—but the reverse.” The Duke's decision was: “Embarkation to proceed.”

C.O. 209, 207.

In the despatch of October 24 conveying his decision, he said: “Her Majesty's Government do not consider themselves at liberty to depart from the terms of the agreement under which the colonists of New Zealand were to take charge of native affairs and to undertake the duty of defending the colony against internal disturbance. And they are supported in this decision by observing that Mr. Stafford does not make any proposal whatever as to the terms on which this regiment is to remain in the colony. I have therefore no alternative but to inform you that its departure must not be delayed.”

C.O. 209, 207.

Stafford's memorandum on the subject, dated August 8, set out that since October 1865 he had declined to advise that Imperial troops should be employed in the field or to accede on behalf of the colony to any formal conditions on which the single regiment now in New Zealand should be retained. “Mr. Stafford does not now propose to depart from the course which has been consistently pursued for the last three years.” The Colonial Office decision was therefore not surprising.

On September 5, 1868, Bowen transmitted a despatch by Colonel McDonnell describing the capture on August 21 by the colonial forces under his command of the fortified pa of Te-Ngutu-o-te-manu (or The Hawk's Beak), the principal stronghold of the cannibal chief, Titokowaru. The pa was partially destroyed before the troops departed. In his despatch Bowen wrote: “It will be seen (from a memorandum of Colonel Haultain) that Rewi, the chief of the hitherto hostile Ngatimaniapoto tribe, and one of the most resolute and formidable of the rebel leaders, has applied for and obtained a safe conduct to enable him to attend the Native Land Court and to plead therein his claim to a disputed portion of the Waikato territory. Wiremu Kingi, the Ngatiawa chief, whose name is so well known as that of the foremost leader in the war of 1860, and who has since stood aloof in a hostile attitude, has now settled peaceably upon the land reserved for him by the Government at Waitara, where the war began. Further, the Government has recently been able, through a loyal Wanganui chief, to open a communication with the so-called Maori King, Tawhiao, who has publicly expressed his abhorrence of the renewed cannibalism and other atrocities of Titokowaru, and at the same time his (Tawhiao's) desire for peace—a desire which will receive every legitimate encouragement.” The despatches were “read with interest” and then sent to the Queen by the Duke of Buckingham's order.

C.O. 209, 207.

In the pursuit of the East Coast Hauhaus by Colonel Whitmore an engagement was fought when the pursuers came up with the enemy, who were driven from an island on which they had taken up their position. Five of the attackers were killed and five wounded.

On October 7 Bowen reported a serious reverse sustained by a party of colonial troops on September 7 in endeavouring to penetrate the forests towards the rebel village, Te Ruaruru, behind Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu. Major von Tempsky and Captain Buck were killed: “A party of 360 men composed of 250 Europeans and 110 natives, under Lt.-Colonel McDonnell, set out at daylight from the headquarters at Waihi, marching a distance of ten miles, more than half through a rough and imperfect bush path, to the rebel pa, which is built on a small clearing surrounded by dense forest.… The enemy had been reinforced and had knowledge of the approach of our men, who, advancing hastily, fell into an ambuscade of Maoris placed in the branches and loophooled trunks of trees. Lt.-Colonel McDonnell ordered a retreat. Some of his officers thought that the enemy might yet be beaten out of his ambush and the pa successfully attacked. Meantime the men got into confusion; the officers began to fall under the fire from sharp-shooters in the trees; and a panic ensued. The result was a disastrous defeat. The men struggling through an almost impenetrable forest were followed up by a victorious enemy, and obliged to leave all the dead and many of the wounded on the field. After the loss of several of the officers there appears to have been an utter absence of order in the rearguard; many of the men threw away their arms and accoutrements, and had it not been for the help of the friendly native contingent, our loss must have been even more severe than it was. There is too much reason to fear that some barbarous cruelties were afterwards perpetrated by the Maoris upon the wounded, including one officer who fell alive into their hands. The loss in killed and wounded fell entirely upon the European force; none of the Maori contingent have been hit, as Maoris know how to keep under cover in bush fighting. Our loss was: Killed, Officers 5, men 12; Wounded, Officer 1, men 24; Missing, Men 2. Total 44.”

The Times correspondent in a letter of October 8 (published on November 27) said that after the disaster “a thorough disorganization of the colonial forces in that district ensued…. McDonnell, from being the pet of everyone, was declared unfit for his position; numbers of the men swore they would never go out again. von Tempsky's company mutinied, and within the past month the force of about 77 has been reduced by desertions, mutiny, disbanding and expiration of service nearly one-half…. While I have not hesitated to speak of the colonial forces in very disparaging terms, I would have it understood that there are portions of them who are as true as steel. There is something in encountering a naked, yelling savage foe for the first time which has made even disciplined Imperial troops waver and run.” The correspondent compared the disaster to McDonnell to “throwing the torch into the fern.”

For an account of the battle by one of the officers engaged, Captain O'Halloran, see an article in The New Zealand Herald, September 9, 1933. by Arthur O'Halloran. Rusden says “McDonell” is the commander's name.

The Times, in a leading article on November 28, said: “Englishmen, wherever they are, are never exempt from responsibility to the public opinion of England, and the letter which we published yesterday from our Wellington correspondent shows that it is full time the force of public opinion was brought to bear on the colonial policy.… These men appear, at a single check, and without seemingly having been pursued beyond the gully where the surprise befell them, to have thrown away their arms, abandoned their outposts, and, as soon as they found themselves in a place of safety, dissolved into a rabble of drunken mutineers. We know, in fact, that they were not troops from which the Colonial Administration had a right to anticipate very military conduct. A considerable part of them was composed of hasty levies made two months previously in the towns, and partaking therefore, probably, the character of an Australasian town population.… The Colonial Ministry and the Assembly, which is to the full as chargeable with the catastrophe, excuse themselves on the pretext of the improbability of the circumstances, which led to the outbreak. But with the elements of rebellion ever ready in the Maori race, an outbreak ought never to have seemed improbable.” A vigorous policy was advocated. Bowen, in his despatch, stated that he had instructed the two companies of the 18th Regiment stationed at Wellington to proceed to Wanganui to protect the town.

Sir F. Rogers made the following comment: “This is of course a serious matter, but not I should say, quite so serious as it is made to look by Sir G. Bowen. The European population of New Zealand exclusive of military was stated in 1866 (?) at about 220,000 and increasing rapidly.

The census of 1867 showed a rise in European population from 59,413 in 1858 to 218,637 in 1867.

The natives were estimated to be about 40,000, and are rapidly decreasing. Of these natives a large number are loyal. Under these circumstances a defeat involving the loss of 44 men killed and wounded is not a matter for panic or for reversing (I think) well-considered arrangements. The colonists of New Zealand have made a bargain. They have been allowed in pursuance of that bargain to conduct native affairs in a manner which was likely to produce resentment and destitution among large masses of the Maoris. They have been warned that their confiscation policy was one which they Home Government disapproved and distrusted and which they (the Home Government) would absolutely have arrested but for the engagement on the part of the colonists to provide for their own defence. They have been warned most emphatically that the Home Government would not help them through the foreseen consequences of an oppressive or imprudent policy.

“Notwithstanding all this, they have been pushing forward settlement into the confiscated lands as if they had an indefinite force at their command for the reduction of malcontents and the protection of the settlers. They have reduced their military force. They have refused to keep a military regiment on the terms on which (unfortunately as I think) it was offered them, and, though this is of less importance, they have so contested our pecuniary claims on them as to force us to abandon much of these claims for peace's sake.

“Now what we have warned them of happens. And they propose not to change their policy and draw in their settlements—not to give the Home Government the old control (imperfect and delusive enough) over the causes of war (which indeed would be impracticable if they did offer it)—not to pay toward the expenses of any troops left in New Zealand—but only that the regiment should be left because the Colonial Government has in fact for the last few years performed what Lord Carnarvon required and they (most fortunately, I think) rejected as a condition of keeping that regiment. I think that they ought not to receive that encouragement to carry out their past and present policy, which the retention of this regiment will give them—and I think that if it is retained the Home Government will find it extremely difficult not to employ it in active service, and will then find itself involved in all the old difficulties and responsibilities and disputes and expenses which have been found intolerable with regard to this colony. Of course if this revolt spreads and a massacre of Europeans is imminent in February when the Himalaya arrives it would be impossible to withdraw the troops and leave the settlers to their fate. But nothing short of such a pressing and most improbable necessity ought I think to be allowed to prevent the departure of the troops. I should write … that the abandonment by the Home Government of all control over native policy, and their consequent acquiescence in a line of policy in respect of confiscation and occupation of native lands which they considered highly dangerous to the future peace of the colony, was conditional on being totally relieved from any responsibility in respect to the protection of the settlers and control of the natives … that His Grace is convinced that in thus calling on the colonists to perform a task to which they are perfectly competent, if only their affairs are conducted with prudence, courage, and justice, he is, in the long run, consulting the truest interest both of New Zealand and of Great Britain.”

C.O. 209, 208.

The Duke of Buckingham wrote: “I agree generally with Sir F. Rogers, but I think a more pointed reference to the memorandum of Mr. Stafford in which the colony declines the terms for the one regiment should be inserted. Draft accordingly for consideration.”

C.O. 209, 208.

The despatch prepared under these instructions was dated December 1, 1868.

Lord Granville succeeded the Duke of Buckingham as Secretary of State in December, 1868, and, in a memorandum from 16 Bruton Street, he wrote: “Would it not be well as there has been a change of Government here to write by the next mail to say that I entirely concur with my predecessor in desiring the remaining Regiment to be sent back.”

C.O. 209, 208.

As a sequel to the defeat of September 7, Colonel G. S. Whitmore was placed in command of the West Coast forces in place of Lt.-Col. McDonnell, who retired on leave of absence. Whitmore, a settler in Hawke's Bay, had been military secretary to General Cameron. In a despatch of November 17, 1868, from Wanganui, Bowen reported the repulse of Whitmore in an attack made on November 7 on the rebels under Titokowaru at Moturoa, near Okotuku, about twenty miles from Wanganui. One officer (Major Hunter) and eight men were killed and 27 men wounded and missing.

See Cowan, II, 236–54. He states that many of the missing were killed. The battle was “Whitmore's one great blunder.” Whitmore has a chapter on “The Reverse at Moturoa” in his book, The Last Maori War in New Zealand. In it he says that throughout his West Coast campaign, “I was opposed pertinaciously, insubordination preached to my men, and my smallest action criticized with relentless spite, if not contorted and misrepresented.” See also With the Lost Legion in New Zealand, by Col. G. Hamilton Browne (1912). A tribute to Whitmore was paid in The Press, Christchurch, on January 12, 1869. Reference was made to “the perpetual abuse of the public press.” Whitmore was “not a popular man,” but “we don't want a popular man, we want a good soldier.”

After the fight all the native contingent of about 400 left Whitmore's camp and returned to their own homes near Wanganui. “The most competent judges of the Maori character ascribe this defection not to treason or cowardice, but partly to misunderstandings between Colonel Whitmore and certain of the chiefs; and partly to mutual jealousies between the chiefs themselves.

“A few hours after this untoward intelligence from the West Coast the news reached Wellington from the East Coast of the massacre by the Hauhaus under Te Kooti of about forty Europeans and twenty loyal Maoris at Turananui (called by Captain Cook Poverty Bay.…). In the night between the 9th and 10th inst., a band of rebels suddenly attacked the houses of Major Biggs, the Resident Magistrate, and of the other principal English settlers, who were murdered after a brave resistance, and tortured and mutilated under circumstances of the most revolting cruelty; while their wives, daughters and families, after being subjected to atrocities too horrible for description, were burned to death or hacked in pieces. This massacre is calculated to excite among the English in New Zealand feelings similar to those excited among the English in India by the massacre at Cawnpore. Fears are generally expressed that it is only the first of many similar tragedies; and that all the English settlements in the disturbed districts (especially those on the West Coast, where the settlers have intermingled with the natives) are in imminent danger.… My information is that … the Maoris generally are watching the progress of the war with gloomy irresolution; and that they will ultimately join that which may prove to be the strongest party.… In the Manawatu, Rangitikei, and Turakina districts, where there is an European population of above three thousand souls, almost every adult male is enrolled in the militia or volunteers, well-armed and tolerably drilled. Redoubts and blockhouses have been erected at all the principal villages, as places of refuge for the women and children….”

C.O. 209, 208.

Lord Granville made the following minute: “The impression on my mind is that Col. Whitmore is a very fine fellow but destitute as he himself almost admits of the qualities which fit a man to obtain influence over the Maoris….

Cf. Gorton, Some Home Truths re the Maori War: “Colonel Whitmore as a commander was in many respects a success … it was very unfortunate that his manner was at times so offensive to his officers and his men, and also that he did not look better after the interests of the wounded.”

Nothing in these papers changes my opinion as to the withdrawal after a very short interval of the European Regiment. Its presence only continues the evil of divided command, and diminishes the stimulus to the colonists of providing for their own defence. The delay caused by the change in the transport system will probably answer all purposes, and prevent the only real evil, i.e. the chance of an immediate withdrawal having a bad moral effect both on the friendly and hostile Maoris.”

C.O. 209, 208.

The Times, in a leading article of January 1, 1869, said: “The telegram of yesterday from Sydney will have made the last day of 1868 a time of gloom and apprehension in many English homes. The statement, made in a single line, that in New Zealand, ‘fifty Europeans, with their families, have been massacred,’ is at once so clear and so vague as to spread terror throughout the numerous households which have relatives in the North Island. Information from Wellington had shown that up to the beginning of November the new Maori War had been a continuous series of disasters on the side of the colonists, till, at its date they had actually been compelled to exchange an offensive for what was mainly a defensive attitude. Yesterday's intelligence would imply that the rebellion has reached a new and yet more alarming stage. But even such a tragedy is still only a consequence which was to have been anticipated from the conduct pursued by the colony itself. A cry may very likely, we fear, be raised on behalf of making vengeance for the atrocities of these savages an Imperial concern.… If only in the interest of colonial self-government we must protest against such interference. The agency which has produced the calamity is the almost criminal negligence of the colony itself, and the colony is best left to deal by itself with the effects of its own culpable inertness.” On the same day The Times printed an extract from the Wellington Evening Post giving details of the distribution by Titokowaru of human flesh “to inflame the ferocity of the natives of the interior.”

Correspondence on the subject of New Zealand ensued in The Times. One correspondent signing himself “G. G.” combated the suggestion that Sikhs should be sent and asserted that the Imperial troops had accomplished not too little but too much in New Zealand. Sir George Grey wrote on the same day, January 9, 1869, from Fenton's Hotel, to disclaim any connection with the communication, “the result of which must be to mislead the British public regarding an unfortunate and ill-used body of colonists suffering under the misfortunes which entitle them to the sympathy of their fellow-countrymen.” Colonel George Gawler, writing on January 15, advocated the sending of a commission to settle all land claims finally. “Every war in New Zealand as yet,” he said, “has been directly or indirectly a land title war.” He remarked that he was not the “G. G.” of the previous letter.

William Fitzherbert, in a letter which appeared on January 18, contended that the Native Land Court, independent of the Government, constituted an adequate tribunal to settle all claims. The abandonment of the confiscated lands would be “in the highest degree impolitic.” “It would be interpreted by the natives as a sign of weakness,” he wrote, “and would doubtless lead to fresh aggression on their part. There is no mistake greater than to imagine that the Government or colonists of New Zealand have any interest to serve in extending the area of confiscation, or that the present war has been carried on with any other object than self-defence and the maintenance of the Queen's sovereignty.”

In a letter to The Times, published on May 26, J. C. Richmond disputed the contentions of the leading article of January 1: “In your own article you ‘protest in the interest of colonia self-government,’ against help to the colony, or, as you phrase it, ‘interference’ in its difficulties. Self-government is almost the life-blood of our race, but it may be exercised in prosperity as well as in misery. There are times when the most independent may ask and receive help without compromising their independence.… Would England protest in the interest of national independence against helping a weak neighbour—say Belgium—in case of aggression? We are not confident out here what the answer would be, for we do not pretend to understand where England is going in these days. But, whatever home views may be at present, no one can think that the cause of national independence would have gained by it if England had acted on so hollow a ground in the early part of this century. I trust New Zealand may not again appeal for military assistance, because the mutual relations of the empire and the colony do not admit of efficient co-operation in the field. But colonial self-government need not suffer from help properly afforded and the colony wants help very much at present.… If we are no longer to look for any benefit from England which is not accorded to foreign nations, we ought in future to meet the courtesy used towards foreign nations, and despatch writers ought to drop the pedagogue style… Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and ill will. Only one English statesman and only two or three public writers show that they substantially realize the condition of New Zealand.”

Richmond described the difficulties of administration in New Zealand arising from the great dispersion of population and the ease with which men could move off to safe districts and other colonies to avoid militia service. He suggested that the New Zealand Government might be allowed to raise a volunteer corps, both officers and men, from the British arm, for service for a definite number of years, at no cost to the Imperial Treasury. Another mode of assistance would be “the endorsement of the Colonial Bills.” A commission of inquiry might be set up to ascertain the financial and commercial prospects of the colonies with a view to some comprehensive action in this direction. “Perhaps,” he concluded, “I am altogether visionary in these suggestions, and Great Britain's eyes are turned inwards too much to allow her leaders to ex- patiate on the idea of any sort of permanent and formal connection between the scattered members of the great race; or, after due thought, they have abandoned all such ideas. At least, let us retain as long as possible the unity of the national spirit, and avoid the hasty and ignorant criticism and cold discourteous official intercourse which must end in alienating the affections of the offspring from the great modern mother of nations. The future both of parent and children must be affected by such an alienation.”

The Times described this letter as an able reply to its question “What can the colony of New Zealand want or expect from this country?” “Nevertheless, though we neither contradict nor disparage the pleas of our correspondent, we must avow our own persistence in the convictions we have expressed. It is not our duty nor is it in the interests of the colony, that we should take upon ourselves the protection of the colonial population.”

On January 21, 1869, a telegraphic message described the Poverty Bay massacre. “Men were burnt alive, children mutilated, and the dead bodies of women thrown to the pigs.” On January 22 The Times, in its first leading article, advocated the raising and officering of a well-trained native force, as the best method of bringing to an end “these otherwise interminable New Zealand wars.”

The Wellington correspondent of The Times, in a letter of December 8, printed on January 30, described the Poverty Bay massacre and the disastrous campaign on the West Coast, where the attack by Colonel Whitmore on the Okutuku pa had failed, every port north of Patea had been abandoned, and the Weraroa Redoubt, after being held against a Maori attack, also deserted. The correspondent referred to the successful campaign of General Chute who had handed the West Coast to the Government “with the natives thoroughly broken and admitting their defeat.” Then from one end of the colony to the other rose the cry for economy. “The self-reliant policy cost money.” The result was the inadequacy of the force maintained after the regular troops left. “The East Coast troubles arise in some measure out of the same economical policy—the miserable guard at the Chathams being perfectly useless.… It is not pleasant, after the almost defiant tone adopted towards the home country, to have to appeal for help, and I can easily understand how the ministry, having a political reputation to sustain, are averse to doing so even in the hour of bitter need. The colony, will, however, before long, learn a hard lesson on the evils of false economy. Our defence expenses just now must be something enormous.” They would be nearer, he thought, to £50,000 than £20,000 (the Government figure) a month.

Commenting on this letter in a leading article of February 2, 1869, The Times said: “As long as British troops were sent out to fight the natives, all went on comfortably, the Colonial Legislature had nothing to do but to vote thanks to the distinguished General, the gallant officers and men, and to extend to them and their naval brethren an agreeable hospitality. But no sooner is the system changed than the New Zealand public becomes singularly parsimonious in the matter of the Maoris.”

