Thinking that good roads would do much to keep the country quiet, Grey offered half a crown a day to Maoris who would work at making roads. Quite a crowd gathered to the task, and for a while white men and Maoris toiled happily together, making good carriage roads into the heart of the country. But at Wanganui, in May, 1847, land disputes roused a tribe to bloodshed. They killed a white woman and her four little children; they attacked the town, and when the inhabitants withdrew to a stockade they had made, a fight took place which lasted for five hours, after which the Maoris burnt the town and retreated, carrying off all the cattle. Two months later, Governor Grey reached Wanganui, with 500 men. He chased the Maoris up the valley and fought them, gaining a decisive victory over them with the loss of two white men killed. He gave them no rest till the chiefs applied for peace, and early in the next year a meeting was held, and the principal chiefs of the district promised to obey the Queen's laws. The war had lasted five years, had cost a million pounds, and the lives of eighty-five white men, besides those of perhaps a hundred Maoris. The English Government withdrew the larger part of the soldiers from New Zealand; but the colonists, to make themselves safe, enrolled a body they called the New Zealand Fencibles. They were all old soldiers who had retired from the British army, and who were offered little farms and a small payment. Five hundred came out from England on these terms, and were placed in four settlements round Auckland for the protection of that town. They were really farmers, who were paid to be ready to fight if need should arise. With their wives and children they made a population of 2,000 souls. In this same year Rauparaha was allowed to go home. He was surprised at the permission and grateful for it; but he was an old man and died in the following year. In 1850 Honi Heke died, but Rangihaeata lingered on till 1856, giving no further trouble. Governor Grey dealt fairly with the Maoris. He paid them for their lands. He hung such white men as murdered them. He set up schools to educate their children, and distributed ploughs and carts, harrows and horses, and even mills, so that they might grow and prepare for themselves better and more abundant food than they had ever known before. CHAPTER XXVI. NEW ZEALAND, 1843-1890.