With hasty hardihood he obtained a warrant for the arrest of Rauparaha on a charge of arson, and set out to arrest him, accompanied by the Nelson police magistrate, at the head of a posse of some fifty Nelson settlers very badly equipped.  Rauparaha, surrounded by his armed followers, was found in a small clearing backed by a patch of bush, his front covered by a narrow but deep creek.  The leaders of the arresting party crossed this, and called on the chief to give himself up.  Of course he defied them.  After an argument the police magistrate, an excitable man, made as though to arrest him.  There was a scuffle; a gun went off, and in the conflict which followed the undisciplined settlers, fired upon by hidden natives, and divided by the stream, became panic-stricken, and retreated in confusion, despite Wakefield’s appeals and entreaties to them to stand.  As he could do nothing with them, Wakefield held up a white handkerchief, and with four gentlemen and four labourers gave himself up to Rauparaha.  But Rangihaeata had a blood-feud with the English.  A woman-servant of his—­not his wife—­had been accidentally shot in the fray.  Moreover, some time before, another woman, a relative of his, had been murdered by a white, who, when tried in the Supreme Court, had been acquitted.  Now was the hour for vengeance.  Coming up wild with rage, Rangihaeata fell upon the unresisting prisoners and tomahawked them all.  Captain Wakefield, thus untimely slain, was not only an able pioneer leader, but a brave man of high worth, of singularly fine and winning character, and one of whom those who knew him spoke with a kind of enthusiasm.  Twenty-two settlers in all were killed that day and five wounded.  The natives, superior in numbers, arms, and position, had lost only four killed and eight wounded.  So easily was the first tussle between Maori and settler won by the natives.  In the opinion of some the worst feature of the whole unhappy affair was that something very like cowardice had been shown on the losing side.  Naturally the Wairau Massacre, as it was called, gave a shock to the young Colony.  The Maoris triumphantly declared that the mana (prestige) of the English was gone.

A Wesleyan missionary and a party of whalers buried the dead.  No attempt was ever made to revenge them.  Commissioner Spain visited Rauparaha, at the request of the leading settlers of Wellington, to assure him that the matter should be left to the arbitrament of the Crown.  The Crown, as represented by Mr. Shortland, was, perhaps, at the moment more concerned at the defenceless position of Auckland, in the event of a general rising, than at anything else.  Moreover, the philo-Maori officials held that Rauparaha and Rangihaeata were aggrieved persons.  A company of fifty-three Grenadiers was sent to Wellington and a man-of-war to Nelson.  Strict orders were given to the disgusted settlers not to meet and drill.  On the whole, in the helpless state of the Colony, inaction was wisest.  At any rate Mr. Shortland’s successor was on his way out, and there was reason in waiting for him.  Now had come the result of Hobson’s error in fixing the seat of government in Auckland, and in keeping the leading officials there.  Had Wellington been the seat of government in 1843, the Wairau incident could hardly have occurred.