The Naval Storming Party.

What had happened on Kaipopo hill to cause such a sudden end of the Maori attack? The settlers in arms discovered that at Omata stockade. Captain Peter Cracroft, the vigorous commander of H.M.S. “Niger,” had marched out a company of his blue-jackets and marines, sixty in all, to the relief of the Colonial soldiers. In the dashing Navy way, he went straight for that Maori stockade, and stormed it most gallantly, his eager sailors making little of the fire from the trenches. Shooting and slashing, the Navy lads were over the stockade and the trenches in a few moments, “like a pack of schoolboys,” as a veteran of Waireka told me. The Maori loss was heavy. The attack was delivered at the right time and in just the right way to save the settler-soldiers from a disaster.

There was tremendous excitement in New Plymouth; the “Nigers” and the page 22 page 23 Taranaki riflemen were the heroes of the hour. The settlers had proved their worth as warriors. Fathers and sons and brothers fought side by side. There were four Messengers in the day's work. The picture of the Waireka battle illustrating this article was drawn by Mr. A. H. Messenger, of Wellington, son of Ensign W. B. Messenger who later became Colonel in the New Zealand Permanent Force. This water-colour is based on data given by the artist's father, and sketches on the spot, and several of the figures can be identified as those of well-known New Plymouth soldiers and settlers.

So ended the Taranaki settlers' first battle. Atkinson's and Stapp's men inflicted heavy casualties on the Maoris, but it was Cracroft's splendid attack that decided the day and cleared the district of the Maoris. The tribes had intended to move on New Plymouth, but that offensive was stopped for the present.