In January, 1866, however, after General Cameron had by resignation escaped from a disagreeable position, but while the withdrawal of the troops was still incomplete, his successor, General Chute, showed that under officers of determination and energy British soldiers are by no means feeble folk even in the intricacies of the New Zealand bush. Setting out from the Weraroa aforesaid on January 3rd with three companies of regulars, a force of militia, and 300 Maoris under the chief Kepa, or Kemp, he began to march northward through the forest to New Plymouth. At first following the coast he captured various pas by the way, including a strong position at Otapawa, which was fairly stormed in the face of a stout defence, during which both sides suffered more than a little. There, when one of the buttons on Chute's coat was cut off by a bullet, he merely snapped out the remark, "The niggers seem to have found me out." Both the coolness and the words used were characteristic of the hard but capable soldier. Further on the route Kemp in one day of running skirmishes took seven villages. Arriving at the southern side of Mount Egmont, the General decided to march round its inland flank through a country then almost unknown except to a few missionaries. Encumbered with pack-horses, who were checked by every flooded stream, the expedition took seven days to accomplish the sixty miles of the journey. But they did it, and met no worse foes than continual rain, short commons, deep mud, and the gloomy silence of the saturated forest, which then spread without a break over a country now almost entirely taken up by thriving dairy-farmers. Turning south again from New Plymouth by the coast-road, Chute had to fight but once in completing a march right round Mount Egmont, and thenceforward, except on its southern verge, long-distracted Taranaki saw no more campaigning.
Other districts were less fortunate. By the early part of 1865 the Hau-Hau craze was at work on the east as well as the west coast. It was in the country round the Wanganui River to the west, and in the part of the east coast, between Tauranga on the Bay of Plenty and Hawkes Bay, that the new mischief gave the most trouble. The task of coping with it devolved on the New Zealand Militia, and the warriors of certain friendly tribes, headed by the chiefs called by the Europeans Ropata and Kemp. In this loose and desultory but exceedingly arduous warfare, the irregulars and friendlies undoubtedly proved far more efficient than the regular troops had usually been permitted to be. They did not think it useless to follow the enemy into the bush; far from it. They went there to seek him out. They could march many miles in a day, and were not fastidious as to commissariat. More than once they gained food and quarters for the night by taking them from their opponents. In a multitude of skirmishes in 1865 and 1866, they were almost uniformly victorious. Of the laurels gained in New Zealand warfare, a large share belongs to Ropata, to Kemp, and to Militia officers like Tuke, McDonnell and Fraser. Later in the war, when energetic officers tried to get equally good results out of inexperienced volunteers, and when, too—in some cases—militia discipline had slackened, the consequences were by no means so satisfactory. It did not follow that brave men ready to plunge into the bush were good irregulars merely because they were not regulars. Nor were all friendly natives by any means as effective as the Wanganui and Ngatiporou, or all chiefs as serviceable as Ropata and Kemp.
The east coast troubles began in March, 1865, with the murder at Opotiki, on the Bay of Plenty, of Mr. Volckner, a missionary and the most kindly and inoffensive of mankind. At the bidding of Kereopa, a Hau-Hau emissary, the missionary's people suddenly turned on him, hung him, hacked his body to pieces, and smeared themselves with his blood. At another spot in the same Bay a trading schooner was seized just afterwards by order of another Hau-Hau fanatic, and all on board killed save two half-caste boys. A force of militia soon dealt out condign punishment for these misdeeds, but meanwhile Kereopa and his fellow fire-brands had passed down the coast and kindled a flame which gradually crept southward even to Hawkes Bay. In village after village the fire blazed up, and a rising equal to that in the Waikato seemed imminent. It was, indeed, fortunate that much the ablest warrior on that side of the island at once declared against the craze. This was Ropata Te Wahawaha, then and afterwards the most valuable Maori ally the Government had, and one of the very few captains on either side who went through the wars without anything that could be called a defeat. Without fear or pity, he was a warrior