On the 18th of April a youthful midshipman of the Calliope was "fooling" with a pistol, which exploded and wounded a Putiki chief in the face. The wound was attended to by the English surgeon, and the chief made light of the matter; but certain "irreconcilables" proclaimed the middy's act an attempt at deliberate murder, and swore to take utu. That these men were actuated by sheer hate of the Pakeha is clear from the fact that, not being related to the Putiki chief, they had no right to exact vengeance on his behalf. Yet revenge him they did, and in atrocious fashion.
A settler named Gilfinnan, his wife and eight children, lived at Matarana, a lonely spot five miles from Whanganui. Six natives descended upon this solitary homestead two days after the midshipman's unlucky prank, and barbarously murdered Mrs. Gilfinnan, two young boys and a girl of fourteen. The eldest daughter was severely injured and Gilfinnan, bleeding from a tomahawk gash in the neck, staggered into the town with the dismal information.
Then Honi Wiremu (John Williams), a Christian chief, called upon six other young men to follow him, and without an hour's delay sped up the river in pursuit of those who had dishonoured the Maori name. The murderers had made fifty miles when the canoe of the avengers dashed into sight and swiftly came abreast of their own. Before the assassins could lift a hand, Patapo, a young chief, gripping his tomahawk between his teeth, sprang into their canoe, instantly upsetting it, and in a few minutes the ruffians were dragged from the water, handcuffed and carried prisoners to Whanganui.
The district being at that time under martial law, Captain Laye of the 58th Regiment made short work of the murderers, four of whom he hanged out of hand, after general court-martial, while the fifth, a mere boy, was transported for life.
The torch was alight now: but it was three weeks later before the settlers saw the surrounding hills dark with hostile Maori, who opened fire on the town, the stockade and, impudently enough, on the gunboat in the river. The defence was too weak to allow of operations by daylight; but, after nightfall, when the natives thought that they might safely loot outlying houses, the soldiers, undismayed by superior numbers, chased them from the town, routing them utterly and slaying, with many more, their old chief, Maketu, a man of note.
Early in June reinforcements were dispatched to the Whanganui post, and the "Fighting Governor" himself arrived. How useful Captain Grey could be in a crisis such as this, and how intimate was his knowledge of human nature, is evidenced by what occurred shortly after his arrival, when a deputation waited on him with the request that he would remove the inhabitants from Whanganui and transfer them to Wellington.
Captain Grey studied the faces of the men for a few moments, and then replied, "How many of you really wish to effect this change? Let all who desire to run away from the natives cross to the other side of the room."
Not a man stirred from his place and, though some did eventually leave Whanganui, the settlement was not deserted. To-day Whanganui is the centre of one of the finest pastoral districts in New Zealand.
Throughout June, Colonel McCleverty tried without success to lure the Maori from their strong entrenchments; but towards the end of the month he made a demonstration in their front and, after some skirmishing, played the old trick of seeming to retreat in disorder. The enemy were outside their works in a twinkling, yelling triumphantly; but the soldiers turned at bay and drove them back over their breastworks at the point of the bayonet. This was the last of it. Winter had set in and the Maori, having had enough of fighting combined with semi-starvation, came in under a flag of truce and proposed peace on the ground that they considered they had killed sufficient soldiers!
Knowing the Maori mind, the Governor appeared to resent this remark and replied that, though he would discontinue fighting, he would blockade the river until peace was sued for in more seemly phrase. Spring was well advanced before the haughty chiefs crushed down their pride, and not a craft of any sort had been allowed up stream since the Kawana's fiat went forth. So, being unable to obtain tobacco, tea, sugar, and other luxuries, they swallowed humble pie, and wrote begging His Excellency to proclaim peace.