A settler named Gilfinnan, his wife and eight children, lived at Matarana, a lonely spot five miles from Whanganui. Six natives descended upon this solitary homestead two days after the midshipman's unlucky prank, and barbarously murdered Mrs. Gilfinnan, two young boys and a girl of fourteen. The eldest daughter was severely injured and Gilfinnan, bleeding from a tomahawk gash in the neck, staggered into the town with the dismal information.
Then Honi Wiremu (John Williams), a Christian chief, called upon six other young men to follow him, and without an hour's delay sped up the river in pursuit of those who had dishonoured the Maori name. The murderers had made fifty miles when the canoe of the avengers dashed into sight and swiftly came abreast of their own. Before the assassins could lift a hand, Patapo, a young chief, gripping his tomahawk between his teeth, sprang into their canoe, instantly upsetting it, and in a few minutes the ruffians were dragged from the water, handcuffed and carried prisoners to Whanganui.
The district being at that time under martial law, Captain Laye of the 58th Regiment made short work of the murderers, four of whom he hanged out of hand, after general court-martial, while the fifth, a mere boy, was transported for life.
The torch was alight now: but it was three weeks later before the settlers saw the surrounding hills dark with hostile Maori, who opened fire on the town, the stockade and, impudently enough, on the gunboat in the river. The defence was too weak to allow of operations by daylight; but, after nightfall, when the natives thought that they might safely loot outlying houses, the soldiers, undismayed by superior numbers, chased them from the town, routing them utterly and slaying, with many more, their old chief, Maketu, a man of note.
Early in June reinforcements were dispatched to the Whanganui post, and the "Fighting Governor" himself arrived. How useful Captain Grey could be in a crisis such as this, and how intimate was his knowledge of human nature, is evidenced by what occurred shortly after his arrival, when a deputation waited on him with the request that he would remove the inhabitants from Whanganui and transfer them to Wellington.