During this cruise Cochrane inflicted so many disasters upon the Royalist cause, as to become known amongst the Spaniards by the title “El diablo.” These disasters cannot be given in detail: so we pass to the end of February, when he entered the port of Callao with the O’Higgins and Lautaro under American colours. In this port was practically concentrated the naval force of Spain in the Pacific; yet such was the terror with which Cochrane had already inspired them, that the Spaniards dared not go out to meet him. Instead of this they dismantled their ships of war, and with the topmasts and spars made a double boom across their anchorage to prevent his approach. An unimportant action, however, took place, and at the commencement of the firing Cochrane locked his little boy in the after-cabin. In the middle of the engagement a round shot took off a marine’s head. This attracted Cochrane’s attention to the spot, where he was horror-stricken to see his son, close by the decapitated marine, and covered with blood. The boy had escaped from his confinement through the quarter-gallery window, and throughout the fight, in the little midshipman’s uniform that the seamen had made for him, had been busily engaged in handing powder to the gunners. His father now thought him killed. But it was only the blood and brains of the unfortunate marine that he was bespattered with, and up he ran to his agonised father. “I am not hurt, papa; the shot did not touch me: Jack says the ball is not made that can kill mama’s boy.” “Mama’s boy,” however, was forthwith ordered to be carried below.

It may here be pardonable to cite a few words as showing what kind of “mama” that boy had. By a writer in the North British Review, we are told that one night whilst Lord Cochrane was in command of the Chilian fleet, “his ship got becalmed under a battery from which he was assailed with red-hot shot. His men were seized with a panic and deserted their guns. If the fire from the shore were not returned, it would speedily become steady, sustained, and fatal. He went down to the cabin, where her ladyship lay: ‘If a woman sets them the example, they may be shamed out of their fears: it is our only chance.’ She rose and followed him upon the deck. We have heard her relate that the first object that met her eye was the battery with its flaming furnaces, round which dark figures were moving, looking more like incarnate demons than men. A glance at her husband’s impressive features and his ‘terrible’ calmness reassured her. She took the match, and fired the gun when he had pointed it. The effect on the crew was electrical: they returned to their posts with a shout, and the battery was speedily silenced.”

One more glimpse at Lady Cochrane. General Miller—subsequently the hero of Ayacucho, and as brave an officer as ever unsheathed sword—was on one occasion sent on a secret service under the orders of Lord Cochrane. With his force, comprising 600 infantry and sixty cavalry, he proceeded to Huacho, a little to the north of Lima. “On the day after his arrival there,” the account proceeds, “and whilst he was inspecting the detachments in the Plaza, Lady Cochrane galloped on to the parade to speak to him. The sudden appearance of youth and beauty on a fiery horse, managed with skill and elegance, absolutely electrified the men, who had never before seen an English lady. ‘Que hermosa! Que graciosa! Que linda! Que airosa! Es un angel de cielo!’ were exclamations which escaped from one end of the line to the other. Colonel Miller, not displeased at this involuntary homage to the beauty of his countrywoman, said to the men, ‘This is our generala;’ on which Lady Cochrane, turning to the line, bowed to the troops, who no longer confining their expressions of admiration to suppressed interjections, broke out into loud ‘vivas.’”

After the action in Callao Harbour, already referred to, Lord Cochrane, on March 2nd, sent Captain Foster with a Spanish gunboat and crew they had captured, and the launches of the O’Higgins and Lautaro, to take possession of San Lorenzo, a small island about three miles distant. Here they found thirty-seven Chilians, who had been taken prisoners eight years before, and who, all that time, had worked in chains under the supervision of a military guard. The military guard were now taken prisoners, and the Chilians released.

These showed their liberators the filthy shed in which, chained by one leg to an iron bar, they had been compelled to sleep. From them, too, it was learnt that the patriot prisoners in Lima were in a more deplorable plight still, and that the fetters on their legs had worn their ankles to the bone. The pitiful tale told by these men moved Cochrane to send a flag of truce to the Viceroy in Lima, with a request for an exchange of prisoners, and complaining of the harsh treatment accorded the Chilian prisoners, while the Spanish prisoners in Chili were well treated. To this message the Viceroy replied that he had a right to treat the prisoners as pirates, and that he was surprised that a British nobleman should be found in command of the maritime forces of a Government “unacknowledged by all the Powers of the globe.” So he refused to treat for an exchange of prisoners. To the Viceroy, Cochrane replied that a British nobleman was a free man, and therefore had a right to adopt any country which was endeavouring to re-establish the rights of aggrieved humanity, and that he had, hence, adopted the cause of Chili with the same freedom of judgment that he had previously exercised when refusing the offer of an admiral’s rank in Spain, made to him not long before by the Duke de San Carlos in the name of Ferdinand the Seventh.

So ended Cochrane’s humane endeavour on behalf of the prisoners of both parties. Meanwhile, with the rather contemptible force and appliances at his command being unable to successfully attack the Spanish fleet, which lay under the shelter of the guns of the forts of Callao, he put to sea and made some important captures. Among these was a vessel laden with treasure lying in the river Barrança; another on the way from Lima to Guambucho with 70,000 dollars, the pay of the Imperial troops; and on April 10th the Gazelle, with 60,000 dollars. He also landed parties at various points on the Peruvian coast, routed the different Spanish garrisons with his marines, and captured their military stores. In this way he was able to make the enemy provide for the wants of his squadron, and his extraordinary success was due to his treatment of the natives. These he always paid for everything required from them. He also paid them highly for any information they might bring him regarding the movements of the enemy. Thus the natives became a kind of detective force working on his behalf. On June 16th he returned to Valparaiso, where, laden with the spoils of many victories, he was received with loud and warm acclamations.

