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Updated: June 24, 2025
The land for which Governor Browne had given £200 at Taranaki was still in the occupation of armed Maoris, and it must be given up. Grey reasoned with them, but they were obstinate. Bishop Selwyn went among them and exhorted them to peace, but made no impression.
A second assault would have been made, but during the night the Maoris tied up their dogs, and quietly dropping over the palisades at the rear of the pah, got far away into the forest before their retreat was known, for the howling of the dogs all night within the pah kept the officers from suspecting that the Maoris were escaping.
When a powerful chief refused to allow one of the Governor's roads to be pushed through his tribe's land, Grey said nothing, but sent the chief's sister a present of a wheeled carriage. Before long the road was permitted. But on the all-important question of the validity of the land clause in the treaty of Waitangi, the Governor always gave the Maoris the fullest assurance.
General Cameron had under him 10,000 regular soldiers, and nearly 10,000 colonial volunteers. He had nearly a dozen vessels of different sorts, either on the coasts or up the river, and he had an abundance of heavy guns. There arose quarrels between him and the Governor, who thought that with less than 1,000 Maoris under arms more progress ought to have been made.
The Maoris of Poverty Bay had a story that Cook gave to one of their chiefs a musket with a supply of powder and lead. The fate of the musket was that the first man to fire it was so frightened by the report and recoil that he flung it away into the sea. The powder the natives sowed in the ground believing it to be cabbage seed.
To appreciate the gravity of the situation, it is necessary to remember that the European settlements were still but a fringe round the coast, while the whole of the interior of the island was occupied by the Maoris.
It is said that Tucker had been to Otago some years previously and had stolen a baked head from the Maoris. It is hinted that an encounter had taken place on the coast not long before in which natives had been shot and a boat's crew cut off.
When the human race is all destroyed, as it is, except a few handfuls of albino survivors, to make war and kill each other! It's on a par with the old Maoris of New Zealand, who practically exterminated each other fought till most of the tribes were wiped clean out and only a remnant was left for the British to subdue!"
The fighting throughout the night was continuous, for amid these gloomy ravines the Turks offered courageous and despairing resistance to the Australians, the New Zealanders and Maoris, and many bloody encounters, the details of which will never be known, were fought in the dark hours which preceded a still more eventful dawn."
There was morning service and Holy Communion at the little College chapel on the 1st of May, Ascension Day of 1856; then the party went on board, but their first start was only to Coromandel Bay, in order that the Bishop might arrange a dispute with the Maoris, and they then returned to Auckland to take up Mrs. Selwyn. The crew were five in number, and Mr.
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