The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-14 00:00:00

THE WAR IN NEW ZEALAND.

(From the gimes Correspondent.)
MELBOURNE, May, 26.
The war in New Zealand, which I percieve by
the English papers last ref:Rived is supposed to be
at an end, has broken out afresh with increased
violence, and I am afraid i,s likely to endure for yet
many months longer. The history of our operations
daring the last month is marked by a disaster of a
peculiarly disgraceful and perhaps unprecedented
sort. In order to make the narrative of the subse-

quent events clear to your readers I will begin by
retracing the career of General Cameron after the
decisive success at Orekau. Discomfited and almost

terrified into submission by their bloody repulse at
this place, the Ngnlimaniopotos, with the detached
portions of other tribes allied to them, fled in dis-
may, first to their strong position at Maungatauri,
and thence, evacuating that formidable pah, with all
its carefully-prepared fortifications, to Tauranga,the

chief habitation of the powerful Ngapnhi tribe on
the eastern coast. They were followed thither
promptly by Gen. Cameron, with the 43d, 65th, and
portions of the 14th and 70th Regiments. The
General had also at his service the naval squadron,
under the command of Commodore Sir William Wise-
man, consisting of her Majesty's ships Curacoa, Esk,
Miranda, Harrier, and Eclipse. The first operations
of this force were entirely successful. Immediately
on his landing at Tauranga the General marched
against a rebel pah at Maketu, a few miles to the
southward, which was shelled by our troops, and
abandoned by its defenders after a tilling resistance.
Returning to Ttillrallga, some large Armstrongs, in-
cluding a 100-pounder, were got ashore from the
ships, and preparations were made for an assault on
a position called the Gate Pab, lying on the crest of
a hill on a small peninsula. The place consisted of
two pahs, 1,000 yards apart, connected by a
covered way, and surrounded by rifle pits and by
an inner line of fail fence, masked by branches of
trees and bundles of raupo. Oa the 27th ult. the
65th and the flying column of the 70th, under com-
mand of Colonel Green, left camp for the Maori posi-
tion ; the 43d, the Naval Brigade, Engineers, and a
heavy battery being posted in front, under General

Cameron himself. The rebel force was estimated at

800 men in all. At daylight of the 25th the bom-

bardment of the place was commenced with 13
heavy guns, and was maintained for nine hours. A
number of Maories being now seen retreating, the
68th were ordered in pursuit by a road which led
round the roar of the rebel works through a swamp.
In the meantime the Armstrongs having effected u
practicable breach, it was determined to storm the
pah in trout. The storming party was formed of
equal numbers of the naval brigade and the 43d,
under the command of Col. Booth, of the latter regis
went, and of Capt. Hay, of the Harrier. In the
midst of a withering fire the party, advancing at the
double, carried the breach and entered the pah. Up
to this moment all had gone well for our arms, and
some of the spectators doubted not that the victory
was gained and the Gate Pah in our hands. But
now commences the strange and sad tale of the de-
nouement. The story at this point is naturally a
little confused, and there have been at least half a
dozen versions of it before the public. The main
facts, however, are as follows—Our troops having
entered the pah found it, to their surprise, almost
deserted. Only two or three wounded natives were
seen inside. Thrown off their guard; the men
dispersed and it is said fell to plundering. In
an instant there opened from beneath and from
every sic:o a tremendous fire of musketry, pointed
by unseen hands. The whole ground was alive
with Moories, and the air was rent with their
savage yells. A panic seized the 43d, and the
whole party, in spite of the heroic efforts of their
officers, fled in terror from the deadly place. A
second force d espatched to their support, under
Captain Hamilton, of the Esk, arrived just in time'
to shero their fate. Their gallant leader himself,
while standing on the parapet and waving his
sword to the blue jackets, was shot through the
head, almost all the other officers being either killed
or wounded. The men poured headlong out of the
breach like a flock of sheep. To complete the story
of the disaster, the 68th, who had gone round, as we
have seen, by the rear of the enemy's position, were
also repulsed in an attack upon another face of the
pale. Thrice were they led to the assault, and thrice
driven back by the deadly cross fire. The night of
the 29th closed on a scone perhaps unparalleled in
British military annals. A regular force of infantry,
supported by the crews of three or four men-cf-war
and by 13 large guns, had been beaten in a hand-
to-hand conflict with a horde of savages. A British

regiment had fled in terror from perhaps an equal
number of Maories. Oar loss comprised no less
than 26 killed and 78 wounded, many of whom are
since dead. The proportion of officers slain is some-
what remarkable. The 43d Regiment lost in offi■
cers alone as many as, perhaps, any single regiment
at the battle of the Alma. Their colonel himself
(Booth) was left mortally wounded by his men
within the pah, and is since dead of his wounds.
Four captains (Glover, Muir, Hamilton, and Utter-
ton) and two lieutenants (Langlands and Glover)
were also among the killed, besides several other
officers wounded. The Naval Brigade lost Captain
Hamilton, of the Esk, and Commander Hay, of the
Harrier, both highly distinguished and popular offi-
cers, and both equally glorious in their death.
Among the Cnragoa's crew was slain Lieut. Hill, the
senior surviving officer of the ill-fated Orpheus. The
Maories, on their side, are supposed to have suffered
but slightly in proportion. Their killed were first
set down at 40, but later accounts make them
only 20, although it is probable that, according
to the usual native custom, they carried off many
of their dead in their subsequent retreat. This
untoward affair has excited a profound sensation
throughout the colonies, and will probably lead to
an indefinite prolongation of the war, through the
feeling of exultation which it will have engendered
on one side, and of exasperation on the other. It is
fair to say that no blame is to be attached to Gen.
Cameron in this his first misfortune in the field. All
the arrangements for the attack seem to have been
well and carefully devised ; and allowing that the
best way of taking a Maori pah is to storm it in
front, everything was done that skill and diligence
could do to this end. The disgrace belongs solely to
the 43d Regiment, which fled ignominiously from
before the enemy, leaving their officers behind to be
slain.

