Letter IV.

In July 1862 I resigned the Colonial Secretaryship, and ceased to have any thing to do with the Government. The ground of my doing so was this:—"When Governor Grey arrived in the colony, he arranged to carry on the Government on the principle of responsible Government. When the Assembly met, in July 1862, it disapproved of this, contending that as the difficulties under which we laboured with the Natives had grown up during the period when the Imperial Government exercised absolute control, they ought to be adjusted by it, and on its responsibility, before the colony assumed the burden on its own account: the "burden" meaning the liability for the consequences of misgovernment and the cost of suppressing future revolts. I never believed in the probability of the Imperial Government either keeping us out or getting us out of native difficulties; and refused to hold an office which would amount to no more than a mere clerkship or secretaryship under the Governor. So he got a new Ministry; and, during the ensuing year, the Governor was himself the sole actor, and solely responsible for the page 20 policy adopted in reference to the Natives. At the end of the year the Home Government insisted that, whether we liked it or not, the colony should take the responsibility Of governing the Natives. But before this function was re-imposed upon us, the murders at Taranaki and the outbreak in Waikato had occurred. Since the revolt the Colonial Office has again retraced its steps, and is now endeavouring to establish a system of divided responsibility, in which the Governor is partly responsible and his Ministers partly. I need scarcely say that this ingenious system can only end in deadlocks and utter misgovernment, and has induced me to resign a second, time the Colonial Secretaryship, which I had re-assumed when responsible government was bestowed upon us by the Duke of Newcastle, in 1863. This digression is necessary to enable you to understand how fully Governor Grey was responsible for the events which occurred between August 1862 and November 1863, and how little the colonists or the Colonial Government had to do with the matter.

After the failure of all negotiations with "Waikato, the Governor seems to have made up his mind that, as far as Waitara was concerned, it was no use making any further attempts in that direction. He therefore went down to Taranaki, close to which town Waitara is. He did not attempt to institute any public or judicial enquiry; but, through official and other channels, he got at some facts which appear to have been new to him (though well known to the House of Representatives two years before), and he availed himself of these as a ground for deciding to give up "Waitara, thus setting aside the purchase by Governor Browne, and negativing the title of the Natives who had undertaken; to sell it to him.

But there was a complication in the matter, and as it was made the pretext by the natives for a renewal of hostilities, it requires particular notice.

About fifteen miles south of the town of Taranaki, or New Plymouth, lies the district of Tataraimaka. This district had been purchased during Sir George Grey's previous page 21 administration, in 1848 or 1849. There had never been a shadow of a doubt as to the validity of the purchase; and it had been occupied by European settlers for ten years, holding under Crown grants. During the Taranaki war of 1860-1861 the settlers were driven from this district by the insurgent Natives, and their homes utterly ravaged and destroyed. At the end of that war the Natives retained possession of the district, claiming it by right of conquest. When Governor Grey went to Taranaki he had, according to the plans he had decided on, to do two things,—to give up Waitara, and to retake Tataraimaka, Had he given up Waitara first, it is more than probable that no opposition would have been made to his taking Tataraimaka, But by one of those important errors which are apt to befal those who "diplomatize" too much, he, for some unexplained reason, reversed the process: without ever giving a hint of his intention to give up Waitara, he sent soldiers to occupy Tataraimaka, which they did, by building a redoubt and taking up their quarters in it. As a matter of policy this was no doubt a great blunder; but it did not give the Natives any right to do what they immediately did. Tataraimaka was not theirs; it had only come into their possession by an act of rebellion; and whether Waitara were given up or not, they had no right to Tataraimaka. Besides which they were not personally interested in the Waitara dispute, belonging to different tribes from that whose claims Governor Browne had ignored.

The Natives did not offer any opposition to the soldiers when they took possession; but they immediately wrote to the chiefs of Waikato, who, you will understand, lived some 200 miles away, and had no personal interest in either Tataraimaka or Waitara. The Waikatos replied by directing them immediately to commence hostilities; and they sent emissaries into every part of the country, urging a general rising and extermination of the Europeans. I was away at this time in the Rangitikei district, fully 300 miles from Waikato, and 150 miles from Taranaki. One of these deputations passed within half-a-dozen miles of my house, on its road page 22 down the coast. The leader was an old man of between seventy and eighty years of age, who travelled the long distance from Waikato and back on foot, and over a very rugged country. He exhorted the natives in Cook's Straits to "sweep their yard;" meaning thereby, to drive out the Europeans; advice that was responded to by one of the local Natives in these words:—" My plan is to fight across the boundary, in the midst of the Europeans, and to drive them into the sea, in order that they may disappear from this island." Fortunately for us more prudent councils prevailed, and our immediate neighbours determined to watch the progress of events in the north before they should commit themselves.

At Taranaki, however, no time was lost in responding to the war cry which had gone forth from Waikato. On the 4th of May an ambuscade party attacked a small escort conveying some carts between New Plymouth and that place, and killed Lieut. Tragett, Dr. Hope, and seven or eight rank and file. This they did avowedly in obedience to the orders they had received from Waikato, and from this event dates the war in which we have been engaged ever since. How the field of operations became changed from Taranaki to Waikato, and how we got engaged in hostilities with the tribes of that district, I must reserve for another letter.