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A party of British soldiers were ambushed and killed before the offer to give back the Waitara was proclaimed, and again the flames of war broke out. The governor ordered the Auckland army to cross the Mangatawhiri River, and the act was taken as a declaration of hostilities. "It is now a war of defence," said Tamihana; "nothing is left but to fight."
Sir George Grey was genuinely anxious to avoid war, but he tried to cow the Maoris by driving a military road from Auckland to a point just outside the frontier line, by depositing bridging material upon the bank of the Mangatawhiri, and by sending a war steamer up the Waikato.
Its previous course may be compared to the upright stem of the letter T: from this point it forms the left arm of the cross. The right arm of the T is supplied by the smaller River Mangatawhiri, which here falls into the Waikato. The cross of the T extended from the western sea almost to the Hauraki Gulf, and divided the country of the "king" from that of the white man.
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