The Anglo-Maori Warder. TUESDAY, JULY 4, 1848.

Anglo-Maori Warder, Volume 1, Issue 11, 4 July 1848, Page 2

The Anglo-Maori Warder. TUESDAY, JULY 4, 1848.

Now, as the vast schemes of Wild, when they were discovered, however great in their nature, secmed to some persons, like the projects of most other such persons, rather to be calculated for the glory of the great man himself, than to redound to the general good of society; designs began to be laid by several of those who thought ic principally their duty to put a stop to the future progress of our hero; and a learned judge particularly, a great enemy to this kind of grealneis, procured a clause in an act of Parlia ment* as a trap for Wild, which he soon after fell into.— The Life <•/ Jonathan Wild, the Great. Lord Grey and Captain Grey seem an over match in appetite for even the Dragon of Wantlcy, of whom it was written, that Houses and Churches, Were to him geese and turkeys; for our two Sosias would not only swallow the huildings, but the very grounds on which the buildings stand. And in ca-ering for each other, they seem to have agreed upon an amicable division of labour, each engaging to further the grand scheme of appropriation according to his own peculiar opportunities of action. "Do you look after the European proprietors," says his lordship, " and leave the natives to me; the Company and I will settle that part of the business at home." The plan was good enough, but both actors have signally failed in the execution of it; ancient Pistol the greater, and ancient Pistol the less, have equally been forced "to eat their leek," with a little of Fluellen's sauce to render it the more palateable. "By this leek," says mine ancient, to console himself, " I will most horribly revenge; I eat, and eke I swear.—" To keep up the parallel throughout, each excuses himself in similar fashion. " I have been quite mistaken," says the Secretary, of State ;" I intended nothing of the sort." " I am delighted with the judgment," says the Governor; "I only wished to give the missionaries an opportunity of substantiating their claims ; of putting the legality of them beyond a doubt."

O, will you eat No grapes, my royal fox t yes, but you will, My noble grapes, an* if my royal fox Could reach tbem* —— His Excellency's recipe for " giving quiet to titles, and permanence to property," [was not the irony exquisite ?] has proved inoperative; and recollection of the manner in which he tried to administer it must now render the failure doubly disagreeable to himself. Never did any man, save Shylock, that we can remember, lay himself so completely open to retort. Lesstalk about the law—dragged in upon all occasions—less parade of admiring reverence for a technicality of law, behind which he believed himself to stand intrenched, would have been more prudent, as well as more conciliatory towards those whose titles were attacked. But whenever mitigation of the terms of compromise was pleaded for, the answer was still the same ; " the courts are open to you; you can try the law, if you please." And now that it has been tried, and the arch-agitator cast, he may ask, with Shylock— Is that the law? Portia.— Thyself shall see the act: For, as thou urgest justice, be assur'd Thou shall have justice more than thou desir*st; Gbatiano.—OJleamedjudgel—Mark, Jew;—a learned judge! It has been decided that the missionaries keep their grants. Whereupon a cry of Io Frsan, Io Triumphe, of " a Daniel come to judgement," has arisen in full chorus up the country, not unmingled with Thersitean mntterings of "a plague break thy neck, for frightening us so." They have got the land; and it now remains to be seen how much " British blood and treasure" will need expending to maintain them in possession. It will be at least an " experimental!! cruris:" a measure of the true value of Captain Gbey's opinions or assertions. He may still prove to have been right; time will tell; but we believe that he has made a mistake. Nor is that the only mistake. Let us look back calmly over the whole question, and ask —without prejudice or feeling of ill-will, — what has been gained to government by this ceaseless agitation about titles. A few acres, not worth the battleing about, chipped off from the holders under the ten shilling and penny pre-emption proclamation l . Andthelargertracls of land—those that might really have been •northacquiring,—remain still in the hands of the original purchasers. Mons, Mus! But what, on the other hand, has not been lost. The good will of the northern settlers is gone, killed by the thing itself; their respect, by the manner of doing it. Much influence over the natives, who are unable to make allowances for want of success, but look down as a matter of course upon any one that has suffered himself to be foiled, is retransferred from government to missionaries once again. Much of Lord Grey's confidence, in all reasonable probability, is forfeited, through disregard of the caution enjoined in his lordship's despatch. »' 1 hesitate however"—these are his Lordship's words—" to instruct you to engage in litigatioi, in ignorance, as I necessarily am, of the obstacles which in prosecuting such suits you might have to encounter." And lastly, Captain Grey has brought down upon himself, what, to a man of his temperament, must be the worst of all, the bitter mortification of being laughed at.

