Nobody had dreamt of such a thing.  Sir George’s ministers asked him:  ‘What are you going to do after this outrage and challenge?’ He answered:  ’We must give the land back, according to promise.  The duty of a powerful State is to be just, and re-introduce the proper owner to the land.  We cannot refuse to do so, because persons, over whom he has no control, have massacred our soldiers.’  But war surged across New Zealand, a wild, unwholesome spectre, and Sir George must take it so.  It had the tale of Wereroa Pa, which again presents him as the mailed hand.

A British officer held a post which could not be relieved, until the Maoris in Wereroa Pa had been scattered.  That enforced the necessity, urgent enough in itself, for capturing the fortress.  The Maoris had spent all their craft of defence on Wereroa, as, in the former New Zealand war, they did on Ruapekapeka.  Engirt by palisades of wood, high and strong, they cried defiance to the Pakeha.  The general in control of the British troops would not tackle Wereroa with the strength at his disposal.  Sir George Grey resolved to do it himself, and got together what force he could.  It was bestriding the military regulations, usurping all forms and traditions, but it was war.

The Maoris in the pa had a passing mind to surrender, and Sir George was anxious to catch them thus.  He rode up to take possession, though those with him counselled ‘Be careful lest we come to grief.’  The parley was perilous, for the bulk of the Maoris inside the pa were inclined, after all, to resist to the uttermost.  Sir George and his escort drew up within easy range of the Maori muskets, and he was loth to turn back.  He only did so, when it had become evident that further delay might bring a disaster.  ‘I wanted to convince them,’ he emphasised, ’that if they would not give up the place we should have to take it.  Our welcome was so risky that we might, perhaps, be compared to the little boy who scrambled up a garden wall, only to find himself face to face with the Scotch gardener.  “Where are you going?” demanded the gardener; and the boy answered, “Back again.”

’That was our situation; we must return, since nothing could be achieved by debate.  No, I don’t think that I had any bodily feeling as to the danger we ran, any burden of danger.  Nobody can be afraid who has the lives of others hanging upon his actions.  A man who every instant is applied to for orders, has not time to think of fear.  It finds scope when a person is acting under the direction of somebody else, and thus is ignorant of the measures being carried out for the common protection and success.  Ignorance is ever the channel through which fear attacks a human being, as watch a little child when it understands, and when it does not.’