News of the death in Auckland recently of an old acquaintance, Mr. George H. Powley, veteran of the Royal Navy, set me looking up some of my notes about H.M.S. Niger, the ship of his fighting youth. The name of the Niger is a notable one in our New Zealand story. She was a squarerigged craft with steam power, and she was a most useful vessel in the West Coast service when the first Taranaki war called for the frequent shipping of British soldiers from the Manukau to New Plymouth. Her captain, Peter Cracroft, was a sailor of the traditional bluff, downright school who won the hearts of the Taranaki settlers by his dashing capture in 1860 of the Maori pa at Kaipopo, above the Waireka beach, a few miles south of New Plymouth. The soldiers had marched back to camp from the battlefield, leaving the outnumbered settlers to fight it out, and Cracroft came in with his bluejackets from the Niger just in time to get the “embattled farmers” out of an awkward fix.

On that thrilling day in New Plymouth's history there were several lads serving in the Niger who had signed on in New Zealand. One of them was George Powley. He was not in the party that stormed the Maori pa, but he was one of the six young sailors selected by Captain Cracroft to carry the war-flag captured there when it was presented to Governor Gore Browne at Auckland, as a trophy of the battle.