CHAPTER III. UNWARRANTABLE INTERFERENCE WITH GENERAL CAMERON BY THE GOVERNOR SIR GEORGE GREY
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CHAPTER III
UNWARRANTABLE INTERFERENCE WITH GENERAL CAMERON BY THE GOVERNOR SIR GEORGE GREY
AN expedition was immediately organised for the punishment of these murderers, who occupied a position in the Kaitake ranges, and who, it has since been ascertained, were then in no way prepared to resist an attack. No expense had been spared in completing the necessary arrangements; and the General had everything in perfect order. The corps were told off for their different duties; and the 57th Regiment, who were most keen to avenge the death of their comrades--for they looked upon it as nothing short of murder--were detailed to lead the attack. The
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force was to march at night, and surround the native settlement in the ranges before the break of day. It being a drizzling rain at the time, the weather was exactly what was wanted for this particular work, and no force could have been in better spirits, or more fit to carry it out.
On the night these arrangements were made, I was dining alone with the General in his tent. About 8 o'clock, just as we had finished dinner, an orderly arrived from New Plymouth, with a letter for the General from the Governor, Sir George Grey. That letter, the General read to me. The purport of it was this: "Charles Brown, the Superintendent of Taranaki, has just come to see me. He tells me that the town of New Plymouth is in great danger, and he feels sure that unless you come back at once to defend it, the women and children will he massacred; so he hopes you will not attack Kaitake, but come back immediately to New Plymouth. The Eclipse (a man of war) cannot cooperate, on account of the drizzling rain,
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PRESS CRITICISM
so I hope you will return at once, without attacking."
Such was the purport of the letter read to me by the General. I made no remark as to what I thought the General should do, but I sincerely hoped he would not obey the Governor, but that he would attack Kaitake first, and go in afterwards to New Plymouth. The General complained bitterly of the manner in which he was interfered with, after he had formed his plans, but in face of such an urgent appeal, did not attack, and the next day, marched the force hack to New Plymouth, much to the disgust of every one; for all felt it very keenly. It was not to be wondered at that the Press took the matter up very bitterly and did not spare the Imperial troops or the General in their criticism.
I must now take my readers with me to the year 1886. In May of that year I happened to be staying at the Wellington Club, in the town of Wellington; Mr Charles Brown, the ex-Superintendent of
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Taranaki, was staying there also. The subject of the Maori war cropped up, and Mr Charles Brown expressed his contempt for the action of the Imperial troops on this particular occasion; I naturally was aroused at such an attack, and told those who were present in the room, that he, Mr Charles Brown, was the cause of the troops coming back to New Plymouth, as he was in such a mortal fright, that he went to the Governor, and begged him to recall the troops, and not let them attack Kaitake. Mr Charles Brown looked absolutely dumbfounded, and when I told him of the letter from Sir George Grey to General Cameron, which I had heard read, he said: 'I will swear I never went near him, that I never told him anything of the sort; on the contrary, it was I who wrote so bitterly against the troops.'
My readers can imagine how indignant I felt; so highly indignant, that I wrote the following letter to my respected General:--
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FRUSTRATED PLANS
WELLINGTON CLUB, WELLINGTON, N. Z.,
May 23rd, 1886.
MY DEAR SIR DUNCAN,
Though many years have passed since I had the pleasure of addressing you, a little event occurred last night at the club here, which I am sure you will be interested to hear.
I need hardly say I have always fought the battles of my old and most respected chief, as against Sir George Grey. I can never forget the little episode that happened at Oakura, in May 1863, about ten days after the murder of our poor fellows on the beach, when you had everything in perfect order, favoured also by a drizzling rain, for the attack on the Kaitake Ranges, which, however, was prevented by a letter which you received from Sir George Grey, at 8 o'clock on the night before the morning on which the premeditated attack was to take place at break of day. In that letter, which you received while I was dining with you alone, and which you read to me, Sir George Grey wrote that Charles Brown, the Superintendent of Taranaki, had told him that the town of New Plymouth was in great danger and that he expected an immediate attack; and that, consequently, you must come back at once, and on no account make the attack on Kaitake, as he felt sure the women and children of New Plymouth would be massacred; and he also wrote that the Eclipse could not
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co-operate on account of the weather. Charles Brown was here last evening, and says he never said anything of the sort. This adds, I have no doubt, to numerous other incidences of a like nature, but I feel it my duty, as your late extra A. D. C., to make my report, though so many years have rolled by.
