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would start the Maoris into a general rising, and that would have been a serious matter, as they were pretty well armed. I went up among the others, and I can tell you there was a regular to do. They clapped the murderer into a little room, and planted men to go sentry—go, watch and watch, until we came to a decision as to what to do with him. Mr. Weller’s idea was to send him to Sydney to be tried. The Yankees wanted us to let them take him off to one of their ships and hang him at the yard-arm. We would not agree to that—it wouldn’t be regular; and there we were—didn’t know how to get out of the fix. The situation was a pretty serious one, or would have been if the Maoris had been nasty, for there were about a couple of thousand of them about the Kaik at that time, and about 400 or 500 more at Purakanui, who could have come across pretty quick, but they did not seem dangerous. They said they would not trouble what we did with the man. Their idea was that, as he had tried to kill Brown, Brown should be allowed to shoot him, and they would have been satisfied if the matter had ended that way. But we wouldn’t have that. Well, I was standing outside the house where the Maori was locked up, and while talking with others who were there, we saw Tom Brown come out. This Tom Brown was one of our men—the one whose turn it was to watch inside. He came out just for a necessary purpose, leaving his gun behind. Before he could get back we heard a report, and then I knew what had happened. I knew the Maori was cooked. We rushed in, and there was the Maori and his woman—both shot. We could see how it was done. She had raised him up to a sitting position, and then hugged him from behind, while he had got the gun and pointed it towards his chest. The ball went right through him and lodged in the woman, and they were both dead. Then we saw how foolish we had been to let the