THE LATE SIR GEORGE GREY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2326, 29 September 1898, Page 54

THE LATE SIR GEORGE GREY.

The great Pro-consul is dead ! By the death of Sir George Grey there has passed away one of the most remarkable men of her Majesty's record reign. The future historian will no doubt assign to him his proper place as one of the builders of the Empire on which the sun never sets. Of a long life full of remarkable facts and incidents, it is only possible in a brief newspaper notice to refer but casually to some of the more striking events. The Right Hon. Sir George Grey, X.C.8., D.C.L., LL.D., was descended from a branch of the Greys of Geoby, Marquises and subsequently Dukes of Dorset, and now represented in the peerage «by the Earl of Slamford. On the 6th of April, 1812, when the Anglo-Portuguese army stormed with irresistible fury the town of Badajos, Colonel Grey, father of the subject of our sketch, led the first division and fell mortilly wounded in the third assault Eight days later, on the 14th April, his son George was born at Lisbon, in Portugal. At an early age young Grey was sent to Sandhurst, where he soon signalised himself as a clever and daring boy. He was made ensign in the 83rd Foot in 1829, became lieutenant in 1835, and captain in 1839. He then sold his commission, and thus terminated his career as a soldier. AN EXPLORER. In 1836 his attention having been directed to Australian exploration, he volunteered his sci vices, which were accepted by the Colonial Office. In company with Lieutenant Lushiugton and 10 men, Lieutei ant Grey sailed in PI. M.S. Beagle to survey and explore the country in Western Australia between the Swan River and_ the Gulf of Carpentaria. "While he was lying at Plymouth waiting for H.M.S. Beagle to start, King William died, and Victoria was proclaimed Queen, so that the commencement of his colonial career may be said to have been coincident with the ascension of her Majesty to the throne 61 years ago. Of that exploratory expedition, it has been said that it has not been exceeded in disaster and personal suffering by any of the Australian expeditions of discovery, and in the midst of all the hardships which it involved Lieutenant Grey showed great gallantry and endurance. The party had made their way for about 20 miles inland, when they were attacked by natives, and in the melee Lieutenant Grey received spear wounds the suffering from which was present with him for the rest of his life. "Lieutenant Grey," says one account of the occurrence, " was severely wounded in the hip. Wrenching the spear from, the wound, he fired and broke one man's arm, and shot another who was driving at him with his club; on which the savages fled, carrying off with them the wounded man." The act that is here described caused Lieutenant Grey the deepest regret, but suffering himself as he was from great loss of blood, it was an act of dire necessity and self-preservation. Another incident of the same expedition, referred to by Sir John Richardson in moving a farewell address to Sir Georgs 30 years later on his final retirement from, the Governorship of this colony, may be mentioned. At one time, " after escaping from a labyrinth of wild nocks, towering in burning nakedness, or peering above the thick forest, Lieutenant Grey's course was arrested by an arm of the eea, from which tho tide, which rose and fell to the height of 38ft, was rushing out with fearful rapidity. Life and death hung in the balance. What was to be done? Night wab coming on; there was no wood on the bench to make a fire of. 7he cliils were 100 precipi tous to climb, and few of the party could swim the stream ; and to pass the night, suffering from their extreme thirst, was dreadful to think of. Lieutenant Grey ther stripped himself, retaining- only his shirt, boots, and cap ; and with his pistol in his left hand, in the hope of preserving it dry, so as to fire a call to the vessel, he plunged in and made for the opposite shore; but he was soon compelled to think no more of keeping his pistol dry, but had to battle with the hurrying tide for his life." The wounds which Lieutenant Grey received necessitated the abandonment of the exploration of the Swan River, and the party perforce returned to the coast. For two years Lieutenant Grey recruited at Mauritius, but in 1839 he returned to Shark's Bay, Western Australia, and, with 13 men, three v/haleboats, and six months' provisions, started on a survey of the coast between Shark's Bay and Fremantle, but the dangers and difficulties of this expedition were not less severe than those of the preceding one. A 'storm washed away the provisions, and