HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 



1063 



were known to have assisted in the war. In the middle of January, 1864, General 

 Cameron had written to the Governor urging him to send an expedition thither. The 

 result was that Lieutenant-Colonel Greer, of the Sixty-eighth Regiment, was posted with 

 five hundred men at Te Papa Mission Station. The east coast tribes were reported to 

 be preparing a large invading force, but for a time they were held in check by the 

 friendly Arawa tribe. After the fall of Orakau, those of the Tauranga natives who had 

 been engaged in the war, began to return, accompanied by parties of Waikatos, and to 



entrench themselves in 

 a strong position about 

 three miles from Te 

 Papa. It was situated 

 on a narrow neck of 

 land Hanked by swamps, 

 and received the name 

 of the " Gate Pah." 

 It contained a redoubt, 

 was well palisaded, 

 and was also defended 

 by rifle-pits. But its 

 garrison, numbering 

 not more than three 

 hundred according to 

 their own account only 

 one hundred and fifty 

 had no artillery and 

 no water. Colonel 



THE GATE 



PAH 



AFTER THE CONFLICT. 



Greer having asked for 

 re-inforcements, Gen- 

 eral Cameron moved his head-quarters to Tauranga, and, on the night of the 2/th of 

 April, the pah was surrounded by a force of one thousand seven hundred rank and 

 file, while artillery was planted in four batteries at distances ranging from eight hun- 

 dred to one hundred yards from the works. 



On the morning of the 28th, the garrison discovered the skirmishers of their 

 opponents, and fired a volley at them. The four batteries then opened fire, and kept it 

 up with unslackened vigour until late in the afternoon, one who was present declaring 

 subsequently that the rain of shot and shell was " enough to have smothered Sebastopol." 

 By four p.m. one corner of the pall had been breached, and one hundred and fifty 

 seamen and Marines, with an equal number of the Forty-third Regiment, were told off 

 to make the assault. One hundred and seventy men of the Seventieth were extended 

 as a covering party, and three hundred seamen, Marines and men of the Forty-third, 

 followed as a reserve. As the storming party, headed by Commander Hay, of H.JILS. 

 Harrier, and Colonel Booth, of the Forty-third, entered the breach with a cheer, the 

 Maoris attempted to escape by the rear, but finding the Sixty-eighth closing in there 

 they turned back and faced their assailants. The cry arose that the natives had been 