To this letter I received the following reply:--
CAMBRIDGE HOUSE, KIDBROOK, BLACKHEATH,
September Cth, 188G.
MY DEAR COLONEL GORTON,
It was very kind of you to give me the information contained in your letter of May 23rd, which I must apologise for having taken so long to answer. I remember the circumstances to which you refer, and I was not in the least surprised to hear that the reasons alleged by Sir G. Grey, for recalling me to New Plymouth, had no foundation in truth. It was just like him; but after such a lapse of time, it is not worth while my taking any notice of it; I was very unfortunate in serving under a Governor * * * * who was constantly interfering with my plans, and giving orders to officers under my command, at variance with the instructions they had previously received from me. As an instance of the mischief caused by this kind of interference: When I dispatched a force to Tauranga, with in-
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THAT FORMIDABLE PAH
structions to patrol the country round constantly, so as to prevent the natives from constructing a pah in the neighbourhood of the settlement, Sir G. Grey, without my knowledge, gave strict orders to the officer commanding, on no account to move out of his redoubt, not even if he were attacked; the consequence of which was that the Maoris were allowed to construct that formidable pah, 1 the assault of which cost us the lives of so many officers. After its capture, I again gave the same instructions to Colonel Greer, who in one of his patrols, came suddenly upon the Maoris as they were in the act of commencing the construction of another pah, and attacked and defeated them with great loss. The same thing occurred in regard to the Mataitawa pah at New Plymouth; which I was urging Colonel Warre to attack, and which he was ready to do, when I learned from him that he had received orders from Sir G. Grey prohibiting him from doing so. These acts of Sir G. Grey seem not to be generally known; at least, they have not been noticed by any of those who have written accounts of the war. * * * * Among other misstatements in Mr. Rusden's history, he asserts that I asked for a force of six thousand men, to attack the Wereroa pah; I happen to have in my possession a copy of the letter I wrote to Sir G. Grey on the subject, taken at the time by Colonel Dean Pitt, and in it, the correct number,
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two thousand, is given. In all my letters this is the number I invariably specified, not that even that number was necessary for the mere attack and capture of a pah, but because it could not be effectually blockaded with a smaller force, and I considered it perfectly useless to undertake operations against a pah, without a chance of taking prisoners, or inflicting some loss on the garrison.
Another mischievous interference of Sir G. Grey was his stupid release of the prisoners taken by me at Rangiriri, which placed us in a most helpless position, as we did not dare to follow them up, on account of the settlers in the north, whose lives were entirely at their mercy; and all operations were necessarily suspended, until they went back to their own lands; but the most surprising part of Sir G. Grey's proceedings was that, after obstructing in the way I have mentioned operations urgently necessary, he all at once became most warlike, carrying the war (most unjustifiably, in my opinion) into a part of the country hitherto undisturbed, and of such a nature that no advantage could possibly be gained, without indefinitely prolonging the war. After four or five years of desultory warfare, the destruction of whole settlements, and the loss of many gallant officers and men, the Maoris recovered possession of all the land taken from them, including the celebrated Wereroa pah, and drove the Colonial Forces back
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PUBLISHED CORRESPONDENCE
to the town of Wanganui; so that affairs were in a worse state than when I left the Colony.. So much for Sir G. Grey's management of affairs, for which he has been so belauded by Mr Rusden, and others.
I am glad to hear you are doing so well, and with my best wishes,
Believe me,
Very sincerely yours,
D. A. CAMERON.
I forgot to say that the error relative to the force I required to attack the Wereroa pah, appears in the published correspondence between the Governor and myself; and how it got there, I cannot conceive. It was pointed out to me by one of my A. D. C.'s on the voyage home, but I thought it too absurd to take any notice of it. --D. A. C.