It does not tend to alleviate our sense of discom.
fiture, bat rather to add to our mortification, to learn
that the pah which had been so valorously defended
by the brave Ngapuhies was evacuated the same
night, and occupied by us the next morning with-
out any difficulty. The Maories had followed their
usual tactics on this occasion, of using their paha
rather as means of annoyance to an advancing foe
than as permanent works of defence. Reinforce.
meats have been sent to Gen. Cameron's army from
Auckland, and it is proposed to carry on a regular
campaign against the rebels of the eastern coast,
and to drive them from pah to pah until they are
ultimately conquered, as were the Waikatoes.
In the meantime some detached operations of
our troops in other quarters have been crowned
with complete success. In Taranaki.a large body
of Maories, for the first time perhaps in
history,
marched out into the open field to attack a British
post on Sentry-hill, held by Major Buller, with
same 30 or 40 soldiers. On this occasion the
Maories were in both senses on the wrong side of
the fence. They were repulsed with great slaughter,
leaving their chief, Parenga Kingi, and upwards of
100 men killed and wounded. The 108 S on the
British side was absolutely nil. There has been also
another engagement at Ma,ketu, on the eastern coast,
in which the rebels were defeated with great
slaughter by the 65th and a large body of friendly
natives of the Arai,va tribe. Oa this occasion our
sable allies displayed groat gallantry, charging in
advance of the British troops, and doing ncrly ali
the actual fighting. The Arawas, who inhabit the
country of the hot springs in the romantic and
• beautiful district of Rotorna, have an old grudge
against the Ngaphuis, dating from the days of the
terrible E
Hongi, who, 40 years ego, spread deso-
lation among the lake tribes with the aid in mus-
kets and money which he had received from King
George IV. The battle at Maketu is highly satis-
fectcry as showing that the war is not altogether a
war of,rac:Fs, end that we can depend upon a large

portion of the Maories to render us material assist-
ance against their insurgent brethren,
On the whole, the operations of the last month, in
spite of the defeat at the Gate Pab, may be said to
have been highly successful. The General's despatch
from Tauranga, giving an account of that untoward
event, attributes the failure to the intricacy of the
Maori works inside the pah, and to the extraordinary
loss of so many officers at the moment when they
were most needed. The whole of the interior of the
pah is said to have been one mass of casemates,
scooped out of the earth of the parapets, and
covered over with branches and leaves. Within
these the garrison were concealed, when the storm-
ing party entered the breach, and were enabled to
pour a heavy fire of musketry at close quarters
from behind their shelter. The affair is one more
proof, not only of the extraordinary capacity of the
Maories for the stratagems of war, but also, as I be-
lieve, of the superiority of their weapons in this
kind of fighting. However useful the rifle and
bayonet may be against regular soldiers in the field,
they are no match for the double-barrelled fowling-
piece and tomahawk, the favourite weapons of the
Maori in a hand-to-hand engagement. I have heard
some of our own officers admit the fact of this infe-
riority, and attribute to it most of the reverses we
have met with in this sort of encounter. The smooth-
bore musket can be loaded more quickly and fired
more frequently than a rifle, and the bayonet, how-
ever useful in the hands of a skilled professor, is not
equal to a cutting weapon, such as the tomahawk, at
close quarters. The Maories, we must remember,
are in all physical and moral qualities the equal of
the British soldier. He uses his arms as an Eng-
lishman would do who was defending his native
country amid swamps and forests, and was not
obliged to conform to the regular style of fighting,
or to wear a red coat in the sight of the enemy. In
this affair at the Gate Pah the Maories displayed
the highest qualities of soldiership, coolness, pluck,
patience, and fertility of resources. No regular
army in the world, perhaps, would have done what
these savages of Tauranga did against a better dis-
ciplined force, provided with an ample supply of
heavy guns and all the resources and materiel of
war.

The following is the list of killed and wounded.
Where not described
_otherwise, the wounds are
gunshot wounds t

HER MAJESTY'S SHIP CITRACOA.

Killed.—Lieut. Hill, late of the Orpheus; and James
Harris, ordinary seaman.
Wounded.—Thomas Terran, 0.5., hip, very severely—
William Fox, 0. S., left jaw, severely—Charles Ween,
marine, lcwer jaw, severely—John Watson, 0.5., left knee,
very severely—and Amos Smith, 0.5., groin, dangerously.

HER MAJESTY'S SHIP MIRANDA.

Killed—M. Watts, R.M.A.

Wounded—Lieutenant Hammick, right shoulder, very
severely—John Nokes, boatswain's mate, left shoulder, very
severely—M. Ryan, A. 8., left leg, severely—James Eng-
lish, captain of maintop, left thigh, severely—Samuel
Rushven, A. 8., left lung and fracture of left arm, very dan-
gerously—George Charmbold, left leg, severely—Levi
Keane, left thigh, dangerously—George Alton, R.M.A.,
left thigh, severely—and Alexander M'Alister, A. 8., arm,
severely.