Original sentence: In the aftermath, Governor George Grey came down to Tauranga and began peace negotiations.The British forces suffered casualties and retreated.The Māori may have been deafened by the bombardment but as soon as it ended they were able to ambush the British troops.They had 1,700 men and were opposed by 230 Māori
Edited sentence: But a frontal assault is what he ordered.General Cameron was probably the most able of the different commanders of the Imperial forces to serve in New Zealand.Governor George Grey came down to Tauranga and began peace negotiations.He knew from experience the likely cost of making a frontal assault on a defended Pā and he was usually very careful with his men's lives.If true then Cameron's assumption seems to have been a reasonable one.Indeed it was.It seems likely that he believed the bombardment had been long enough and intense enough to extinguish all resistance from within the Pa.One historian calculated that Gate Pā absorbed in eight hours a greater weight of explosive per square metre than did the German trenches in the week long bombardment leading up to the Battle of the Somme in World War I.The Māori may have been deafened by the bombardment but as soon as it ended they were able to unleash a devastating ambush.The arrogance of the settlers and the hubris of the British Empire took a serious blow.The perception was that 1,700 elite British troops had been defeated by 230 half naked savages.They had 1,700 men and were opposed by a mere 230 Māori.This  was more than Rawiri had bargained for, and the British were confident.To contemporaries Gate Pā was seen as a shattering defeat.Within ten minutes well over a hundred of them were dead or wounded