MURDER OF FIVE WHITE MEN AND ONE FIJIAN AT FIJI.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1047, 4 December 1871, Page 3

MURDER OF FIVE WHITE MEN AND ONE FIJIAN AT FIJI.

[FIJI TIMES, NOVEMBER 4.]

A painful sensation was created yesterr day morning upon the beach at the rumbr that Mr-T. Warburten, -merchant- in this town, Messrs. - Kingston', Robson, Wliittaker, planters of Taviuni/and Mr Owen, master of the Meva cutter, and a Fijian, had been murdered on board the craft on Wednesday night. On making inquiry we find, that there is too much proof of the bloody tragedy for us to doubt its truth. From Mr Manton, who brought the intelligence, we learnt the following particulars :— All that is at present known of the details. When at his plantation at Angau on Wednesday evening last, at about 8 o'clock, a native came over and reported that five white men had been murdered on board a cutter that evening. He gave the particulars as follows : — "The white people were at supper in the cabin, when a Solomon Islander came aft and asked at the cabin-door that he and his comrades might have their supper too, as they were very hungry. One of the white men promised that he would see that they were well fed, and was coming up on deck to carry out his promise, when he was immediatelytomahawked. Another sprang on the deck, but only to share the same fate ; and the other three, men seized muskets and also rushed up from thecabin. Before they had time to look around them, two more were tomahawked, and the third one leaped overboard, During the time this was bepg enacted one of the $*iji men, who was at the galley forward, was also tomahawked, and the other jumped overboard. The white man and he swam together for a time, but the white man was a bad swimmer, and offered the Fijian ten pounds to help him to the shore. This the Fijian refused to do, as he was afraid the poor fellow would drown him. Soon after this the unfortunate man sank, and the native succeeded in reaching the land, when the information was at once carried to Mr Manton, who lost no time jn bringing it on to Levuka./' Jt were impossible to describe the feelings of the people of Jjevuka as soon as the painful intelligence Boread. The best nianifeatation of it was the readiness with which ithey came forward to aid the Government in pursuit of the bloodthirsty wretches who had perpetrated the foul deed. Within an hour after the bugle sounded the "assembly," above a hundred men presented themgelves all anxious to aid in the pursuit. A force of 36 was at once chosen and drafted into four squads of eight men, and one officer to each, which were put on board at once and despatched to sea. The vessels were— Pomona, cutter, about six tons ; Xariffa, cutter, of 26 tons ; Jubilee, mission-schooner, of 40 tons ; and Mate Qrant, schooner, of about 40 tons— «ach vessel having a force of nine rank and file fully armed, and the whole expedition under the command of Captain Armstrong, R.N. From the weather we have had during the last few days it is thought that the Meva cannot possibly be far away, their not being any one on board her who understands either the place or handling a vessel. On Thursday. there were very light northerly a.irs and part of the day calms j and at night and all day yesterday southerly breezes. The vessels in pursuit are stocked with three weeks' provisions, but it is confidently anticipated that the wretches will be caught long before that time will have elapsed. The Meva, cutter, is of about ten tons, and left here on. Tuesday last; bound for Tayiuni, having on. board the unfortunate victims of this tragedy, and forty Solomon Island laborers only re* ...••. i <"• ': y - (\ :..■. i.. - -

ceritly imported in the Lismore, schooner. Mr Charles Young, of Kyneton, has kindly placed at the disposal of the Guardian a letter received from his son by the last mail from Fiji. The letter is dated from Levuka, sth November, a day later than the date of the last Fiji Times, and was written just before the Wonga Wonga sailed. After giving an account of the massacre of Mr VVarburton and his companions, the writer says'.— "The Cambria, a small schooner, came in to-day with only one living white man out of six, all the rest having been eaten. The labor question is getting very difficult."