It was not for these, however, that he had returned. It was to organise a more effective force, whereby he might not only blockade—that was too slow and luxurious a method of fighting for him—but even drive the enemy out of Callao, and so himself command the approach to Lima from the sea. His plan was, by means of rockets and explosives, to blow up the booms protecting the enemy’s ships to seaward, and to burn the shipping. To superintend the making of the rockets Mr. Goldsack, principal assistant of Sir William Congreve, at Woolwich, was engaged, and to actually make the rockets the Government foolishly employed the prisoners-of-war. These prisoners, knowing that the explosives they were engaged in making were intended for the destruction of their own friends, put sand, sawdust, manure, and whatever other rubbish they could find, at intervals in the tubes, which should otherwise have contained a continuous packing of gunpowder. The result was that when, some months later, Cochrane again found himself before Callao, and proceeded to put his scheme into execution, the rubbish in the rockets prevented the progress of their combustion, and reduced his elaborate design to a fiasco. It was then the Spaniards fired red-hot shot upon him, and, after losing twenty men and a lieutenant, who was cut right in two by a round shot, he was forced to abandon the attempt.

However, he did not proceed home until he had gathered fresh laurels, equipped though he was with weapons more useless than toys. He captured one or two treasure-ships, of which one, the Potrillo, had on board 30,000 dollars, the pay of the garrisons at Valdivia; he also captured Pisco, in the square of which town General Miller was shot with three bullets—one entered the arm, another entered his chest and passed out at his back, while the third shattered his left hand. He even captured Valdivia itself—a feat that was considered impossible.

The result of all these achievements was that, when he again put in at Valparaiso, he was covered with fresh glory, to the discomfiture of those who had been sedulously seeking to discredit him and to put upon him the entire blame of the failure of the expedition against Callao. Strange to say—and, indeed, mortifying to those who would entertain favourable views of human nature—Cochrane’s brilliant exploits and consequent popularity had awakened feelings of jealousy against him amongst political intriguers at Santiago. Their machinations drove him to offer his resignation. Thereupon the officers of his fleet tendered him their commissions, with the assurance that under him, and him alone, would they serve. This brought his enemies to their senses. He was implored to withdraw his proffered resignation, and induced to do so by the promise of more earnest support.

The Chilian Government had not behaved well to the sailors who had been fighting so bravely for them under Cochrane. These sailors actually had not been paid their wages, and had not received their proper prize-money, though their captures of money and stores had been more than sufficient to keep the squadron afloat. The result was that, when preparations for the next expedition were nearing completion, seamen, naturally, refused to enlist. To overcome this difficulty the following proclamation was issued:

General San Martin signed this proclamation as commander-in-chief; but his signature alone would not have moved the men. They knew Cochrane was their friend. In him they had faith; on him they could rely to do whatever he promised, if it were humanly possible. Consequently, on the appearance of this proclamation the crews were immediately completed, and the squadron sailed, amid the enthusiastic plaudits of the people, on August 21st, 1820.

Under convoy Cochrane had transport vessels, laden with 4,200 troops under the command of General San Martin. These troops were to be disembarked in close proximity to Lima, and to march upon the city by land, while the ships-of-war engaged the enemy by water at Callao. Differences between Cochrane and San Martin early developed themselves. Cochrane was for an immediate attack upon Lima. San Martin delayed, and was landed, according to his varying wishes, now here and now there, all the while accomplishing nothing; so that at last Cochrane lost patience, and on the 30th of September they parted company in the roads of Callao. Cochrane had reconnoitred the fortifications, and urged San Martin to immediately disembark and storm the forts of Callao. He himself would see that the troops were safely landed. San Martin, however, shrank from the undertaking, and insisted on being landed at Ancon, a little to the north. Cochrane, having no power as regarded the disposition of the troops, detached from his squadron the San Martin, Galvarino, and Araucano to convoy the transports to Ancon. He himself retained the O’Higgins, Independencia (an American-built corvette that had been added to the squadron in the previous year), and Lautaro, under the pretence of continuing the blockade. In reality, he had, while reconnoitring the fortifications, formed a daring plan of attack, which he kept concealed even from the commander-in-chief. That plan was nothing short of capturing the brigs-of-war in Callao harbour, moored though they were beneath the ordnance of the surrounding forts, putting their crews to the sword, cutting adrift or burning the entire shipping of the enemy, and getting possession of a treasure-ship on which he had learnt was embarked a million of dollars, kept in readiness in case it should be necessary for the authorities at Lima to seek safety in flight. How far he succeeded in carrying out his ambitious design, it now remains for us to describe.

