Major Biggs, who was in charge of the Poverty Bay district, made head against Te Kooti, with whatever men and arms he could scrape together, but with small success. He was also guilty of an unpardonable piece of folly, as he allowed the settlers to remain on their scattered homesteads, and delayed collecting them together for mutual support, although warned to do so by friendly natives, who offered to assist in building defensive works. For this delay he paid dearly, as he and the whole of his family were surprised and, with the exception of one boy, brutally murdered. It was on the night of 9th November that Te Kooti made his raid on Poverty Bay. On that night Captain Wilson, second in command, was sitting in his house writing, when a party of Hau Haus, under a fiend called Nama, knocked at the door and informed him they had a letter for him from Hirini-Te-Kani, the head chief of the district. The Captain, however, had his suspicions, and told them to pass the letter under the door, at the same time arming himself and calling his servant Moran to come to his assistance. Moran slept in an outhouse; but he succeeded in breaking through the enemy, and joined his master. The Hau Haus, seeing they could not deceive the Captain, tried to force the door open with the trunk of a tree. The Captain at once opened fire on them, and forced them to drop it; so they then set fire to the house. The white men fought on until the house was in full flare, when Captain Wilson accepted the Hau Hau offer of life for himself and family, provided he surrendered. It was a choice of that, or being all burned alive; and as there was a slight possibility of the Hau Haus keeping their promise, Captain Wilson surrendered. Carrying a little boy in his arms, and followed by his wife and Moran, with the other children, three in number, if I remember rightly, they were surrounded by the Hau Haus, who led them towards the river. _En route_ he asked one of the natives where they were being taken to, and was at once shot, from behind, through the back. Staggering to a bit of manuka scrub, the Captain threw the child into it, telling him to run, and in the confusion the youngster was not noticed and hid in the scrub. At the same moment Moran was tomahawked, and Mrs Wilson and the children were savagely treated, bayoneted and left for dead. The children were dead, but Mrs Wilson still lived.