Fighting ceased in Tauranga, as it had in the Waikato, but it could not be said the country was at peace. Premier Domett and government ministers still wanted a ‘conclusive’ war that would secure a lasting peace, punish the ‘rebellion’ in the Waikato and deter other tribes from rebelling. The colonial government had concocted the Settlements Act and the Confiscation Act to provide for large scale land seizures and General Cameron was being urged to expand the area of conquered territory to see the confiscation policy “enforced to the fullest extent”. The disaffected general, however, refused to continue with more military operations, to the relief of the troops, many of whom were also by now disgusted with the war. Nor was the British Colonial office willing to continue “funding a war to satisfy settler demands for wholesale confiscation of Māori land”, an expensive war that would bankrupt the colony if it continued. The New Zealand Parliament planned to defray the expenses of the war from the sale of confiscated land.
The troops still stationed at Te Awamutu, still on full pay and rations, eventually returned to camp at Onehunga. Private Kelly was evacuated with the first group of wounded from the makeshift hospital in Te Awamutu and received treatment for the wound to his arm, which had become infected. The treatment consisted primarily of applying maggots to the wound to consume the suppurating flesh, hopefully leaving vital flesh which would heal cleanly. The infirmary and the camp generally were quite basic and the water supply was polluted. Flies swarmed and had constantly to be brushed off the patients. Illness flourished in the unsanitary conditions.
It was fortunate for Kelly that he received a letter from home delivered in person by a courier for the commissariat, one Patrick Quinn, who was delivering medical supplies, candles and oil and a mail bag from the postmaster at the Ōtāhuhu military camp. Quinn had recognised the name on an envelope as one of the two young soldiers he had met on the Great South Road construction and decided to see how the pair were getting on. He was sorry to hear that Michael McCann had been killed in action but that was always the risk when you enlist in the British Army, well in any army.
Patrick Quinn, the merchant, had prospered and expanded his business interests. “The war’s good for business.” He had a proposition for Kelly. He was looking for a worker he could trust. He would pay the cost of his discharge from the army, get him proper medical treatment and employ him when he was fully recovered. Kelly would then repay his benefactor from his earnings.
Kelly scratched the back of his hand against the stubble on his chin and considered Quinn’s proposal. “A kind offer,” he said, “but if I don’t serve my full three years in the army, I won’t be eligible for the military land grant.”
“You still want to be a farmer then,” said Quinn. “Well you might end up a one-armed farmer. Some of these fellows here will lose a limb to gangrene. And what sort of land would you get? Fifty acres of swamp or rock or some rubbish. The officers will get four hundred acres each of the best land.”
Along with his business interests, Quinn had acquired useful political connections and influence, he said, and was privy to a lot of information the soldiers and settlers wouldn’t be getting. “You want to save that arm, boy,” said Quinn. “I’ll see about getting you out of here now.”
As soon as Quinn left the tent, Kelly tore open the envelope he’d been holding. The date franked on the envelope showed it had been on a four-month journey. He could see it was from Annie and of course he was anxious to read it. Annie was missing him terribly and hoped he was all right. She hoped also that he could quit the army and come home. Her brothers had all got involved with the Irish Republican Brotherhood and the political fight for an independent democratic Republic of Ireland. They were tenant farmers and wanted their own independence by getting rid of the landlords. One of Annie’s brothers was in a British jail, one was on the run and the other had escaped to America to join the Fenians there but ended up fighting with the Unionists in the American Civil War. Kelly told Quinn of the news from home and how Annie wanted him to return home.
“My God!” Quinn exclaimed. “You could be the first Irishman to go back since I left there myself during the Great Famine.”
“I’d rather bring Annie out to New Zealand,” said Kelly. “Either way, I could work and save the fare.”
“Indeed you could,” Quinn agreed. “Are you ready to go, son? No, not back to Ireland. Just up the road to Newmarket.”
Quinn’s influence and his money had bought possibly the quickest discharge in the history of the British Army. Kelly’s wound did eventually heal in a proper hospital with the aid of bromide treatment and without the loss of his arm. Quinn came and fetched him to his home where he met his wife, Ᾱwhina, and their son, Rāwiri, a fine looking boy of about fourteen, with the dark skin of his mother. Quinn poured two glasses of celebratory fine Irish whisky. He raised his glass and toasted, “To your good health Finbar.”
