[179] Mr. Percy Smith is my authority for saying that Rangihaeata did not actually compose this lament, as is generally supposed, but merely adapted it from a very old original.
[180] In October, 1850, Dr. Dorsett, as Chairman of the Settlers' Constitutional Society, in a letter addressed to Earl Grey, complained of the inadequacy of Te Rauparaha's punishment. Sir George Grey replied by quoting two laments, of which this was one, "to show the light in which the natives regarded the punishment inflicted on him."
[181] Pohi was one of the inferior chiefs arrested with Te Rauparaha and afterwards released. Subsequently, Grey discovered that this man was supposed to possess "important information."
[182] For the passive attitude adopted by many of the Ngati-Toa people some credit must be given to Te Rauparaha, who had already advised his son to go to the tribes and tell them to remain in peace. "I returned on shore," says Tamahana, "and saw Ngati-Toa and Rawhiri Puaha. We told them the words of Rauparaha respecting that which is good and living in peace. Two hundred Ngati-Raukawa came to Otaki. Rangihaeata wished to destroy Wellington and kill the pakehas as satisfaction. I told them the words of Te Rauparaha, that they must put away foolish thoughts, live in peace, and cast away bad desires. They consented."
[183] Ensign Blackburn, who was a fine officer and a great favourite with the troops, was shot by a native secreted in a tree, and he in turn was almost immediately brought down by an artilleryman.
[184] Under the chilling atmosphere of bleak winter the enthusiasm of our native allies soon began to cool and the vigour of their pursuit to slacken. Power, in his Sketches in New Zealand, gives an amusing account of a big korero held at Otaki to decide whether or not they would continue the chase, in which he says: "Rangihaeata's sister was present and addressed the meeting in favour of her absent brother, making at the same time some very unparliamentary remarks on the aggressions of the pakehas and the want of pluck of the Maoris in not resisting them, as her illustrious brother was doing. An old chief requested her to resume her seat, informing her at the same time that she was the silly sister of a sillier brother. He then put it to the meeting whether pigs and potatoes, warm fires and plenty of tobacco, were not better things than leaden bullets, edges of tomahawks, snow, rain, and empty bellies? All the former, he distinctly stated, were to be enjoyed on the plain; the latter they had had plentiful experience of in the mountains, and was it to be expected that they—and he confidently relied upon the good sense of the meeting—could be such fools as to hesitate for a moment? The applause of the old man's rhetoric was unanimous, and it received no slight help from the timely appearance of a procession bearing the materials for a week's feasting."
[185] Lieutenant McKillop, writing on this point, says: "We never had any such decided advantage over him in our various skirmishes with his tribe as to dishearten him, and had we been unassisted by friendly Maoris I have no doubt he would have held out and carried his point."
[186] While the Calliope was lying at Wellington, Te Rauparaha was visited by his son Tamahana, who has left it on record that, in that trying moment of his life, his father displayed a spirit of calm forgiveness towards those who had so treacherously deprived him of his liberty. His advice was: "Son, go to your tribes and tell them to remain in peace. Do not pay for my seizure with evil, only with that which is good. You must love the Europeans. There was no just cause for my having been arrested by Governor Grey. I have not murdered any Europeans, but I was arrested through the lies of the people. If I had been taken prisoner in battle, it would have been well, but I was unjustly taken."
[187] In his Travels in New Zealand, Crawford remarks: "During the march to Pahautanui, a Maori named Martin Luther (Wareaitu) was taken prisoner and was some months afterwards tried by court martial and hanged. I cannot help thinking that this was a blunder." Dr. Thomson is even more emphatic, and declares that "Luther's death is a disgrace to Governor Grey's administration."
[188] Visitors to modern Otaki cannot fail to notice a tall pole erected near the roadside opposite the church. The totara tree out of which the pole was hewn was brought there at the outbreak of the Maori war. It was intended as a flagstaff, but Mr. Hadfield persuaded the Maoris to remain perfectly neutral and make no demonstration one way or the other. The tree lay for many years on the common until the Rev. Mr. McWilliam induced the Maoris to shape the tree into a tapering obelisk 40 feet high, with the dates 1840 (the year when Christianity was established at Otaki) to 1880 (the year the obelisk was erected) going spirally round it from bottom to top, and so it became a memorial of the English Church Mission at Otaki. It was first erected in the middle of the common, but in 1890, that is, the fiftieth year of the mission, it was moved into the corner opposite the church gate. It is called by the Maoris the "Jubilee." There was a great gathering of Maoris on that occasion, and fifty of them were clad in white and took part in the ceremony. The chief speaker was Kereopa Tukumaru, an old chief from Kereru, who had been one of the first converts to Christianity, and was now able to tell what great things the religion of Christianity had done for the Maoris. "This man," says Mr. McWilliam, "was the most consistent Christian I have ever had the privilege of knowing." He was most industrious, but when not working he was reading his Bible. He knew nearly the whole of it by heart. His grave may be seen near the Kereru railway station on a small natural mound. It is an oblong raised vault, built of concrete, with a beautiful white marble angel standing over one end.