there was nothing for the party but to make for Perth, a distance of 600 miles, with their boats in a very leaky condition. They suffered terrible privations, and the men eventually refused to proceed further, and, landing, gave themsehes up for lost. And lost they would have been but for the pluck of Captain Grey (as he had then become), who pushed on in order to get aid from Perth, 190 miles distant. So fearful was their position that tho party was obliged to suck the dew from the grass and from the leaves of trees, and Captain Grey's share of the supplies amounted to only one and a-half pounds of flour and half a pound of arrowroot. After almost unparalleled sufferings, the advanced paity reached Perth, leeling and staggering after Captain Grey, " the silence being only broken by groans and exclamations." On arrival at Government House, after 20 days' hunger, thirst, heat, and anxiety, not a soul knew him, but " started back from so spectral an apparition." In 1839, for a few months, at the request of the Governor of Western Atistralia, he occupied the position of Resident at King George's Sound, after which he returned to England in 1840, and busied himself with the preparation of a book entitled "A Journal of Two Years' Expeditions of Discovery in North- Western and Western Australia." This work, in which he rexmrted his adventures and explorations, attracted the attention of the Colonial Office, and led to the opening of a new and important chapter in the life of our subject AS COLONIAL GOVERNOB. When Captain Grey next returned to Australia it was in 184-1, and he was then armed with a commission to replace Colonel Gawlor in the government of the settlement of South Australia, the finances of which had become sadly disorganised. By a rigid system of economy Captain Grey — the youngest of the colonial Governors — restorod the financial balance, and obtained for himself the reward of the Governorship of New Zealand, where there awaited him difficulties that would tax to the full his qualities of courage and statesmanship. Shortly prior to his arrival in Auckland, the chiefs Heke and Kawiti, who were at open war with the Government, had sacked Kororaieka (now Russell, at the Bay of Islands) ; but, by his judicious treatment of the neutral chiefs and his vigorous operations against the rebels, Captain Grey succeeded in quelling the revolt of the natives. The new Governor perceived

at once that the native mind had, after the repulse of a British force under Colonel Despard at Ohaewai, following upon the sack of Kororareka, become impressed with the superior prowess and skill of their own race, and he saw that he must strike an immediate and successful blow. He did so. Ohaewai had been abandoned by Hone Heke and a new pa, in an almost impregnable position, had been built at Ruapekapeka (the Bat's Nest). Within five weeks of his arrival the Governor put 1100 men in motion against the Maoris here, and on tho 11th January, 1846, at a loss of 12 killed and 31 wounded, the Bat's Nest was taken, and Hone Heke's power and prestige destroyed. The Maoris confessed themselves beaten, and sued for peace. In two months the whole aspect of affairs in New Zealand had boen changed. During the balance of his term of office Captain Grey was repeatedly called upon to settle difficulties with the Maoris, and during these years also he brought himself for the first, though not the last time, into direct collision with the Government ot England and the Imperial Parliament. The cause of the collision was found in a despatch from Karl Grey, who had control of the Colonial Office under Lord John Russell, enclosing the Constitution for New Zealand which had been passed by the Imperial Parliament in 1846. Upon the receipt of this despatch, and of tho Act of Parliament and Orders-in-Coun-cil accompanying it,_ Captain Grey found him self in this most difficult of all petitions : either ha must obey the mandate of tho Parliament and Crown of Great Britain, and in so doing break the solemn treaty made with the natives at Waitangi, and destroy for ever j the reasonable hopes which the Maoris had founded upon the good faith of England and of Englishmen, or he must refuse to carry out the commands of his Sovereign and the law pronounced by the Parliament of his country. His resolution was soon taken. He determined to suspend the operation of the act, and decided also in his own mind that if the Imperial Government persisted finally in introducing it they must seek some other agent than himself for that purpose. The principle which actuated him, he explained in a memorandum penned by him some years later: — "When Parliament, for