half severed his arm.  Snatching the bugle with the other hand, he managed to blow a warning note before a second tomahawk stroke stretched him dead.  Grey adopted the Fabian plan of driving the insurgents back into the mountain forests and slowly starving them out there.  In New Zealand, thanks to the scarcity of wild food plants and animals, even Maoris suffer cruel hardships if cut off long from their plantations.

Rauparaha, now a very old man, was nominally not concerned in these troubles.  He lived quietly in a sea-coast village by the Straits, enjoying the reputation earned by nearly fifty years of fighting, massacring and plotting.  The Governor, however, satisfied himself that the old chief was secretly instigating the insurgents.  By a cleverly managed surprise he captured Rauparaha in his village, whence he was carried kicking and biting on board a man-of-war.  The move proved successful.  The mana of the Maori Ulysses was fatally injured in the eyes of his race by the humiliation.  The chief, who had killed Arthur Wakefield and laughed under Fitzroy’s nose, had met at length a craftier than himself.  Detained at Auckland, or carried about in Grey’s train, he was treated with a studied politeness which prevented him from being honoured as a martyr.  His influence was at an end.

Peace quickly came.  It is true that at the end of the year 1846 there came a small outbreak which caused a tiny hamlet, now the town of Wanganui, to be attacked and plundered.  But the natives, who retired into the bush, were quietly brought to submission by having their trade stopped, and in particular their supply of tobacco cut off.  Fourteen years of quiet now followed the two years of disturbance.  During the fighting from the Wairau conflict onwards, our loss had been one hundred and seven Whites killed and one hundred and seventy-two wounded.  To this must be added several “murders” of settlers and the losses of our native allies.  Small as the total was, it was larger than the casualties of the insurgents.

For his success Governor Grey was made Sir George, and greatly pleased the natives by choosing Waka Nene and Te Whero Whero, our old Waikato acquaintance, to act as esquires at his investiture.  But it was in the use he made of the restored tranquillity that he showed his true capacity.  He employed the natives as labourers in making roads, useful both for war and peace.  They found wages better than warfare.  As navvies, they were paid half a crown a day, and were reported to do more work as spade-men than an equal number of soldiers would.  At no time did the Maoris seem to make such material progress as during the twelve peaceful years beginning with 1848.