TARANAKI. SHARP SKIRMISH WITH THE NATIVES.

Evening Post, Issue 230, 2 November 1865, Page 2

TARANAKI. SHARP SKIRMISH WITH THE NATIVES.

By the g.s. Stormbird, Captain Thompson which arrived yesterday, we have received the particulars of a skirmish which took place at Warea on the morning of Sunday, 22nd. It appears that the natives have long been in the habit of laying ambuscade for the mounted men who are continually riding backwards and forwards between the posts, and on Friday evening (20th instant) they wounded Captain Mace, W. Bullot, and W. Oxenham who were riding from the Warea to the Stoney River Colonel Colville, who is in command at Warea, determined to try and check this if possible, so with a force of eighty three men, Captain the Hon. J. Harris, Lieutenant Longley , and Lieutenant O'Brien, he started out before daybreak on Sunday morning, marched about three miles inland and took up a position on the site of an old pa close to to the village of Ngakun ikunui, where the natives are living. Capt tin Mace and some mounted men then acha ced up to the village and succeeded in drawing the natives out when the ambush opened fire and a hand-to-hand fight ensued. There is nothing in the whole affair to boast about, for the natives kept their ground well and did not draw off till they had given as much as they got from our men. The casualties on our tide were Serjeant Clifford, killed : Colonel Colville,

gunshot wound in thigh with bone fracture ; Serjeant Dyer and private Pratt severely wounded. By the Herald, 28th, we learn that private Pratt has since died from his wounds, and Colonel Colville is progressing favorably. The Maori loss, as reported by a friendly native who arrived in Taranaki from Opuaaki on Thursday, is four killed and one missing, whom his friends supposed to have been taken prisoner by our men. — Wanganui Times, October 31.