THE NATIVE DISTURBANCE

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 349, 12 September 1868, Page 6

THE NATIVE DISTURBANCE

By the "Wallabi, we are placed in possession of Wanganui papers of Thursday last, from which we extract the following : The Patea correspondent of the Wanganui Times, writing on the Ist. inst. says ; —Last week Colonel M. Donnell left, none of us knew for where. He had taken with him, as mentioned in my last, a few picked men from the Native Contingent, leaving the remainder here. To our surprise he rode in late on Friday night' and Saturday it was rumoured throughout the town that the cause of his return was a threatened outbreak on the part of the Pakakohi, aud that Patea was in danger. It appears that Colonel M'Donnell got two chiefs of that tribe and told them that if he observed the slightest disaffection he would at once send the women and children now in Patea to a place of safety and then fight it out. He told them that he had heard that their men had commenced looting the settlers' sheep and cattle, for which he would hold the whole tribe responsible.

T3y way of commencement those Pakakohi's drove off 100 sheep belonging to Mr. Hawkins the day before yesterday, and other loot by them is reported, Their tribe is numerically a very insignificant one, and so located as to be easily destroyed if they provoke us to an attack, When Colonel M'Dennell was off, and on the eve of striking a last blow at the Hau-haus, these rascals have made a move that compelled him to return, but he is off again. The Hapus to be put down are evidently Te Titokwaru's Ahitane's. Tangahoe, and, perhaps, Pakakohi. Tee interview between More and Mr. Parris as reported in the * Taranaki Herald,' and republished by you, has been translated and read to them. They say that Parris is a fool and More a rank rebel, and that between them they are cheating the Government by deluding them into the belief that by Parris' soft policy he can settle every thing. The colony has been too often and too long misled in this way, and it is time Mr. Parris was, with other Native Commissioners, sent about his business. The weather is bad, but Colonel M'Donnell is off again. Where he is gone, or when we may hear from him I don't know, but I trust by the end of the week.