The attack was to begin on the Esmeralda—a frigate of 44 guns and manned by 370 picked sailors and marines, who slept every night at quarters in readiness against surprises. The Esmeralda, with two other frigates, lay under the protection of 300 pieces of artillery mounted in the batteries ashore. Surrounding her, in semi-lunar shape, were 27 gunboats and armed blockships; and exterior to them, as the first line of defence, was a strong boom with chain moorings. How on earth was Cochrane to capture this, the finest ship on the Pacific Ocean? How even was he to get near her, situated amid such defences? As well try, one would think, to capture the Castle of Callao itself by proposing to creep into the mouths of the cannon and pluck out the charges! However, Cochrane went to work; and for three days, without divulging his design to anyone, continued to make ready for the final coup. Let it here be said that two neutral warships were lying in Callao—the British man-of-war Hyperion and the American Macedonian.

On the evening of November 5th, Cochrane’s intentions were revealed with this proclamation, which was posted up on his own ship, the O’Higgins, and sent to be similarly posted up on the other two, Independencia and Lautaro, which comprised his squadron:

While the men on the different ships, gathered in groups, discussed the proclamation, it was announced that Cochrane was to lead the attack in person, and volunteers were invited to come forward, as he would lead no man unwilling to go into so hazardous an undertaking. A buzz of excitement followed this, and the whole of the marines and seamen on the three ships stepped forward. As it was impossible to take them all, the captains of the ships were ordered to select men from each crew—the total not to exceed 160 seamen and 80 marines. These having been assembled on the flagship, Cochrane gave the signal for the Independencia and Lautaro to weigh anchor with all haste, and put off to sea as if in pursuit of some vessel in the offing. This manœuvre had the desired effect. The look-out on the Esmeralda reported the departure of the two vessels, and the officer in command, as he received the report, observed: “Ah, well, then we may sleep soundly to-night!” It had been all along the constant fear of the Spaniards that Cochrane would spring a night-attack upon them; and, in the case of such, an arrangement had been made with the two neutral vessels, the Hyperion and Macedonian, that they should display certain peculiar lights, so as not to be mistaken for the enemy by those directing the fire from the batteries ashore.

The Spanish officer had scarcely finished his comforting remark, “We may sleep soundly to-night,” when the picked men from Cochrane’s crews, who had been receiving minute instructions as to what each was to do, were paraded on the deck of the O’Higgins. It was now dark; so the enemy, however keen their vision, could see no movement. The men presented a ghostly appearance as they moved quietly to the ship’s sides and dropped into the fourteen boats arranged below to receive them. Not a word was spoken, not even an order given. Besides, the men were draped in white with a blue band round each left arm—this, that in the conflict so soon to stain the waters of Callao Harbour, and in the blindness of their ferocity, with their blood boiling, they might not in mistake fall upon and slay one another. In each right hand was a gleaming cutlass and in each left a loaded pistol. In each man’s ears, too, still lingered Cochrane’s last command, given below: “Not a word, not a sound, not a whisper; use your cutlasses alone: now come and do your duty.” It must have been a weird sight that band of 200 white-sheeted men, in the darkness of night, dropping silently and stealthily into the boats.

By ten o’clock this strange company, every one with visage firmly set, began to move slowly towards the small opening left in the boom for the enemy’s own convenience. Cochrane’s boat led the way. The boats were in two divisions—the first commanded by Flag-Captain Crosbie, the second by Captain Guise. One division was to board the Esmeralda at different points on one side, while the other division was simultaneously to board her from the other side. Thus, in the same instant of time upon the unsuspecting Spaniards would rush from every point a couple of hundred armed and determined men. Meanwhile, these daring seamen have more than two hours’ silent rowing—for the oars are muffled—before them, and during their progress to the scene of action we shall give an extract from the orders issued, as revealing somewhat of Cochrane’s full design. “On securing the frigate,” runs the order, “the Chilian seamen and marines are not to give the Chilian cheer; but to deceive the enemy, and give time for completing the work, they are to cheer ‘Viva el Rey.’ The two brigs-of-war are to be fired on by the musketry from the Esmeralda, and are to be taken possession of by Lieutenants Esmonde and Morgell, in the boats they command; which, being done, they are to cut adrift, run out, and anchor in the offing as quickly as possible. The boats of the Independencia are to turn adrift all the outward Spanish merchant-ships; and the boats of the O’Higgins and Lautaro, under Lieutenants Bell and Robertson, are to set fire to one or more of the headmost hulks; but these are not to be cut adrift so as to fall down upon the rest.” This shows that Cochrane meant nothing less than clearing out the entire port so far as Spain was concerned in it.

Just on midnight, to return to our surpliced dare-devils, they are nearing the opening in the boom and are challenged by the vigilant gunboat set to guard it. Cochrane himself is well in front of his party, and in a low voice, but with a look that means all he says, gives the watch to know that instant death will follow any attempt at raising the alarm. So no alarm is raised, and in a few minutes the boats are in line alongside the unsuspecting frigate. Another moment and that peaceful deck is the scene of a hundred fights. The Chilian crews have swarmed up her sides, and their bare cutlasses are already drenched in blood. Cochrane, boarding her by the main chains, has been knocked back by the butt-end of a sentry’s musket and has fallen on the thole-pin of his boat. The pin has entered his back near the spine, and inflicted a severe injury. He feels it not, however, and, recovering his feet, re-ascends. This time he reaches the deck, and is immediately shot through the thigh. Hastily a handkerchief is bound round the bleeding wound and he takes his place in the fight, hewing down Spaniards till he meets Captain Guise with his party hewing them down from the other side. Together they drive them back now, and the Spaniards retreat to take their final stand on the forecastle. Meanwhile Cochrane hails the foretop, and receives an “Ay, ay, sir,” from his own men; he similarly hails the main-top, and is similarly answered. So far his orders have been carried out, and his men have got possession of the ship.

