spondence between
them. From this--to one who reads it now--the General seems to emerge
in a damaged condition. The best that can be said for him is that he
and many of his officers were sick of the war, which they regarded
as an iniquitous job, and inglorious to boot. They knew that a very
strong party in England, headed by the Aborigines Protection Society,
were urging this view, and that the Colonial Office, under Mr.
Cardwell, had veered round to the same standpoint. This is probably
the true explanation of General Cameron's singular slackness. The
impatience and indignation of the colonists waxed high. They had
borrowed three millions of money to pay for the war. They were paying
L40 a year per man for ten thousand Imperial soldiers. They naturally
thought this too much for troops which did not march a mile a day.

Whatever the colonists thought of Grey's warfare with his ministers,
they were heartily with him in his endeavours to quicken the slow
dragging on of the military operations. He did not confine himself to
exhortation. He made up his mind to attack the Weraroa _pa_ himself.
General Cameron let him have two hundred soldiers to act as a moral
support. With these, and somewhat less than five hundred militia and
friendly Maoris, the Governor sat down before the fort, which rose on
a high, steep kind of plateau, above a small river. But though too
strong for front attack, it was itself liable to be commanded from an
outwork on a yet higher spur of the hills. Bringing common sense to
bear, Grey quietly despatched a party, which captured this, and with
it a strong reinforcement about to join the garrison. The latter fled,
and the bloodless capture of Weraroa was justly regarded as among the
most brilliant feats of the whole war. The credit fairly belonged to
Grey, who showed, not only skill, but signal personal daring. The
authorities at home must be assumed to have appreciated this really
fine feat of his, for they made the officer commanding the two hundred
moral supports a C.B. But Grey, it is needless to say, by thus
trumping the trick of his opponent the General, did not improve his
own relations with the Home authorities. He did, however, furnish
another strong reason for a self-reliant policy. Ultimately, though
gradually, the Imperial troops were withdrawn, and the colonists
carried on the war with their own men, as well as their own money.

[Illustration: MAJOR KEMP MEIHA KEPA TE RANGI-HIWINUI]

In J