Heke’s fame now spread among the Maoris. When the settlers from Kororarika were landed at Auckland, homeless, desperate, and haggard, a panic set in, and some settlers sold their houses and land for a trifle, and departed. Others with more spirit enrolled themselves as volunteers. Three hundred men were armed and drilled. Fortifications were thrown up round the town, and sentries posted on all the roads leading to it. At Wellington and Nelson also men were drilled and stockades were built for defence.
6. First Maori War.—But Honi Heke was afraid of the soldiers, and when Colonel Hulme arrived from Sydney with several companies he withdrew to a strong pah of his, eighteen miles inland. Hulme landed at the nearest point of the coast, with a force of 400 men; these were joined by 400 friendly allies under Waka-Nene, whose wife led the tribe in a diabolic war dance, not a little startling to the British soldiers. The road that was to lead them to Honi Heke was only a track through a dense forest. Carts could not be taken, but each man carried biscuits for five days and thirty rounds of ammunition. Under four days of heavy rain they trudged along in the dripping pathway, all their biscuits wet and much of their powder ruined. At last on a little plain, between a lake and a wooded hill, they saw before them the pah of Honi Heke. Two great rows of tree trunks stuck upright formed a palisade round it. They were more than a foot thick, and twelve feet high, and they were so close that only a gun could be thrust between them. Behind these there was a ditch in which stood 250 Maoris, who could shoot through the palisades in security.
The British slept that night without tents round fires of kauri gum, but next morning all was astir for the attack. A rocket was sent whizzing over the palisades. It fell and burst among the Maoris, frightening them greatly, but succeeding discharges were failures, and the Maoris gathered courage to such an extent that a number under Kawiti came out to fight. The soldiers lowered their bayonets and charged, driving them back into the pah. During the night while the white men were smoking round their fires, the sound of the plaintive evening hymn rising in the still air from the pah suggested how strong was the hold that the new faith now had on the Maori mind. Next day Colonel Hulme, seeing that a place defended on all sides by such a strong palisade could not be captured without artillery, dug the graves of the fourteen soldiers killed, and marched back carrying with him thirty-nine wounded men.
There was dismay in Auckland when this news arrived. What could be said when 400 English soldiers retreated from 250 savages? But, on the other hand, the Maoris had learnt a lesson. They could not fight against English bayonets in the open, but while taking aim from behind palisades they were safe. Therefore they began in different places to strengthen their fortresses, and Honi Heke added new defences to his pah of Oheawai, which stood in the forest nineteen miles from the coast.
7. Oheawai.—More soldiers were sent from Sydney, and with them, to take the chief command, Colonel Despard, who had seen much fighting against hill tribes in India. He landed 630 men and six cannons; but these latter, being ship’s cannons on wooden carriages with small wheels, stuck in the boggy forest roads. The men had to pull the guns, and they were assisted by 250 friendly Maoris. On the evening of 22nd June, 1845, they spread out before the pah during the gathering dusk. It was a strong place. In the midst of a deep and gloomy forest, a square had been cleared about a third of a mile in length and in breadth. Great trunks of trees had been set up in the earth, and they stood fifteen feet high; between their great stems, a foot or eighteen inches thick, there was just room enough left for firing a musket. Three rows of these gigantic palings, with a ditch five feet deep between the inner ones, made the fortress most dangerous to assault; and in the ground within hollows had been dug where men could sleep secure from shells and rockets. Two hundred and fifty warriors were there with plenty of muskets and powder.
On the second morning the British had got their guns planted within a hundred yards of the palisade, but the small balls they threw did little harm to such huge timber. The whole expedition would have had to retire had not a heavier gun come up. This threw shot thirty-two pounds in weight, and after twenty-six of these had struck the same place, a breach was seen of a yard or two in width. Colonel Despard ordered 200 men with ropes and hatchets and ladders to be ready for an assault at daybreak. In the still dawn of a wintry morning, the bugles rang out and the brave fellows gathered for the deadly duty. They rushed at the breach, and for ten minutes a wild scene ensued. The place was very narrow, and it was blocked by resolute Maoris, who shot down exactly half of the attacking party. Many of the soldiers forced their way through, but only to find a second and then a third palisade in front of them. Then they returned, losing men as they fled, and the whole British force fell back a little way into the forest. That night the groans and cries of the wounded, lying just outside the pah, were mingled with the wild shouts of the war dance within. Two days later the Maoris hoisted a flag of truce, and offered to let the white men carry off the dead and wounded. Thirty-four bodies lay at the fatal breach, and sixty-six men were found to have been wounded.
A week later another load of cannon balls for the heavy gun was brought up, and the palisades were further broken down. A second assault would have been made, but during the night the Maoris tied up their dogs, and quietly dropping over the palisades at the rear of the pah, got far away into the forest before their retreat was known, for the howling of the dogs all night within the pah kept the officers from suspecting that the Maoris were escaping. The British destroyed the palisades, and carried off the stores of potatoes and other provisions which they found inside.
8. Governor Grey.—Fitzroy was preparing to chase Heke and Kawiti into their fastnesses, when he was recalled. The English Government thought he had not acted wisely in some ways and they blamed him for disobeying their instructions. They had more faith in that young officer, George Grey, who, after exploring in Western Australia, was now the Governor of South Australia. He arrived in November, 1845, to take charge of New Zealand; and at once went to Kororarika, where he found 700 soldiers waiting for orders. But he did not wish for fighting, if it could be avoided. He sent out a proclamation that Maoris who wished peace were to send in their submission by a certain day. If they did, he would see that the treaty of Waitangi was kept, and that justice was done to them.
Honi Heke sent two letters, but neither of them was satisfactory; and as more than a year passed without any signs of his submitting, Colonel Despard was directed to go after him. Heke was at a pah called Ikorangi; but Kawiti had 500 Maoris at a nearer pah called Ruapekapeka.
9. Ruapekapeka.—Despard took his men sixteen miles in boats up a river; then nine miles through the forest, and on the 31st December he had 1,173 soldiers with 450 friendly natives in a camp 800 yards from the pah. It was like the other pahs, but bigger and stronger, for behind the palisades there were earthen walls into which cannon balls would only plunge without doing any harm. Three heavy guns, however, were mounted, and when the Maoris sent up their flag, the first shot was so well aimed as to bring its flagstaff down amid the ringing cheers of the white men. All New Year’s Day was spent in pouring in cannon balls by the hundred, but they did little harm. Next day the Maoris made a sally, but were driven back with the bayonet. Meantime, Heke came in one night with men to help his friend, and heavy firing on both sides was kept up for a week, after which two small breaches appeared near one of the corners of the palisades. The next day was Sunday, which the Maoris thought would be observed as a day of rest, but the soldiers, creeping cautiously up, pushed their way through the breaches; a number of the Maoris ran to arms and fired a volley or two, but before the main body could do anything several hundred soldiers were in the place. A stout fight took place, during which thirteen white men were killed. The Maoris, now no longer under cover, were no match for the soldiers, and they fled, leaving behind them all the provisions that were to have kept them for a whole season. This discouraged them, and Heke and Kawiti saw their men scatter out and join themselves to the quieter tribes for the sake of food. They therefore wrote to Grey asking peace, and promising to give no further trouble. Grey agreed, but left 200 soldiers at Kororarika in order to keep the Maoris of the district in check.