In a despatch of December 7, 1868, Bowen referred to the difficulty of securing a definite policy towards the Maoris “when almost every leading member of both Houses has a native policy of his own, and is swayed by various kinds of personal and local feelings and interests. A portion of the population of the Northern Island of New Zealand, under the pressure of the long-continued Maori War, and of the recent disasters, would regard with complacency the suspension of the existing constitution in this island, or, at least, a return to the system in force up to the year 1862, under which the Governor, directed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, possessed the control of native affairs….”

The main causes of the long continuance of the Maori War, he said, were generally believed to be: (A) The outbreak of the Hauhau fanaticism in connection with the national or, as it is termed, the “Native King Movement.”(B) The removal of the English regiments before any tender of submission was made by or any peace was ratified with the Maori King and the tribes which adhere to him.(C) The confiscation of a small portion of the territories of the Rebel natives.

Bowen, who stated that “at the Gate Pa, near Tauranga in 1864, the 43rd Regiment appears to have lost more officers than any single Regiment lost at Waterloo,”

Fortescue states that this assertion, often made, is incorrect.

proposed the following measures: “(1) the presence in addition to the Colonial Forces, of two battalions of the line, to be maintained on conditions equitable to the Mother Country and to the Colony; (2) the prohibition of fresh settlements in exposed and dangerous districts; (3) a peaceful arrangement not inconsistent with the suzerainty of the Queen, with the chosen chief of the Maoris.”

Lord Granville's comment was as follows: “Sir G. Bowen should be told that H.M. Government have no intention of permanently retaining any Imperial troops, but that as in the course of the present arrangements the regiment now in New Zealand will not be taken away till (query) May—this will obviate the possible bad moral effect upon the natives of a withdrawal immediately after the late defeat. Suggest for the consideration of the Governor and his Government whether a much more perfect organization might not be introduced as regards the Native Troops—a larger infusion of European officers.… Approve of restrictions on the too rapid advance of outlying settlements, and of renewing friendly relations with the Maori King.”

C.O. 209, 208.

In a despatch to Bowen, dated February 26, 1869, Lord Granville complained of insufficient information on the origin of the disturbances: “In the first place I find it said that the escape of the prisoners from the Chatham Islands is to be ascribed to the fact that they had been taken there with the expectation if not the promise that they should be brought back to New Zealand after a given time; that it was only after this expectation or promise was left unfulfilled that they made their escape, and that on their return to their country they did not offer any violence to the settlers till attempts were made to hunt them down. I find it also said that the disturbances on the West Coast arose from an arbitrary seizure of two natives as pledges or hostages for the return of two horses which were retaken by the natives after having been captured by General Chute.… I see it stated in the newspapers that you have offered a reward of £1,000 for the person of the Maori chief Tito Kowaru, I infer alive or dead, and £5 for the person of every Maori rebel brought in alive. I do not pronounce any opinion at present as to the propriety of these steps. But I must observe that they are so much at variance with the usual laws of war, and appear at first sight so much calculated to exasperate and extend hostilities that they ought to have been reported to me by you officially with the requisite explanation which I should now be glad to receive.”

C.O. 209, 208. Captain Gilbert Mair, writing to James Cowan in 1921, expressed the view that no charge against Te Kooti could have been substantiated in any Court prior to his deportation (Cowan, II, 225). The deportation “was a violation of all principles of justice.” (The Poverty Bay Massacre, thesis by Marjorie E. S. Black.) See also East Coast Historical Records (W. L. Williams), pp. 55–66.

Granville, in a note on the draft of the despatch, expressed this opinion: “I doubt Sir G. Bowen being a good man for this department.”

In replying to this despatch, Bowen enclosed a memorandum by Stafford, dated May 21, 1869, in which he quoted the following from a speech of W. E. Gladstone, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, in Parliament on July 14, 1864: “He did not see how England could with justice throw the whole responsibility of the war on the colony. The Home Government had approved it and were so far responsible for it.” Stafford justified the offer of £1,000 rewards for the capture of Titokowaru and Te Kooti. “Their atrocities,” he said, “are happily as exceptional as the course adopted with a view to their punishment…. Every atrocity of the Sepoy rebellion has been paralleled and outdone in the burnings, raids, violations, tortures, murders, and cannibalism of the last nine months in New Zealand and with less provocation or excuse.”

William Rolleston, Under-Secretary for Native Affairs, stated that the Native Office contained no record of any promise made to the natives sent to the Chatham Islands that they should be released in a given time.

Cf. Sir Edward Stafford: A Memoir, by Edward Wakefield, who ascribes the failure to answer Te Kooti's request to be allowed to return to New Zealand to “a fatal blunder, for which Mr. Rolleston, Under-Secretary for Native Affairs, was solely responsible.” See also Whitmore, op. cit. He ascribes the disaster at Poverty Bay to the “absolute and stolid apathetic indifference” of Donald Maclean (Government Agent) to the fate of the settlement (p. 67).

He quoted a letter of Donald Maclean dated January 7, 1868: “I have come to the conclusion that a general amnesty would be a danger to the peace of the country.”

C.O. 209, 211.

But Rolleston's own report of his visit to the Chatham Islands, dated February 3, 1868, shows that he did release eight men—a fact which naturally tended to increase the impatience of those left behind. Moreover, Rolleston commented on the “unsatisfactory character of the military guard,” members of which had figured “rather as a public nuisance than as a protection or example of discipline and order to the community.” The sick natives unanimously maintained that they were neglected, and altogether there was abundant reason to expect trouble.

When the storm of Te Kooti's vengeance did break, the country's forces were insufficient in numbers and training to cope with him. In a memorandum of November 24, 1868, Colonel Whitmore wrote: “Our advantage may be stated to consist in our command of steam transport, more perfect armament, and the electric telegraph—our weakness consisting in our position on the circumference of the island, the property we have at stake, our newspapers, our women, and our want of training. The enemy's disadvantages are imperfect armament, difficulty of communication, tribal jealousies, dormant perhaps now, but which must impair their federation (notwithstanding recent successes), and limitation in numbers. His advantages consist in his central position, his practical facility for concealing his plans, the terror his cruelties and atrocities inspire, and the plunder he must acquire at every step. It is a hopeless notion that once predatory bands are out the presence of any force can practically protect homesteads or stock.” Whitmore proposed the removal of the constabulary from the Wanganui district to attack Te Kooti and expressed confidence that a force of 350 men could defeat him. “His momentary successes have been gained over very contemptible forces. He was very nearly beaten at Ruakituri by 50 armed constabulary and some 25 untrained volunteers who mostly ran away, and 40 Napier natives, 12 or 15 of whom stood, to my very great surprise.”

Ibid., 208.

Bowen, in a despatch of December 18, forwarded a letter from Titokowaru to Whitmore, in which he said: “Away with you from our country to your own country in the midst of the ocean.” Bowen wrote: “It is unfortunately impossible to disguise the fact that during the last two or three years, and especially since the removal of the regular troops from all share in active operations in the field, the war is becoming, so far at least as regards a large portion of the natives, not only a struggle of race against race, but also a deadly contest between, on the one hand, the rekindled passions of heathenism and cannibalism and, on the other, Christianity and civilization.”

C.O. 209, 208.

On January 10, 1869, Bowen reported the fall of Te Kooti's stronghold Ngatapa on January 5. He forwarded a despatch from Major Mair about the activities of Te Kooti, founded on an account by Wi Pere, a Turanga chief who had escaped. “Government” natives were put to death without trial. About 120 Maoris were killed at Ngatapa and 80 prisoners taken, mainly women and children.

The Maori death-roll is estimated by Cown at 136, “of whom 120 were summarily executed after capture” by order of Ropata, leader of the Ngati-Porou native contingent—“the most vigorous and successful of all the Maori officers who served the Government” (Cowan, II, pp. 268–74). See also Whitmore, op. cit., pp. 83–4, and G. Hamilton Browne, With the Lost Legion in New Zealand, pp. 286–315. Of Ropata's execution of the prisoners Browne writes: “You must remember… we were fighting without gloves, and that it was war to the knife.” New of Whitmore's victory, telegraphed from Colombo, was announced in Parliament on February 26.

The attacking forces lost 11 killed and wounded. “Te Kooti shot the most influential of his prisoners and escaped down the cliff, which could not be prevented, owing to the cliff being so very high and steep, and as my force was insufficient to entirely surround the hill, I had trusted to keep the lower side safe. The women were first lowered, then followed Te Kooti himself, wounded in the shoulder. Defeated, twice wounded, a fugitive and failing in his prophecies, he is not likely again to trouble the district, or assemble a fresh band of assassins, even should he survive the hardships before him, or escape the vengenance of the Urewera upon an impostor. Thus the murders of our unfortunate countrymen and their helpless children have been avenged on the spot chosen as the strongest in a very rugged forest country by the wretches who perpetrated these crimes.”

C.O. 209, 210.

In a letter of January 18, 1869, published on March 22, The Times Wellington correspondent wrote that in the capture of Ngatapa Colonel Whitmore was assisted by a fine body of 60 Arawas, under a European officer. “The Ngatiporous, comprising the remainder of the natives, were under their own chiefs, and, with no present idea of the value of ‘push,’ were coming up leisurely.”

“Oh! the delays and vexations” (writes one of the officers) “attendant on employing native allies. East Coast or West Coast, they are all alike, and many a commanding officer has seen his best plans thwarted by the non-fulfilment of their engagements. By themselves, or detribalized—i.e. enlisted, and serving under European officers, like Gundry's Arawas—they can be relied on; but under their chiefs the relative position of the moon and a star, the shape of the clouds, the direction of the wind, a dream, may upset all the arrangements. It is too bad to watch Te Kooti's men strengthen their works, and to know that the whole of yesterday was most probably spent in listening to long sermons from Moses!”

Commenting on the victory on March 23, The Times said that if the outcry raised in the first moment of panic had been listened to, half a dozen regiments would have been sent to New Zealand only to find the whole work done by a single battalion of natives enlisted on the spot.

The Times correspondent in a letter of February 16, published on April 18, 1870, described an interview between Te Kooti and J. C. Firth at the monument the latter had erected on his run in memory of William Thompson. Firth gave this account of Te Kooti: “His height is about 5 feet 9 inches; he is about 35 years of age, stoutly built, broad shoulders and strong-limbed. His features are not repulsive; a rather large development of jaw and chin conveys the idea of a strong and resolute will. He has no tattoo; hair black and glossy; wears a black moustache and short black beard. His dress consisted of woollen cords, top boots and grey shirt; over the latter he wore a loose vest, with gold chain and greenstone ornament. I noticed that he had lost the middle finger of his right hand.”

Cf. J. H. Kerry Nicholls, The King Country, 1884, pp. 334-5. By this time Te Kooti's beard “appeared to be prematurely grey.” “He had a decidedly intelligent cast of countenance in which the traits of firmness and determination appeared to be strongly marked.”

Te Kooti declined to surrender and said: “If they will let me alone, I will live quietly; if not, I will fight.”

Chapter 16A Critical Year

The New Zealand crisis of 1868 and 1869 has been described as “the most critical of all in the years when the permanence of Empire seemed to be seriously at stake,”

Folsom, The Royal Empire Society, p. 29.

and we have now to trace its development.

Sir George Bowen, in a despatch of January 7, 1869, wrote: “A large portion of the British population of the Northern Island of New Zealand (in which alone there is danger of the Maoris), attribute to the action of Parliamentary Government many of the difficulties of dealing with the native race, and desire the suspension, so far as that island is concerned, of the existing constitution, in order that the management of native affairs and of the Colonial Forces may be again (as before 1862) placed under the personal control of the Governor, directed by the Secretary of State.” He forwarded expressions in favour of this view by Sir David Monro, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and against it by J. E. FitzGerald, the originator and principal supporter “of what is called here ‘the self-reliant policy.’”

Parts of these communications are given after Bowen's summary.

“Both the professed friends and the professed opponents of the so-called ‘self-reliant policy’ equally cry aloud for help from the Mother Country,” wrote Bowen. “Mr. FitzGerald and the former party ask for ‘money,’ while Sir David Monro and the latter party ask for ‘men.’ … The politicians who think with Sir David Monro argue that they, and not the politicians, who think with Mr. FitzGerald, are truly ‘self-reliant,’ inas-much as they are ready to pay liberally for the additional troops which they consider absolutely necessary. They further affirm that experience, here and elsewhere, tends to show that a really effective colonial force cannot be created without a nucleus of regularly trained officers and soldiers.… In common with all the leading public men of the colony I am convinced that it is of vital importance to endeavour to come to a peaceful understanding not inconsistent with the sovereignty of the Queen, with the so-called Maori King, by which title his adherents appear to mean nothing more than great chieftain and magistrate, analogous to the semi-independent Rajah of British India.” Replying on March 29, 1869, Lord Granville approved the policy pursued towards the Maori King, but affirmed that the Home Government would not resume the responsibility of the control of native affairs.

C.O. 209, 210.

In his letter, dated November 21, 1868, and published in the Nelson Examiner, Sir David Monro wrote that after the New Zealand Parliament had disapproved (by his casting vote) of the transfer of the control of native affairs to the colony, the Home Government had declined to resume control. “It was quite clear that the Home Government, which had up to that time declared that it could not consistently with honourable engagements hand over the natives to the management of the colonists, had suddenly discovered that these binding engagements were not of so binding a nature as it had at one time supposed, and was prepared to transfer them, accompanied by their liabilities, to another party who had not expressed their willingness to adopt them.… To myself individually the demand for the Colonial management of native affairs always appeared inadvisable. I could not see that it was at all calculated to place either the colonists or the natives in a better position, while it was certain to demand from the colony an amount of labour, responsibility and expense, which I consider would be beyond its resources. And another fatal objection to the Colonial management of native affairs was this—that the position of the colony towards the native owners of the soil was such that the operations of the Colonial Government, however just or generous they might be (and I am proud to say that they have been both), would always expose it to inevitable misrepresentation and suspicion. The despatches of the Secretaries of State, the discussions in the British Parliament, the letters of the various military officers within the colony, the manifestos of the clerical party and the general character of the articles of the English Press, exhibit a uniformity of tone evidently founded upon a belief that, as New Zealand contains a certain number of their fellow-countrymen who have settled there, and at the same time a certain number of Aborigines possessed of the fee simple of the land, the first and great object of the former would be, without any reference to justice or decency, to obtain possession of the latter.

“I said last year that I could understand one Government for the colony, or I could understand nine Governments for the colony, but that I could not understand how the two things could co-exist. The experience of the last session in our Parliament has been a pretty commentary upon this view of the case. What has it really been but a chapter of bloodless civil war, in which the weapons were resolutions instead of swords and muskets? And what was the spectacle which the action of the House of Representatives offered to the country? Two parties almost equally balanced, each claiming under the Constitution Act a certain position and grumbling like a couple of cull-dogs on the floor of the House, the unhappy country in the meantime going to the wall.… I will go further than merely asking the Home Government to resume to itself the control of native affairs. The country is, in my opinion, in most imminent danger, and likely to be so for a considerable time. I would ask Her Majesty to send out a Commission to inquire into the state of the colony, and to report to her upon it; and I would ask her to clothe that Commission with the most ample powers. I should like to see it suspend the Constitution Act in the North Island and to assume the position and vigour of a dictator. It is no time when armed bands of murderers are marching through a country and the flames of blazing homesteads are reddening the skies, for a discordant Parliament to be wrangling and coming to no results.”

C.O. 209, 210.

In his letter published in The Independent, Wellington, J. E. FitzGerald wrote: “It is notorious that the native war was most unpopular with the army under General Cameron. It is notorious that the tone adopted by the officers was frequently one of contempt for the colonists and disgust at the service in which they were engaged. We have not forgotten the letters which were written by officers to their friends in England, which found their way into the English newspapers, were noticed in Parliament, and became the subject of angry correspondence between the Colonial and Imperial Government.… I have been deeply pained to read from time to time in the newspapers of the colony proposals which raise a blush of shame in the cheek of every Englishman. To offer rewards for heads—to employ bloodhounds—to make no prisoners—and such like, are to use the weapons and to adopt the morals of savages.… England is bound, by every motive which can influence a great empire, to help us in our present strait. But the way she can help us is by money and arms….”

C.O. 209, 210.

On January 28, 1869, The Times contained an account of a complimentary dinner to William Fitzherbert, Colonial Treasurer, held at St. James's Hall, London, on the previous evening. Sir George Grey was in the chair and Lord Granville, Secretary of State for the Colonies, was present. Others who attended were W. Monsell, Under-Secretary, Major Atkinson, C. W. Dilke, M.P., Mr. Justice Chapman, Sir C. Clifford, F. A. Weld, J. Logan Campbell, and Henry Sewell.

Major Atkinson, responding to the toast of the Army, Navy, and Volunteers, said that the volunteers would value the compliment paid to them that evening, “because much had been said and written in England which might lead people to think that the colonists were fighting an unjust cause.” Not-withstanding the late disasters, he was firmly convinced that the colonists were capable of taking care of themselves.

Fitzherbert in his speech said: “Remembering what sacrifice England had recently made to liberate some 20 Europeans from captivity in Abyssinia, he would never believe that she would remain indifferent to the agony of a young colony where not only men but women and children were exposed to the brutal tortures of the cruel Maoris.”

Lord Granville read a telegram received that afternoon to the effect that the rebels responsible for the Poverty Bay massacre had been defeated in two engagements with severe loss. He said he felt sure that the people of England would all feel the greatest sympathy with the colonists, not only on the misfortune which had befallen them but also in the steady, steadfast determination and self-reliance they were already exhibiting in confronting it.

The Times, in its first leading article on January 29, said: “However abundant may be the news, and however urgent the political questions at home, we never need offer an apology for calling attention to the colony of New Zealand. That young settlement, the little Benjamin of the Anglo-Saxon family, has always been a favourite with the English public.” After referring to the history of the colony and the generosity of the mother-country to it, the article proceeded: “We cannot therefore encourage the hopes which animated Mr.Fitzherbert's speech at the New Zealand dinner on Wednesday.… We have paid far more than enough for New Zealand, and our people will rather be disposed to approve the sentiments of Major Atkinson who is ‘firmly convinced that the colonists are capable of taking care of themselves.’ … This is the manly tone in which we desire to hear men of our race speak; and it is satisfactory to find that Lord Granville did not commit the Home Government to any other policy than that which has recently received the approval of the country.… The greater the efforts of the colonists to merit Lord Granville's eulogies, the stronger will be that sympathy which is asked of the English public.” The Times went on to notice once more the disparity of numbers between the colonists and the disaffected Maoris.

Lord Granville's after-dinner speech and eulogy of the colonists did not alter the tone of his correspondence with the New Zealand Government, for it was on March 21, 1869, that he wrote the despatch which was to cause controversy by its curt rejection of the proposal for a fresh loan to the colony of £1,500,000. Granville asserted that the Home Government, after a number of Englishmen, “without any invitation or encouragement” from that Government, had taken on themselves to form settlements in New Zealand, “never at any time attempted to make New Zealand tributary to Great Britain or to direct local affairs in such a way as to produce any political or pecuniary advantage to this country.” Granville further asserted that a great part of the Imperial expenditure in the colony “might be regarded as the price paid by this country for the territories which have been recently, and as I think unwisely, appropriated by them, and lastly that no part of the colonial expenditure has been in any degree for the benefit of the Mother Country.

“So far therefore as there is any equitable claim remaining unsettled, it is not a claim on the part of New Zealand against Great Britain but the reverse—a claim, and, if it were thought proper to urge it, a very heavy claim on the part of the Mother Country against the colony.” Granville concluded by expressing the view that “the present dangers of New Zealand are not due to the punctual performance of their obligations to the Maori race, but rather to their adoption of a policy which, if not inconsistent with those obligations, was certain to appear so to the natives affected by it.”