And he not only gets himself into the mire, but drags our unlucky Attorney General into it likewise; unlucky, we say, to find himself where people cannot be brought to understand that a law officer of the crown must go into court and make the best of any case he is required to argue. He is in much the same position as that in which we once heard the head whip of the Pytchley Hunt describe himself to be. "It is all very pleasant for you gentlemen," said he, " who are only amateurs; you take the leap if you fancy it, and ride round it if you had rather. But when the master says to one of us, jump that fence, and turn that hound, we must go at it, if we break our necks over it. And i that's what makes us best riders in the end." A most philosophical consolation, which we recommend the Attorney General to adopt, mutatis mutandis, for himself. Two questions now spring up, which we do not pretend to resolve. We have yet to learn, whether the late judgment will be suffered to decide the case. It need not of necessity ; the decision of the Supreme Court is not final; an appeal lies from it, which it would be quite in the Governor's character to avail himself of. As long as a single stone remains unturned, he is likely to be busy still. He would creep through an augre hole. And such a course might very probably be taken, not so much through any real expectation of a reversal of the judgment, as to save appearances; to shew that there is yet an arrow in the quiver, and to do away with the.immediate completeness of defeat. The suit might even now be vexatiously spun out an indefinite length of time; so as to let him gently down, by an inclined plane, as it were, and avoid the risk and inconvenience of a sudden drop. ' What, likewise, is to be done with those lands of which possession has been already obtained? For it will be remembered that Captain Grey had succeeded, of utter confiscation, in frightening some of the missionaries into acceptance of his own terms; giving them to understand that his success was sure, and offering the chance of partially saving themselves by a kind of jettison—like the beaver in the fable, when pursued by the hunters—of giving up what he required, to secure unmolested possession of the rest. We must take for granted that the title-deeds which had been surrendered will be quietly returned; we cannot suffer ourselves to suppose such a violation of fairness and common decency, such an out-heroding of Herod, as that those who yielded to the Governor's wishes should be made to suffer for their compliance, while the refractory now enjoy the benefit of having braved him out. One more question we are tempted to ask. It was stated in the House of Commons, and by the members of the Church Mission Society likewise, that the land question had been finally disposed of. Upon what authority authority could the assertion have been made % surely not on that of the despatches ? The [ next Blue Book will enlighten us. This is the time for the Missionaries, now that they cannot so well be accused cf interested motives, to represent their case to Government, as well as at Exeter Hall at home. They owe it to themselves, to their own characters, so unjustly traduced, to challenge publicity by every means that lies within their reach. For of this we feel convinced, that the parent society which has been hitherto seemingly backward in support, has been merely waiting to make sure of the ground on which it might take its stand. It has not ventured as yet to put forth its strength ; it had an uneasy suspicion that all might possibly be not quite right about those lands, and drew back, for fear of committing itself. But let it once feel confident in its own means of information —let it once feel satisfied that all has been laid before it, it will come forward stoutly in behalf of its own emissaries, and will prove an over powerful antagonist to whatever might oppose it. One thing only must be carefully guarded against, and that is, over- i statement of the case, so as to give the slightest room for a reply. And the caution is by no means so unnecessary as it might appear: there are few men, whose attention has been long strongly directed to any question, who do not unwittingly exaggerate the main points of it. Their case is good enough already ; any attempt to make it would bring to mind the epitaph upon the Italian hyprochondriac;— Stava hen, ma per star meglio, sto qui. " X was well, wished to be better, took physic, and died." Unluckily the pun is untranslateable. But what blindness was it in Captain Grey ever to have quarrelled with them at all. Their influence, their power even, in the country, is no longer to be concealed; and although he still, as he well knows, reaps the benefit of their assistance, he has forfeited all right to demand it. We read that the Emperor Valentinian, who had slain his general the main support of a tottering throne, was confounded by the honest reply of a Roman, whose approbation he had not disdained to solicit :—" lam ignorant, sir, of your motives and provocations; I only know, that you have acted like a man who cuts off his right hand with his left."