CHAPTER XI. FALSE ALARM--IMPERIAL TROOPS UNDER SELF-RELIANT POLICY COULD NOT ACT
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CHAPTER XI
FALSE ALARM--IMPERIAL TROOPS UNDER SELF-RELIANT POLICY COULD NOT ACT
AT the commencement of the last chapter I mentioned that we had to depend for the defence of Wanganui entirely upon the Militia and volunteers, although there was a detachment of the 2nd Battalion 18th Regiment, under the command of Captain Dawson, stationed in the barracks at Wanganui at the time. This was the only regiment left in the Colony, and it was distributed in detachments at a few of the towns. The instructions their commanders received were, that they were on no account to send their men into the field, but simply to defend the towns at which they were stationed if actually attacked; that the Colonial troops were to do the work. The
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absurdity of this was plainly visible when a false alarm occurred in Wanganui under the following circumstances:--
Colonel Whitmore with his held force was about twenty-five miles from Wanganui, and the enemy to reach Wanganui, would have had to pass Colonel Whitmore's troops, which certainly might have been done by the enemy's making a flank movement through the dense bush. The inhabitants of Wanganui felt they were in an insecure state, and to inspire confidence I fixed upon suitable positions to post my pickets in case of alarm, and in addition, sent out cavalry patrols to patrol the country between the different lines of roads outside the town. I felt sure myself, from information in my possession, there was no immediate cause for alarm; but these precautions gave confidence.
About one o'clock one morning I was awakened by a sharp knocking at my front door, and found Captain Finnimore, who commanded the Wanganui cavalry, waiting
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FALSE ALARM
anxiously to see me. He said: 'Titokowaru's men are at Gotty's farm (about three miles from Wanganui), and I am sure Gotty and all his family by this time are murdered, as I myself beard the Maoris yelling there.' I said: 'Nonsense! it cannot be true.' he replied: 'The patrol (of which the late Mr Ballance happened to be one) came and reported to me that they had ridden up to Gotty's farm, and distinctly heard the Maoris yelling there, and there appeared to be a large number. Before coming to report to you, I rode out to where the patrol was, and distinctly heard the Maoris yelling myself.'
The Honourable Colonel Haultain, the Defence Minister, happened to be in Wanganui. I immediately reported the circumstance to him, sending my sergeant-major round to at once warn a picket for duty, without alarming the town. I informed Colonel Haultain that I was sending out a picket to a position I had already selected, which would defend an attack from Gotty's valley, and that I
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was going myself at once to Gotty's farm to see what was really the matter.
As I was living with my wife and family in the outskirts of the town, and in a direct line for Gotty's farm, and my duties would not allow me to attend to them, I sent a conveyance to bring them into the town, and went myself with two troopers of the Wanganui Cavalry to Gotty's farm. We had to ride up rather a steep gully, with bush on each side, which was done at a gallop, each of us having a loaded revolver in our hands. Directly I arrived there I saw it was a false alarm, as the sheep were quietly grazing around the house. It was moonlight, and on my calling out, Mrs Gotty (Mr Gotty being absent from home) was exceedingly astonished to see, on putting her head out of an upstairs window, three mounted men with revolvers in their hands. I then told her why I had come, and asked if any Maoris had been there. At first she said, 'No,' then it suddenly dawned upon her. 'Yes,' she said, 'Maori shearers are here; were very
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PICKET PRACTICE
drunk, and have been yelling out.' This accounted for what the cavalry patrol heard, and shows what a simple thing often causes an alarm, when in the neighbourhood of an enemy.
I went back at once to Wanganui, hoping to reach the town before any alarm had been given; but unfortunately the report soon spread, and I found many taking their families to the barracks for safety; the minds of these, however, I speedily relieved.
The detachment of the 18th Regiment did not move out of the barracks, but awaited events, and Captain Dawson told me he felt horribly disgusted he was not allowed to send out an advance picket, when the news first came in, but his instructions were most explicit.
This false alarm was an excellent practice for my picket, which was duly posted under the command of Lieutenant W. R. Russell, Wanganui Militia; but had there been real cause for alarm, and an attack made on the town, what an exceedingly
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false and cruel position it was to place any Imperial troops in. Under such circumstances, their duty, in spite of the self-reliant policy, ought to have been, immediately on the first alarm, to send out the advance picket, to bear the brunt of the attack, instead of allowing, as would have been the case, this to be done by untrained militiamen, who were sent to the most advanced post. Lucky indeed it was a false alarm.
The Wereroa redoubt, which was for a few weeks held by the Wanganui Militia, was evacuated by Colonel Whitmore, and all the commissariat stores were destroyed; and our troops gradually retired to Westmere, a few miles from Wanganui. Until January, 1869, when Colonel Whitmore returned from the east coast, whither, a short time before, he had been sent with a force on account of the Poverty Bay massacre, no further real advance on the west coast was made; but the district, in the interim, was well defended by the Colonial troops, the Kai-Iwi Cavalry, under
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BRYCE v. RUSDEN
Lieutenant Bryce (subsequently Native Minister), doing good service.
It was during this interim that the skirmish took place, which led to the most unjustifiable and cruel personal attack against Lieutenant Bryce, by Mr Rusden in his work on New Zealand, which resulted in the historical libel action of Bryce v. Rusden, tried in London under Baron Huddleston, where the jury, after retiring fifteen minutes, found a verdict for the Honourable John Bryce with £5000 damages.
The Honourable John Bryce, who was Native Minister in the late Sir Harry Atkinson's Ministry, is another of New Zealand's good men; and he was of all men the last that should have been attacked in this manner, as he was exceptionally straightforward in all his doings, and would have been the first man to put down anything approaching to unfairness or cruelty in war.
The Parihaka bloodless campaign of 1881 redounds immensely to his credit, for the
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natives under Te Whiti, a Maori prophet possessing great influence, had assembled in large numbers, with the fighting chiefs, Titokowaru and Tohu, at Parihaka on the west coast, and were determined to retake the confiscated lands, which had been allotted to the settlers, and they went so far as to commence ploughing up their land. The expeditious gathering together of a considerable force of armed constabulary and Volunteer Corps from various parts of the Colony, by the Honourable John Bryce, under his personal superintendence, so overwhelmed Te Whiti, that Titokowaru, Tohu, and Te Whiti, surrendered without a shot being fired, and were taken prisoners for unlawfully assembling.
I consider the tactics shown here are as good as anything which has been done in New Zealand; and the fact of this being a bloodless campaign is all the more to Mr Bryce's credit, it being entirely due to the very prompt measures taken by him; for the natives were so surprised by such a large force suddenly surrounding
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PROMPT MEASURES
them, that they saw that their attempting to rebel was useless, and gave in. Had half-measures been taken, the result would, without doubt, have been war, carrying with it a considerable loss of life and treasure.