C.O. 406, 25.

Strongly worded though this communication was, it was reinforced by a confidential despatch to the Governor on March 25. In this Granville expressed the opinion that Bowen had “not wholly apprehended that view of the question which is entertained by Her Majesty's Government,” and warned him that arguments founded on a different view of the relations between Great Britain and New Zealand were “not likely to have any material weight in determining the conduct of the Government of this country.”

Granville's plain words caused a storm among the New Zealand colonists in London, but as we shall see later,

P. 370.

they caused less commotion in the colony itself. The Secretary of State's view of the confiscation policy was shared by many in New Zealand, and doubts about its success had been expressed by The Press, Christchurch, on January 13, 1869: “Ten thousand of the best troops in the world … could not maintain peace against a policy of occupying confiscated lands by outlying settlers against the will of the natives. If every owner of twenty acres on the frontier of a hostile territory is to be maintained in his possession by force of arms, New Zealand must become a second Algeria.”

On February 12 Bowen reported the evacuation by Titokowaru on February 3 of his formidable pa at Taurangaika near Nukumaru,

The plan of the pa is shown in the illustration facing p. 352.

on the west coast, and also the pas of Weraroa and Okotuku. In a despatch of April 20, 1869, Lord Granville took exception to the reported offer by J. C. Richmond, Minister of Defence, of a reward of £50 for the head of Nikora, £500 for that of Te Kooti, and £1 per head for any of the others.

C.O. 209, 210.

On February 22, 1869, Bowen reported the murder on February 13 of the Rev. John Whiteley, the well-known Wesleyan missionary, Lieut. Gascoyne, his wife and three children, and two other settlers at White Cliffs, thirty miles from New Plymouth.

The Wellington correspondent of The Times in a letter of March 12, published on May 17, wrote: “Matters are daily getting worse and worse, and the good hope with which the colony was inspired when Ngatapa was captured is again in danger of becoming despondent, the rebellion having spread in such a way as to indicate the necessity of coping with it, no longer at one point at a time, but on all sides at once. Te Kooti has turned up without loss of prestige on the east coast. Tito Kowaru's followers have succeeded in shooting seven out of a foraging party of ten constabulary, and are baffling every effort to discover their whereabouts; a duplicate of the Poverty Bay massacre has occurred but on a smaller scale, at Taranaki, where eight Europeans have been murdered,

Rev. John Whiteley and others. See above.

and great excitement is now being manifested in the Waikato, obliging some settlers to remove, and redoubts to be put into a state of preparation for refuge and defences. As the Home Government has, however, at the last moment, revoked by telegraph the instructions despatched by mail to remove the one regiment stationed here, our position is not so bad as a fortnight ago we had every reason to expect it would have been by this time.” In a leading article on May 18 The Times yet again recited the story of the disparity in numbers between Maoris and settlers, and added: “Our New Zealand colonists do not pretend for a moment they are too weak or too few to compete with the savages around them. They are only too rich and too busy.”

On March 11, 1869, Bowen forwarded a ministerial memorandum inquiring on what conditions a portion of Her Majesty's

Plan Of Tauranga-Ika Pa, West Coast, North Island This pa was abandoned when attacked by the Colonial Force under Colonel Whitmore on February 3, 1869. The plan was enclosed in the Governor's despatch of March 29 (House of Commons Return—New Zealand—Part I—July 8, 1869) [Printed by permission of the Controller of H.M. Stationery Office regular troops might be retained in New Zealand. In the memorandum Stafford asked for information on the following points: (1) Will one regiment be allowed to remain if the Legislature bind itself to accept the conditions specified in Lord Carnarvon's despatch No. 49 of December 1, 1866, namely, that the grant of £50,000 per annum for native purposes be continued? (2) If not, then what payment per head for each officer and man would be required; and could more than one regiment be left if paid for by the colony? (3) If troops are retained, could they, when directed by the Governor, be employed in active service in the field to suppress insurrections? (4) If not allowed to be employed in the field, would they be allowed to occupy in sufficient numbers positions to act as supports to colonial outposts though not required to take part in active operations, and would the Governor be empowered to determine at what posts they should be stationed? (5) If full discretion is not allowed to the Governor, might troops be stationed at such of the following posts as he might indicate—namely, Auckland, New Plymouth, Wanganui, Wellington, Napier, Tauranga, Ngaruawahia, Taupo, Patea; and what would be the minimum strength of a detachment stationed at any of the four places?

Sir F. Rogers made this comment: “The effect of asking these questions unaccompanied by any intimation of the policy of the N.Z. Govt. is to secure, or almost so, that the Regt. will remain (say 6 months) while the questions are under discussion.… On the one hand it may be said that Tawhiao with his 10,000 or 15,000 fighting men will by the removal of the troops be encouraged to declare himself and would ravage the whole Northern Island, massacring and expelling the settlers. On the other hand the following dangers are to be avoided: “(1) That the settlers are encouraged in the extravagant notion of subduing the natives—holding confiscated lands—exercising authority over the Maori King, and so on; (2) that the Home Government is entangled as principal in a fresh Maori War if it takes the conduct of affairs; (3) that the troops are sacrificed, the officers involved in barbarous modes of warfare, and the commanding officer engaged in continual quarrels with the Governor and Government of the colony if the Imperial Government is only auxiliary and subordinate.”

The alternatives, he stated, were: (1) To withdraw the troops relentlessly, though it may be with a little delay.… (2) To take the war on our backs and send out troops in plenty and a military officer to replace Sir G. Bowen as Governor—requiring from the Colonial Government certain assistance and absolute submission in military matters to our officer.… (3) To retain in the colony a small number of troops to garrison certain towns.

“I should be disposed to number (3). If a harsher tone were taken it would perhaps require to be supported by saying that it was not a mere matter of money—but a difference of policy which led to this course;—that to enforce the submission of the Maori nation involved evidently a protracted war pregnant with calamity to both races, that so long as the colonists entertained the notion of enforcing that submission no real progress could be made towards a peaceful solution of the present difficulties, and that the offer of assistance from the Mother Country only encouraged them in holding an untenable position and delaying those overtures for compromise in which, if made seriously in good faith, and with the admission that large concessions had become necessary, the best hope of avoiding great disasters was to be found.”

Lord Granville's minute was: “I see nothing in these papers to induce me to change the policy which has already been decided upon.… In mere guerilla warfare the regulars are not much superior to the local forces. Such a war would be conducted at a great disadvantage either by a joint command or by an Imperial officer, who might not have the confidence of the local Government. Please send the papers by messenger to Mr. Gladstone at Hawarden, who will have time to inform you by telegraph if he thinks my despatch should be sent.”

Gladstone's verdict was: “I agree with the draft despatch. Mr. Stafford's memorandum is like that of one who either seeks to gain time by communications during which he reckons on the retention of the troops, or who has no strong sense of the necessity of troops, at all. Did he think it a question of the safety of the Colony, he would not bargain about terms for the moment but leave them to be settled. The confused state of the executive instructions seems to require notice and rec- tification. Without this I do not see that the troops are likely to come away, notwithstanding the despatch from C.O.”

Cardwell, the Secretary of State for War, agreed with the course proposed. He wrote from Plymouth on May 20: “Ever since I have known N.Z. affairs I have been convinced that the policy of the colonists would result in making the ejected Maoris ‘a desperate banditti,’ and would leave the new settlers exposed to their vengeance as soon as the troops should be withdrawn. Especially was this evident when the Waikato campaign and the Taranaki campaign were resolved upon for the purpose of seizing fertile districts far in advance of our occupation. The Taranaki campaign was undertaken after the colony, at Mr. Weld's instance, had adopted the policy of self-reliance, and had demanded the withdrawal of the troops. It led to the quarrel between Grey and Cameron. I refer to this because I have no doubt we shall have to justify ourselves in Parliament—and I am confident that my first despatch (April 1864) and each subsequent one, when occasion required, contain a full expression of these views and threw the whole responsibility of extension, and the liability to afford protection entirely upon the colonists.… A series of massacres in New Zealand now would be seized upon by our opponents in Parliament, some discredit would be thrown upon the general policy of self-reliance, and our withdrawal of the troops from Canada retarded.… I have written to Lugard to make our instructions follow your lead.”

C.O. 209, 210.

The despatch to Bowen in reply to Stafford's memorandum was dated May 21, 1869: “I have failed to find in it any basis upon which to change the policy which after the rejection by the Government of New Zealand of Lord Carnarvon's proposal had been adopted by my predecessors and myself.”

On March 11 Bowen forwarded a ministerial minute on the Confiscation policy: “The present Government is of opinion that it would be impolitic to attempt to extend settlements in distant or isolated parts of the confiscated lands, and further that it has had for some time under consideration the policy of extending the liberality which has already been shown to the natives who have been dispossessed of portions of their lands as a consequence of previous aggression on their part.” Sir F. Rogers wrote: “It is a minute issued some two or three years too late.”

C.O. 209, 210.

Te Kooti raided Whakatane in March 1869. The Hauhaus murdered several settlers but lost 45 men in an attack on the pa called Rauporoa on the Whakatane River. The pa was held by friendly natives, most of whom managed to escape.

In a letter to the Secretary of State for the Colonies on March 15 J. C. Firth wrote from Auckland: “The colonists of New Zealand contemplate the possibility of a rupture of their connection with the mother-country as a bitter and cruel necessity. In such a case they will at least have the melancholy satisfaction that these alternatives will have been forced upon them by the policy of your predecessors, which is represented by a section of the English Press as having the deliberate approval of the people of England.”

Ibid., 211.

Dr. I. E. Featherston, Superintendent of Wellington, was strongly opposed both to the policy of “confiscation” and “self-reliance.” In his speech at the opening of the Provincial Council session (forwarded in Bowen's despatch of April 9, 1869), he said: “The colony challenges a large portion of the native race, almost invites them into rebellion, and at the same time disarms itself—strips itself of all means of defence—places itself at the mercy of a half civilized people keenly smarting under the loss of their lands. This may be called a policy, but it is the policy of the suicide. It would indeed have been strange had the Maoris resisted such temptation or rather invitation—not attempted to regain possession of the lands. … We have sustained a succession of defeats without a single defensive blow having been struck by our Colonial Forces—however gallantly they may in some instances have behaved—sufficient in any material degree to detract from the prestige of victory implanted on the rebel standards. We may gleam what is the opinion of the state of affairs on the East Coast of those most competent to judge from the simple fact that the Superintendent of Hawke's Bay deemed it necessary to prevent a body of allies, under orders to proceed to the West Coast, leaving the province. Neither must we ignore the fact that there is a greater amount of discontent, distrust and hostility amongst the natives than ever existed before—that day by day a larger portion of the race is becoming disaffected—that even those tribes which hitherto have been and still are loyal, and who on many occasions have nobly fought our battles, are becoming disheartened and discouraged by the reverses which have befallen our arms, and so doubtful about the ultimate issue of the struggle that they are seriously asking themselves why they should be involved in it. Let such a feeling take possession of them, and I need not say that it will be most unwise to depend upon them as permanent allies. Then if these murders continue—and as long as such fiends as Te Kooti, Tito Kowaru, and others are at large, there is no reason to believe that they will not—what becomes of the outlying districts if they are all involved in the same ruin which has already overtaken some? What becomes of the towns? Where will this colony of the North Island be?. … My own opinion is that if this island is to be rescued from almost utter destruction, there must be an almost entire reversal of the past policy, and an immediate application for the Imperial troops on the terms offered by the Imperial authorities.”

On March 26, 1869, the New Zealand Advertiser, Wellington, wrote: “The Queen's speech in opening the reformed Parliament, reiterates with the courtesy to be expected in a manifesto of the Government of Mr. Gladstone, the cardinal idea which was conveyed with the perfection of official rudeness in the first despatch bearing Lord Granville's signature as Secretary of State for the Colonies. The despatch, a production doubtless of some sour doctrinaire of the Colonial Office, ruling from behind his official screen, must be read as conveying in ungracious terms the resolve of the new Ministry that among its economies one of the first and least debateable is the repudiation of all liability for the defence of the colonies. Language could not be plainer or more ungracious. … We are prepared to justify the British Government in the line of policy they are adopting towards us, if only their decisions are conveyed in terms not studied to offend—if, in short, the Minister for the Colonies will take the trouble to read the documents laid before him by his subordinates before signing them.”

There should not be wanting evidence in this volume to prove that successive Secretaries of State not only read the despatches they signed about New Zealand but had a considerable share in framing them. Lord Granville, as we have seen, went out of his way, on assuming office, to declare his approval of his predecessor's policy. The Colonial Office despatches were for the most part politely expressed and they can stand comparison with the memoranda of the New Zealand ministers.

In a confidential despatch of July 15, 1869 (printed for Parliament on April 8, 1870), Granville informed Bowen that he had requested the Admiralty to instruct commanding officers of H.M. ships cruising near New Zealand to shew themselves for the present as much as possible on the coasts of the North Island. “Although no force is to be landed from H.M.'s ships for any ordinary operations of war, the officers in command will be instructed that in the case—I hope very improbable—of any great disaster, they are to take such steps as may be necessary to save the lives and properties of Europeans in the maritime settlements. I wish you to consider this despatch as very confidential and not to be communicated to your advisers at present.”

In his letter to the Admiralty, dated July 6, Sir F. Rogers had written: “Lord Granville does not propose to inform the Governor of New Zealand that these orders have been issued and he would suggest that they should be strictly confidential.” On July 15 it was stated that on further consideration Lord Granville had decided to inform the Governor very confidentially of the instructions which had been given.

In a despatch of May 2, 1869, Bowen reported that though Te Kooti had made a fresh raid on the East Coast, the result of the meeting of the King natives in the Upper Waikato appeared to be very satisfactory. The meeting, attended by 1,700 armed men and 3,500 people in all, took place on April 26. The speeches of King Tawhiao (though as usual ambiguous) and Rewi were pacific in tone. Te Kooti's men had made a descent from the mountains near Lake Waikaremoana, surprised a small settlement at the mouth of the Mohaka River, and treacherously murdered seven Europeans, including J. M. P. Lavin, a Justice of the Peace and officer of militia, his wife and three children, and 57 natives, mainly women and children. Colonel Whitmore was pursuing Te Kooti into the Urewera country.

In his speech, delivered by commissioners at the opening of the session of the New Zealand Parliament for 1869, the Governor said: “The conquest of a permanent peace will require an exceptional expenditure beyond what is advisable to levy in the shape of annual revenue, and a portion of it should be provided for by loan. An application for a guarantee to such loan has been made to the British Government. You will probably believe that the condition of the country requires a renewal of the application, and justifies the hope that the last prayer of the colony to the Mother Country will not be rejected.” Some exception was taken to the tone of portions of the speech by Colonial Office officials, but Lord Granville decided that it would be better to take no notice.

The Times correspondent in a letter of May 15, published on July 12, 1869, said: “The whole island is more or less in a state bordering on bankruptcy, population leaving, property reduced immensely, capital and enterprise scared. No wonder we are looking eagerly to the home country for help, and that the Press, with few exceptions, comment bitterly on England's barren sympathy. I am aware that such comments are wholly unjustifiable all the while our own Ministry steadily refuses to ask for Imperial troops, and professes to treat Imperial help in that direction as interference. But, as we are so much worse off now than we were a year ago, as there seems so little prospect of making permanent headway, and as the cost is so immeasurably greater than we can bear, it will not be the fault of the Northern Island members if the self-reliant policy is not reversed at the approaching session of Assembly.”

The Times correspondent, in a letter published on August 9, criticized F. A. Weld's acceptance of the Governorship of Western Australia: “He was always regarded by his supporters as one of the most chivalrous men in the colony, while his opponents called him quixotic. Now, when the system of which he was the political sponsor is undergoing the experimentum crucis, had he thrown himself into the breach and re- turned to his post in New Zealand, he would have earned for himself the character which his friends had given him. Instead of this they see him at this crisis of their fate accept from the Colonial Office the government of the only surviving convict colony in these seas, and descend from the status of a colonial statesman, if not hero, to that of an employé in a remote dependency of the most insignificant calibre. What makes his defection the more painful is, that the last thing he appears to have done before receiving his appointment was to publish (in London) a pamphlet,

Notes on New Zealand Affairs (1869.)

detailing his former action as the father of self-reliance and urging the Imperial Government to leave the colony to its fate, and on no pretence to give it the assistance of a single soldier.… Whatever the wishes of the home economists may be, it is impossible that the Imperial Government can much longer withhold its assistance. Imperial troops can alone restore that security which is essential to the progress of the colony, and if the colony is willing to pay for them, why should not troops be granted to us, as they are to every other part of the British dominions? It is true that the Stafford Government have refused to ask for them on such terms, but it will have to be done, whether by Mr. Stafford or his successors.”

On July 1, 1869, Bowen reported that the Stafford ministry had been defeated on a vote of no-confidence by 40 votes to 29.

Cf. Edward Wakefield in Sir Edward Stafford: A Memoir: “The Poverty Bay massacre was a grievous blow to Mr. Stafford, and though he was in no way to blame for it, he suffered heavily in popularity and prestige.”

Fox became Premier, W. Gisborne Colonial Secretary, Julius Vogel Treasurer, Donald Maclean Native and Defence Minister, and F. D. Bell member without a department.

The Times on July 22, 1869, in a review of a Blue book issued by the Colonial Office on New Zealand affairs, referring to Grey's recall, said: “The circumstances…lifted him into the position of a martyr whose martyrdom was incurred in the service of the colony, and the colonial press, during his last few months of office, were more unanimous in his praise than they had been at any time during the many years of his terms of office.” The review described the “general retrogression in financial and commercial prosperity” in New Zealand and quoted the Lyttelton Times summary received by the latest mail: “Property steadily declines in value, old-established businesses are verging on ruin, and men are leaving our shores in utter despair.” The reviewer, however, saw “no reason to doubt the future of New Zealand.”

In a leading article on the debate in the House of Commons of July 22, The Times on July 23 said: “It is an unpleasant task to take the rigid and relentless side in such a question as this: so true indeed is this that we shall not be surprised if the later and sterner dogmas of the Colonial Office be abandoned and the settlers gratified with a modicum of Imperial assistance on their own terms. But, in justice to the English taxpayer, we must ask the legislature to be cautious in its liberality. Let it be remembered that the so-called ‘self-reliant policy’ came as much from the colonists as from the English public.” The Times recommended the colonists and their friends to study the speeches which Mr. Monsell and Sir C. Adderley, representing the two great parties in the country, made on this occasion. “Mr. Monsell dissipated the arguments used by the colonists to the effect that England had by past errors incurred an indefinite and insoluble debt to the settlers, and both gentlemen agreed in upholding the principle that the colony, in return for independence in its internal affairs, should defend itself from internal enemies.”

On July 28 The Times devoted its first leading article to the debate in the House of Lords on the previous day. The Bishop of Lichfield (Selwyn) spoke “manfully and feelingly” for the natives. “It is generally agreed, and the Bishop assents to the opinion that our practice of managing the Maoris from this side of the world, has been one of the greatest mistakes of our policy. Their destiny now is, for good or evil, in the hands of the European settlers.… It is to them, and not to us, that the pleadings of the Bishop should be addressed.”