The Spaniards, however, entrenched on the forecastle have yet to be overcome. The Chilians charge them with their cutlasses, and are driven back scorched with their fire. The Spaniard, as the Chilian knows by experience, cannot face cold steel; so another charge immediately follows, and again the Chilians have to retire. It is only for a second, and, at the third charge, the Spanish musketry being spent, the Chilian cutlasses sweep the deck. At this juncture it became known that this scene of carnage had its onlookers. The British ship Hyperion was so near the Esmeralda that those on board witnessed the whole proceeding, and a midshipman standing at the gangway so far forgot his neutrality as to cheer at the way Cochrane cleared the forecastle. For this he was immediately ordered below by his commander, Captain Searle, and, further, threatened with arrest.

After the forecastle was cleared as described, the fight was renewed on the quarter-deck—only for a moment, however, the Spanish marines who did not leap overboard or into the hold being instantly cut down. Meanwhile, the last quarter of an hour’s uproar had attracted the attention of the garrisons ashore, and these, presuming that what had been so much dreaded—viz., the capture of their frigate—had been accomplished, opened fire upon the Esmeralda. For this, however, Cochrane was prepared. He knew the arrangement made with the neutral vessels whereby they were to be distinguished by carrying certain lights, so he hoisted similar lights on the captured frigate. The result was that the garrisons were puzzled, and struck the neutral vessels oftener than they did the Esmeralda. This made these vessels cut their cables and move away.

Now it was that Cochrane’s orders began to be departed from. Wounded twice, as we have already seen, he was at length obliged to retire from the direction of the conflict. The command, accordingly, fell upon Captain Guise, who gave orders to cut the Esmeralda’s cables. This done, there was nothing for it but to loose her topsails and follow the retiring neutrals. Captain Guise’s excuse for so violating his superior’s commands was that he had lost all control of the men, who had burst into the spirit-room of the Esmeralda, and had otherwise broken up into disorganised bands bent solely upon pillage. But for this, seeing that they had succeeded in capturing the Esmeralda, with her picked and specially equipped crew, they might surely have chased the Spaniards from the other ships, one after another, as fast as their boats would take them, and so the whole fleet might either have been seized or burned. This was Cochrane’s intention, and to this end all his previous plans had been laid. But Cochrane now lay a wounded and exhausted man, and perhaps, under any other leadership, his daring design—if attempted in full—would have ended disastrously.

As it was, their prize was no mean one. They certainly missed the treasure-ship with its million of dollars, which the captured frigate, provisioned for three months and with stores sufficient for a two years’ cruise, was meant to convoy. Aboard, however, they found and made prisoner the Spanish admiral, with his officers and 200 seamen. The rest of the 370, who had originally manned her, had been either killed or drowned. On Cochrane’s side the losses were eleven killed and thirty wounded. The whole affair, from the moment of boarding to the cutting of the frigate’s cables, occupied only a quarter-of-an-hour. Yet in that quarter-of-an-hour, according to Captain Basil Hall, who at the time was commanding the British warship Conway in the Pacific—Cochrane had struck “a death-blow to the Spanish naval force in that quarter of the world; for although there were still two Spanish frigates and some smaller vessels in the Pacific, they never afterwards ventured to show themselves, but left Lord Cochrane undisputed master of the coast.”

The bitter feelings aroused in the breasts of the Spaniards by the disaster of that night received brutal exemplification next morning. Then, as usual, the market-boat put off from the United States ship Macedonian for the shore for provisions. As the boatmen jumped ashore they were surrounded with an angry crowd, who began to accuse them of assisting the Chilians the previous night. The boatmen’s denials were made in vain, and were answered with the confident and positive statement that, without such assistance, the feat had been impossible. Then the mob, their anger increasing and their belief in the charges they were making becoming more assured by the mere force of repetition, set upon the innocent boatmen and foully massacred them.

After this, Cochrane tried hard to draw the Spaniards from the shelter of their guns by placing the Esmeralda in positions that might tempt them to try to recapture her. Only once, when she was placed in a more than usually tempting position, did they venture out with their gunboats, and an hour’s sharp firing followed. As soon, however, as they saw the O’Higgins manœuvring to cut them off, they hastily retreated. Thus, finding it impossible to draw the enemy into an engagement afloat, Cochrane induced General San Martin to lend him 600 soldiers, and with these and the ships of his squadron he so harassed the Peruvian coast from Callao to Arica, that he virtually compelled Lima to capitulate on July 6th, 1821. Three weeks later, on the 28th of July, the national flag was hoisted in the city of the Incas and in these words Peruvian Independence declared:—

“Peru is from this moment free and independent by the general vote of the people and by the justice of her cause, which God defend.”

