others were wounded.  Gallant Lieutenant Philpotts, the first through the stockade, lay dead, sword in hand, inside the pa.  At the outset of the war he had been captured by the natives whilst scouting, and let go unharmed with advice to take more care in future.  Through no fault of his own he had lost Kororareka.  Stung by this, or, as some say, by a taunt of Despard’s, he led the way at Ohaeawai with utterly reckless courage, and, to the regret of the brave brown men his enemies, was shot at close quarters by a mere boy.  The wounded could not be removed for two days.  During the night the triumphant Maoris shouted and danced their war-dance.  They tortured—­with burning kauri gum—­an unfortunate soldier whom they had captured alive, and whose screams could be plainly heard in the English camp.  Despard, whose artillery ammunition had run short, remained watching the pa for several days.  But when he was in a position to renew his bombardment, the natives quietly abandoned the place by night, without loss.  According to their notions of warfare, such a withdrawal was not a defeat.

Such are the facts of one of the worst repulses sustained by our arms in New Zealand.  It will scarcely be believed that after this humiliation Captain Fitzroy, on missionary advice, endeavoured to make peace—­of course, without avail.  Heke became a hero in the eyes of his race.  The news of Ohaeawai reached England, and the Duke of Wellington’s language about Colonel Despard is said to have been pointed.  But already the Colonial Office had made up its mind for a change in New Zealand.  Fitzroy was recalled, and Captain Grey, the Governor of South Australia, whose sense and determination had lifted that Colony out of the mire, was wisely selected to replace him.

Chapter XII

GOOD GOVERNOR GREY

  “No hasty fool of stubborn will,
   But prudent, wary, pliant still,
   Who, since his work was good,
   Would do it as he could.”

Captain Grey came in the nick of time.  That he managed because he wasted no time about coming.  The despatch, removing him from South Australia to New Zealand, reached Adelaide on the 15th of October, 1845, and by the 14th of November he was in Auckland.

He arrived to find Kororareka in ashes, Auckland anxious, the Company’s settlers in the south harassed by the Maoris and embittered against the Government, the missionaries objects of tormenting suspicions, and the natives unbeaten and exultant.  The Colonists had no money and no hope.  Four hundred Crown grants were lying unissued in the Auckland Land Office because land-buyers could not pay the fee of L1 apiece due on them.

But the Colonial Office, now that it at last gave unfortunate New Zealand a capable head, did not do things by halves.  It supplied him with sufficient troops and a certain amount of money.  The strong hand at the helm at once made itself felt.  Within a month the circulating debentures were withdrawn, the pre-emptive right of the Crown over native lands resumed, the sale of fire-arms to natives prohibited, and negotiations with Heke and his fellow insurgent chief, Kawiti, sternly broken off.