of the older Maori type, who with equal enjoyment could plan a campaign, join in a hand-to-hand tussle, doom a captive to death, or shoot a deserter with his own rifle. As he would not join the Hau-Haus, they and their converts made the mistake of attacking him. After beating them off he was joined by Major Biggs and a company of militia. Together they advanced against the stronghold of the insurgents, perched on a cliff among the Waiapu hills. By scaling a precipice with twenty picked men, Ropata and Biggs gained a crest above the pa, whence they could fire down into the midst of their astonished adversaries, over 400 of whom surrendered in terror to the daring handful. But the mischief had run down the coast. Spreading from point to point, dying down and then starting up, it was as hard to put out as fire abroad in the fern. The amiable Kereopa visited Poverty Bay, three days' journey south of the Waiapu, and tried hard to persuade the natives to murder Bishop Williams, the translator of the Scriptures into Maori. Though they shrank from this, the Bishop had to fly, and his flock took up arms, stood a siege in one of their pas, and lost over a hundred men before they would surrender to the militia. Further south still the next rising flared up on the northern frontier of the Hawkes Bay province. Once more Ropata stamped it under, and the generalship with which he repaired the mistakes made by others, and routed a body of 500 insurgents was not more remarkable than the cold-blooded promptitude with which after the fight he shot four prisoners of note with his own hand. It took ten months for the spluttering fire to flame up again. Then it was yet another stage further south, within a few miles of Napier, amid pastoral plains, where, if anywhere, peace, it would seem, should have an abiding-place. The rising there was but a short one-act play. To Colonel Whitmore belonged the credit of dealing it a first and final blow at Omaranui, where, with a hastily raised force of volunteers, and some rather useless friendlies, he went straight at the insurgents, caught them in the open, and quickly killed, wounded, or captured over ninety per cent. of their number.
After this there was a kind of insecure tranquillity until June, 1868. Then fighting began again near the coast between Wanganui and Mount Egmont, where the occupation of confiscated lands bred bitter feelings. Natives were arrested for horse-stealing. Straggling settlers were shot. A chief, Titokowaru, hitherto insignificant, became the head and front of the resistance. In June a sudden attack was made by his people upon some militia holding a tumble-down redoubt—an attack so desperate that out of twenty-three in the work, only six remained unwounded when help came, after two hours' manful resistance. Colonel McDonnell, then in command on the coast, had proved his dash and bravery in a score of bush-fights. In his various encounters he killed ten Maoris with his own hand. He was an expert bushman, and a capital manager of the friendly natives. But during the eighteen months of quiet the trained militia which had done such excellent work in 1865 and 1866, had been in part dispersed. The force which in July McDonnell led into the bush to attempt Titokowaru's pa, at Ngutu-o-te-manu (Beak-of-the-bird) was to a large extent raw material. The Hau-Haus were found fully prepared. Skilfully posted, they poured in a hot cross-fire, both from the pa and from an ambush in the neighbouring thickets. Broken into two bodies, McDonnell's men were driven to make a long and painful retreat, during which two died of exhaustion. They lost twenty-four killed and twenty-six wounded. McDonnell resigned in disgust. Whitmore, who replaced him, demanded better men, and got them, but to meet no better success. At Moturoa his assault on another forest stockade failed under a withering fire; the native contingent held back sulkily; and again our men retreated, with a loss this time of forty-seven, of which twenty-one were killed. This was on November 5th. Before Whitmore could try again he was called to the other side of the island by evil tidings from Poverty Bay.
These had their cause in the strangest story of the Maori wars. Amongst the many blunders in these, some of the oddest were the displays of rank carelessness which repeatedly led to the escape of Maori prisoners. Three times did large bodies get away and rejoin their tribes—once from Sir George Grey's island estate at Kawau, where they had been turned loose on parole; once from a hulk in Wellington Harbour, through one of the port-holes of which they slipped into the sea on a stormy night; the third time from the Chatham Islands. This last escape, which was in July, 1868, was fraught with grave mischief.
