On the 20th November a very decisive success was gained
by General Cameron, not without great cost to the English troops in action, at Rangiriri, in the Waikato country. " Rangiriri," writes a private correspondent, " is situated close to the bank of the Waikato river, and also close to the Waikari lake, which there communicates with the river by a passage about a mile wide. The land around the edge of the lake is low, fertile, and entirely free from forest, being at this moment for the most part cultivated. At the junction of the lake and river the land runs out in a low long point of some breadth, somewhat like a Gibraltar without the rock. Here it was that before war broke out in May last at Taranaki, the most disaffected of the Waikato natives set about throwing up earthworks so extensive that most Europeans rather scoffed at the idea of their ever being completed by them, not taking into con- sideration the vast change which war makes in the character of the Maori, who will slave himself almost to death for any warlike pur- pose. The expedition which started from Mere Mere for Rangiriri was 1,200 strong, and was conveyed one part by land, and the rest, forming the larger b&ly, by the river, in the gunboats Avon and Pioneer. It was nearly five o'clock before General Cameron arrived before the earthworks at Rangiriri." General Cameron, however, ordered an assault, which soon carried the outer works, but four un- successful attempts were afterwards made to carry the inner works. Nevertheless, at daylight, when the order was given to resume the attack, a white flag was seen, and the whole Maori force remaining in the fort was captured, 183 in number, including W. Thompson and all the leading Waikato chiefs, excepting only the Maori King, who had escaped in the night. The native loss was about 100 killed, 150 wounded, who escaped, and 183 made prisoners. Our own loss was four officers and 36 men either killed or mortally wounded and since dead, and about 80 men and 10 officers mor or less seriously wounded, but now doing well. This is the begin- ning of the end, we trust, in New Zealand—but it will yet take time and colonists to overawe permanently the spirit of Maori independence.
