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English (ATL)

Wallingford
October 24th./66


My dear McLean,

I have no letter from you by the mail nor have I any fresh news to send you in addition to what I wrote by your special messenger.

So far as I can learn there does not seem to be a chance of the Wairarapa Hau Haus coming here. The whole story I believe originated in Ngairo's having written to the Porangahau Natives proposing to bring a "Poti" here to make converts which they declined I had no idea you were going to follow up your messenger to me by parties of orderlies until you had heard from me that they were likely to be wanted --- I by chance saw Mr. Hamilton who is one/of them and who told me his orders were to report himself to W. Hunter. What use that wd. be I dont know, as the Hunters who don't get on very well with the Natives wd. be the last people to hear anything from them of any movement in progress. It is a pity the first messenger was not so send to Hunter instead of to me. As it wd. have saved me from making myself ridiculous by doing what I did yesterday in the way of organization in case of the report turning out true. All of which wd. of course have been much more properly done by the person who wd. have to act if the emergency arose. These confounded orderlies and theor stories have quite upset the whole neighbourhood up to their arrival I had done my best to prevent any alarm at all, and simply let one or two of the heads of stations (among them the Hunters) know that such a report as you wrote about was rife, at the same time I told them that I did not believe a word of it. But that if there were any truth in it, I had taken measures to have the earliest intimation sent me and wd. at once meet them and organize measures for the security of the District. Of course now the whole Napier yarn has circulated throughout the district and caused very unnecessary alarm.

Before I had heard of the orderlies being sent with Instruction to Hunter, I had had Henare Paul Ihakara and Nepera here with me and had settled with them to send down the coast for information and generally had settled with them what we wd. do if the party shd. turn up. They however agree with me that there is not the most remote chance of it. I have not thought it worth while to tell the Natives to communicate with Hunter because in the first place there is no necessity for it as the whole thing will be blown over in a day or two and in the second place it wd. be no use doing so as they wd. be more likely to guide Hunter than he them. The Natives made the usual application for arms, you had better write the same answer on the subject.

If your orderlies had come to me I shd. have sent them straight back to you, particularly as the natives offered to furnish any number of messengers if required. I shd. think the best thing you can do is to send up another messenger to get them back again. There is nothing else to tell you. The messengers Henare and Paul were to start down the coast today will be back I suppose on Friday, but they expected a man from Matikuna today, who wd. have come almost direct from Wairarppa and wd. have all the news from those parts if so I shall have it all in the morning.

My Eparaima Natives have sent in a man to Puhaetahi to tell the Natives there to give them the earliest information of anything that transpires there so that that road is looked after as well as the Coast. So the Titiokura march turned out as we expected a bloodless errand. I am glad to see the Govt. agreed to send the prisoners to the Chathams, it is more than I expected they wd. do. If there shd. be any news tomorrow I will add a line.


Yours very truly
J.D. Ormond.

There is one contingency in which the Natives here think Ngairo might come and that is if the Uriwera or Waikato were to try to avenge Rangihiroa --- they seem to know a good deal about Rangihiroa and his wanungas and they think his death will be avenged. If you get arms from Wellington, you might let 20 stand come to me --- not for issue but to keep in case of any emergency. Not one white man in ten in this district is armed and the Natives are but indifferently armed and have neither Powder nor caps, only bullets --- of which they say they have plenty.

J.D.O.