The New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK'S STRAITS GUARDIAN. Saturday, February 14, 1846.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume II, Issue 71, 14 February 1846, Page 2

The New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK'S STRAITS GUARDIAN. Saturday, February 14, 1846 .

Our fellow colonists have at last been relieved from the painful state of anxiety and suspense in which they have so long been kept by the arrival, on Tuesday evening, of H.M.S. Calliope from Auckland, with intelligence that the rebels at the North had been defeated and dispersed, that Heki and Kawiti, dispirited with the losses they had sustained, had both submitted themselves unconditionally to the Governor, leaving it to his Excellency to dictate the terms of peace, and that the war was considered to be virtually at an end. We have been favoured with a copy of the New Zealander, from which we have extracted the official despatches giving an account of the operations, and also a private version of the affair, to both of which we refer our readers for particulars of the engagement. The natives appear to have fought with determination, the engagement having lasted four hours ; the loss on their part has not been ascertained, as they carried off their wounded and dead, the loss of the British forces, who throughout the whole of this difficult and har-

rassing service have shewn the greatest gallantry and devotion, amounted to twelve killed and thirty wounded. The North Star and the Elphinstone have both left Auckland for Sydney, and by Proclamations dated the 21st January, it was officially announced that after the Ist day of February the district of the Bay of Islanda would be relieved from the jurisdiction of Martial Law, and that the blockade from Wangarei to Monganui and Doubtless Bay would be discontinued.. This news of itself is most satisfactory, but this is not all ; for having effectually quelled the rebellion at the North and asserted the supremacy of the British power, his Excellency has lost no time in visiting Wellington with a force sufficient to render any further opposition on the part of the intruding natives in the Hutt district perfectly hopeless. After the victory obtained over Heki and Kawiti we cannot anticipate that the handful of men who have so long been permitted by the policy pursued by Capt. Fitzroy (for so the officials affected to designate the imbecilities of our former ruler) to defy the Government, will any longer attempt to dispute its authority. We may therefore hope that the settlers will at length be relieved from the obstructions and annoyances to which they have so long been exposed, that the valley of the Hutt will be thrown open to their exertions, and that all the difficult and harrassing questions connected with the land claims will now be set at rest for ever. When this is accomplished we may conclude that his Excellency's time will be chiefly occupied with the consideration of those questions affecting the local interests of the settlement which have so long been neglected by his predecessors. These have been so often discussed in this journal, that we have neither time nor space to glance at them on the present occasion, and we are happily relieved from this necessity by the appointment of a Deputation at the late Public Meeting, to whom the advocacy of these questions is entrusted ; a deputation consisting of some of the oldest and most independent settlers, who are well known and fully entitled to the confidence of the public, and who we are persuaded will discharge the trust committed to them with credit to themselves, and with advantage to their fellow colonists.