POTBOY TO PRINCE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20317, 27 January 1928, Page 12

POTBOY TO PRINCE.

STORY OF EARLY NEW ZEALAND. TE PEHI’S PROTEGE. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, December 24. In April of 1817 a sailor named George Bruce was admitted to Greenwich Hospital. There h e spent his last two years, spinning yarns to his fellow-pensioners of his days in Australia and New Zealand. The yarns were so astounding end so often repeated that some of his hearers committed them to writing, and made a memorial biography of them. The volume was put away among the, hospital records until 1898, when the so-called diary came into the possession of an Australian collector, and is now in the Mitchell Library at Sydney.

A writer in the December number of the Cornhill Magazine uses the diary as the basis for an article on the remarkable career of this limehouse potboy, who at one time was the tattooed protege ana son-in-law of the famous chief, Te Pehi. George Bruce, the son of a Shadwell distillery worker, was born in 1778: In 1789 he was sent to the workhouse for playing truant from work. He was then sent to sea in a fishing smack, but ran away from that, aftervyards becoming a potboy at the “ North Country Pink,” an inn in the vicinity of Limehouse. A career of petty larceny found a climax in the breaking of a haberdasher’s window, from which George extracted two handkerchiefs. He was convicted of house breaking and sentenced to be hanged. Even the law in those days thought twice about hanging a boy of 13, and so he was shipped to Sydney as a convict. After many vicissitudes he was pardoned and sent on board the man-of-war Lady Nelson. At that time Te Pehi was being entertained in New South Wales ny Governor King. The Maori chief was sent back to New Zealand on board the Lady Nelson, and during the voyage—a rough one—the chief was very sick, and had the attention of George Bruce.

DICTATOR OIF THE BA\ OF ISLANDS

George responded nobly to all demands (the writer of the articles goes on to say) showing himself a perfect steward as well as an accomplished valet; when To Pehi reached home, he refused to part with the paragon, and sent a i -isage back to King: “ If you want my George, you wui have to come and fetch him yourself. ’

King, as it happened, did not particularly want George. Further, when he in his turn started across the Tasman Sea to return Te Pehi’s c-11 on his way to England, he ran into still stormier weather, and cut out the New Zealand visit altogether. So, after giving King seven months’ grace, Te Pehi had his valet tattooed, made him a chief, and quite in the spirit of the best legends, married him to his own youngest daughter. Who now so exalted—and yet so condescending—as our George? For two years he was the dictator of Bay jf Islands trade and the cynosure of its society; when Sydney traders put in for a cargo of timber, or whalers for fresh provisions, there was George to show them round and give them inside information and convince them that but for his friendly influence they would have had to drive much more unequal bargains. He was not greedy'; it .was Pot for money or for other rewards that he made himself so useful. It was sheer love of power to dp things, of position as a universal benefactor. SEARCH;,FOR GOLD. His generosity was his downfall. In 1808 there arrived in the Bay of Islands the General Wellesley, a trading brig on the look-out for timber. George found the timber for her. Her master, one Dalrymple, was after more valuable produce; he had heard, he told George in confidence, that along the sandy beaches near North Cape men had found gold. What about it? The eager young chief knew nothing about it, but was far too proud to say so; where would be his credit with white visitors if he had to admit ignorance about anything the Maori country? So he hinted wisely (foolishly, as a matter of fact) of mysterious knowledge, of matters bruited about among chiefs only. Well, then, said Dalrymple, would he come along to North Cape and act as guide? George hom’d and ha’d, hesitated and delayed; in the end his adventurousness won the day—he never really grew out of boyhood—and he agreed to join the General Wellesley as guide, provided he might take along his wife and two young Maori friends, and provided also that, whatever the resulj of the expedition, the four were brought back to the Bay. The trouble was, of course, that ne had not the vaguest notion whore any gold might be. North Cape he knew, and miles of sandy beaches, but none gold-bearing. So back and forth they cruised, and up and down long leagues of beach, scrabbling in the unaunferous sand; and at last the master manners patience gave way. ENTERTAINED BY INDIAN VICE-

REGENT. George, his wife, and his two Maoii companions, were carried to Malacca, where the three men were enticed on shore and left to their own devices. The unfortunate wife was carried on to Penang and sold to a certain Cap crisis George rose to, the occasion. He interviewed the Governor of Ma lacca ■ he clamoured for justice ; he was a & of New Zealand (every now and then he said “ the Prince of New Zea land ” for greater effect), and demanded the instant ß restoration of his prmcess The Governor, accustomed to Malay princes whose personal was no guide to their pretensions, took him sen ously, and sent him on to Penang in HM S Scourge. At that settlement—which had just been made a se I jal ' a e P‘ o e „ Sidency—the new Governor was all agog to justify his appointment and distinguish hi s J administration. A maltreated prince from a far-off mysterious island kingdom was something right into his hands. He recovered the princess, slightly damaged; he did his best to find the pair a passage back to New Zealand ; failing in this—nor was he really sorry to fail, for he hoped to impress Calcutta with his diplomacy—he persuaded Admiral Drury to provide them with an astonishing demonstration of deference and hospitality. Lord Minto himself set the example of entertaining them regally, and for three months Anglo-Indian society overwhelmed them with every sort of kindness. George eventually got back to Sydney. The Maori wife died. The Boyd massacre took place at the Bay of Islands. George went about Sydney assuring everybody that this was Te Pehi’s revenge for the kidnapping of a daughter and son-in-law. Not only did that foolishness do himself no good, but it ruined poor Te Fehi, whose only connection with the affair was that he had rescued the four survivors. For a gang of whites, who believed that he was paramount • chief of the district, and, therefore, responsible for the massacre, raided and burnt his village, following on which the Whangaroa tribe raided and slaughtered him for having interfered with their scheme of complete vengeance. MEMORIAL TO COLONIAL OFFICE. In due course the ex-convict got to London, and memorialised Earl Bathurst, then at the head of the War and Colonial Department, for a passage back to New Zealand. To support his claims he represented himself as having “ uncontrolled authority over the Island,” suggested that he was the Almighty’s destined instrument for the conversion of the Maoris to Christianity—and assured Bathurst that he was on intimate terms with Governor Macquarie. Bathurst, a cautious man, passed on the memorial to Macquarie himself. He, a man deeply religious and Highlandly proud, was exasperated with George’s claims to familiarity ; he denied every statement in the memorial about which he had personal knowledge, scarified fiercely the rest of it, and demanded that, whatever other action Bathurst might take on it, at least he j

should never allow George within 1000 miles of Australia_ or New Zealand. As already stated, George, once “ Prince of New Zealand,” ended his day* at Greenwich Hospital.