HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1039 



composed at the time, was one of great beauty by Rangihaeata himself. Likening the 

 captive to a gallant war-canoe dashed to pieces in the surf, he thus apostrophized him : 



My brave canoe ! 



In lordly decoration lordliest far ; 



My proud canoe ! 



Amid the fleet that fleetest flew, 



How wert thou shattered by the surge of war ? 



'Tis but the fragments of the wreck 



Of my renowned canoe 



That lie, all crushed, on yonder war-ship's deck. 



In subsequent verses, equally poetic, Rauparaha's tribes-men are taunted with desertion of 

 their chief ; he is blamed for trusting in the honour of the pakckas (foreigners) ; and 

 the lament ends with a declaration of Rangihaeata's resolve to rescue him. But Rangi- 

 haeata had reckoned this time without his host. The Authorities, fully aware that 

 inaction would hasten some fearful deed of revenge, lost no time in carrying the war 

 into the enemy's country. While preparations were made to assault the rebel stronghold 

 at Pahautanui, four miles from the British camp at Porirua, a party of friendly natives 

 was detailed to cut off the retreat. In alarm at these measures, Rangihaeata suddenly 

 forsook Pahautanui; and, on the 2gth of July, the expedition under Major Last of the 

 Ninety-ninth entered into occupation of it. It was found that the enemy had withdrawn 

 to a strong position in a densely-wooded gorge, six miles up the Horokiwi, and thither 

 they were followed by the entire force of two hundred and fifty men. The attempt to 

 dislodge the rebels failed ; and, as it was not deemed prudent to storm the pah while 

 the fire of small-arms and mortars appeared to be harmless, the expeditionary force fell 

 back, with the loss of three killed and eight wounded. Ensign Blackburn, of the Ninety- 

 ninth, was among the slain. The enemy sustained no loss. Lieutenant Servantes, of 

 the Ninety-sixth, was left in front of the pah with the friendly natives, and at last the 

 enemy, unable to procure supplies of food, and driven to subsist on tree-fern, dispersed 

 into the interior, whither the troops, police and friendly natives pursued them until a 

 number of rebels were arrested. They were tried by court-martial. One was adjudged 

 insane and exempted from punishment, seven were sentenced to transportation, and a 

 Wanganui chief, related to Rangihaeata, and named Wareitu (baptized Martin Luther), 

 was condemned to pay the last penalty of the law. He met his fate at the gallows 

 with a fortitude that excited great admiration ; and, as his offence consisted merely in 

 joining Rangihaeata for the vindication of a cause which he deemed just and patriotic, 

 the military tribunal which delivered him over to death incurred considerable obloquy 

 thereby. The sense of injustice which it caused was confirmed rather than alleviated 

 when the Secretary of State, announcing that doubts existed as .to the legality of the 

 tribunal, pardoned the seven prisoners who had been transported to Tasmania. Ruaparaha, 

 after ten months' detention on board H.A1.S. Calliope, was allowed to occupy Te 

 Wherowhero's house in the Auckland Domain. In September, 1847, he was visited there 

 by two hundred Hauraki chiefs. The old warrior, however, pined for freedom, and at 

 last the Government, yielding to a request, had him conveyed to his home at Otaki in 

 January, 1848, by H.M.S. Inflexible. He died there on the 2;th of November, 1849, 

 and a cortege of fifteen hundred persons followed his body to the grave, where a lay 

 European read the Burial Service over it. Rangihaeata, the nephew of Ruaparaha, 