Fruitlessly the officer in charge of prisoners there had protested against being left with twenty men to control three hundred and thirty captives. The leader of these, Te Kooti, one of the ablest as well as most ferocious partisans the colonists ever had to face, had been deported from Poverty Bay to the Chathams two years before, without trial. Unlike most of his fellow prisoners he had never borne arms against us. The charge against him was that he was in communication with Hau-Hau insurgents in 1865. His real offence seems to have been that he was regarded by some of the Poverty Bay settlers as a disagreeable, thievish, disaffected fellow, and there is an uncomfortable doubt as to whether he deserved his punishment. During his exile he vowed vengeance against those who had denounced him, and against one man in particular. In July, 1868, the schooner Rifleman was sent down to the Chathams with supplies. The prisoners took the chance thus offered. They surprised the weak guard, killed a sentry who showed fight, and seized and tied up the others, letting the women and children escape unharmed. Going on board the Rifleman, Te Kooti gave the crew the choice between taking his people to New Zealand and instant death. They chose the former, and the schooner set sail for the east coast of New Zealand with about one hundred and sixty fighting men, and a number of women and children. The outbreak and departure were successfully managed in less than two hours. When head winds checked the runaways, Te Kooti ordered an old man, his uncle, to be bound and thrown overboard as a sacrifice to the god of winds and storms. The unhappy human sacrifice struggled for awhile in the sea and then sank. At once the wind changed, the schooner lay her course, and the mana of Te Kooti grew great. After sailing for a week, the fugitives had their reward, and were landed at Wharé-onga-onga (Abode-of-stinging-nettles), fifteen miles from Poverty Bay. They kept their word to the crew, whom they allowed to take their vessel and go scot-free. Then they made for the interior. Major Biggs, the Poverty Bay magistrate, got together a force of friendly natives and went in pursuit. The Hau-Haus showed their teeth to such effect that the pursuers would not come to close quarters. Even less successful was the attempt of a small band of White volunteers. They placed themselves across Te Kooti's path; but after a long day's skirmishing were scattered in retreat, losing their baggage, ammunition, and horses. Colonel Whitmore, picking them up next day, joined them to his force and dragged them off after him in pursuit of the victors. It was winter, and the weather and country both of the roughest. The exhausted volunteers, irritated by Whitmore's manner, left him half-way. For himself the little colonel, all wire and leather, knew not fatigue. But even the best of his men were pretty well worn out when they did at last catch a Tartar in the shape of the enemy's rearguard. The latter made a stand under cover, in an angle of the narrow bed of a mountain-torrent floored with boulders and shut in by cliffs. Our men, asked to charge in single file, hung back, and a party of Native allies sent round to take the Hau Haus in flank made off altogether. Though Te Kooti was shot through the foot, the pursuit had to be given up. The net result of the various skirmishes with him had been that we had lost twenty-six killed and wounded, and that he had got away.
Whitmore went away to take command on the west coast. Thus Te Kooti gained time to send messengers to the tribes, and many joined him. He spoke of himself as God's instrument against the Pakeha, preached eloquently, and kept strict discipline amongst his men. In November, after a three months' lull, he made his swoop on his hated enemies the settlers in Poverty Bay, and in a night surprise took bloody vengeance for his sojourn at the Chathams. His followers massacred thirty-three white men, women and children, and thirty-seven natives. Major Biggs was shot at the door of his house. Captain Wilson held out in his till it was in flames. Then he surrendered under promise of life for his family, all of whom, however, were at once bayonetted, except a boy who slipped into the scrub unnoticed. McCulloch, a farmer, was shot as he sat milking. Several fugitives owed their lives to the heroism of a friendly chief, Tutari, who refused to gain his life by telling their pursuers the path they had taken. The Hau Haus killed him and seized his wife, who, however, adroitly saved both the flying settlers and herself by pointing out the wrong track. Lieutenant Gascoigne with a hasty levy of friendly Natives set out after the murderers, only to be easily held in check at Makaretu with a loss of twenty-eight killed and wounded. Te Kooti, moreover, intercepted an ammunition train and captured eight kegs of gunpowder. Fortifying himself on a precipitous forest-clad hill named Ngatapa, he seemed likely to rally round him the disaffected of his race. But his red star was about to wane. Ropata with his Ngatiporou now came on the scene. A second attack on Makaretu sent the insurgents flying. They left thirty-seven dead behind, for Ropata gave no quarter, and had