Victory was no sooner assured than the Maori swept down upon the town, looted and burnt it to ashes. Yet so generous—or so stupid, from the soldiers' point of view—were they that they allowed many of the townspeople, with whom they considered they had no quarrel, to take what goods they could and go unhindered. It was as if they had said, "Our dispute is with the authorities. Go you in peace, and learn that the savage Maori can be as chivalrous as the civilised Briton."
Were there present at the sack of the town any of the grosser sort of Maori, who might have been inclined to defy their chiefs and commit those excesses too often associated with the victory of the savage, there were yet two men there to hold their passions in check. For, in and out of the flaming houses, and here and there among the wounded, unmoved by the riot and confusion around them, went all day long Bishop Selwyn of the English and Bishop Pompallier of the Catholic Church, their differences forgot as they united in acts of Christian charity and corporal works of mercy.
So fell Kororareka, with the loss of a dozen killed and a score or so wounded on the side of the defenders, while the Maori lost—so they said—ten or twelve more. But, in addition, the town was destroyed, and along with it fifty thousand pounds' worth of property. It was a signal triumph for Heke and Kawiti, and, worse than all, it taught the Maori to disbelieve in the invincibility of the Pakeha.
So fell Kororareka, one of the oldest settlements—if not the oldest—in New Zealand; nor were there wanting those who averred that the place had brought its fate upon itself and, like a latter-day "city of the plain," thoroughly deserved its downfall.
HEKE AND KAWITI ON THE WARPATH
Kororareka was done with; but not so Honi Heke, outlawed now with his comrade old Kawiti, and the whites around Auckland went in terror of the victorious pair. For Heke had threatened to assault the capital at the next full moon. Some watched for his coming as apprehensively as did ever Roman for the approach of Lars Porsena and his Etruscans, while to others the mention of the Black Douglas was not more prophetic of disaster than was that of Honi Heke. Many of these last migrated to more peaceful shores, despairing of rest anywhere in the land where the Maori were predominant.
After all, Heke never came. The Maori leader had his hands full; for Tomati Waka Nene, throwing in his lot with the British, marched into Heke's country, and kept the victor busy while the Pakeha drew breath.