“A poor benighted heathen, but a first-rate fighting-man,” is the description of a savage adversary which Mr. Rudyard Kipling puts into the mouth of Tommy Atkins. The New Zealanders who fought against us in the sixties were not all of them “poor benighted heathens”: some of them had been pupils in the mission schools, others had come into the mission stations as grown men to learn something of the religion of the white men. When the everlasting quarrel between natives and settlers over land rights led to strife and bloodshed, and the Maories, or natives, took to the bush, most of them forgot what Christianity they had learned, though some of them clung to the old observances; and it is said that when one of their forts was surprised on a Sunday morning, they told the victors that, had it not been for a service which they were holding, they would have been at their posts, and that the English must be strange Christians to fight on Sunday. But whatever were the opinions of the Maori tribesmen in such matters, there is no doubt the second part of the description applied to them. They were “first-rate fighting men.” They had a skill in constructing earthworks which no other race has ever surpassed, and they held them with desperate courage. Frequently when they abandoned them it was not from any fear of their adversaries, for it was one of the principles of their mode of warfare that the rapidly constructed pah, or fort, was only to be held long enough to inflict labour, delay, and loss upon the enemy, and then it was to be secretly evacuated and another work of the same kind held further inland. Of all the battles they fought against us, none displayed their soldierly qualities in a higher degree than the fight at the Gate Pah, which for a time seemed likely to end in a serious disaster to a force that far outnumbered the Maori garrison of the pah, and that brought against it all the resources of modern civilised warfare.

The fight was one in a long series, all of which ended in successes for our arms. Sir Duncan Cameron, who commanded the British forces operating against the rebel Maories in the North Island of New Zealand, was a brave and skilful Highland soldier, and the temporary check at Gate Pah was no fault of his, for he had done everything to ensure success, and it was the first time that there was anything like failure in his whole career. In the spring of 1864, which in that southern climate is the late summer and early autumn of the year, he had made Auckland his base of operations, and while the navy blockaded the coast to prevent arms and ammunition being conveyed to the rebels, he had made a successful expedition up the valley of the Thames, and with very little bloodshed had broken up the Maori power on that river and on the Waikato.

Early in April all fighting was over in the province of Auckland and the district of the Thames. The natives who had been in arms against the Government had returned to their allegiance. General Cameron was discussing with the local authorities the steps to be taken for the further pacification of the North Island, when news arrived that there was a considerable gathering of armed natives near Tauranga, in the Bay of Plenty, and the General resolved to transfer the forces under his command from Auckland and the mouth of the Thames to this new centre of disturbance. A detachment of the 68th Regiment, under Colonel Greer, was already encamped near the mission station of Tauranga. With the help of the naval squadron on the coast, the troops were rapidly transferred from the Thames Estuary to the Bay of Plenty, and by April 26th General Cameron had collected at Tauranga a formidable little force of nearly 1,700 men, including a naval brigade of 400 men and officers, the 68th Regiment, 700 strong, the 43rd, nearly 300 strong, detachments of the 14th and 70th Regiments, each about 100 strong, and a small force of the Royal Artillery, with two 40-pounder Armstrongs, and two 6-pounders, two 24-pounder howitzers, and eight mortars. In the harbour, or close at hand and within call, was a strong naval squadron made up of her Majesty’s ships Curaçoa, Esk, Miranda, Harrier, and Eclipse, under the command of Commodore Sir William Wiseman, and there was a small garrison at Maketu.

The enemy had taken up a position about three miles and a half from the Tauranga mission station, on a neck of high ground about 500 yards wide, over which ran the road or track from Tauranga to the interior. The ridge was a swell of the ground about fifty feet high. On both sides it sloped easily to a tract of swampy land very difficult to pass anywhere, even by men on foot. To the right beyond the swamp was one of the inlets of Tauranga Harbour. The Maories had rapidly fortified the high ground, the spot where they fixed their pah, or earthwork, being evidently suggested to them by the fact that just below the highest swell of the ridge it was crossed by a three-foot trench, which marked the boundary between the mission station property and the bush and native lands. They deepened and widened this trench, carrying it down to the swamp on either side. Behind it they dug out their pah—an oblong enclosure, about eighty yards long by thirty wide. The military despatches of the time describe it as a “redoubt,” but the word is rather misleading. The Maori pah in this case, as in all others, was a series of trenches, one within the other, and communicating by cross cuts, and looking at first sight like a labyrinth. In the sides of the trenches shelters were hollowed out so that the garrison could crouch in them until the assault was actually begun. Further shelter was secured by roofing in the trenches with wattle hurdles, made with twigs and branches, thatching over this with ferns, and sometimes shovelling earth upon it. The eaves of the roofs were kept up by posts at a height of six or eight inches above the edge of the trench, so that the garrison could sweep the ground in front with their guns. At the Gate Pah, as this improvised fortress was called, there were three tiers of rifle-pits or trenches, one within the other, all having a zigzag trace, so that it was all the more difficult to make out at first sight their general plan. On either side of the ridge, a line of trenches or rifle-pits ran down the hill towards the swamps, so as to sweep with their fire the approaches to the flanks of the main work. In these rifle-pits, at intervals, traverses or banks of earth lying across the general direction of the trench, had been erected to protect them from flanking fire. In front of the works a light, open fence of posts and rails, a kind of loosely-constructed stockade, had been erected to impede the rush of a storming party. The whole was a work which would have done credit to European engineers. The garrison was certainly not more than 400 natives, perhaps less. They had very few rifles, their favourite firearm being double-barrelled shot-guns, which they were able to load and fire much more rapidly, and at close quarters quite as effectively, as the old-fashioned muzzle-loading Enfield rifle then carried by the soldiers. They loaded with slugs and bullets, and sometimes even with buckshot. For the fight at close quarters they had their spears of hard wood, small axes, or tomahawks, sometimes of stone, and the beautiful greenstone or jade war-clubs or merés of the chiefs.