not his men loitered to plunder, Te Kooti, who, still lame, was carried off on a woman's back, must have been among their prizes. Pushing on to Ngatapa, Ropata found it a very formidable stronghold. The pa was on the summit of an abrupt hill, steep and scarped on two sides, narrowing to a razor-backed ridge in the rear. In front three lines of earthwork rose one above another, the highest fourteen feet high, aided and connected by the usual rifle-pits and covered way. Most of Ropata's men refused to follow him against such a robbers' nest, and though the fearless chief tried to take it with the faithful minority, he had to fall back, under cover of darkness, and return home in a towering passion. A month later his turn came. Whitmore arrived. Joining their forces, he and Ropata invested Ngatapa closely, attacked it in front and rear, and took the lowest of the three lines of intrenchment. A final assault was to come next morning. The Hau Haus were short of food and water, and in a desperate plight. But one cliff had been left unwatched, and over that they lowered themselves by ropes as the storming party outside sat waiting for the grey dawn. They were not, however, to escape unscathed. Ropata at once sent his men in chase. Hungry and thirsty, the fugitives straggled loosely, and were cut down by scores or brought back. Short shrift was theirs. The Government had decided that Poverty Bay must be revenged, and the prisoners were forthwith shot, and their bodies stripped and tossed over a cliff. From first to last at Ngatapa the loss to the Hau Haus was 136 killed outright, ours but 22, half of whom were wounded only. It was the last important engagement fought in New Zealand, and ended all fear of a general rising. Yet in one respect the success was incomplete: Te Kooti once more escaped. This time he reached the fastnesses of the wild Urewera tribe, and made more than one bloodstained raid thence. In April he pounced on Mohaka, at the northern end of the Hawkes Bay Province, killed seven whites, fooled the occupants of a Native pa into opening their gates to him, and then massacred 57 of them. But the collapse of the insurrection on the West Coast enabled attention to be concentrated upon the marauder. He fell back on the plateau round Lake Taupo. There, in June, 1869, he outwitted a party of militia-men by making his men enter their camp, pretending to be friendlies. When the befooled troopers saw the trick and tried to seize their arms, nine were cut down. McDonnell, however, was at the heels of the Hau Haus, and in three encounters in the Taupo region Te Kooti was soundly beaten with a loss of 50 killed. He became a hunted fugitive. Ropata and Kemp chased him from district to district, backwards and forwards, across and about the island, for a high price had been put on his head. For three years the pursuit was urged or renewed. Every band Te Kooti got together was scattered. His wife was taken; once he himself was shot in the hand; again and again the hunters were within a few yards of their game. Crossing snow-clad ranges, wading up the beds of mountain torrents, hacking paths through the tangled forest, they were ever on his track, only to miss him. It was in the Uriwera wilderness that Te Kooti lost his congenially bloodthirsty crony Kereopa, who was caught there and hung. Left almost without followers, he himself at last took refuge in the King Country, where he stayed quiet and unmolested. In the end he received a pardon, and died in peace after living for some twenty years after his hunters had abandoned their chase.
Colonel Whitmore, crossing to the Wanganui district after the fall of Ngatapa, had set off to deal with Titokowaru. He, however, threw up the game and fled to the interior, where he was wisely left alone, and, except for the fruitless pursuit of Te Kooti, the year 1870 may be marked as the end of warfare in New Zealand.
The interest of the Maori struggle, thus concluded, does not spring from the numbers engaged. To a European eye the combats were in point of size mere battles of the frogs and mice. What gave them interest was their peculiar and picturesque setting, the local difficulties to be met, and the boldness, rising at moments to heroism, with which clusters of badly armed savages met again and again the finest fighting men of Europe. It was the race conflict which gave dignity to what Lieutenant Gudgeon in his chronicle truthfully reduces to "expeditions and skirmishes grandiloquently styled campaigns". Out of a multitude of fights between 1843 and 1870, thirty-seven (exclusive of the raid on Poverty Bay, which was a massacre) may be classed as of greater importance than the rest. Out of these we were unmistakably beaten nine times, and a tenth encounter, that of Okaihau, was indecisive. Of twenty-seven victories, however, those of Rangi-riri and Orakau were dearly bought; in the double fight at Nukumaru we lost more than the enemy, and at Waireka most of our forces retreated, and only heard of the success from a distance. Two disasters and six successes were wholly or almost wholly the work of native auxiliaries. The cleverness and daring of the Maori also scored in the repeated escapes of batches of prisoners.