want of sufficient information, legislates wrongfully or unjustly for a distant nation subject to its laws) — unless the hiph officers of tho Empire will take tho responsibility by delaying to act until they receive further instructions — the Empire cannot be held together. .... In declining, therefore, to break promises which I had made as her Majesty's representative .... I felt that I did my duty as a faithful servajit of my Queen and country, and will cheerfully undergo every risk and punishment which may follow from my having adopted this course." His action was condoned by the Imperial Parliament, which passed a bill to suspend its own act for five years, during which period full power was given to the Governor to raise such a Constitution as he might deem proper in th© interests of the mother country and of both races in the colony of New Zealand. During those five years Captain Grey proceeded to initiate leforms while at the same time he was in constant, though confidential communication with Eari Grey upon the terms of the new Constitution which he proposed to grant to the colony. In February, 1852, Lord John Russell's Ministry went out of office, and Sir John Pa-ckington, who succeeded Earl Grey at the Colonial Office, found the heads of the Constitution Bill already prepared. Under this measure, which was brought down by him, «ix provinces were created in New Zealand. Early in the following year Sir George Grey (as he had then become) proclaimed this Constitution Act, and defined the limits of the provinces (that having been left to his discretion), and made other regulations as to Crown lands, superintending the registration of electors, etc. Meanwhile he had persuaded the Home Government not to deport convicts to New Zealand. In December, 1853, he left New Zealand, at first merely on leave of absence, but the value of. his discoveries and his diplomacy in dealing with tribal savages induced the British authorities to offer him the Governorship of THE CAPE COLONY, and this he accepted in 1854. Of Sir George Grey's administration in New Zealand Earl Grey was emphatic in his praise. "In short," Earl Grey wrote, "the contrast between the state of things at the end of 1850 and that which the present Governor found existing on his arrival at the end of the year 1845 is so marked and so gratifying that it is difficult to believe that so great a change should have been accomplished in the short space of five years." While in England, before his departure foi the Cape, Sir George Grey was accorded the compliment of having conferred upon him, simultaneously with Prince Napoleon, the University of Oxford's degree of D.C.L. The moment he set foot in South Africa he a~~>lied himself to the redress of grievances and to laying the foundations of the prestige which subsequently facilitated the northern extension of the Empire under the Chartered Company to beyond the Zambesi. He greatly dist;aguished himself by the skill with which he subdued a threatened Kaffir rising of very dangerous proportions. Inspired by a native ffirl, who posed as a trance medium, 2u0,000 of the Kaffirs, including 60,000 fighting men, slaughtered their cattie burnt their crops, and prepared to launch their whole force upon the Cape Colony. Sir George captured all the chiefs, and the learlerless horde, incapable of aggression, perished of starvation in the midst of a self-created wilderness. Sir George Grey did what he could to rescue the remnant of the force which had menaced him with destruction. Migration was organised, public works were instituted, taxes were levied, and the Queen's writ ran everywhere in Kaffiaria where but a few months before 60,000 men were banded together to loot the colony and massacre the colonists. Immediately after the pacification of Kaffiaria there occurred what has been called the supreme moment of Sir George Grey's destiny. In the month of August, 1857, a steamer touched at the Cape bringing him a despatch from Lord Elphinstone, then Governor of Bombay, reporting the outbreak of THE INDIAN UTJTINT, Sir George recognised at once that the British Empire in India was in extreme danger, and he unhesitatingly decided to denude the Cape of its garri-ion and military stores and to send every available soldier in hot haste to India. In three days after the receipt by him of the news of the mutiny a man-of-war and three transports sailed from the Cape for Calcutta. More than this, however, a few days later the transports conveying the 93rd Regiment, under Colonel Adrian Hope, that formed portion of the army, then being sent to Lord Elgin to act in conjunction with the French in China, called at the Cape. Now, