ne of the finest
districts in the Islands. The Company claimed to have bought it from
Rauparaha and Rangihaeata, whose ownership--for they did not live in
it--was based on recent conquest, and on occupation by some members
of their tribe. The chiefs denied the sale, and, when the Company's
surveyors came into the valley, warned them off, and burned down the
huts they had put up. Commissioner Spain was coming almost at once to
try the dispute as to the title. But the delays and vexations of the
previous years had infuriated Captain Wakefield. He looked upon the
chiefs as a pair of "travelling bullies" who wanted but firmness to
cow them. 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 wa