Fox, in a memorandum of July 22, wrote: “The alarming news contained in the enclosed communications just received from Waikato and elsewhere of the arrival of Te Kooti and his armed band at Tokangamutu, the headquarters of the Maori King, and of the probability of a combined attack on the settled districts in the neighbourhood of Auckland, renders it imperative on his Excellency's responsible advisers to lay again before his Excellency an urgent representation of the disasters which the removal of the only Imperial Regiment in the colony at such a critical time would in all probability occasion…. For the first time, Te Kooti, the author of the massacre at Poverty Bay, and who for the last twelve months has been constantly engaged in every kind of atrocity on the East Coast, has visited the headquarters of the Maori King party. Titokowaru, who has been similarly engaged in ravages and atrocities on the West Coast, has been asked and is expected to join Te Kooti, in whose immediate vicinity he is at present. The King party has been for some time in an excited state, and the impression already produced by the advent of Te Kooti has resulted in their making cartridges and filling their cartouch-boxes. It may truly be said that a general rising of the Natives, and a special attack on the settled districts of Auckland, is trembling in the balance.”

C.O. 209, 212.

In another memorandum of July 23 Fox stated that the Legislature had pledged itself to pay whatever sum the Imperial Government might choose to impose as the condition of the temporary detention of the 18th Regiment. An Act “to make provision by law for the payment of Imperial Troops” was passed on August 6.

On August 14 General Chute wrote from Melbourne to the Under-Secretary of State for War that he had consented to retain the regiment, pending further instructions. He stated that Dr. Featherston, the Superintendent of Wellington, had arrived, “having been deputed by the New Zealand Government, at the desire of His Excellency the Governor, to urge upon me the imminent danger of a rising in the Waikato, and the necessity of retaining the 18th Regiment, and to furnish me with any information I might require.”

In his despatch of October 7 in reply, Lord Granville said that the Act and resolutions transmitted by Sir George Bowen in his despatch of August 5 did not correspond with his telegram of August 7 informing him that the General Assembly prayed for the retention of the 18th Regiment “as a garrison and moral support.”

On receipt of the telegram Granville had written to Sir F. Rogers from Walmer Castle, Deal: “I think we must harden our hearts” (C.O. 209, 212). See Egerton, British Colonial Policy, pp. 367, 393–6, for a description of Granville's attitude towards New Zealand affairs. He was “by birth and manner an aristocratic Whig, and by conviction a Manchester Radical.”

Granville stated that the objections to the maintenance of Imperial troops in New Zealand were overwhelming. “All experience and not least the experience of New Zealand itself, has shown the fatal consequences of carrying on war under a divided authority. It can but lead to continued differences, imperfect co-operation, interrupted enterprises, and the other evils which are alleged to have characterized the Maori War.… If the active employment of British troops in the colony in which responsible government has been established under ordinary circumstances is fraught with difficulties, it is still more objectionable when the presence of these troops is calculated to encourage the Colonial Government in a policy which the Home Government has always regarded as pregnant with danger. The present distress of the colony arises mainly from two circumstances: the discontent of the natives consequent on the confiscation of their land, and neglect of successive Governments to place on foot a force sufficiently formidable to overawe that discontent.… But the abandonment of land, the recognition of Maori authority, and the maintenance of an expensive force, however indispensable some or all of these may be, are distasteful remedies, which will not be resorted to while the Colony continues to expect assistance from this country, and a decision to supply the Colony even with the prestige of British troops, objectionable as I have shown it to be, on the grounds of practical principle, would in my view, be also immediately injurious to the settlers themselves as tending to delay their adoption of those prudent counsels on which, as I think, the restoration of the Northern Island depends. It is in no spirit of controversy that I make these remarks. I should not gratuitously have criticized the proceedings of the Colonial Government, who are entitled to the entire management of their own affairs. But this country is asked for assistance; it is asked for assistance to sustain a policy which it does not direct, and which it is not able to foresee. Upon such a state of facts many questions arise; and among them it becomes material to inquire whether that assistance is for the real advantage of those who seek it. Judging from the best materials at my command, I am satisfied that it is not so, and that it is not the part of a true friend of the colonists, by continuing a delusive shadow of support, to divert their attention from that course in which their real safety lies—the course of deliberately measuring their own resources, and, at whatever immediate sacrifice, adjusting their policy to them.” Granville reaffirmed his previous decision that the troops must be withdrawn, and concluded: “If these orders are now promptly executed, Her Majesty's Government will not exercise the powers vested in them by the recent Act of charging against the Colony the costs of the delay which has been incurred.”

On September 2, 1869, Bowen reported that a number of copies of the “protest” against the recent policy of the Colonial Office, published in England by Sir George Grey, Sir Charles Clifford, and other gentlemen connected with the colony had reached New Zealand and the protest had been reprinted, with approving comment, in most of the colonial journals. “It is with pain and sorrow that I am compelled to add, with reference to the concluding portion of the ‘Protest,’ that a portion of the local press openly advocate the annexation of this colony to the United States, contending that protection and allegiance are correlative terms, and that the central government at Washington would readily give the same sort of aid against the Maoris to this community, that it now gives against the Indians to the new territories on the west of the Mississippi, which may practically be regarded as colonies from the older states. This question has been mooted even in the Colonial Legislature. I am convinced, however, that the petulant discontent unhappily prevalent here, arises from private distress, the result of the severe commercial depression of the last three years, as much as from public dissatisfaction and injured pride, and that it will rapidly disappear if the advances towards a more cordial understanding with the Imperial authorities now made by the Ministry and Legislature of the colony are met (as I am confident they will be met) in a generous and gracious spirit. It will doubtless be felt on both sides (as it has been recently stated in England)

By the Saturday Review, see next page.

that, whatever may be the future political destiny of this portion of the British Empire, it would be a grave misfortune if American rancour against Great Britain were to extend to Australasia.”

C.O. 209, 213.

The signatories of the Protest published in London were Sir G. Grey, Sir Charles Clifford, Henry Sewell, H.A. Atkinson, and J. Logan Campbell. “We have regretted,” they said, “that for some time past each successive Secretary of State, on assuming the seals of the Colonial Department, has been led by wrong information to attach his name to some despatch, the allegation of which being erroneous, and the tone irritating, if not insulting, the Colonial Government has been forced into a position of hostility with the Colonial Minister; whilst it has always been the earnest desire of the colonists, in the most friendly and loyal spirit to aid that high officer in the discharge of his onerous and difficult duties … we declare with sorrow our conviction that the policy which is being pursued towards New Zealand will have the effect of alienating the affection of Her Majesty's loyal subjects in that country and is calculated to drive the colony out of the Empire.”

C.O. 209, 213.

W. Dealtry, in a Colonial Office minute on the reference to the Secretary of State being “led by wrong information to attach his name to some despatch,” wrote: “I am rather surprised at an old public servant like Sir George Grey endorsing the third paragraph.” Sir F. Rogers: “As to the erroneousness of the information, I imagine it refers to (1) Sir W. Hutt's statement as to the foundation of the colony—which has been examined.

Hutt, in The Times, June 3, 1869, contested Granville's statement that “a number of Englishmen” without invitation or encouragement from the British Government, “took on themselves to form a colony in New Zealand.” He asserted that the enterprise had received encouragement from Lord Normanby. Colonial Office action, however, was with-held, and “Mr. Somes, Mr. Gibbon Wakefield, another gentleman and myself determined to fit out an English expedition of our own. We subscribed £5,000 and chartered a ship which—oddly enough for a swift-going vessel—was called the Tory.” Hutt described the French plan and the project of convict colonization, revealed by the Journal du Havre. See England and New Zealand, chapter 5.

(2) The statement that the colonists did not wrest the Government of the natives from the Home Government but had it forced on them.” Sir Frederick proceeded to discuss the circumstances under which the control of native affairs was given up.

C.O. 209, 214.

Bowen forwarded as a specimen of Press comments the following from the Otago Witness: “The necessity for some sort of representation of colonial interests at home is specially noticeable in the case of New Zealand.… With the public opinion of the Mother Country deliberately set against us, it is not likely that we can shake the resolution of the Imperial Government to disregard our claims. One good result, however, may flow from the unpleasant conflict of opinion which is now at its height, between the Colony and the Imperial Government. The Colony may become convinced that its relations with the Mother Country must be placed on a very different footing or else abandoned. The absurdity as well as the iniquity of the present system is too great to last much longer.… Possibly it may be the policy of that (the Imperial) Government to reduce the dimensions of the British Empire, with a view to the concentration of its military force and the reduction of its expenditure. In that view of the case the concoction of such despatches as Earl Granville's is intelligible enough. No one can fail to notice that the tone of these documents is even more offensive than the subject-matter. They show no desire to conciliate the colonists; on the contrary, they suggest the idea that the writer is not unwilling to irritate them when an opportunity offers. ‘It would be a grave misfortune,’ says the Saturday Review, in an article on this despatch, ‘if American rancour against England were to extend to Canada, to Australia and to New Zealand.’ Should such a revolution take place, the historian will have no difficulty so far as New Zealand is concerned, in tracing its rise and progress.”

Ibid., 213.

In a letter of November 22, 1869, to Sir F. Rogers, Sir George Grey referred to the extreme cruelty to both races in New Zealand of the policy of attempting by the withdrawal of the troops to force recognition of the authority of the Maori King. “How that attempt can be called a recommendation I cannot understand. No language could have been more precise than that used in His Lordship's despatches.… I think it was impossible to use language more likely to embitter blood-thirsty native fanatics against the European race and to encourage them to renewed acts of violence against all of either race who cling affectionately to the sovereignty of the Queen of England.” Lord Granville declined to pursue the controversy.

Grey returned to the attack on December 20. He contended that “one General Officer and some few persons following his example had led a policy of violence in the country, committing acts of great violence against prisoners and secretly throwing the blame on other persons.” He asserted “that the Colonial Office concealed some of these acts, and facts connected with them, even from H.R.H. the Commander-in-Chief, and from the Governor and Civil Government of the country whose authority had been set at nought, and generally by such proceedings stamped them with its approval.” “The power,” Grey added, “has all been on your side, and I cannot but feel that it has enabled you for the moment to triumph over me. Nevertheless, I know that this triumph ought to be and will be but short-lived, and I indulge the hope that even your Lordship will before long admit that neither the Empire, New Zealand, the inhabitants of New Zealand, nor myself have in this case received just treatment from the Colonial Department, or at your hands.”

C.O. 209, 215.

Henry Sewell wrote to Lord Granville from 11 Gordon Street, Gordon Square, London, on June 17, 1869: “The withdrawal of the last regiment coupled with Lord Granville's despatch will, we may anticipate, lead to some distinct action on the part of the colony towards detaching itself from the Empire, preceded perhaps by some frantic appeals to you for help, on the part at least of the North Island, and which you will, consistently with your present policy, refuse to listen to. You have, in fact, resolved upon abandoning the colony. Failing the resources of the colony itself, in case of extreme peril, which is the case now alleged, I regard the obligation of the Mother Country to lend assistance to the Colony as flowing from the relation in which they stood to each other. That obligation you deny, and, in so doing, you do (according to my view) abandon the Imperial connection with the Colony.”

The letter was written after an interview with Lord Granville and W. Monsell, by Sir George Grey, Sewell, and others on behalf of New Zealand, on June 16.

C.O. 209, 215.

Sewell's state of feeling on the question of separation from the Empire may be compared with that of the Australiasian, Melbourne, which, on October 9, expressed the view that when a colony really wanted help in time of danger, the Colonial Office became indifferent whether it remained in the Empire.

Quoted in H. L. Hall, Australia and England, p. 105.

On September 3 Bowen reported by telegram that Dr. Featherston and Dillon Bell had been appointed Commissioners to the Imperial Government. In a despatch of the same day he stated that their duty would be to enter into an agreement for the employment of an Imperial force in New Zealand and also to organize a force for service under the Colonial Government. Lord Granville replied that he could not hold out hope of a change of decision in regard to the Imperial troops. The Government would, however, be pleased to assist the Commissioners in organizing a force. The Commissioners were to inquire, inter alia, whether Ghoorka Regiments or other bodies of disciplined men might be secured for duty under the Colonial Government. In a despatch of September 19 Bowen forwarded a memorandum by Fox on the visit of the Commissioners to England: “One great object … is the establishment of cordial relations between the Imperial and the Colonial Government, which appear to have been more or less disturbed by the manner in which the question of the maintenance of Imperial troops in the colony, and some other matters, have lately been discussed.” The Colonial Office instruction for the despatch in reply was: “Earnestly concur in the hope, etc.”

C.O. 209, 213.

Discussing the lack of success of the campaign against the Maoris carried out “at the instigation of Mr. Richmond, the Native Minister, and against the better judgment of Colonel Whitmore,” The Times on September 9 welcomed Fox's advent to office and the announcement of “a temperate and restrained native policy”: “Instead of fitting out expeditions to the heart of the island, composed of raw levies, liable to grow mutinous under mismanagement, Mr. Fox proposes to withdraw the constabulary from the interior, to weed them, and convert them, as far as possible, into a purely defensive force. He proposes the abandonment of advanced and isolated posts and of much of the confiscated land, and by these measures he hopes to reduce the native expenditure to a sum within the means of the colony, and far below a thousand pounds a day at which rate it is now running on. We believe this policy to be in every way the wisest and most attainable. It is, of course, still far from satisfactory that a great part of the North Island of New Zealand should be tacitly abandoned to natives among whom the Queen's writ does not run; but the surrender is only for the present.… New Zealand, now in its extremity compelled to a safe and humble policy, can hardly adopt its extremity compelled to a safe and humble policy, can hardly adopt it without some regret and self-accusation. She certainly has not the consolation of having spilt her blood and spent her money to much advantage since she first undertook the entire conduct of her own affairs, and can only feel mortified that both have been squandered with a blundering profusion.… We have no wish to be hard on the colony; we must remember that it was the theatre not so very long ago of some very bungling Imperial campaigns, and the Mother Country has little cause to underrate the difficulties of a native war; but we did think, when the departure of the troops was speeded with such indignant invectives on their cost and incapacity, that the experience of the colonists was worth more than it has proved to be, and that they would be wise enough to enter on the practice of a judicious economy, not of the penny-wisdom and pound-foolishness into which they soon deviated.”

The despatch of Bowen of August 5, 1869, concerning the removal of the last of the troops in the midst of the crisis due to the actions of Te Kooti, was published in The Times on October 12. It was the subject of the first leading article on October 14, and Lord Granville's refusal to grant Imperial troops was approved. “We think New Zealand will in no very long time hence allow that Lord Granville has never been more kind than in this act of seeming sternness.”

Cf. J. W. Fortescue, in History of the British Army, XIII, p. 513: “The Governor, a pusillanimous old pedant, shrieked to England for help, and the whole colony cried out against the removal of the Eighteenth.… This Governor was more frightened than anyone. He actually descended to write foreboding of horrors that would compare with those at Delhi and Cawnpore, and to forward extracts from colonial newspapers which advocated annexation of New Zealand to the United States. But no pathetic periods of his quaking Excellency could move the hard heart of the Imperial Government.” The reflection on the Governor's courage seems scarcely justified, and he would have been failing in his duty if he had not kept the Home Government informed of public opinion on annexation to the United States. In a private letter to W. Dealtry, on April 13, 1869, Bowen wrote: “I am considered by all competent judges on the spot to have greatly under-rated the dangers which threatened this colony” (C.O. 209, 210).

The Times correspondent, in a letter from Wellington on September 4, 1869 (published on November 2), said: “We were surprised to learn by the last mail what a hubbub the publication of Lord Granville's despatch of the 21st of March had occasioned among the friends of the colony in London. No one took any particular notice of it when published here. We have got so accustomed to this kind of despatch that we regard them as a matter of course; thanks to our London friends notwithstanding. We are truly grateful for the good offices of the London committee, and the Press throughout the colony has not been slow in saying so; but I think we take a juster view of these despatches than our friends do. They lay the blame on the Home Government for not helping us, while we wonder that the Home Government has, under the circumstances, helped us so long. For the last three years England has been told by the late Colonial Ministry that we did not want her troops, or that, if we did, we did not want them sufficiently to pay for them. If under the reversal of that policy by the Fox Ministry our earnest appeal for aid should now be made to a deaf Throne, then such despatches might well create surprise and consternation.”

In a letter to The Times of November 3, 1869, Lord Carnarvon dealt with the relations of New Zealand and the mother-country. After conceding that “it has not been difficult to make out a strong case as against the colony,” he went on: “In the gov- ernment of a great empire loyalty and affection are not trifles to be thrown away and resumed at pleasure, and … a small outlay now may be found to be ultimately the best economy. Be this, however, as it may, we are arriving at a state when, perhaps, decision may be forced upon us from a sudden catastrophe within the colony, such as an extensive massacre of settlers, or from a grave political contingency without, such as an appeal by the colonists in their despair to some foreign power—a contingency which I regret to have heard mooted in this country.” Carnarvon considered it impossible to reverse the policy under which control of native affairs was surrendered to the colony. “The original concession may have been premature or wrong,” he said, “but, once made, it cannot be recalled.” To allow the colonists to retain and pay English troops in New Zealand and employ them at their own discretion was also impossible. The payment by the colonists of “the ordinary colonial subvention in aid of troops to be maintained for their defence,” was free from serious objection if the disposition of the troops was left entirely to England. He feared, however, that the recall of the last regiment left this alternative no longer open. He concluded that there was a case for financial assistance to the colonists by means of a guaranteed loan in order to crush the insurrection and place themselves in a position of permanent defence. He regretted “the harsh and almost unfriendly” tone of the correspondence with the colony and reverted to his suggestion at the close of the session that a Commissioner should be sent out to New Zealand.

The Times, in a leading article on the same day, described the letter as “eminently temperate” but took exception to the epithets applied to Lord Granville's correspondence. It dismissed as “wild and vague” the reference to possible appeal to a foreign power, and stated that the grounds of the Government's refusal to help the colony were simple and conclusive: They disapproved the Maori policy which the colonists had long pursued, more especially as it was not backed by any resolute attitude of self-reliance or self-defence. The colonists would neither conciliate the Maoris nor boldly encounter them.

Nevertheless, conditions in the colony were improving. In a despatch of October 14, 1869, describing a journey through the North Island, Bowen mentioned that Hone Pihama had “actually taken the contract for the conveyance of mails across the country of Titokowaru, who dares not meddle with him.” In a minute Sir F. Rogers wrote to W. Monsell: “The contract for mails having been taken by one of our old enemies is amusing. I suppose the terms of the contract include a subsidy for allowing it to pass. You may remember that it was said that when General Pratt was sapping his way up to a Maori Pa the defenders sent him a message that if he liked to employ them they would themselves contract to do all his sapping for him on reasonable terms.”

C.O. 209, 213.

In a despatch of October 22, Bowen protested against certain errors in newspaper reports of the speech delivered by the Hon. William Monsell, Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, in the House of Commons on July 22, 1869. Monsell was reported to have said that the Chatham Islands prisoners had been sent there for two years only, and did not cause any trouble till that time had expired. He had also stated that “the Governor, though he made no military preparations, insisted on endeavouring to recapture the prisoners.”

C.O. 209, 213.

Bowen, in a despatch of October 26, protested in strong terms against the Admiralty's censure of Commodore Lambert for not allowing half the 18th Regiment to go away in the Himalaya transport. He received a severe rebuke for the tone of the despatch in a Colonial Office despatch of January 28, 1870.

Bowen reported on October 28, 1869, that Te Kooti had been defeated with heavy loss in two actions—at Waipape in September 25, and Tokao on October 4. At a meeting of the Executive Council on November 2 sentences of death passed on Hauhau prisoners were commuted, except in one case. The prisoners were sent to Dunedin to undergo imprisonment with hard labour and five thousand people gathered to see them arrive. Thirty of them began next morning to form a recreation ground for the scholars of the High School. On November 25 Bowen reported a friendly interview with Tamati Ngapora, uncle of King Tawhiao, and Rewi Maniapoto, who commanded the Maoris against General Cameron at Rangiriri, Orakau, and through the Waikato campaign of 1863–4.