I considered this letter of such importance to the history of New Zealand that I was much disposed to publish it at once, especially as I was also anxious to see justice done to the Imperial troops. I, however, consulted an officer of very high rank, as to whether I could in honour publish it without the consent of General Cameron. He thought I could not, and I
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therefore wrote for the General's consent, and received a most courteous and kind letter, asking me not to publish it, as it would, of course, give rise to a controversy, into which, being a very old man and a permanent invalid with a miserable complaint, he would he quite unfit to enter; and he would like to pass the few remaining days of his life in peace and quietness. I naturally adhered to his wishes, and it was not very long after this that the dear old General, who so nobly did his duty to his Queen and country, passed away. Sir George Grey has also passed away, but in justice to my late respected General, in justice to the Army, both of which were so abused for faults that were not theirs, I feel I am perfectly justified in publishing the correspondence now, to be recorded as facts of New Zealand history.
To make the evidence complete, however, I wrote to Mr Charles Brown a year or two ago, to substantiate in writing what took place at the club in Wellington in
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THE GENERAL'S DEFENCE
1886. The following is a copy of a letter he sent to me in reply:--
NEW PLYMOUTH,
December 20th, 1897.
DEAR COLONEL GORTON,--
I now reply to yours of November 3rd, sent on to me in Wellington.
When yon told me at the Wellington Club, on May 22nd, 1886, the reason that Sir G. Grey gave to General Cameron for asking him to bring back the troops to New Plymouth it was the first time that I had heard any reason given; and I was astonished at the Governor having given me (then Superintendent of the Province, and commanding the Militia) as his authority for saying that I expected an immediate attack on New Plymouth, and praying that the troops might be sent back at once to New Plymouth, otherwise I felt sure the women and children would be massacred. This statement of Sir G. Grey had not one atom of truth in it; I never spoke to him on any native or other question, always going to Ministers, of whom there were two here, Domett and Bell; and I never heard that the natives intended to attack the town at that time, or at any other after General Cameron assumed the command. I have recently seen Major Parris about it, and he never heard of an intended native attack on the town at that time. I believe Sir G. Grey was not usually wanting in courage, but
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it is evident that, at that time, he was in a state of panic, as he ordered the Royal Artillery guard on the ammunition and other stores at Mount Elliott to go and protect his quarters at Cudlipps, and the Volunteer guard under Captain H. A. Atkinson, that was over the boathouse, to take up the Artillery guard at Mount Elliott. He asked Captain Bulkley to show him how to load a revolver, but his hands trembled so much, he could not do it. Parris thinks that the massacre of Hope and Tragett and their escort, ten days before, had completely unhinged Sir G. Grey for the time, possibly from the fact that it might not have taken place, if Sir George had not turned a deaf ear to the warnings of Major Parris and the friendly natives, that an ambuscade would be placed there on that day; and yet he assured General Cameron, in the presence of Mr Gorst and Major Parris, that these stories were all lies, and it was on this assurance that General Cameron and his staff were riding out to Tataraimaka, and, I have understood, saw from the Oakura Camp the volley of the ambuscade at Wairau that killed all but one of the party under Lieutenant Tragett, and where General Cameron would have been, if he had been a little earlier.
As to myself and my family on that night, we slept, as we always did, in the official residence outside the lines, within which were Sir G. Grey's quarters, and where my adjutant, Captain Stapp,
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A LOST OPPORTUNITY
with his family, lived throughout the war, and does so now, a quarter of a mile further out still, without feeling any anxiety about our wives and children.
Yours ever truly,
CHARLES BROWN.
As it turns out, had we made the attack on the Kaitake ranges as arranged, we would have found the place completely unguarded; and, from the position the natives were in, they must have all been killed or taken prisoners. At that time such a success might possibly have saved the country from what afterwards became a most costly war, both in the loss of most valuable lives, and of a vast amount of treasure.
