,038 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



extinguishing these native claims, but Rangihaeata author of the " Wairau Massacre "- 

 contending that he had not received his fair share of this money, resorted to acts of 

 intimidation. Early in 1846. seventeen settlers of the Hutt were plundered, and Colonel 

 Hulme marched three hundred soldiers up the Valley in order to punish the delinquents. 

 They withdrew to an impregnable pah in the adjacent hills, difficult of approach, and 

 two hundred soldiers were therefore left in the Valley for the protection of the settlers. 

 Meanwhile, Governor Grey collected all his available forces in Auckland, and took 

 them with him to Wellington in 1846 ; six hundred and eighty men, with two guns and 

 two howitzers, were now posted in the Hutt, and offers of assistance were received from 

 friendly native chiefs. The troops were directed to prevent the supply of provisions to 

 the enemy, and the latter found it necessary therefore to retire still farther into the 

 interior. About the middle of April they eluded the soldiers, made a successful foray 

 into the Hutt, murdered a boy and an old man named Gillespie, and declared that 

 every occupant of the disputed lands would be served in a similar way. As Rangi- 

 haeata was the reputed leader of the lawless party which committed this outrage, two 

 hundred soldiers were sent to garrison a stockade at Porirua, seventeen miles from 

 Wellington, and in close propinquity to the chief's fastness. An hour before daylight on 

 the 1 6th of May fifty soldiers of the Fifty-eighth Regiment, stationed under Lieutenant 

 Page at Boulcott's farm, in the valley of the Hutt, were surprised by seventy natives 



s 



under Mamaku, and six soldiers were slain and four wounded. Athwart the gloom of 

 this tragic occurrence the simple and yet lofty heroism of a bugler boy named Allen 

 sheds a light akin to that of poetic romance. Struck with a tomahawk on the right 

 arm while about to sound the alarm, with undaunted spirit he raised the bugle with his 

 uninjured left-hand and blew a blast that roused his comrades, but cost him his own 

 life, for the next moment he was felled to the earth with a deadly blow. 



The impunity with which this incursion was made stimulated the hostile natives to 

 further attempts of a similar kind. On the i6th of June, just a month later, a recon- 

 noitring party of forty soldiers of the Ninety-ninth, under Captain Reed, was attacked 

 in the Hutt, with the result that two men were killed and an officer and five men 

 wounded. This affair was speedily followed by the murder of a settler named Rush. 

 Numbers of out-settlers fled to Wellington in terror, while those who had the. hardihood 

 to remain on their lands took up arms and entrenched themselves in stockades. Rangi- 

 haeata's success was winning over neutral natives, and a feeling of despair began to 

 pervade the European settlements. .At this crisis Governor Grey struck a blow which 

 for a time quite paralyzed the native mind, and which many persons both then and 

 since held to be quite unwarranted. Rauparaha, though nominally an ally, was strongly 

 suspected of playing the Government false, and of secretly aiding the outlaws. It was 

 therefore decided to seize him in his pah. The Governor, without informing the cele- 

 brated warrior chief that his friendship . was doubted, sent away H.M.S. Driver, with one 

 hundred and thirty soldiers, seamen and police on board, to surprise him in his strong- 

 hold. They landed at Porirua before daylight, on the 23rd of July, 1846, surrounded 

 the pah, captured Rauparaha asleep in his bed, and carried him away to the war-vessel 

 in the offing, whence he was conveyed to Wellington. This event created a tremendous 

 sensation throughout the colony, and among the native laments which were freely 