A memorandum by ministers on Lord Granville's despatch of October 7, 1869, was dated January 7, 1870; “Ministers feel assured that throughout the colony there will arise a universal feeling of regret that the tone of Earl Granville's despatch (written at a time when he must have known the colony to be in the greatest distress), is scarcely susceptible of any other explanation than a desire to abandon this country and to sever its connection with the Empire. Confiscation of part of the land belonging to rebel natives in arms against the Crown is the principal feature to which His Lordship takes objection. Whatever may be its defects, a reference to official documents will show that the Imperial Government is equally with the Colonial Government responsible for it.”

[C.O. marginal note: “Both are equally responsible for the opinion that the policy is just—at least, if applied to those who deserved the punishment. But the Imperial Government never committed itself to the opinion that it was wise. It warned the colony that if the policy should bring trouble—on which point it could form no independent opinion—the question depending purely on local considerations—they were not to look to England for help.”]

Replying to the memorandum on March 25, Lord Granville wrote: “Her Majesty's Government absolutely disavow any wish on their part to abandon New Zealand, or to bring about the separation between this country and the colony. The refusal to retain the troops in New Zealand did not proceed from any indifference to the true welfare of the colony, but from a conviction that on the one hand the employment of British troops in a colony possessed of responsible government was objectionable in principle except in the case of foreign war, and under conditions arising out of such a war; and on the other hand it is not for the true interest of the colony itself that New Zealand should be made an exception from that rule, which, with due consideration from circumstances, is in course of application to other colonies.”

C.O. 209, 216. The “course of its application” to Canada is described by Stacey, op. cit.; cf. Granville to Lord Russell, August 28, 1869: “Our relations with North America are of a very delicate character. The best solution of them would probably be that in the course of time and in the most friendly spirit the Dominion should find itself strong enough to proclaim her independence” (Fitzmaurice, Life of Earl Granville, III, 22).

Bowen, in a despatch of February 13, asked that the confidential despatch informing him of the naval measures taken to protect the settlements should be made known, in view of the imminent departure of the troops. Such knowledge, he said, “would contribute powerfully to remove the irritation now fostered by a portion of the local Press against the Imperial Government and to put an end to the ventilation of projects for separation from Great Britain and for seeking protection from the United States of America, or other foreign powers.” He added that there was a suggestion that the colony should decline to pay the Governor's salary. The Colonial Office at first decided to print the despatch, but the order was countermanded by Monsell and Lord Kimberley. In a despatch of February 19 Bowen reported the march of Kemp (Te Kepa) and Topia in pursuit of Te Kooti. “In three months they have forced their way at the head of their clansmen through the forests and mountains of the central interior across the entire breadth of the island.”

On February 25, 1870, Bowen reported that the last detachment of the 2/18th Regiment had left New Zealand on the previous day. The long discussed exodus of the Imperial troops was at last complete.

A memorandum by Fox, the Prime Minister, dated March 28, deprecated the “unpatriotic harshness” of the Imperial Government's attitude to New Zealand: “To satisfy the theories of Lord Granville as to responsibility New Zealand must cease to be a part of the Empire.” In reply Granville referred to the agreement to guarantee a loan of £1,000,000 to the colony for roads and immigration and the instruction with regard to naval protection, and added that he hoped that these evidences of the continued interest of the Home Government in the colony relieved him from the necessity of reopening matters of controversy. In reply to Granville's disavowal of desire to abandon New Zealand, Ministers in a memorandum of June 11, wrote: “They cannot suppose that it in the least effects the accumulated evidence from different parts of the world that Her Majesty's Ministers previously favoured a policy having for its end the more or less speedy disintegration of the Empire.”

C.O. 209, 216. The theme is discussed in Stacey, op. cit., 215–18. Granville wrote to Sir John Young, on June 16, 1869, that Canada was free to determine its own future. The Imperial Government had no desire to maintain the connection “a single year” after it became “injurious and distasteful” to Canada.

George Higinbotham, in his speech of November 2, 1869, introducing resolutions on the rights of the colonists of Victoria to complete local self-government, had characterized the refusal of the Home Government to allow the Imperial troops to be retained in New Zealand as “ungracious.” He believed that a similar application from a weak independent Government to a “neighbouring powerful country” would not have been refused. The attitude of the Government in England raises the question whether the Australian colonies should continue their connection with the mother-country, and if so, on what conditions.

E. E. Morris, Memoir of George Higinbotham, p. 164. Higinbotham was formerly Attorney-General of Victoria and later became Chief Justice.

In a leading article of March 8, 1870, The Times referred to the House of Lords debate on the previous day: “We have taken so large a part in this controversy that we need hardly declare our general agreement with the policy which the present Government, and indeed the late Government also, has followed. It was, we believe, our own policy before it was that of the Government, and we can feel only satisfaction that it has prevailed not only in New Zealand, but throughout the whole colonial system.”

The Times correspondent at Wellington, in a letter of January 21, published on March 23, thus referred to Lord Granville's despatch refusing Imperial assistance: “The despatch is stigmatized freely as harsh in the extreme, ungenerous, and filled with assertions and implications showing misrepresentation or great ignorance of the antecedent history of the colony. It would, however, be impossible to recapitulate the objections to this celebrated despatch, which appears to have been commented on as severely in England as here. As the immediate consequence of Earl Granville's expressions and his declaration of the Imperial policy towards New Zealand, the expediency of declaring the independence of the colony, of refusing to maintain the vice-regal establishment and even of annexation to the United States has been freely discussed, and it is only because the case of the colony appears to have attracted considerable attention, and called forth the sympathy of a large and influential section of the English people that no decided steps have been taken in one of these directions.”

Chapter 17Overtures To The United States

Intense irritation with the Imperial Government was the primary cause of the desire of New Zealand ministers to secure a commercial agreement with the United States. The significance of this movement is more readily appreciated if we remember that the relations between England and the United States are throughout our period unfriendly, and that on more than one occasion the two countries had been on the verge of war. Moreover, all British negotiations with foreign countries had hitherto been conducted exclusively through the Foreign Office, and independent action by colonies was a new and, to many people, a disturbing departure. When the Canadian Government had negotiated directly with France through Baron Boilleau, French Consul at Quebec, for a reciprocal trade arrangement in 1862, the British Government had remonstrated with France and the Baron was removed from Canada.

J. G. Gray, Confederation of Canada, p. 352.

On May 9, 1870, Sir George Bowen transmitted a printed copy of correspondence which had appeared in the New Zealand newspapers between William Fox and the United States Consul in Dunedin concerning relations with that country. Sir F. Rogers wrote: “It will be evidently extremely and justly distasteful to the Foreign Office that the Colonial Government should carry on official correspondence otherwise than through the agency of our ministers with foreign Governments—especially perhaps with the U.S.

Relations between Britain and the United States continued to be very strained for several years. The Alabama question was not settled until 1872.

But it is not very easy to see how it is to be prevented…. Perhaps the F.O., if desirous of stopping this kind of diplomatic disintegration (for of course the precedent tends to spread), may have the means of prevailing on the Government of the U.S. to repel these over- tures. But this I should suppose unlikely.” He added that he regarded the mode of proceeding as “rather premature than wrong in principle.” Monsell said he should be disposed to point out that “on the abandonment of the exclusive direction of the foreign relations of colonies would necessarily follow a weakening of our obligations to defend them against foreign aggression.” Lord Kimberley decided to do nothing but approve Sir G. Bowen's action in refusing to have anything to do with the negotiations.

On April 30, in a letter published on July 4, The Times Wellington correspondent wrote: “In the following letter an application has been made by the Premier to the United States Government for the free admission of New Zealand wool into American markets. This letters, taken in conjunction with a remarkable expression at the Dunedin public meeting, ‘doubting if New Zealand were still a colony,’ is sufficiently indicative that the head of the Government is not unprepared to accept the position of alienation from the Empire which, according to Mr. Fox's views, expressed in his memorandum on Lord Granville's despatch, is a necessary corollary to Lord Granville's theories as to Imperial responsibility.”

Fox, in his letter to Henry Driver, U.S. Consular agent at Dunedin, dated March 19, 1870, said: “As the first steamer which is to place in regular monthly communication New Zealand with the United States is to start on its voyage a few days hence, perhaps you will be good enough to communicate to your Government the high appreciation by the Government of New Zealand of this close intercourse with the great and powerful country of which you are the representative, and of their earnest desire for its continuance. The Government believe that the colonists of New Zealand welcome in this line not only a means of mail communication with Great Britain, but the commencement of what they hope will prove friendly relations, and, to both sides, profitable commercial connection with the people of the United States. The Government will be glad to learn that, under the circumstances, your Government will in future be willing to allow the Government of this country to communicate with them direct in matters affecting the relations between the two countries.

“It has for some time been the intention of this Government, in concert with the Governments of some of the neighbouring colonies, to represent to your Government their earnest desire that a market should be opened in the United States to the wool which is one of the largest articles of production of the Australasian colonies. There are circumstances which, it is felt, should render the subject one which our Government may entertain irrespectively of the question whether or not it is deemed that immediate pecuniary profit will arise from it. The colonies are peopled by a race speaking the same language and acknowledging many of the same traditions and associations which belong to the people of the United States. For a long time to come the colonies will manufacture to a very limited extent even for home use. They will use a great many of the manufactures and products of the United States, but it is not probable they will be able to supply manufactures in exchange. They cannot therefore prejudice, but must benefit, the manufacturers of the United States. The wool the colonists are able to send will assist those manufacturers, and the wool ships will return laden with the wares and products of your country.… It may be argued that the wool might even now be sent direct, but a moment's consideration will show that, while there is a heavy duty on it, wool sent to America has not the opportunity of finding a world-wide market, which otherwise it would find if not burdened with charges of that kind, and if it were as available for sale for the use of other countries as it is in the market of Great Britain.”

The Foreign Office, since July under the control of Lord Granville, who was succeeded at the Colonial Office by Lord Kimberley, referred, in a letter to the Colonial Office of August 3, to the correspondence between the New Zealand Premier and the United States Consul-General at Dunedin. The Foreign Office pointed out “the inconvenience of departing from the rule that Colonial matters should be negotiated with foreign powers by the Home Government, except when the latter consent that the Colony should undertake negotiations on subjects of purely local interest.” “If, however, Lord Kimberley is of opinion that the present is an exceptional case arising out of the feeling of discontent in New Zealand, which, it is hoped, will pass away, Lord Granville is ready to concur in His Lordship's proposal not to take any further notice of the correspondence beyond approving Sir G. Bowen's refusal to be a party to it.” Lord Kimberley's minute was: “Say that I concur in Lord Granville's view as to the inconvenience of departing from the rule as to communications with foreign powers, but in the exceptional circumstances of this case, I think it better to do nothing beyond approving Sir G. Bowen.” The Foreign Office retained the printed copy of the correspondence between Fox and the Consular Agent. This tactful handling of a delicate situation by Granville and Kimberley averted trouble threatened as a result of Granville's earlier and less conciliatory manner.

In a leading article on April 19, 1870, The Times referred to the Wellington correspondent's statement that H.M.S. Virago had sailed from Wellington Harbour with the last detachment of the 18th regiment. This news, “which would have fallen like a thunderbolt six months ago,” was, said The Times, “the actual consummation of that terrible policy which was to be the destruction of the colony and the ruin of the British Empire.”

A debate took place in the House of Commons on April 26, 1870, on a motion by Robert Torrens that a Select Committee should be set up “to inquire into the political relations and modes of official intercommunication between the self-governing colonies and this country and to report whether any or what modifications are desirable, with a view to the maintenance for common nationality, amended by cordial good understanding.”

See Cambridge History of the British Empire, vol. vi, part II, pp. 216–17,

The motion was defeated after a long debate by 110 votes to 67. The Times on April 27 said of the debate: “Men spoke as if it were incumbent on them to occupy a certain number of minutes in the utterance of articulate words, without any obligation to connect sound with meaning. The existence of discontent is not unimportant, even when those who are discontented do not quite know what they desire, and we should be heartily glad if the self-constituted mouth-pieces of Colonial feeling would endeavour to know their own minds. Ever since the publication of the circular, issued by Messrs. Youl, Sewell, and Wilson in August last,

After a meeting of New Zealand colonists in London at the Palace Hotel, Westminster, had decided to call a conference of representatives of the self-governing colonies.

we have asked for definite articles of indictment against the Colonial Office but they have never been forthcoming.… The real question at issue between those who regard the tendencies of our Colonial policy with suspicion, and those who on the whole approve its course, turns upon their conception of the growth of nations. We have in our dealings with the colonies released them step by step from the control of the Home Government, and the foremost of them now enjoy complete independence. There can be no doubt that the next stage in their natural development would be that of formal emancipation, and it would seem to be recommended by precisely the same considerations which have led to their present degree of self-government.… Our colonies have outgrown dependence, but want the self-reliance of independence. They have ceased to be children, but they shrink from the isolation of manhood. It is for their interest and glory that they should look forward to the time when they shall assume their proper position in the world's history; and it is for the glory and renown, and for the safety and dignity, of the United Kingdom that we should recognize a confraternity of English-speaking nations as a better ideal than the maintenance of a nominal dominion which would fall to pieces under any serious agitation through the mere weight of its separate parts.”

Referring again to the debate, The Times on April 28 said: “Lord Granville is not the author of any new-fangled revolutionary conception of the relations that subsist at present, or ought by degrees to be established, between the Mother Country and the Colonies; he has done no more than to follow up the principles that have been laid down and practically affirmed by his predecessors. Sir Charles Adderley bore emphatic testimony to this fact in the acute argument with which he opposed Mr. Torrens' vague and illusory proposition, and he did an eminent service by so clearly divesting the question of all party colour and by showing that the experience of all responsible advisers of the Crown in matters of Colonial policy has brought them to the same practical conclusions. While some Colonists are declaiming against the ‘parsimonious Radicalism’ of Mr. Gladstone's administration, and seem to transfigure Lord Granville into a hideous incarnation of all the heresies of Manchester, it is worth while to remark that a Conservative statesman well tried in the business of the Colonial Office should so firmly sustain the principles assailed by Mr. Torrens and his supporters. Nor, if we may judge by appearances, was Sir Charles Adderley alone in his dissent from the flimsy pretence that the colonial policy of Lord Granville is revolutionary or traitorous to the Empire. The other leaders of the Tory party equally abstained from pledging themselves to a censure of the Liberal Minister, nor did either Mr. Disraeli or Mr. Hardy vote with Mr. Torrens. The official Conservatism on which the deserted Colonists are solicited to rely was presented only by Lord Robert Montague and Mr. Mowbray.… The tone of Mr. Gladstone's speech was incapable of doubtful interpretation, and the Colonies who have attached excessive importance to declarations of less responsible statesmen, may be fairly asked to read and to appreciate the meaning of this authoritative announcement. It is in plain language a pledge that of her own free will the Mother Country will never attempt to break the connection, so long as the Colonies are content to retain their allegiance to the Crown. But it is a very different question that arises when the Colonies, or some too demonstrative Colonists on their behalf, threaten that unless England continues to pay for the military defence of communities practically independent and enjoying a degree of prosperity unknown to the mass of English taxpayers, they will regard the withdrawal of Imperial aid as a dissolution of the bond of allegiance. In that case, should we find any considerable party among the Colonists so unreasonable, we shall certainly attempt no coercive measures; we shall oppose a dignified forbearance to a petulant resentment, and shall prove to the world that we have learnt a lesson of wisdom since our angry endeavours ‘to maintain the integrity of the empire’ permanently alienated the affections of the American colonists.”

Adderley, in a letter published in The Times, wrote: “I see that men are still harping on the old argument that we are asking our New Zealand fellow-subjects to carry out a war which we inflicted on them. Can they not see the fallacy involved in the word ‘we’? Was it not the Government of New Zealand just as much as ourselves at home that inaugurated the policy, and with the best intentions, which has issued in these wars? Now that New Zealand has complete self-government, can it throw the expenses incurred by its former Crown Government upon the taxpayers of England, merely because they are under the same Crown; or will these claimants propose to revive the exploded form of government, and for the sake of the cost give back the freedom?…Surely what has already occurred in New Zealand has been enough to show, what has invariably been shown by experience, that the best surety for peace is the burden of war.”

R. Torrens, in a reply to this letter, stated that the colonists did not ask the mother-country to bear the expenses of their defence, but only that the single regiment should be left in the colony at the expense of the colonists. “Can Sir C.Adderley assist Her Majesty's present advisers by producing any reasonable plea upon which to justify the present policy in affording to Canada, while not under any serious pressure or difficulty, that military aid and financial guarantee which they deny to New Zealand under the pressure of a life or death necessity?”

The Melbourne correspondent of The Times in a letter of March 28 written after a visit to Auckland and published on May 17, 1870, found a “strange indifference” where he had been led to expect to see all the symptoms of a dangerous crisis. He expressed the view that the withdrawal of the troops would expedite the return of peace. On the same day The Times said: “The proposal that Parliament shall guarantee a New Zealand loan of a million sterling is not one that can be received with unmixed satisfaction.… The Government has undertaken to recommend a guarantee of a required amount not… for purposes of war, but, on the contrary, for the construction of roads and other public works by friendly natives, as well as for the promotion of immigration. It is not to be disguised that, even thus limited, the sacrifice of principle is considerable.… Whatever irritation may have been felt in New Zealand at the peremptory recall of the last British regiment, the colonists may rest assured that the English people in approving it, was not indifferent to their fate. Had Englishmen believed that a single European life in New Zealand would be imperilled by Lord Granville's adherence to a policy, of which the colony had received many years' notice, it would probably have been impossible to carry it out. It was because Englishmen believed the very reverse that colonial remonstrances against it met with so feeble a response. The result, we are convinced, will prove that Englishmen are not wrong, and it will not be surprising if the prosperity of New Zealand should date from the year in which the duty of self-defence was forced upon her.”

On May 20 Lord Granville informed Sir G. Bowen that the Government had agreed to guarantee a loan of £1,000,000 for immigration and public works. The negotiation had been undertaken by Sir F. D. Bell and Dr. Featherston, the New Zealand Commissioners, who had telegraphed to New Zealand on May 14: “We have accepted this offer on behalf of New Zealand Commissioners, who had telegraphed to New Zealand as a measure of conciliation which will be taken throughout New Zealand as a proof of the continued good will of the Imperial Government.”

Acknowledging Lord Granville's notification in a letter dated May 19, the Commissioners wrote from their head-quarters, the Charing Cross Hotel: “A long series of discussions arising out of a war in which the Imperial and Colonial Governments had been jointly concerned for ten years had unhappily caused misunderstanding between them, and much bitterness of feeling among the settlers. The General Assembly believed this would be set right by personal communication in a kindly and conciliatory spirit; and they desired nothing so much as that all grounds of complaint on both sides should be forgotten, and the relations between the two Governments secured on the footing of the most hearty friendship and co-operation. If we have not been able to induce your lordship to regard in the same light as the Assembly did the question of military assistance, still the chief object of our mission has been gained. It is not a mere matter of money that has been arranged. A lasting tie has been made between the two Governments, by

Colonel (Aftewards Major-General Sir) G. S. Whitmore

Major Ropata their engaging together in objects in which the nation has a common interest with her dependency, in the peopling of a new country which is one of her great offshoots in the opening up of that country by roads, in the reward, by steady and permanent employment, of those native allies who have so faithfully served the Crown, above all in the weaning of the turbulent and disaffected tribes from warlike habits to peaceful industry…. If we might add another word for ourselves it would be to say how very much we have felt the personal kindness which Your Lordship has shown us, and your patience and courtesy in the many interviews by which long written communications have happily been avoided.”