On Thursday, April 27th, General Cameron began his preparations for the siege of the pah. The naval brigade had made a formidable addition to his artillery force by getting ashore from one of the ships an Armstrong 110-pounder gun, then the heaviest gun in the service, and probably the heaviest gun ever used on shore against a tribe of half-savage warriors. On the 27th the 68th Regiment, and a detachment of 170 men under Major Ryan, of the 70th, moved up to a point about 1,200 yards from the front of the pah and encamped there. As the Maories had no artillery, and no long-range rifles, and were not likely to risk a sortie, the camp was safe from disturbance. On that and the following day the guns and mortars were being got into position for the attack, the handy bluejackets from the fleet lending, as they always do on such occasions, invaluable assistance. During the day it was ascertained that at low water it was possible to pass along the beach outside the swamp on the enemy’s right, and so get to the rear of his position. Acting on this information, Colonel Greer, with the 68th Regiment, left the camp after dark on the Friday evening and slipped down to the beach, working along quietly in the dark, so as to outflank the Maories. To prevent the garrison of the pah from paying any attention to chance noises coming from the beach and so discovering this move, the main body at the camp pushed forward a few riflemen, who fired long-ranging shots at the stockade, from which the double-barrelled guns of Maori sentries answered with random shots fired in the dark, without much idea of range, or even of direction. This firing was soon over, and meanwhile Greer’s men had got round the back of the swamp and were settling down for the night among the tall ferns to landward of the enemy’s position. At the camp the sailors and gunners spent the dark hours making the last preparations for next day’s bombardment. When the sun rose, the Armstrong guns, including the big 110-pounder, besides a battery of mortars, were in position, waiting for the word to open fire. Inland the 68th held a position from which they could shoot down any of the garrison of the pah who ventured out of the work to get water from the stream behind it, or who attempted to escape inland.

At half-past six a thin line of skirmishers pushed forward to the edge of the swamp on the left of the pah and in front of the British right. General Cameron thought it possible that the enemy would abandon the work and bolt across the swamp, and took this means of hemming them in on all sides. The natives in the rifle-pits on the slope above thought this move must be the beginning of an attack, and fired ineffectually at the redcoats. This was taken as the signal for opening fire from the batteries, and guns and mortars began to send their shells roaring through the air. Over the pah a red flag waved on a tall mast. From the batteries this seemed to be the centre of the pah, and at first most of the gunners took it for their mark in laying their pieces. When the pah was captured, it was discovered that the flagstaff really stood, not in the centre of the pah, but further off, just behind its rearward stockade. The result of this mistake was that for the first two hours many of the shells passed harmlessly over the Maori position.

Not long after the artillery opened fire the Maori musketry ceased. The garrison had got under cover, but they were watching the proceedings of the besiegers, for when the guns were directed on the left angle of their fort in order to demolish the stockade and make a breach in the parapet, every now and then a brave rebel would creep up to the crumbling mound, shovel a few spadefuls of earth into the gap, and slip back again, heedless of the imminent danger of being blown to pieces by a bursting shell. Once a plucky fellow actually succeeded in hanging a blanket across the stockade, evidently to conceal the movements of those who were bringing up material to repair the breach close by. By this time the mortars had got the range, and were dropping shells into the work. The place was completely surrounded. The 68th and the naval brigade had closed in, and were firing at the pah on the right and in the rear. Twelve guns and mortars were blazing away at the front and breaching the left angle. A thirteenth gun had been got into position beyond the swamp on the left, so as to rake the rifle-pits on the slope, and thirty riflemen on the edge of the marsh were firing into the pah at a range of only 400 yards. Surrounded on all sides, and with shells bursting over the wattle roofs of their trenches, the garrison was in a position in which most European troops would have given up the defence as hopeless. The big Armstrong gun fired no less than a hundred 110-pound shells at the pah before it had to cease firing (towards 3 o’clock) for want of ammunition. The marvel is that the wretched little fort was tenable. But subsequent inquiry showed that the Maories had constructed their shelters so well, and lay so close in them, that they lost very few men. About noon they replied for awhile with musketry to the storm of bullets and shells that was pouring into the pah, but their fire was ineffectual. Indeed, in the earlier stage of the attack, the only losses of the assailants appear to have been three men of the 68th Regiment, wounded by shells that flew over the pah and burst close in their front.

Crouching in the hollowed sides of the trenches, or stealing round to the front to look out over the parapet, the Maories must have realised that before nightfall the storm of fire would suddenly cease to allow a superior force to rush their shattered fort with the bayonet. But they waited quietly for the supreme trial of strength, encouraged, doubtless, by finding that even the huge shells thrown by the white men, though they made a terrible noise, killed or wounded very few of the garrison against whom they were directed. It was an anticipation many years earlier of the experience of the Turkish garrison of the Gravitza redoubt at Plevna, who lost only a handful of men under the volcano-like fire of the great bombardment.

