THE EVACUATION OF MEREMERE.

Southland Times, Volume III, Issue 15, 11 December 1863, Page 2

THE EVACUATION OF MEREMERE.

(From the Melbourne Leader.) T.ie Maories liaye vevacuated Meremen After months elaborate preparation, vr deliver our attaclcY arid discover that tli enemy declines to receive it. We hay been at pains to spread a net; and, < drawing it in, lo I the bird is flown. Tl only thing wonderful a.bo" t the circut stance is that anything else should ha* been expected. Our officers set tht hearts upon a pitched battle, which wou break the neck ofthe Avar, and iheir anf gonial has bein amusing them and "kil big time " by appearing quite ready gratify their -wishes But the Maori would be a very remarkable people if tb ventured so rash ari experiment. Th have not the weapons, even if they h the inclination, to. encounter our soldtt in a stand up encounter. 7 So the Genei and his troops, who Avere sent to New Ze land to fight, at |ast begin to comprehei that this is a war in which there will little or no fighting in our sense oft term— that it is to be a- war of purely ( sultory tactics and of an utterly sav<f type— a series of maraudings, burnittfl and murders, instead of civilised soldjW work. The Mamies are right, of couW to select the guerilla style of operatiol — it is .their only chance of n being crushed out of hand— of <! .- delaying, defeat. * But the brutal and evt fiendish manner in which they are co ducting the contest has wholly banish* ;■ the sympathy we would otherwise feel f the fate of aboriginal, tribes, whose obsl nate interference with our colonisati compels us to displace them. They h* on the present occasion, returned to tl relentless ferocity which was a charact istic of their cannibal days. For awh after being christianised and semi-civilis they figured, wheri in arms against us, \ quite a coivtrary light! In the Heki risii nearly-twenty years ago Your soldiers coo , jifford Id speak of tbem as a *<!%$\ y enemy" — when, for instance, theyi^fus ? I to fire on the workmen who were opetiii ; I roads to allow our cannon- to play on thi pahs, on the score of those workifl v being unarmed, and not fighting nil But such Bayard-like behavior was mil' ;. too good to last. In the Ta«"*aaki confli :; one of the septs, the Ngatinaanui, reviv ; the. old savage practices ; and the Waikai a Avho were-then- honorable, warriors, ha] y in tlie current campaign, flung all res*rai aside, and have delivered themselves up J the commission of atrocities ino 're resei % bling Ihe deeds of devils than hum V beings. They are slaughtering the sett" A. when they can steal upon them, and «i | out distinction of age or sex. They sh' ; down without mercy old men, wonjj -r and little children ; and gash and mu'il* the wounded and dead bodies in •■.hen" ; horrible manner. The numerous s • perfectly trained and appointed battal' 11 | which the Home Government despatch ;