W. Dealtry wrote: “This letter should be inserted in the Parliamentary papers in New Zealand now in Mr. Joseph's hands. It will make a very good finish.”

Bowen, in a despatch of August 1, 1870, reported that the news of the concession respecting the Imperial guarantee of a loan had had a conciliatory effect and that the House of Representatives had refused even to receive a petition praying that steps might be taken to withhold payment of the Governor's salary. “This looks like the end of the misunderstandings,” was Dealtry's comment. In his despatch in reply, dated October 24, Lord Kimberley wrote: “I have much pleasure in anticipating from these communications that nothing will occur to disturb the good understanding between the Imperial and Colonial Governments, and that the connection between New Zealand and the United Kingdom will be maintained and strengthened to the mutual advantage of both countries.”

A ministerial memorandum of August 1, forwarded by Bowen, set out: “So much has been said lately about New Zealand separating from the Empire that Ministers deem it to be their duty to ask His Excellency to convey to the Secretary for the Colonies their views on the subject. In their instructions to the Commissioners and the various memoranda which have been published Ministers have not disguised their impression that the Imperial Government adopted a line of action which was tantamount to inviting the Colony to withdraw from the Empire. It matters not what reasons may have dictated a change, it is sufficient to know that, lately, the Imperial Government have disavowed that they still entertain the policy referred to. Ministers think it right to state that they have received this disavowal with much gratification, and that, as already intimated in previous memoranda, their wish is that the communication of both Governments should be of so conciliatory and cordial a character that the ties between the two countries may be strengthened and not relaxed.”

C.O. 209, 217.

In his financial statement of June 28, 1870, Julius Vogel, the Colonial Treasurer, said: “Speaking broadly I contend that during the next ten years the Colony will run no risk if it commits itself to an expenditure, or a proportionate liability for guarantee of interest, of ten millions for railways and for the other purposes expressed in these proposals. After three years, supposing that extraordinary sums are required, will it be a great hardship to increase the Stamp-duties, or to have a House-tax, or an Income-tax, or some tax that will touch that lucky class, the absentees, who enjoy all the advantages, whilst they share not the burden of the hard colonizing labours without which the most favoured country on the globe's surface could not attain permanent prosperity?

“Although objecting to a Customs Union we highly value reciprocal arrangements between the colonies. The Colonies should have the power to make such reciprocal arrangements for the interchange of Colonial produce and manufactures as is desirable. So strongly are we impressed with this conviction, and so much do we feel the injustice of the Australian colonies being placed at a disadvantage as compared with the British-American colonies that we intend to submit to you a proposal which will, to all intents and purposes, give us the power, without waiting for the tardy assistance of the Imperial Government. Although we cannot legally impose differential duties, there is nothing to prevent our voting money, by way of bonus, to importers of particular produce or manufactures; and the bonus may amount to a part or the whole of the duty. We propose to take power to enter into agreements with the neighbouring colonies to pay sums, in the shape of bonus, on the importation of certain goods. We mean still to urge the Imperial Government to remove the obstructions in the way of direct arrangements; and we can scarcely doubt that a nation which has shown us in so many ways how highly she values commercial considerations, will welcome and aid the development of a commercial spirit in her colonies. Be this as it may, we propose, with the approbation of the Assembly, to give effect to the principle of reciprocity by allowing a bonus on the importation of Australian wines.”

Vogel stated that the Government had entered into direct correspondence with the United States Government on the question of relaxing the restrictions upon the admission of colonial wools. “We want to raise,” he went on, “a certain amount of revenue, and it is highly expedient that the revenue should be derived in the manner best calculated to stimulate local production. If imports must be taxed, let those escape lightly which cannot be produced here, and let those which need not be imported but which wealthy persons choose to consume, be made to yield a revenue…. We shall be told that these proposals will entail a tremendous burden. Granted—but they will give to posterity enormous means out of which to meet it. Every member has constituents whom he represents; and he will be justified in assuring them that the measures we propose will benefit every person in the community, from the highest to the lowest, from the richest to the poorest. They will lead the colony to prosperity, and enable it to do justice to its splendid resources.”

Colonial Office minute: “The evasion of the rule against differential duties … is one which I suppose the Imperial Government cannot contend against.” Sir F. Rogers: “I should think not. But it is unpleasant.” Lord Kimberley wrote on September 7: “What is the course which has been pursued as to differential duties in colonies? Would not this bonus hocus pocus be a violation of our treaties with foreign nations, and if it is, are we not bound to take notice of it?—though, if it can be avoided, I would rather enter into no controversy, as it is undesirable to give the New Zealanders opportunities for shewing their disregard of us.”

Sir F. Rogers stated that the British treaties with Belgium and Italy contained the following clause: “Goods of every kind which are or may be legally importable into the ports of the United Kingdom… its colonies, and possessions in British vessels may likewise be imported into such ports in Belgian (Italian) vessels without being liable to other or higher duties, of whatever denomination, than if such goods were imported in national vessels.”

C.O. 209, 217. For discussion of the demand of the Australian Colonies and New Zealand for power to impose differential duties—ultimately granted in 1873—see Knaplund, Gladstone and Imperial Policy, pp. 103–21. For a contemporary discussion, see J. G. Gray, Confederation of Canada (1872), pp. 331–60.

Vogel withdrew his Bill to provide for differential duties, but he was not convinced by the arguments against them and returned later to the charge.

In a letter of August 4, published on September 29, the Wellington correspondent of The Times wrote: “I am at a loss to convey any adequate idea of the marvellous change which has come over the spirit of the deliberations in the Assembly during the present session of the Colonial Parliament. It is, moreover, a change which is the clear reflex of public feeling throughout the colony, and which I can only compare to the sudden waking from a hideous nightmare to full consciousness of power, security, companionship and light. For the last ten years the colony has been spell-bound by the too-substantial phantom of Maori war, with its attendant horrors. Now the spell is broken, and, reassured by the bright dawn of peace, it rises to the hopeful anticipations of a day of earnest endeavour and great accomplishment. The appeal made by the present ministry to renew the great work of colonization has been everywhere responded to. The scheme proposed by the Colonial Treasurer has been made the subject of the fullest possible discussion in every corner of both islands during the past month. Hardly a hamlet but has held its public meeting to consider the subject, and the verdict has been almost universal in its favour.… The general tone of the debate on the financial proposals was marked rather by an excess of caution than that recklessness which too often prevails in dealing with large sums of borrowed money.

“Next to the budget the conduct of the Imperial Government towards the colony has occupied the time of the Assembly. In the Legislative Council the debate on the subject was long and animated, but the discussion was equally without result in both Houses; the pithy motion in the Lower House that ‘the Imperial Government has failed in its duty to the colony,’ being disposed of by the carrying of the previous question. In the Upper House, after a long debate, the following resolution was carried by a majority of three:

1. In the opinion of this Council, the best interests of New Zealand will be consulted by remaining an integral part of the British Empire. 2. That there are not sufficient grounds for believing that the people of England desire the disintegration of the empire. 3. That this Council regrets the course adopted by the Home Government towards the colony; but, as the causes of the dispute have been satisfactorily discussed by the Colonial Government, and as an indication of a desire to preserve a friendly feeling towards the colony has been made by the Home Government, it is undesirable to make any further reference to past misunderstandings.

“The Parliament and the country both feel the difficulty of their position. They do not wish to re-open a useless and acrimonious discussion; they are quite satisfied that the sympathies of the people of England are with New Zealand; they are not sorry, as events have turned out, that the Imperial regiment has been removed, in spite of their earnest entreaties that it should be allowed to remain; they have no wish to assert their right to protection, except in cases of extreme danger; and they have no desire to sever their connection with the Empire; and, last, but certainly not least, they are much too busily engaged in the work of reconstruction to devote much time to raking up the ashes of the past. But though the debates have been practically without result, it cannot be said that the colony at all acquiesces in the action of the Imperial Government.”

Commenting on October 4, 1870, on the resolutions passed in the Upper House, The Timessaid: “So entirely do we approve the last Resolution that we shall adopt it ourselves, and say nothing of ‘past misunderstandings’ except this—that the expression conveys the exact truth of the whole case. It was in a misunderstanding that the whole unpleasantness arose, and nothing, indeed, but a misunderstanding of the most extraordinary kind could ever have suggested the belief that any considerable or appreciable number of Englishmen desired to see a separation between Great Britain and her Colonies. No such wish was ever entertained.”

The peaceful atmosphere attained at long last was disturbed by the Franco-Prussian War, which caused considerable alarm in New Zealand. A ministerial memorandum of September 19, 1870, set out: “Ministers would be glad if Her Majesty's Government would send out 10,000 stand of medium and short Snider rifles with a corresponding supply of ammunition. The Colonial Government would be prepared to abide by the decision of the Home Government in respect of the cost, if payment should be required.… Ministers would also respectfully beg your Excellency to obtain from Her Majesty's Government explicit information as to what protection will be afforded to the Colony in case of Great Britain becoming involved in war with any power capable of attacking the colony; and also to what extent the colony would be expected to co-operate.”

Sir F. Rogers wrote: “It might be said with truth, though it would not perhaps be wise to say—that the Government could no more pledge itself to take any specific measures for the defence of Auckland or Wellington which do not contribute to the support of the British fleet than in the defence of Liver-pool or Brighton which do so contribute. But we want to be on good terms.” Lord Kimberley: “I agree.”

C.O. 209, 217.

On a despatch of Bowen, dated September 25, enclosing a memorandum of ministers requesting that at least two vessels of war might be stationed in New Zealand waters, Sir F. Rogers wrote: “Here we have a fresh attempt to fasten on us part of the responsibility of defending the colony against native troubles. You will observe that they request that marines should be landed and general instructions given as to co-operation. I should say this was exactly the position from which the British Government should distinctly hold aloof. This steady system of encroachment makes me so impatient that I distrust my own judgement as to the tone of the answer.” He went on to indicate how he would reply to the despatch. Lord Kimberley con- curred with his views, but thought it desirable “to avoid as much as possible further controversy.” The reply, dated December 24, stated that Her Majesty's Government could not enter into a positive agreement that a certain portion of Her Majesty's naval forces should be exclusively employed on the New Zealand coasts.

C.O. 209, 217.

On December 2, 1870, The Times said: “It is really quite refreshing in these times of alarm and trouble to turn to a subject of unqualified and even marvellous pleasantness. The New Zealand question, but a few months ago so full of embarrassments, is no longer any ‘question’ at all.… We need only say this, that affairs are looking well enough now, and that the Imperial policy, though it might have been open to misinterpretation, could not have been ill-conceived. Our proceedings have left the New Zealanders perfectly satisfied with themselves, and we trust that a brief interval of experience and reflection will make them equally satisfied with us. The best garrison we can send them is a garrison of permanent settlers; the best aid we can give them against the natives is assistance in the work which will turn prowling savages into industrious subjects. These will be engagements of mutual advantage and will serve effectually to link the Old Country and its Colony together.”

The New Zealand ministers, in a memorandum of December 30, discussed the colony's position in the event of Great Britain being involved in war: “The Imperial Government have adopted and acted on the policy of repudiating all concern in civil war in the colony, and have removed from it the military force which not only served as a moral support to Her Majesty's loyal subjects of both races, but which also constituted a material protection in the case of foreign war. Meanwhile the action of the Imperial Government—action in which the Colony has no share, and over which it can exercise no control—may suddenly plunge the Colony into foreign hostility, expose to serious damage its ports and its trade, and stimulate internal native rebellion into renewed activity. Under these circumstances, the Colony has irresistible right to claim that the Imperial Government should take such steps as will secure it against the serious consequences, external and internal, of foreign war, in the origination of which it has no voice and of which it will be compulsorily the passive victim. The present state of Europe makes this question one of vital import to the Colony, and Ministers feel it their duty to ask to be informed distinctly what measures of protection the Imperial Government will adopt, in case of war between England and any other nation.

“There appear to be two courses open—either that the Imperial Government should supply adequate defence, which does not now exist, or sanction an arrangement with foreign powers that in the event of war the colony would be treated as neutral. In making this representation, Ministers desire to reiterate the expression of the loyalty of the Colony to the Crown and of their anxiety that it should always be preserved as an integral portion of the Empire.”

Lord Kimberley wrote in reply: “If a British colony is to remain neutral when England is belligerent, the following among other questions would require to be considered: Could the other belligerent be expected to recognize that neutrality? Could the people of England be content to remain under the obligation of resenting injuries offered to that colony in time of peace? In what manner and in what terms is it proposed upon this hypothesis to define the connection between the home country and the colony, to which I am glad to notice that your Ministers reiterate their attachment?”

C.O. 209, 221.

In replying, the New Zealand ministers said that the object of their memorandum had been “not to recommend that in the event of war this colony should be treated as neutral, but humbly to represent in the immediate interests of the colony, either that the Imperial Government should in such cases adequately defend it, or secure its neutrality.”

See Cambridge History of the Empire, vol. vii, part II, chapter x (by the present writer).

This and other related topics were to be discussed over a long period, but the main question whether New Zealand should remain a part of the Empire had been settled.

Chapter 18End Of The Wars

On March 18, 1872, Bowen reported that Wiremu Kingi, “the influential Maori chief and formidable warrior, known among the English as William King of Waitara (Te Rangitaki), with whom the war of 1860 originated, and who has during the last twelve years continued in active hostility or sullen disaffection, has voluntarily come, attended by his principal clansmen and followers, into the town of New Plymouth, made peace with the Government and renewed the friendly relations which he maintained of old with the settlers.” The event occurred on February 22, the twelfth anniversary of the proclamation of martial law in Taranaki. “The old chief held a sort of levée in a room of the Native office, the settlers who had known him years before being anxious for their children to see one who had been a staunch ally and a gallant enemy.”

W. Dealtry made this comment: “This is the most important news we have received from the colony for some time, and may be said to put at rest any further question of a serious outbreak in New Zealand…. If I recollect right, the War of 1860 began by William King refusing to allow a block of land at Waitara to be surveyed, and it was open, I think, to a question whether he had not right on his side.” Lord Kimberley wrote: “It is most satisfactory. Send this despatch of Sir G. Bowen privately to Lord Granville, who will be pleased to see the complete success of his policy.”

C.O. 209, 226.

On April 9 Bowen wrote from the “Lake of Taupo, the centre of the North Island and the heart of the native districts.” “Until the last few months,” he said, “the chiefs and clans of these central districts (with the single exception of the loyal chief, Poihipi Tukairangi and his followers) were devoted to the so-called Maori King, and were bitterly hostile to the sovereignty of the Queen and to the Colonial Government. In 1869 they joined Te Kooti, when there was much sharp fighting at Tokano and at other points around the lake, with the Colonial Forces, and with the loyal natives from Wanganui, led by the gallant Te Kepa (Major Kemp). The night before last I slept at Opepe, ten miles from my present quarters, where, in June 1869, a detachment of the Colonial Militia was surprised and cut to pieces by Te Kooti. To-morrow I propose to cross the lake to Tokano, the scene of the fiercely contested battle of October, 1869, but where our late enemies are now assembled to give me an enthusiastic greeting. In the speeches addressed to me this day by the Maori chiefs of Taupo, they assured me that they were entirely satisfied with the policy pursued towards them by myself and by the Colonial Government, and that they are now fully convinced that their true interest is to live in peace and friendship with the colonists. They are desirous to sell and lease large portions of their lands to the settlers whom they are inviting to live among them, so that they, like their countrymen at Hawke's Bay and elsewhere, may live in comfort on the rents and purchase money. They further expressed anxiety to have English schools established in their villages, so that their children may learn our language and enjoy the same advantages of education with the children of the Maoris resident in the settled districts.… Above all, perhaps, they are eager to be employed in working on the roads, which are gradually but surely creeping up from the coast into their mountain fastnesses, and which will ere long render future wars and rebellions impossible.”

R. G. W. Herbert's minute was: “This is certainly a most satisfactory account of the Maori chiefs. Sir G. Bowen has done well to make a royal progress through the country.”

In a further despatch of May 15, 1872, Bowen announced that the expedition through the centre of the island had been entirely successful and that he had reached Auckland on April 24 after what had been called “an important and memorable journey.” Dealtry's comment was: “Sir G. Bowen must have been in the neighbourhood of the country infested by Te Kooti to whom he would have been a rich prize.” Lord Kimberley, in a despatch of August 21, congratulated the Governor on the success of the expedition.

On May 16 Bowen reported the completion of telegraphic communication between Auckland and Wellington. Dealtry: “There has been a marvellous change in the state of New Zealand in the last four years.” Lord Kimberley: “Express much satisfaction.”

On June 8 Donald Maclean, Native and Defence Minister, wrote: “Te Kooti, who during his career has proved himself a formidable foe, is now a miserable fugitive, having cast himself for protection upon the King party, among which he is more like a prisoner, at large during quiet behaviour. Among the subjects for congratulation which are submitted to His Excellency not the least is the fact that all military operations in the field have come to an end, and that the colonial force is released from active service and engaged in the construction of public works.” Lord Kimberley wrote in the despatch containing the report: “Send this in a box to Lord Granville, and say in acknowledging that I have read Mr. Maclean's report with great pleasure.” (Lord Granville: “Many thanks.”)

C.O. 209, 226.

On September 7, 1872, Bowen stated that at a large meeting at Mataahu, near East Cape, a flagstaff had been erected and the Queen's Flag (the Union Jack) hoisted “in token of the permanent establishment of peace, and of the return of the entire population of the East Coast from rebellion to their allegiance to the Crown, and from the Hauhau fanaticism to Christianity.” On September 9 Bowen reported the carrying-out of the intention of the Maoris to remove into the consecrated burial ground of a new church they had built at the pa of Ohaewai the bodies of British soldiers who fell in the unsuccessful attack on the pa in Heke's War of 1845

See England and New Zealand, pp. 182–91.

and who were buried in the forest. Bowen questioned whether there was “a more touching episode in the annals of the warfare of even civilized nations in either ancient or modern times.”

Minutes on the despatch were:

Mr. Herbert: “This is one of the most remarkable instances which have yet been mentioned of the good feeling of the natives.”

Mr. Holland: “Would it not be desirable to send the Queen a copy of the despatch and enclosure?”

Mr. Hugesson: “I think so. Very interesting and touching.”

Lord Kimberley: “Yes.”

Chapter 19Conclusion

On this note we may perhaps leave the tangled story of the Maori Wars, in the hope that what has been selected from the vast mass of documentary material will help towards a better understanding of the most critical decade in the colony's history—a decade which must also rank as of vital importance in the history of the Empire.

The New Zealand colonists, dispersed over a large territory and menaced by a brave and warlike race, complained of lack of sympathy and blamed the permanent officials of the Colonial Office for the treatment meted out to them. But we have seen that the successive Secretaries of State were at considerable pains to master all the details of the correspondence and outline the nature of the replies to be sent. Though Sir F. Rogers inherited some of the odium unjustly attaching to James Stephen, and although he did become at times very impatient with the persistence of the colonists in their demands upon the Mother Country, he cannot justly be charged with responsibility for the misunderstandings that arose. In Maori affairs, he rightly held, “everything depends on the handling,” and it was the men on the spot whose policy decided peace and war. It was his lot to be permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1860 until 1871, and he was therefore involved in almost the whole course of the negotiation which we have had to describe. A few months after his retirement he was raised to the peerage as Baron Blachford of Wisdome in the county of Devon, and, as New Zealand was only one of the colonies for which he was responsible for more than ten years, it can readily be agreed that he had abundantly earned his reward. The hard-hitting George Higinbotham perhaps exaggerated the influence of Sir Frederic, as he certainly exaggerated his term of office, when he said in that speech on November 2, 1869, which we have previously quoted: “I believe it might be said with perfect truth that the million and a half of Englishmen who inhabit these colonies, and who during the last fifteen years have believed they possessed self-government, have been really governed during the whole of that time by a person named Rogers. He is the chief clerk in the Colonial Office. Of course, he inspires every Minister who enters the department, year after year, with Colonial Office traditions, Colonial Office policy, Colonial Office ideas … If you merely send home a despatch presenting a statement of your grievances, and inviting the Colonial Office to consider them, the Colonial Office will consider them. The Colonial Office will consider them until you, and half a dozen sets of your successors, have gone ‘the way to dusty death,’ politically … What is this Colonial Office system? It is a mere straw image of official intrigue and unlawful arbitrary interference. If you reason with it, you degrade yourselves. If you go to it, and strike it in the face with the back of your gloved hand, you will see it tumble in a heap at your feet, and the morrow after you have done so you will be establishing in this country a government which has never yet existed.”

