TARANAKI.

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 431, 10 December 1861, Page 2

TARANAKI.

From Taranaki we (Wellington Independent) have the following letter by our own cor-, respondent. . , •■ - Taranald. Nov. 6, 1861. : Some time has now elapsed since last I wrote you any account of our troubles or doings, the grand absorbing interest having passed from the war and strife of Taranaki to the peaceful but energetic transactions of the. gold-fields.; The passage from war towards peace has already occupied nearly eight months, during which period we as a people have almost been in a worse state than when the town was hemmed- in by the enemy, for then the energies of the inhabitants were almost hourly called into action ; but for the last few months all around has been in a perfect state of stagnation,, it being utterly impossible to depict what may result from the future. . Consequently, we have been only existing, living as it were from-hand to mouth, no one, from a deficiency in confidence, liking to waste hi* energies and time upon sowing that which he may never reap. Added to all this, of late much ill-feeling has-been engendered by the officer commanding the militia, from the despotic and unprecedented manner in which some ot our oldest settlers have been deprived, without adequate cauc e> of their pay and ration?. . Whether the Executive Government or the officer commanding the militia is to be blamed, we shall soon learn: in the meantime the latter has to bear the odium. I am excessively -sorry that any feeling of the kind should have arisen, more particularly just at a period when we are likely once again to enjoy freedom in a release from our military yoke. It would have been much pleasanter for all to have parted with those who have been with us throughout our difficulties and dangers with every demonstration of good and kindly feelings. • 1 do trust that our dismissal will bo attended with such acknowledgments for our past services, that when we are settled again in our qniet homesteads we may look back with gratified feelings upon the honorable and upright manner in which we have boldly and determinedly, when called upon, adhered to our trying duties—duties which oftentimes led us into positions of excessive privations and dangers. If our duties of-late have been light, it must be [ remembered that for upwards ot twelve months they were far heavier than in general fall to the lot of the soldier. During the wet and dreary winter, night after night, were our poor settlers stationed as guards around the town, without the semblance of a sentry box to shelter them from the inclemency of the weather, and oftentimes after a night's dreary wa^ch were they called upon to form one of an escort through the rough and muddy roads of the surrounding country. After all this to he despotically and uncourteously treated may indeed be considered as an addition to our'calamities, Amidst our monotony we havo nome little amusement going on, the 57th have re-opened the old theatre ot the 85th, whilst our philharmonic society has commenced . giving conceits of secular and. sacred music. W. I. G.