After three o’clock the bombardment slackened. The breach was considered to be wide enough to be rushed by a strong storming party on a broad front, and there were no obstacles on the slope before it. When, just before four o’clock, the stormers were drawn up behind the batteries and received the order to advance, the immediate capture of the Gate Pah seemed to be a certainty. The storming column was 600 strong. The vanguard, under Colonel Booth and Commander Hay, of H.M.S. Harrier, was made up of 150 men of the 43rd Regiment and as many more of the naval brigade. The support, which was led by Captain John Hamilton, of H.M.S. Esk, consisted of the rest of the seamen and marines and of the 43rd—in all, 300 men. At four o’clock General Cameron gave the word to advance, and, with a cheer, the men dashed up the slope. A few shots were fired from the pah, and some heavy volleys from the rifle-pits, but, until they were almost in, a swell of the ground gave some cover to the stormers, and the loss they suffered was trifling. Still cheering, they streamed in through the wide gap in the stockade, poured like a flood over the shattered parapet, and found themselves almost without opposition masters of the left corner of the pah.

What happened next will never be known with absolute certainty, for many of those who survived, after being in the thickest of the wild scene of slaughter that followed, give contradictory accounts of what occurred. It seems certain that a part of the garrison was attempting to retire by the back of the pah, when they were met by a sharp fire from the 68th Regiment, which was closing in upon the works, answering with a loud cheer the cheering of the stormers. The Maories, on this, rushed back into the pah, giving some of the stormers the impression that the garrison had been suddenly reinforced. When they first passed the parapet, all that the naval officers and those of the 43rd noticed of the garrison were a few wounded men lying near the breach. The openings of the trenches close by looked like a tangled labyrinth, and it was not easy to see which was the easiest way into the centre of the work. The roofs of the Maori shelters jutted up here and there, and the men seem in some cases to have broken their ranks, and even laid down their weapons under the impression that these were abandoned houses that could be safely entered in search of curios and plunder. Suddenly gun barrels were pushed out from under the eaves, and several officers and men dropped, struck by shots that appeared to come out of the earth. On all sides dusky figures sprang up as if from trapdoors, yelling, firing, flourishing spears and axes. From the rear of the work came a wild rush of spears and guns. The soldiers, especially those who had broken their formation, seemed seized with a sudden panic. They felt as if they had been led into an ambuscade. Instead of resistance being over, it was only beginning. Several of their officers had fallen at the first volley. A few men gave way to the surprise and terror of the moment, and then the panic spread with that mysterious suddenness with which it seems to be able to run through a mass of even individually brave men. What happened at the Gate Pah has happened in every army in the world; and if there was headlong panic among many of the men, there were many, too, who stood bravely. The officers and the sergeants of the 43rd, and the officers and leading seamen of the naval brigade, did their duty splendidly, and suffered losses that bore only too striking evidence to the tenacity with which they strove to restore the fortune of the fight. There was more than one cry to retire, though the officers were calling out to the men to push forward. At this moment Captain Hamilton brought up the reserve, pushed gallantly forward to the second line of trenches, and sprang upon the bank above them, waving his sword and calling out, “Come on, my men!” A shot struck him in the head and he fell, closing by an heroic death a career of high distinction and great promise. His fall renewed the courage of the defenders, the panic of the assailants. The struggling mass of sailors and soldiers streamed back out of the breach, leaving nearly all the officers of the 43rd and several of the naval officers dead and wounded in the pah. Major Ryan of the 70th Regiment and Captain Jenkins of H.M.S. Miranda were among the last to leave the work, after hopeless efforts to rally what were left of the six hundred stormers.

How many brave deeds were done amid the wild panic in the breach of the Gate Pah would take a long time to tell. Two Victoria Crosses were won in the disaster, one of them by Surgeon Manley, R.A., who exposed himself most recklessly in order to remove and give first help to the wounded close under the fire of the victorious Maories. The other was secured by Samuel Mitchell, the captain of the foretop of the Harrier. He had entered the breach close beside Commander Hay, and when his officer fell mortally wounded, he took him up to carry him out of danger. Hay told Mitchell to leave him where he was, and take care of his own life; but the brave fellow brought him out at considerable risk to himself, and then dashed back into the fight. Watts, the gunner of the Miranda, charged by the side of Captain Hamilton. He marked out and cut down the Maori who had killed his leader, but the next moment he was himself brained with a tomahawk. James Harris, a seaman of the Curaçoa, actually dashed right through the pah. He chased a Maori out of the rear of the work, hunted him down to the position of the 68th Regiment, bayoneted him there, and was shot while making a reckless attempt to again traverse the pah and rejoin his comrades.

While the storming column was engaged with the enemy in the pah, the 68th had made an attempt to rush it in the rear, but were met with such a heavy fire that they gave up the attempt. The repulse of the attack was hailed with loud cheers by the garrison. The General with his staff rallied the storming column as it retired, and then rode forward to reconnoitre the pah. At this point someone told him that the troops had got into and were holding the rifle-pits on the left. Turning in this direction to verify the report, he was met by a volley which wounded his horse and put two bullets into the saddle of an officer who rode beside him. The enemy held all the works, from which they fired occasional shots at intervals for the rest of the evening. It was soon dark, and the night was cloudy and starless. In the dusk Captain Jenkins had a narrow escape. There had not been a shot for some time, and he went out to see if the pah had been abandoned. A volley fired at close quarters told him he was mistaken, and showed him that he had wandered into the lower part of one of the enemy’s trenches.