E. E. Morris, Memoir of George Higinbotham, p. 183.

There is more than a hint in this passage of Buller's famous description of the Colonial Office a generation before, and there is undoubtedly some truth in the picture. The Colonial Office, accustomed to more or less complete power, was a little slow in adjusting itself to the new age of Colonial self-government, but in the case of New Zealand, at least, there was no attempt to reserve undue powers to the Home Government. Indeed the complaint of the colonists was that full responsibility was prematurely placed on their shoulders.

The successive Secretaries of State who played their parts in the drama of the relations of England with the Maori race and the colonists of New Zealand were Sir E. Bulwer Lytton, the Duke of Newcastle, Edward (later Viscount) Cardwell, Lord Carnarvon, the Duke of Buckingham, Lord Granville, and Lord Kimberley. Lytton and Carnarvon displayed considerable sympathy with the views of the colonists. Newcastle showed political wisdom in deprecating confiscation in 1860, and he was, if anything, too much inclined to trust the man on the spot. He took exception, not unnaturally, to the attempts of the New Zealand House of Representatives to secure power over native affairs without responsibility. His private correspondence with Gore Browne and Grey shows the close attention he paid to New Zealand affairs. Cardwell, Buckingham, and Granville were, in the main, advocates of Spartan treatment of the infant colony by the mother-country. Let the child fend for itself and it would soon learn to walk alone. Kimberley was in power during the infant's tentative attempts to do so, and tactful treatment was needed when an appealing hand was thrust out to the United States to seek that encouragement denied by the mother-country. Sir George Bowen, Governor at the time, has recorded his “deep sense of the steady support” which he received on all occasions from Lord Kimberley.

Bowen, Thirty Years of Colonial Government.

Of the Governors in this period of frequent crises, Gore Browne was handicapped by “insufficient funds, circumscribed powers, inadequate assistance.” He made errors of judgment, notably in removing restrictions on the sale of ammunition and in not keeping a closer control over the actions of the military authorities during the Waitara negotiations, but it is difficult to resist the conclusion that more than human genius would have been required to avert an attempt by part at least of the Maori race to set limits to the rising tide of colonization. On Sir George Grey's second term in New Zealand we have perhaps thrown some new light. The circumstances of his volunteering to return, the early expectation by the Colonial Office of some grandiose scheme, and the fears of the Treasury of his habit of claiming a reputation for liberality without sufficient calculation of the cost, prepare us for some of the events which follow. Grey's controversies—with the English generals, with his ministers, and with the Colonial Office—form only too large a part of the story of this troubled time. Grey stands, as he expected to stand, “at the bar of History,” and the reader will form his own judgment from what has been written here as to whether the Colonial Office was right or wrong in declining to extend his term of office. That successive Secretaries of State received great provocation from him does not admit of question. In the state of public opinion at the time on the necessity for colonial self-reliance, a break with Grey was probably necessary. His great sin in the eyes of the Colonial Office was that he pursued a “colonial” rather than an “Imperial” policy. From the colonists' point of view this was no sin at all, and other reasons must be sought for his unpopularity during a considerable part of his term of office. In his relations with both colonists and Maoris, Grey was suspected of duplicity. His mana had been great when he was Governor with absolute power, but it was sadly dimmed when Parliament began to encroach more and more upon that power. Bowen, who succeeded him, had his own minor brushes with the Colonial Office, but his term as Governor saw the policy of the British Government vindicated in its own eyes by the withdrawal of the last regiment and the virtual end of the wars.

Of the relative merits of the troops engaged in the Maori Wars it is possible to speak with some confidence after reading the various accounts—official and unofficial—of the different engagements. When the wars began, the Maoris, as Captain Pasley, R.E., records in his Sketch of the War in New Zealand (1862), “made no secret of their own conviction that one Maori was equal to three soldiers in the fern and nine in the bush.” Though this flattering notion had been “rudely dispelled,” Pasley makes it clear that in their struggle with the settlers the Maoris had some distinct advantages. They had never lost the knowledge of the art of war which had been engrained in their race for centuries. The settlers, however, had never learned it. “They were very like people of their class in England, excellent material for soldiers, fine ‘food for powder,’ but altogether destitute, generally speaking, of the special qualifications for guerilla warfare which they were commonly supposed to possess.”

John Featon, in The Waikato War, gives a vivid picture of the first days on active service of the Auckland militia in 1863: “Not accustomed to anything approaching strict discipline, and used to the great freedom and independence of colonial life, it was some time before the militia and volunteers could be made to understand their true position, which event only took place when many of them got into serious trouble for disobedience of orders, and found themselves in the military cells minus their thick crop of curly black or brown hair, as one well-known citizen-soldier sadly remarked, looking more like convicts than gentlemen volunteers.”

We have seen that there were some failures on the part of the colonial troops, but as the campaigns developed and attractive offers of land grants were made to those who served, the standard of the local forces improved greatly. It was from the militia that the Forest Rangers who served with great distinction under Jackson and von Tempsky were recruited, and they proved equal to the task of meeting the Maori at his own game of swift and silent approach through the bush.

The Imperial troops were superior to the local forces in discipline and equal to them in valour, but it was only when formal methods of warfare were forsaken and a plan suitable to the country adopted that their superiority in equipment and numbers began to tell. At first General Pratt found himself “fighting a will o' the wisp” with munitions dating back to 1805 and with information both “exaggerated and contradictory.” When General Cameron came on the scene, full of plans for a quick conquest of an ill-equipped foe, he received some unpleasant surprises. The Maoris proved themselves in some ways the equal of the invading troops and their skill in engineering was a constant subject of comment by the British officers.

For a description of Maori fortification by a Royal Engineer, see Pasley, op. cit., pp. 28–30.

Almost unexampled commissariat difficulties faced the Imperial troops, while divided control of communications by Army and Navy and peculation among the rank and file of both helped to retard the progress of the campaign. When Cameron and his officers conceived the idea that they were prosecuting an unjust war, the effect was naturally great. The bitter controversy between Sir George Grey and Cameron should not, however, be allowed to obscure the fact that the Imperial troops did almost everything that their officers called upon them to do. When Major-General Chute succeeded Cameron, his swift and successful movements showed that the difficulties of warfare in New Zealand had been thoroughly mastered by his men. But divided control—the perennial curse of New Zealand as it was of the War Office itself until Cardwell's great reforms of 1868–74—soon exercised its usual effect and Grey, who gave a banquet in honour of Chute's triumphal march, was soon in bitter controversy with him.

The support of the Maoris who remained friendly to the British during the struggle was of considerable material value. The motives of the support varied considerably and its extent fluctuated greatly. Although the friendly Maoris sometimes disappointed expectations, they played, under leaders like Te Kepa and Ropata, a notable part in the concluding stages of the wars. They had obvious advantages in knowledge of the country and the tactics likely to be adopted by their opponents. Almost as important as the active support of friendly tribes in the war areas was the abstention from the struggle of the tribes inhabiting the country north of Auckland. Had they joined the hostile Maoris the position of the town would have been precarious indeed. Age-old hatreds existing among the Maoris precluded unity of action, and even the fiery cross of Hauhauism failed to destroy the barriers between tribes taught for generations to regard fighting each other as a sacred duty. Another factor in keeping some tribes friendly was the policy of providing pensions and perquisites for chiefs with considerable influence. Sir George Grey was very successful with this policy in his first governorship, but in his second term of office, with expenditure largely controlled by a responsible ministry, the results were not so spectacular.

With Imperial troops, colonial militia, and friendly Maoris arrayed against them, the hostile Maoris maintained their struggle longer than could reasonably have been expected. Much has been made of their inferior equipment, but William Swainson, in New Zealand and the War (1863), recorded that Wiremu Kingi's followers were abundantly supplied with arms and ammunition, partly through an evasion of the law, and partly through the operation of the relaxed regulations of the Government. “Nearly 8,000 pounds weight of gunpowder, more than 300 double-barrelled guns, and nearly 500 single-barrelled guns had in the short space of nine months not long previously been permitted to be sold to the natives with the sanction of the authorities. If as occasionally happened lead ran short amongst them, they made use of puriri or other hard- wood bullets.” Captain Pasley states that the arms generally used by the Maoris were double-barrelled guns, which were much more effective at close quarters than rifles. Of their fortifications he adds: “It is exceedingly difficult to make a serious breach in the stockades of a pa by artillery fire, even at short range; and any attempt to climb over or cut them down must be made at a distance of only a few feet from the muzzles of the guns of the defenders, who, being themselves well under cover, are able to overwhelm the storming party by a close and destructive fire.” We have seen in the narrative how lead was smuggled to the hostile Maoris from Auckland, and there is no doubt that trading with the enemy helped to prolong the contest.

How far did the profits from this illicit trade and from the more legal channels of army contracting influence the colonial attitude towards the war? Critics of the colonists attached great importance to these profits as a motive for an aggressive policy, but it is difficult to imagine that the settlers as a whole could reap, or even think they could reap, a balance of profit from the presence of troops, when that presence implied a state of war throughout the North Island. William Swainson estimates the cost of the first Taranaki War to the colony at £200,000 and the individual losses of the Taranaki settlers were believed to be between £150,000 and £250,000. “Auckland also suffered severely,” he states, “from the sudden and complete check which was put to a stream of immigration which was yearly adding some thousands to the population of the Province.” John Featon, in The Waikato War, shows how the calling out of the militia dislocated trade in Auckland and caused great losses. Individuals benefited from army contracts, but the community suffered severely from the cessation of immigration and from the rigours of military service undertaken without sufficient training or proper commissariat arrangements.

A more difficult charge to answer is the allegation that the colonists fostered war as a means of getting possession of Maori lands. Governor Gore Browne himself preferred this charge against a section of the colonists in words which lost little of their sting from being in Latin,

See p. 64.

and it is more than a little curious to reflect that it was his own actions in the Waitara question which precipitated the country into war and let loose a flood of words, both spoken and written, in England and New Zealand.

There can be little doubt that land was the root cause of the New Zealand wars. Renata, a Maori leader, is quoted by Swainson as asking: “Who is the Maori that is such a fool as to be mistaken about the sovereignty or supremacy of the Queen of England? Or who will throw himself away in fighting for such a cause? No, it is for land; for land has been the prime cause of war amongst the Maoris from time immemorial down to the arrival of the Pakehas in this island of ours…. The Queen's sovereignty has been acknowledged long ago; had it been to fight for supremacy, probably every man in this island would have been up in arms, but in the present case the fighting is confined to the land which is being taken possession of.” At the end of the first war in Taranaki, Captain Pasley wrote these prophetic words, published in 1862: “The Waikatos, the proudest and most powerful of the native tribes, now acknowledge the utter hopelessness of a contest with the power of England; but they would probably not shrink from war, even to the death, rather than abandon their rights of property in the soil…. The possession of the land is the only means of safety that they see before them, and it is, perhaps, to be expected that they will cling to it with desperate pertinacity.”

If their ancestral lands were dearer to the Maoris than their life blood, possession of large areas of fertile land was necessary for the colonists. They were willing to pay a reasonable price, but, as the Land League increased in influence, it became almost impossible to acquire land by peaceful means. Though the Treaty of Waitangi guaranteed to the Maoris the undisturbed possession of their lands “so long as it is their wish and desire to retain” them, their unwillingness to alienate the land which remained to them was regarded by a section of the colonists as an offence. Pressure of the Taranaki settlers on the Government, exercised through the Native Minister, C. W. Richmond, representative of Taranaki, must be deemed a chief cause of Gore Browne's action in making the fatal Waitara purchase. But that pressure, comprehensible as it was in the cramped state of the settlement, must not be regarded as absolving the Governor from the responsibility of precipitating the struggle. The Church Missionary Society, in a memorandum published in 1861, wrote: “The interposition of the military was uncalled for under the circumstances of the case.… No transaction subsequent to the Proclamation of Martial Law can affect the question of the justice or policy of its issue. Whatever opinion he entertained on the points involved in the land question, beyond all controversy the paramount consideration is the precipitancy of the appeal to arms.” This assertion seems indisputable, and the act of Lieutenant-Colonel Murray in putting the proclamation of martial law into force when he did seems to have been wrong. Impolitic it certainly was, since the settlers in the vicinity of New Plymouth were wide open to attack and the friends of the Maoris were given good reason for protest. That Sir William Martin, Bishop Selwyn, and a large proportion of the missionaries and clergy supported the Maori cause in the Taranaki War doubtless had some effect in stiffening resistance to the troops, for there was little that passed in the European settlements of which the Maoris were unaware. But it is probable that the chief effect of the division of European opinion is to be seen in the way in which the war was allowed to lapse, more or less by mutual consent.

In the later wars of the decade European sympathy had considerable influence, notably in converting General Cameron from aggressive to Fabian tactics. The rise of fanaticism, the cannibalism of Titokowaru, and the excesses of Te Kooti naturally eliminated much of the sympathy felt for the Maori cause, though there is abundant evidence that moderate leaders like William Thompson never lost the good will of many Europeans.

The principal New Zealand ministers of the period were Stafford, Fox, Whitaker, and Weld. Stafford was in power from 1856 to 1861 and again from 1865 to 1869, so that he must be held responsible for much of the policy of the local Government. The wars began in his first period of office and the Te Kooti and Titokowaru campaigns disturbed his second term. Fox came into power in 1861 with a peace policy, but the influence of Whitaker made their combined administration of 1863–4 notable for the persecution of a rigorous confiscation policy which tended to prolong and embitter hostilities rather than to bring them to an end. The chief feature of the programme of the Weld ministry was “self-reliance,” which, as we have seen, had more than one meaning. The different interpretations attached to it caused, like most other things in this period of conflict, lively controversy. Beyond argument, however, is the fact that reservation of final authority in native affairs to the Governor had proved ineffective in the conditions existing at the time of trial. With economy as the overriding consideration in the mind of the Imperial Government, there were never adequate funds for any constructive native policy. The New Zealand ministers would not provide money to be spent at the Governor's discretion, and, without money, the Governor's powers became almost entirely negative. He could oppose ministerial plans but carry out none of his own. The result was that little or nothing was done and the Maori King movement was correspondingly encouraged.

Division of authority and false economy were perhaps the most prominent aspects of New Zealand history during our period. When the Imperial Government finally insisted on the transfer of native affairs to local control, so that the policy of withdrawal of troops could be enforced, there was no longer division of authority in native affairs. The Native Department was under normal ministerial control, and public opinion in Britain and New Zealand was the only check on native policy—apart from that more directly exercised by the hostile Maori tribes. Confiscation of land on a wholesale scale was the chief method adopted to discourage Maori aggression, and it cannot be said that it proved strikingly successful. As time went on more moderate counsels prevailed. Limits were set to confiscation and conciliatory measures, such as the provision for Maori Members of Parliament, were adopted. When the colony had to face the consequence of its own blunders, more care was naturally taken than when Imperial troops were available. Blunders still occurred, but they were due to unpreparedness and reluctance to incur expenditure rather than to undue pressure on the Maori race. The Maori Wars are sometimes quoted as examples of British “Imperial- ism” in its worst sense, but this view is scarcely borne out by our survey. New Zealand was first acquired by treaty with the Maoris and not by war, and the Imperial Government was very far from aggressive in its attitude to the natives. For the greater part of the period we have been considering, its primary object was to get the Imperial troops out of the country as quickly as possible.

Dr. de Kiewiet, in his latest book, The Imperial Factor in South Africa, states that Britain neither wished nor intended to spend vast sums in South Africa: “The British Government made it almost a rule of conduct to pay only for disasters.”

The manner in which the colonists neglected even elementary measures of defence, as soon as the first flames of war died down, encouraged further outbreaks, but the colonists' policy, apart from the first ill-considered scheme of wholesale confisaction, a typical war-time measure, cannot be considered aggressive. The main body of settlers wished to treat the Maoris fairly, as Bishop Selwyn, Archdeacon Hadfield, and other friends of the native cause recognized. The tragedy of the time was that, from the conflict of policies and motives, leading to controversy and war, no one leading principle—and no single leader—emerged quickly enough. For this physical reasons may be blamed to some extent. The months that separated Downing Street from Government House, the weeks that separated Auckland from Wellington, played their part. But there were moral reasons for failure as well. The British Government hoped that Sir George Grey's knowledge and prestige would solve the New Zealand problem. Private sorrow and ill health, which seemed to alter the Governor's character at this period, probably exercised a greater influence on the history of New Zealand than is generally understood.

Of the Maori leaders Wiremu Tamihana (William Thompson) was chief in statesmanship and Rewi Maniapoto was chief in generalship, while Te Kooti proved himself a brilliant leader in guerrilla warfare. The Maori King himself has only a shadowy personality in the documents of the time, but the movement he represented determined the whole course of events. It is conceivable that if Gore Browne had elected to attempt to guide the King movement along a pacific path, by recognizing the possibility of a Maori “sphere of influence” in the centre of the North Island, much of the tragedy of the wars might have been averted. But it is at least arguable that by attempting to stem the tide of invasion the Maori race saved its soul. “Peace came at last in the unequal struggle, but the Maori race has not forgotten,” writes Keesing. “A warrior exclaims: ‘We have been beaten because the Pakeha outnumbers us in men. But we are not conquered or rubbed out, and not one of these Pakeha can name the day we … sued for peace. The most that can be said is that on such and such a date we left off fighting.’”

The Changing Maori, p. 49.

A period of depression and despair about the future has been succeeded in the Maori mind by one of greater hopefulness of outlook. The events with which we have been dealing shaped and are still shaping the destiny of a whole race. “The King movement persisted and still persists,” writes Dr. I. L. G. Sutherland, in The Maori Situation (published in 1935). He emphasizes the effect on the life and mind of the Maori people of their ten years' struggle with the white man. Though we have been primarily concerned about the policy of the British authorities in New Zealand affairs, we have seen enough of local events to realize that the Maoris had much justification for those fears which led to the Land League and the King movement. The Treaty of Waitangi did not settle the relations of white man and Maori. The shadow which the Maoris then thought they were conceding proved all too substantial. But there is very little in the policy pursued by the Colonial Office which can be construed as anti-Maori. On the Governors and local Government must rest the main responsibility for default in the first duty of a government—to provide appropriate administrative machinery. “The only wrongs you redressed were those against yourselves,” said Renata, “as for those all over the breadth of the country, you left them unnoticed. The enemies he (the Maori King) had to fight were the crimes of the Maori….”

