MAMAKU. 
555 
gave the Chiefs a public dinner. Before Mamaku and his 
people left, he said, “ This coat is too small, but I shall 
return at Christmas with a warmer one/* intimating that he 
would come back with a larger force, and attack the town. 
The Putiki Chiefs, Hori Kingi, Hoani Wiremu, and Te 
Mawae, aware of the critical position of the little settlement, 
which then had scarcely a population of a hundred men, 
immediately wrote to Government, and recommended the 
placing of a military force at Wanganui, for its defence, and 
without loss of time, as Mamaku was sure to return with a 
larger force. Their advice was taken, and about Christmas 
a detachment of the 58th, under Captain Laye, arrived, a 
stockade was made, the Putiki natives giving their assistance 
in cutting the timber required. 
In April, one of those unforeseen events occurred, which 
unfortunately interrupted the good understanding which had 
hitherto existed between the military and the Nga-ti-Ruaka ; 
a young midshipman, who, with Lieutenant Holmes, of the 
Calliope, was stationed at Wanganui, in command of a gun- 
boat, had employed an old Chief named Hapurona, to make 
him a Raupo house, for which, when made, the boy (for he 
was nothing more) refused to give the stipulated price, and 
in joke pretended to be very angry, pulling out a little 
pocket pistol, and, with pretended fierceness, threatening to 
shoot him, unfortunately it went off, the ball entered the 
Chief’s cheek, and lodged somewhere near the ear; the 
natives thought it was done on purpose, and regarded it 
as a wilful murder ; the military, instead of holding an open 
court of inquiry, took the youth into the stockade, and 
closed the gates ; this confirmed them in the idea that the 
act was intentional. 
On the evening of April 18th, 1846, a party of six young 
men, or rather boys, the eldest not being eighteen, and the 
youngest only twelve years old, relations of the wounded 
Chief, in order to have payment for blood,* and bring on a 
* Blood . — The shedding of blood was always considered a most serious thing, 
although but a drop were shed. A gentleman entering my house, knocked 
his head against a beam and cut his eyebrow, so that blood flowed ; the 
