The Anglo-Maori Warder. THURSDAY, AUGUST 24, 1848.

Anglo-Maori Warder, Volume 1, Issue 18, 24 August 1848, Page 2

The Anglo-Maori Warder. THURSDAY, AUGUST 24, 1848.

In the late debate upon the New Zealand Charter in the upper house, Lord Stanley observed "that he could not help regretting that the noble lord opposite had thought it necessary to contrast the merits of Governor Grey withlhose of Governor Fitzßoy." Attaching a meaning to those words somewhat different from that which his lordship intended to convey, merely inverting the position of the names, we will art upon the hint; aud, while commenting upon the conduct of the one, during his period of rule among us, abstain as much as possible from conttasting that of the other ; althongb the opportunity of composing an episode in the Beauty and Beast style of writing, of drawing a pair of characters in the fashion of Theophrastus or La Bruyere be almost too tempting to lose. We are not going to indict upon our readers a review of Captain FitzHoy's New Zealand caieer ; but merely to offer a few remarks in reference to the stray attacks that have been lately made upon him ; " loose shot," delivered not by any northern colonists, unless we much mistake, but by sojourners amongst us. Whethey were called forth by the desire of deterring those who still retain a kindly feeling for the man, from attaching their names to an address which now lies for signature, or by a lively appreciation of the shrewd maxim, that " a living dog is better than a dead lion," the motive was almost equally ungenerous. Our own estimate of Captain Fitzßoy's deserts will probably pass for nothing, as being that of a partisan, having rendered him, whilst he was yet here, such fractional support as we were able to offer; but it is worthy of remark, that all the northern mouth-pieces of opinion are of one accord upon the subject, and that one of our contemporaries, which was formerly by no means mealy mouthed in opposition to his measures, has thought it a duty to come forward bearing testimony to the merits of the man. We are not going to run into the mad knight-errantry of attempting to bear him out_ in his many errors; his heartiest friends—and he left many snch behind him—must graut that he fell into grave mistakes; still they were of a class that are little remembered against him, for he was led into them, for the most pait, by the promptings of a warm aud friendly heart,.which a certain wilduessof head and imaginative temperament, still further indisposed him to subdue. His great redeeming virtue was his utter unselfishness. In his impatient anxiety to serve others, he was often hurried into unwise acts, sometimes even into wrong acts, but seldom or never in pursuance of a selfish end ; he would at any moment have sacrificed his own interests, his own credit at the Colonial office, for the good of the colony which was entrusted to his care. With some lurking inclination, which we will never attempt to palliate, towards justifying the means by the motive—by rectitude of intention, and expediency of the end; yieldiug now and then to the temptation of carrying out 6y manoeuvre what he could not openly accomplish, he still was gifted with what superficial'iobservers of human nature would call a contradictory quality—a certain hotbrained chivalry of feeling, which, while it won him many friends, urged him likewise into measures of sudden rashness, and worked upon an ill-regulated mind until it caused him to carry out his principles almost into mad extremes. Ex uuo disce omnia—one example will serve for all; he found the southern settlers imbued with the strongest feelings of dislike towards ithe natives; he had seen native rights being gradually undermined by agents of the Company at home ; he took up the cause of the natives, and his advocacy straightway rose np to boiling point, till it took at last the form of open Maori-mania. His inconsistencies of rhaiacter were the result of strong but discordant feelings ; for his ability, so far as acuteuess of perception was concerned, proved to be of no tuean order. And in spite of his acknowledged errors, men are now slowly beginning to perceive, both here and at home, |Eat Ins system of government was not* so Irredeemably bad as it was long surposed to be. He had little choice of measures afforded to him ; to borrow an expression from Sir William Temple, he was

" like one at sea, never in his own disposal but in that of the winds and tides ;" his time was taken up with devising expedients to meet immediate exigencies, not always of his own creation j his mistakes— if the term he applicable in such a sense—were forced upon him; his successes were his own. Let it be never forgotten, that in spite of all the difficulties he had to contend against, stinted in men and money, crippled on every side for want of means, the natives suddenly awakened to a knowledge of their own strength by the Wairau catastrophe, Kororarika lost for him by the blunders of subordinates, and a powerful company straining its utmost to thwart him at every turn ; left it be not forgotten that he still left the colony with an upward move, rising fast from the prostration into which had been so completely sunk. We one him reparation for having attributed to his policy inevitable calamities of the time. That he laboured under very general unpopularity, even in the north, is not to be denied; yet it wavered with his measures, proving that ill-will was directed against the acts, rather than against the person of the man. One single fact urges more in his favour than many arguments could do—that he was least disliked, where he was best known. And to the credit of the northern settlers be it spoken, that they had the good taste and feeling to suffer their dislike to cease altogether with his recal.