DE THIERRY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 4, 6 January 1937, Page 6

DE THIERRY.

HOKIANGA'S ROMANTIC ADVENTURER. | (By J.C.) , There are_ several ways, of writing biography. Some, probably the majority, are painstakingly packed with facts and fully documented, and are. correspondingly dull afld hard to read. They;"trip.'the reader up with innumerable'-footnote references Which no one ever troubles .to verify. There is a formidable bibliography at the end of the book. '-This is the kind of biography that - wips '-dUigent young writers of theses their university degree honours. ' Most of the contents ate taken from other writers' books. In contrast to this pedestrian biography there is. the other class of life history which takes the foVm of practically a historical novel. Some of. the lives of Henry the Eighth and Queen Elizabeth are excellent examples of this kind of ' storytelling. In her new book," "Check to Your King," Robin Hyde (Miss Iris Wilkinson), the author of that remarkable story,' "Passport Lto Hell," has adopted a method that combines historical novel and vivid real life narrative. | She tells the story of that celebrated character, Charles Baron de Thierry, the self-styled "Sovereign Chief of New Zealand," In a manner that is fresh, original and altogether pleasant, and even -fascinating to read. She is sympathetic and critical by turns, often of a whimsical wit, but never contemptuous of that would-be great man, the uncrowned king of Hokianga a century ago. Dry bones live again in Robin Hyde's hands. Names become sbmething more than mere names with her. Her story of de Thierry and his family is rich with the colour and the music that revive a half-forgotten past. "Great Expectations." It was in 1823 througli the Rev. Thomas Kendall, that erratic missionary who eventually had to leave the Church Mission Society, that de Thierry became the owner, on paper, of 40,000 acres at Hokianga, by virtue of a deed signed by three chiefs. De Thierry had already met the great Hongi and his brother Waikato in Bugjand, and gave them many presents. The rest of the story might weil be called "Great Expectations." The family sailed to establish itself royally in cannibal land and civilise the wilds. They crossed Panama, they sailed in the brig Active for Tahiti, calling at the Marquesas, where the Baron invited himself to become King of the island of Nukuhiva, and in his amazing way annexed it "for New Zealand." After this fantastic interlude, he went on, and at Sydney the baron met Captain Hobson, then of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, and sundry missionaries, and picked up by newspaper advertisement a band of 93 white men and women, rag, tag and bobtail, described as settlers, for his New Zealand kingdom. In the Nimrod the "Sovereign Chief of New Zealand" and his raffish settlers sailed from Sydney for Hokianza on October 22, 1837, and crossed the Tasman Sea (not so | named at that time) in ten days. "The lower j decks were gay as a village fair, with squeaking jew's-harps and concertinas. In hi% cabin, the Sovereign Chief had begun to build up the etiquette of his little Court. There are still [tremendous yarns about all that. Some say I that Charles made all who entered the Presence retreat tail foremost, for all the world as if he were a Hapsburg. a Hohenzollern. a Bourbon itself. Others insist that he wished, on landing, to create his Captain an Admiral." A Royal Salute. On November 4 the Nimrod, dressed with bunting and flying at the masthead the great crimson and azure flag of the Thierrys, entered the river-mouth of the Ho!#inga. Next day, up at Te Horeke, where the settlers landed—the largest expedition till then brought to New Zealand shares—Lieut. Thos. McDonnell, the ex-Navy officer who had settled there, received the new-come "King" .with sovereign-honours: "Breaking the mirror of the . morning and. making the women almost' jump'out of their' petticoats, the battery before ,'Te Horeke spoke. The hills shook, the guns roared tand roared; the ships lying at anchor, their togs brilliant tatters against the white sheet of the'sky, took up the choru*. one guns; the royal. salute, thundered in unison by Lieutenant McDonnell's battery and by ehips in 'the. Hokianga.'' it was thus that the Sovereign Chief can* into' .his own.

That was a triumphant,moment; there was none like this to follow. Thte baron's, difficulties soon,began. The 'settlers already there, the mfesionaries and many of the Maoris, all opposed him and ridiculed his claims. Hie 40,000 acres, bought'.for thirty-six axes, dwindled in a heartbreaking way to a few hundred. From a sovereign chief he became a figure of fun in the eyes of the colonists. When Heke's war began in 1845 the family loft the Manganmka for ever. In Auckland he took pianoforte pupils «for a living. In 1856 the Government of New Zealand made the baron a present. He was allowed one hundred and sixty pcres of land, in recompense for* hie 40.000 acres. But it was too late now; he remained in Auckland and died there in 1865. There are descendants of the famous family here to-day. The main source of the story is an orijinal document, de Thierry's own MS. story, which is preserved in the Grey collection in the Auckland Public Library, and which, the author says, _ lias probably not been read by a dozen livingpeople. * "Check to Your King," by Robin Hyde. (Hurst and Blackett, Ltd.. London.)