Dispirited by the collapse of the 43rd Regiment, the repulse of the whole column and the loss of so many officers, the troops spent a wakeful, anxious night. More than once after dusk the Maories called out to them in English, daring them to come on again; but Cameron had resolved not to make an attempt in the dark, which might only end in confusion and renewed disaster, but to rush the pah at daybreak. Meanwhile, the men were set to work to throw up a line of advanced entrenchments within about a hundred yards of the stockade, so as to maintain possession of all the ground that had been won. During this work, all fire having ceased from the pah, Major Greaves, of the staff, crept up the slope to see if the natives were retiring from it. In the dark he could make nothing out for certain. Just before midnight he went up again and penetrated into the breach. All was silent within, but away landwards, to the rear of the work, some shots were fired. The natives had scattered in small parties and withdrawn towards the interior, and the shots came from the outposts of the 68th, some of whose sentries heard the Maories stealing by in the dark, but could not stop them.

How little the officers relied upon their men after the previous day’s experience is shown by the fact that they did not venture to lead them into the fort until the first light of the dawn appeared on the early morning of the Sunday, 30th. When the pah was entered a grim sight met the eyes of the victors. A few yards inside the breach four captains of the 43rd lay heaped together: two were dead, killed by bullet wounds in the head and neck, another had been slain at close quarters with a tomahawk, which had cut through his shoulder into the chest; a fourth, struck in the head by a bullet, was still breathing when his comrades found him, but died before he could be removed. A little further on lay Colonel Booth, of the same regiment, shot in the spine and the right arm, still alive after that terrible night, but not far from his death. Captain Muir, of the 43rd, and Captain Hamilton, R.N., lay dead together well forward in the second trench, with no other bodies near them. A little to the left lay Lieutenant Hill, R.N., of the Curaçoa, shot in the neck and through both cheeks. He had been alive some time after he fell, for he had tied his handkerchief round his wounded face. Watts, the gunner of the Miranda, lay dead with his head split from crown to chin with a tomahawk. Another seaman had had his head cut in two crosswise by the same weapon, scattering all the brains. The body of a Maori was found in the centre of the pah fairly cut in two by a bursting shell. There, too, the chief, Reweti, or Davis of Tauranga, was picked up, with seven bullets in his body and his legs broken by a shell-burst, but still not only alive but ready to talk to the white men, and wondering why his countrymen had not carried him off with the other wounded, whom they had removed. In all, during the attack, 9 officers and 23 men had been killed, and 5 officers and 75 men wounded, a total loss of 112 officers and men, nearly all of whom fell in the actual assault, and most of whom would have come out of the affair, safe in life and limb, if the advanced party of the 43rd had stood by their officers. At the moment of the panic there is no doubt the stormers were well into the work, and standing as most of them did on the high ground between the trenches, they could have bayoneted the Maories as they scrambled out, or shot them through the roofs. Of the British wounded many died within a week of the fight.

The garrison had lost very few in killed and wounded. Twenty dead and six wounded men were found in the pah. Ten more were picked up dead in the swamp, and the retreating Maories must have carried some wounded men with them. But their whole loss seems to have been under fifty. The chief, Rawiri, who commanded the defence, escaped unhurt. The wounded chief, Davis, told the English that if his advice had been taken there would have been no such prolonged defence of the pah; but, he added, there were a lot of big chiefs present, and they wanted a fight. It is pleasant to be able to record that both sides acted with that chivalrous respect for each other which was worthy of brave men. The Maories had not touched the watches and chains or rings worn by the dead and wounded soldiers and sailors who fell in the pah, nor had they in any way injured the bodies. General Cameron showed his sense of this conduct on their part by ordering that the dead Maories should be given a respectful burial, and all possible care bestowed on the wounded men. Even the fragments of the body that had been torn by the shell were laid together in the row of dead outside the pah, and word was sent to some friendly Maories, belonging to a tribe which had helped to garrison the Gate Pah, that they might come in and bury their dead kinsmen, the messenger adding that, if they did not, the English would do it for them. Before noon on Sunday they came to the fort and dug a grave for the twenty dead warriors from the pah. In the bottom of it they laid the men of lower rank, that they might form a bed across which lay the corpses of the chiefs. “It is well that the warrior should die, to be a couch for his chief,” runs an old proverb of the warrior Maori race.

Later in the day the English dead were laid in rows of graves at the Tauranga mission station, under a great tree, not far from the beach, and the volleys rang out their parting salute to the men who had fallen so bravely trying to stem the tide of disaster. The struggle between the white man and the Maori has, happily, ended years ago, and now both parties to the quarrel remember only that it was bravely fought out, and that in the tribes of the North Island even British soldiers and sailors found foemen well worthy of their steel. The last traces of the Gate Pah have long since been removed from the ridge above Tauranga. A monument commemorates the gallant dead. Hamilton has found another memorial in a flourishing town on the Waikato River, founded and named after him by the colonists, in the very year of his death, in admiration of his splendid valour.