New Zealand had been, during this eventful decade, a testing ground for British policy. As wars and rumours of wars succeeded each other on the Continent and relations with the United States steadily deteriorated, the demand for a diminution of the burden of colonial expenditure grew more and more insistent. To hand over control of native affairs and defence to colonists engaged in a conflict with a race whose rights were guaranteed by treaty with the Queen's representative was a new departure. It was criticized by friends of the Maori as a breach of trust and by friends of the colonists as desertion in the face of an enemy, few in numbers perhaps but formidable in guerrilla warfare. But the new policy prevailed, and, after its trials in New Zealand and Canada, was even applied to South Africa, where the large native population made the experiment still more doubtful. In 1864 and 1865 demands were made by the Home Government for the withdrawal of Imperial troops. When Wodehouse, Governor at the Cape, was authorized to annex Basutoland in 1866, it was “on the explicit and significant condition, however, that not the British Government, but Natal should be responsible for the organization and expenses of its future government.”

Cambridge History of the British Empire, vol. viii, p. 421.

Dr. de Kiewiet has attributed to the experience of Sir F. Rogers during the Maori Wars his conviction “that conflict was the inevitable outcome of surrendering native policy into the hands of the colonists,” and that “the most certain way of preserving peace between natives and colonists was the retention of full powers in the hands of the Home Government.” In the light of Gore Browne's Waitara policy this interpretation of New Zealand events seems questionable. C. B. Adderley took an opposite view from that of Rogers: “I don't agree that it is our business to protect natives against our fellow-countrymen, but believe that our undertaking humanity or government for our colonists is a conceit only leading to inhumanity and misgovernment.”

British Colonial Policy and the South African Republics, p. 266.

Adderley's view was more in keeping with Gladstone's promises of retrenchment and economy during the election campaign of 1868, and the policy of withdrawing troops from the Cape and paving the way for complete local self-government was persisted in. In Natal, the colonists, warned by New Zealand experience, did not ask for complete responsible government—because they wished to retain the Imperial troops. They demanded, however, “control of the purse, and hence the power to dictate policy.” This Rogers, with an equally lively recollection of events in New Zealand, advised Lord Granville to withhold. At least one salutary lesson of the New Zealand controversies had been learned at the Colonial Office, and a new principle of British policy had emerged. Its application was strikingly shown in South Africa in 1871: “The consent of the British Government (to annex the diamond fields) was accompanied by most significant conditions. The Cape Colony had to undertake the responsibility of governing the territory, which was to be united to it, together with the entire maintenance of any force that might be necessary for the preservation of order and the defence of the new border, such force not to consist of British troops, but to be a force raised and supported by the colony itself. Kimberley was clearly aware that his conditions involved self-government. The time was past when the British Government could maintain for an indefinite period the ‘present anomalous constitution’ in order to protect the native races. No further expense for frontier defence could fall on the British taxpayer, but on the other hand, if the colonists were to pay, ‘they must have a control over the policy of the Executive.’”

Cambridge History of the British Empire, vol. viii, p. 441. The quoted references are to a minute by Kimberley on a despatch of Barkly to Kimberley, May 31, 1871.

Economy in colonial expenditure by Britain demanded self-defence by the colonists. Self-defence involved complete self-government. Native affairs therefore became a local rather than an Imperial concern.

In these pages we have seen the struggle of a race for survival. The bravery and resourcefulness of the Maoris in battle command admiration. Even the excesses and atrocities of the small minority of fanatics who led the Hauhau movement had some excuse in the belief that a desperate situation could be relieved only by desperate measures. The cruelty of Te Kooti's raids was doubtless the direct result of the injustice of his exile without trial. That elusive warrior wandered long in the wilds before an amnesty was granted him. The King Country remained for many years a land apart, where proud chiefs kept to their ancestral customs and refused to be conciliated by the gestures of a Government they did not trust. More years, perhaps, must still elapse before the scars of war are completely healed, but good will, fostered by greater knowledge and understanding on both sides, may accelerate the process.

Bibliography

The main purpose of this volume being to examine British policy towards New Zealand in the light of the original documents, the chief source to be mentioned is naturally the Original Correspondence of the Secretaries of State for the Colonies, 1854–72, in the Public Record Office, London. This has the series number C.O. 209, and reference to the different volumes is given in the text. The Journals of the Deputy Quartermaster-General, Lt.-Col. D. J. Gamble, 1861–5, are in W.O. 33/16.

The next most important source, for information about public opinion in England and (through correspondents) New Zealand, is The Times newspaper for the period, 1854–72. The files and index in the British Museum Newspaper Repository at Colindale London, N.W., are very conveniently arranged. The dates of all quotations made are included in the text to avoid adding to the number of footnotes.

For direct evidence of local feeling the writer inspected the file of the Taranaki Herald in the Public Library, New Plymouth, during a visit to New Zealand in 1934. Another source used on the same occasion, thanks to the courtesy of Dr. Hight, was the manuscript journal of Henry Sewell, housed at Canterbury University College. A thesis by W.F. Monk on this journal and others by Marjorie E. S. Black on the Poverty Bay Massacre, by S. B. Babbage on Hauhauism, by E. A. Nissen on The Life and Times of Wiremu Kingi, and by Marion Graham on The Maori Population of Taranaki were also read.

The Report of the Royal Commission on “Confiscated Native Lands and Other Grievances” is printed in New Zealand Parliamentary Papers, 1928, G—7.

Bibliographies

Hocken's Bibliography of New Zealand Literature (1909), with the supplement by A. H. Johnstone (1927), is the principal general bibliography of New Zealand.

The bibliography of the New Zealand volume of the Cambridge History of the British Empire (1933), largely prepared by Dr. F. G. Spurdle, is the best recent bibliography of historical works, and it has been used by the writer of this volume for guidance both in reading the printed works on the subject and in the preparation of this list of works relevant to the study of the Maori Wars.

General Histories

Beaglehole, J. C.New Zealand: A Short History. 1936.

Benians, E. A., and Newton, A. P. (editors). The Cambridge History of the British Empire. Vol. VII, Part II. 1933.

Condliffe, J. B.New Zealand in the Making. 1930.

Condliffe, J. B., and Airey, W. T. G. Short History of New Zealand. 1935.

Egerton, H. E.British Colonial Policy. 1920.

Hight, J., and Bamford, H. D. Constitutional History of New Zealand. 1914.

Reeves, W. P.The Long White Cloud. 1924.

Rusden, G. W.History of New Zealand. 1883.

Saunders, A.History of New Zealand. 1896–9.

Scholefield, G. H.New Zealand in Evolution. 1909.

Shrimption, A. W., and Mulgan, A. E. Maori and Pakeha. 1930.

Trevelyan, G. M.British History in the Nineteenth Century. 1922.

Biographies

Blachford, Lord, Letters of. Edited by G. E. Marindin. 1896.

Carleton, H.The Life of Henry Williams. 1874–7.

Childe-Pemberton, W. S.Life of Lord Norton (C. B. Adderley). 1909.

Collier, J.Sir George Grey. 1909.

Cowan, J.Maori Biographies. 1901.

Creighton, L.G. A. Selwyn. 1922.

Curteis, G. H.Bishop Selwyn. 1889.

Davis, C. O.The Life and Times of Patuone. 1876.

Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond.Life of Earl Granville. 1905.

Gisborne, W.New Zealand Rulers and Statesmen, 1897.

Grace, Rev. T. S.A Pioneer Missionary among the Maoris, 1850–79. Ed. S. J. Brittain. (n.d.)

Gudgeon, T. W.The Defenders of New Zealand. 1887.

Harding, A. W.Life of H. H. M. Herbert, Fourth Earl of Carnarvon. 1925.

Henderson, G. C.Sir George Grey. 1907.

Lovat, Alice, Lady.The Life of Sir Frederick Weld. 1914.

Martineau, John.Life of Henry Pelham, Fifth Duke of Newcastle. 1908.

Mennell, P.Dictionary of Australasian Biography, 1855–92. 1892.

Porter, Lieut.-Col.Major Ropata Waha Waha. 1897.

Purchas, H. T.The Great Bishop of New Zealand (Selwyn). 1907.

Rees, W. L. and L.The Life and Times of Sir George Grey. 1892.

Selwyn, J. R.Personal Recollections of Bishop G. A. Selwyn. 1894.

Tucker, H. W.Memoir of the Life and Episcopate of George Augustus Selwyn. 1879.

Other Secondary Authorities

(a) Contemporary

Alexander, Sir J. E.Incidents of the Maori War. 1863.

Bowen, G. F.Thirty Years of Colonial Government. 1888–9.

Broome, F.N. “The Crisis in New Zealand,” Macmillan's Magazine, September 1869.

Browne, E. H.The Case of the War in New Zealand. 1860.

Browne, Col. G. Hamilton.With the Lost Legion in New Zealand. 1912.

Buddle, T.The Maori King Movement. 1860.

Buller, J.The Maori War. 1869.

Cairnes, J. E.Colonization and Colonial Government. 1865.

Carey, G. J.Narrative of the Late War in New Zealand. 1863.

Carrington, F. A.The Land Question in Taranaki. 1860.

Churchill, Lord A. S.The New Zealand Difficulty, Its Cause and Remedy. 1865.

Church Missionary Society, History of. (Eugene Stock, editor.) 1899.

Church Missionary Society.Memorial … on New Zealand Affairs. 1861. Further Remarks on New Zealand Affairs. 1861.

Chute, Major-General T.A Campaign on the West Coast of New Zealand. 1866.

Colenso, W.Fiat Justitia. 1871.

Denison, Sir W.Varieties of Vice-regal Life. 1870.

Dilke, Sir Charles.Greater Britain. 1868.

Featon, J. (“Comus”).The Last of the Waikatos. 1873. The Waikato War, 1863–4. 1866. Revised by Gilbert Mair. 1923.

Firth, J. C.Conference with Tamati Ngapora and the King Natives. 1869. Nation Making. 1890.

Fitzgerald, J. E.Letters on the Present State of New Zealand Affairs. 1865. The Self-Reliant Policy in New Zealand. 1870.

Foljambe, C. G. S.Three Years on the Australian Station. 1868.

Fox, W.The War in New Zealand. 1860. The War in New Zealand. 1866. Revolt in New Zealand. A series of letters to his brother, the Rev. G. T. Fox. February to August 1864 (McNab Library).

Gilbert, T.New Zealand Settlers and Soldiers. 1861.

Gisborne, W.The Colony of New Zealand. 1888 and 1891.

Gorst, J. E.The Maori King. 1864.

Gorton, E.Some Home Truths re the Maori War, 1863 to 1869. 1901.

Grace, M. S.A Sketch of the New Zealand War. 1899.

Grayling, W. I.The War in Taranaki during the Years 1860–1. 1862.

Gudgeon, T. W.Reminiscences of the War in New Zealand. 1879. The Defenders of New Zealand. 1887.

Hadfield, Archdeacon O.Recent Outbreak at Taranaki. 1860. One of England's Little Wars. 1860. The New Zealand War. 1861.

Hawthorne, J.A Dark Chapter from New Zealand History. 1869. (By a survivor of the Poverty Bay massacre.)

Hiteri Te Paerata.Description of the Battle of Orakau. 1888. (Interpreted by Captain Gilbert Mair.)

Hursthouse, C.F.Letters on New Zealand Subjects. 1865.

Johnstone, J. C.The Maoris and the Causes of the Present Anarchy in New Zealand. 1861.

Kerry-Nicholls, J. H.The King Country. 1884.

Martin, Sir W.The Taranaki Question. 1860. J. Busby published Remarks upon this pamphlet, 1860. C. W. Richmond published Notes on the pamphlet, 1861.

Martin, Lady.Our Maoris. 1884.

McDonnell, Col. T.An Explanation of the Principal Causes which led to the Present War on the West Coast of New Zealand. 1869.

Meade, Lieut. H.A Ride through the Disturbed Districts of New Zealand. 1870.

Partridge, C.Calumny Refuted, the Colonists Vindicated. 1864.

Pasley, Captain C., R.E.Sketch of the War in New Zealand, 1860–1. 1862. Very interesting account of Maori methods of warfare.

Pratt, W. T.Colonial Experiences. By an old Colonist. 1877.

Reischek, A.Yesterdays in Maoriland. 1930.

Richmond, Hon. J. C.Reminiscences of a Minister of Native Affairs in New Zealand. 1888.

Seffern, W. H. J.Chronicles of the Garden of New Zealand. 1896. A history of the Taranaki War based largely on diaries.

Sewell, H.The New Zealand Native Rebellion. 1864. The Case of New Zealand and our Colonial Policy. 1869.

Smith, Goldwin.The Empire. 1863.

Swainson, W.New Zealand and its Colonization. 1859. New Zealand and the War. 1862.

Taylor, R.Wanganui, its Past, Present, and Future. 1867. The Past and Present of New Zealand. 1868.

Thomson, A. S.The Story of New Zealand. 1859.

Torlesse, C.O. (“Suaviter-Fortiter”). The New Zealand War. Articles in the Lyttelton Times, 1860, by a nephew of E. G. Wakefield.

Vogel, J.Speech on Mr. Weld's Resolutions. 1864.

Wakefield, E. J.What Will They Do in the General Assembly? 1863.

Ward, C.Letter to Lord Lyttelton. 1863.

Ward, R.Lectures from New Zealand. 1862. Life among the Maoris of New Zealand. 1872.

Warre, H. J.Historical Records of the Fifty-seventh or West Middlesex Regiment of Foot. 1878.

Warren, Rev. John.The Christian Mission to the Aborigines of New Zealand. 1863.

Watkin, E. W.Canada and the States. 1887.

Weld, F. A.Notes on New Zealand Affairs. 1869.

Wells, B.History of Taranki. 1878.

Whitmore, Sir G. S.The Last Maori War in New Zealand under the Self-Reliant Policy. 1902.

Williams, Right Rev. W.Christianity among the New Zealanders. 1867.

Williams, W. L.East Coast Historical Records. (n.d.)

(b)Later Works

Best, E.The Maori. 1924. The Maori as He Was. 1925.

Bodelsen, C. A.Studies in Mid-Victorian Imperialism. 1924.

Cowan, J.The New Zealand Wars and the Pioneering Period. 1922–3.

De Kiewiet, C. W.British Colonial Policy and the South African Republics. 1929. The Imperial Factor in South Africa. 1937.

Egerton, H. G.Historical Geography of the British Dominions: Canada. 1908. British Colonial Policy. 1920.

Firth, R.Primitive Economics of the New Zealand Maori. 1929.

Folsom, A.The Royal Empire Society: Formative Years. 1933.

Fortescue, J. W.History of the British Army. Vol. XIII. 1930.

Gorst, Sir J. E.New Zealand Revisited. 1908.

Hall, H. L.Australia and England. 1934.

Hall, H. L.The Colonial Office: A History. 1937. This book covers the period 1830–1885, and is of great value for students of Imperial history.

Harrop, A. J.England and New Zealand (From Tasman to the Taranaki War). 1926.

Keesing, F. M.The Changing Maori. 1928.

Keith, A. B.Imperial Unity and the Dominions. 1916. Responsible Government in the Dominions. 1912.

Knaplund, Paul.Gladstone and Britain's Imperial Policy. 1927.

Mcdonald, R. A.Te Hekenga. 1931.

Morrell, W. P.The Provincial System in New Zealand. 1932. British Colonial Policy in the Age of Peel and Russell. 1930. New Zealand. 1935.

Reed, A. H.More Maoriland Adventures of J. W. Stack. 1936.

Stacey, C. P.Canada and the British Army, 1846–71. 1936.

Sutherland, I. L. G.The Maori Situation. 1935.

Wilson, J. G.Early Rangitikei. 1914.

Woon, J. G.Wanganui Old Settlers. 1902.

The Story of Gate Pa, contemporary accounts edited by W. H, Gifford, was reviewed in The New Zealand Herald, August 21 1937. A biography of Charles Brown, the friend of Keats, by the late H. E. M. Fildes, will contain contemporary accounts of the Taranaki War.

Map showing Maori War areas 1860-1872 North Island New Zealand

Provinces Auckland – – – – – – – –

Confiscated Lands as reported by

Governor Bowen, March 17, 1867

Tribes ngatimaniapoto

Frontispiece

Index

Aborigines Protection Society, 7, 68–70, 125, 140, 160, 209, 273–275 Abraham, C. J., 40, 318 Adderley, C. B. (Lord Norton), 98–99, 122, 124, 151 n, 232, 271, 297, 307, 308, 314, 316, 320, 323, 325, 328, 361, 381, 382–383, 408 Admiralty, 34, 55, 56, 60, 358, 372 Alexander, Sir James, 134, 191 n Ammunition, Maori substitutes, 182, 401–402 Arawa, tribe, 218, 280, 321, 344 Armitage, James, 181 Arms, sale of, 39, 63–64, 117, 147, 150, 222, 273, 401 Atkinson, Major H., 349–350 Atrocities, alleged, 174; Ch. 13 Auckland, 30, 34, 35, 36, 46, 78, 79, 82, 107, 117, 133, 134–135, 143, 155, 159, 169, 170, 177, 180–181, 183, 192, 194–195, 199, 203, 210, 213, 224, 233, 241–242, 263, 273, 285, 390, 401, 402, 406 Auckland Examiner,78–79, 136 Austen, Lt.-Col., 178, 186 Australasian,264, 368 Australia, 15, 88, 198, 209, 210, 315–316, 375, 387, 388 n Ball, John, 31–33, 43 Basutoland, 125, 146–147, 408 Bay of Islands, 155, 321 Bell, F. Dillon, 102, 203, 360, 384–385 Bodelsen, C.A., 16 Bowen, Sir George, 306, 311, 318–335, 339–341, 342–344, 346–347, 351–352, 354, 358–359, 362, 364, 366, 368, 369, 372, 374, 385, 393–395 British Government, see Imperial Government Brodie, Walter, 123 Brown, Archdeacon, 180 Browne, Colonel Gore, 29–31, 35–82, 93, 94, 97, 99–102, 105–107, 112–113, 117–121, 126; recall, 130–132; 139, 142–146, 149, 154, 158, 159–160, 193, 210, 233–234, 237, 316, 398, 403–404, 408 Browne, Professor E. H., 96, 98 Buckingham, Duke of, 21, 282, 297–298, 303–305, 306–309, 310, 313–314, 320–321, 323–324, 328–329, 333, 398 Buddle, Rev. T., 43, 61n, 86 n Cambridge, Duke of, 119–120, 171, 256, 266–267, 327, 367 Cameron, General Sir D., 119, 120n, 134–135, 145, 151–152, 155, 158, 167, 169–190, 195–196, 207, 210, 219, 220–221, 224, 232, 244, 245; Ch. 11; 276, 283, 290, 333, 355, 367, 398, 400, 404 Canada, 15, 84n, 101, 124–125, 162, 163n, 167n, 299n, 311, 316, 327n, 373–374n, 375n, 377, 408 Cannibalism, 325, 329, 336, 341 Canterbury, 64, 82, 159 Cape Colony, 155, 200, 213, 299n, 408, 409, see also South Africa Cardwell, Edward, 20, 211–212, 213–214, 225, 228, 230, 232, 236, 240, 258, 266, 277, 278–279, 289, 292, 298, 355, 397–398 Carey, Brig.-General G. J., 254 Carleton, H., 102 Carnarvon, Lord, 20, 52, 53, 55–56, 292–293, 297, 298, 301, 304, 305, 306, 332, 353, 370–371, 397 Chatham Islands, 284, 285, 325–327, 338, 340, 341–342, 372 Chiefs, Maori, power of, 132 Church Missionary Society, 27, 100, 110, 404 Chute, Major-General Sir T., 276, 277, 278, 283–284, 285, 287, 288, 290–291, 294, 298, 300, 304–305, 338, 362, 400–401 Clifford, Sir Charles, 123, 349, 364, 365 Cobden, Richard, 18 Colonial Military expenditure, committee, 122–125 Colonial reformers, 17 Colonial Office, 7, 18, 20–22, 69, 98, 99 n,