HIROKI’S CONFESSION.

Patea Mail, 8 May 1882, Page 3

HIROKI’S CONFESSION.

The murderer Hiroki, who has just been condemned to be hanged for shooting McLean at Momahaki in 1878, made a confession to ! Patrick Conway| who gavethe following evidence at the trial :

1 live with the Maoris. , I saw Hiroki at Parihaka two months after the murder, and I asked him to sit down and tell me how he shot McLean.. He said .he went to the surveyors’ camp and asked the surveyors to clear off his land. They laughed at him and told him to go away. He wenttwo or three times, when they killed his pigs, and told therii not to kill his pigs, bat fo clear away.. They told him to clear but of the camp, and called him “ a black nigger,” and swore at.the same .time. He said to .the surveyors, •“ I will make some of you, pay for this.” He; went home to his pair and got a doublebarrelled gun. When he had got to the surveyors’ camp he saw a surveyor loading a gun, and just as the surveyor was going to fire. the gpn,. Hiroki caught hold, of the ; gun ahd wrestled withsthe: surveydr. Begot the gun away from the surveyor and hit him with the butt end. There was another surveyor making his escape down by; the creek, when he (Hiroki) fired at hith and ,shot lain. ' Hiroki came.back to see where the other man was, and found he had gone. ; Hiroki then went to one of the tents arid plundered it. He got some powder and other things. He then went to •the pah and told his people he was off to Parihaka. On the road near Waitotara he came to a Maori pah, where he saw a man and woman. -They commenced crying, and asked him where he was : going, and he said he was going to Parihaka. As he went ;: albng the’road to Parihaka, he met a party out in search of him, and they fired at him and shot him. He went into the bush, and overheard the party say “We will track him.” Others said “No, he will kneel behind a tree and,shoot one of us.” ‘ He up his wound.with a •bit of the shawl and came, across a river named Takeb. He Saw a mob of cattle there, aiid shot one and camped there. ‘The nest morning the wound had swollen down his leg and up his arm. He was delayed there a day or two until his wound

got a little better, and he made tracks again. ( He came tp another pah near Parihaka, and he saw the women cooking some “ tucker.”: He left his. gun in tile bush and came up to the pah. They asked him where he came from, and, lie said from Waikato, and was’ going to; Parihaka. They said, “ Then you have Parihaka behind you.” The food was cooked, and they commenced eating it. While they were eating, one native said to the other, “He is very much like Hiroki I” The other native replied, “ No, Hiroki is darker.” When they’ had; finished the food he asked them to show him the road to Parihaka ; but he did not go that road. They called out that he was going the wrong road, but he took no notice.. He went and picked up his gum and went into Parihaka. -

i Cross-examined : Hiroki appeared to me to be'a very nice man.when 1 knew him* He' Was thought , a great , man at Parihaka for being so brave in killing a white many