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MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF 
being as liigb as the gun-wheels, impeded the working of the guns. Blocks 
of hard wood were always carried on the footboards, to put under the point 
of the trails (when there was time to do so) to prevent them sinking deep 
into the soft ground every time the guns were discharged. 
After the action the guns returned to New Plymouth. The artillery 
were not mounted on this occasion as it was expected that the ground 
would be impracticable for cavalry. The roads were very slippery and 
muddy from the rain, and there were three fords to cross and several steep 
ascents and descents on the way to Tartaraimaka and back, but no accident 
occurred except the breaking of a bullock-pole on coming into action. A 
spare bullock-pole was carried under each gun; also several planks to 
assist in crossing ditches &c. 
About the end of June 1863, Captain Mercer received instructions to take 
up a position to shell some native entrenchments at Kaitake, which was 
on the lower ranges of Mount Egmont and about seven miles from New 
Plymouth. 
Pour 12-prs. were accordingly brought into action, after much trouble 
and hard work, at about 2000 yards from Kaitake. No advantageous 
position could be taken up nearer to the natives, whose entrenchments 
were on the summits of two adjoining hills, and were protected by 
palisadings. Several whares or huts were behind the palisadings, but no 
natives were seen. About 50 rounds were fired with time and concussion 
fuzes. The shells burst wherever they were required, but the distance was 
too great to observe the extent of damage done. 
Captain Mercer, wishing to use the shells as carcasses against the huts, 
tried the experiment of putting pieces of portfire composition and loose 
powder into the shell instead of the concussion fuze and burster. The time 
fuze was then screwed in; but as the shells were not seen to burst, and as no 
report was heard, the experiment was concluded to be a failure. 
On the 1st July, the Armstrong’s were sent back to Auckland by sea in 
the same manner as before, and kept in readiness for an expedition against 
the Waikato tribes. The mounted artillery followed in a few days, and was 
reduced from 100 to 50 men. The gunners returned to their guns, and the 
drivers continued to act as cavalry, under Lieut. Bait, E.A. The other 
horses of the battery and all the harness were given over to the commissariat 
transport corps, who moved the guns when necessary with either horses or 
bullocks. 
In the beginning of July 1863, General Cameron crossed the Maunga- 
tawhiri creek, which was the boundary between the European and native 
land in Waikato district. A position was taken up by some infantry on the 
heights overlooking the creeks and surrounding country, and an action took 
place a few days afterwards in which the natives were defeated. 
Artillery was not used, none having yet crossed the creek. Orders for 
their crossing, however, were received soon afterwards at Queen's redoubt, 
where the Head Quarters were now stationed; and two 12-pr. Armstrong’s 
were marched to the creek (about two miles from Queen’s redoubt), the 
carriages taken to pieces, put in flat-bottomed boats and, the opposite bank 
being soft and marshy, were rowed down the stream until hard ground was 
discovered. 
The spot selected for a landing place was a sort of headland near a bend 
