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Updated: May 17, 2025
That little parade brought up thoughts in all of us, and was very touching. The vital spur was captured, and with it a cohort of Maoris who were marching to relieve the pa. The garrison of Wereroa were beaten by tactics, the most deadly of weapons, and they accepted the verdict. The victory was the more complete, in that the Governor lost never a man of his tiny army.
Then, it proved to be the last day on which it was necessary for me to communicate with the ships. Good luck attended me, as I congratulated myself, when informed of the plot and its failure by a Maori who had knowledge of it, Upon what slight chances do things depend! No, they only seem so to depend! As to Wereroa, it must be captured by strength of arms, or rather by a subtle use of these.
That enforced the necessity, urgent enough in itself, for capturing the fortress. The Maoris had spent all their craft of defence on Wereroa, as, in the former New Zealand war, they did on Ruapekapeka. Engirt by palisades of wood, high and strong, they cried defiance to the Pakeha. The general in control of the British troops would not tackle Wereroa with the strength at his disposal.
We cannot refuse to do so, because persons, over whom he has no control, have massacred our soldiers. But war surged across New Zealand, a wild, unwholesome spectre, and Sir George must take it so. It had the tale of Wereroa Pa, which again presents him as the mailed hand. A British officer held a post which could not be relieved, until the Maoris in Wereroa Pa had been scattered.
General Cameron resigned and departed in the middle of 1865. The Governor wished him before he went to attack a pah called Wereroa, but the general said he required 2,000 more men to do it, and refused. Yet Sir George Grey, taking himself the command of the colonial forces, captured the fort without losing a man.
The British fighting men, with Maori allies, marched off to break in upon the rear of the Wereroa. They filed past the Governor, shaking hands with him; the moment was tense. 'Assuredly, Sir George remarked, 'the mission was not without danger, as what venture can be in war? Only, my people must have felt that I would not put them to it, unless there was every hope of success.
The horse soldiers pursued and killed many. Altogether 123 of the Maoris were killed and a large number captured, while the English lost ten men killed. Wereroa.# After this action, though skirmishes were frequent, the Maoris made no determined stand, and on the English side affairs were carried on in a slow fashion.
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