“I’m grateful for your kindness, Sir,” said Kelly and they drank together.
“Don’t be thinking I rescued you from that hell hole just out of the goodness of my heart,” said Quinn. “I’m a businessman and I intend to recoup my investment in you.” He refilled their glasses and put a newspaper on the table. “Here’s a copy of the Irish People,” he said, “since you’re so interested in what’s happening in the home country. Personally I’m more interested in what’s happening right here in New Zealand. And don’t you think it’s interesting how history repeats?”
Kelly sipped his whisky and turned the pages of the paper as Quinn elucidated. “New Zealand is just the latest in centuries of British colonies. Ireland was the first. Oliver Cromwell invaded to take our land and our sovereignty and the Brits ensconced themselves within the pale, their boundary line in the East. Now here in New Zealand they’ve pushed a boundary line down through to the south of the Waikato, the aukati the Māoris call it. There’s more Waikato Kingites than Maniapotos behind the line. They’re refugees in their own country and they’re starving and dying of disease: the typhus, measles, whooping cough.”
“And this is what we’re fighting for,” said Kelly ruefully.
“And look what the New Zealand Herald is saying,” said Quinn, placing another newspaper on the table. “The Māoris are dying from their own filthy habits and we should harass them day and night to hasten their extinction.”
“Is the government really saying kill them all off?” said Kelly, incredulously.
“Well that’s the settlers saying it but there are those in Parliament who agree. And look,” said Quinn, jabbing at the article, “They’re criticising the Governor’s “mistaken leniency”.”
“Really? Grey is not noted for his leniency,” Kelly said, but then on reflection, “although over in Tauranga after the Māoris were soundly beaten at Te Ranga he ordered that the survivors be given supplies so they wouldn’t starve.”
“I heard that was because he was having an affair with a Ngāi Te Rangi woman,” Quinn said.
“He does have a reputation as a philanderer,” Kelly said.
“And they quote Grey here”, said Quinn, pointing again at the article. “He desires for the two races to live in peace.””
“Yes, but on his terms,” said Kelly.”
“You know Grey served in the British Army in Ireland too,” Quinn said. “Then in Cape Colony killing Kaffirs. He’s made a career of British colonising and confiscating land for the Crown. And it’s always punishment for rebellion. Defending your home becomes rebellion. It’s legalised theft,” said Quinn, referring to the Suppression of Rebellion Act and read aloud from the Herald article, “The Kingites had rejected the Queen’s sovereignty… The government has suppressed insurrection amongst the evil disposed persons of the native race that had caused great injury, alarm and intimidation of Her Majesty’s peaceable subjects of both races.”
“So we were not fighting against enemy combatants,” Kelly said, “we were suppressing an insurrection.”
“Exactly so,” Quinn confirmed, “and rebels have no rights. I tell you the treachery of this government knows no bounds. Drink up boy,” said Quinn, refilling his own glass. But Kelly was not a seasoned drinker and was beginning to feel a bit giddy.
“Why is Grey so determined to smash the King Movement?” Kelly asked. “Why could the Māoris not govern themselves and still recognise the Queen as the Scots do?”
“Why not indeed,” Quinn replied. “Treachery and pretence to justify the great land grab for the benefit of Auckland businessmen and land hungry settlers.”
“Auckland businessmen,” Kelly repeated thoughtfully.
“I’m not in the land business,” Quinn protested. “I’m not a farmer and I don’t have any ambitions to own more land than my own home here in the town.”
“But you do supply the ploughs,” said Kelly.
“Aye and I’d supply them to Māori farmers again if they still had farms in the Waikato or if I could do business in the King Country, as they’re calling it now, but as things are now I’d be shot on site if I went past the aukati.”
“The government needs military settlers to protect all the land they’ve conquered,” Kelly said, “and they’re not farmers either.”
“True,” said Quinn, “soldiers don’t always make good farmers, from my experience. Still there’s plenty of soldier farmers for the Auckland province. But now they’re being imported from Australia to take up farming the Waikato.”
“What about the ordinary British settlers?”
“There’s plenty of land over to sell to the settlers to pay for the war,” Quinn said. “We’re talking about over three million acres of land, good fertile farmland too. You’ve seen it for yourself.”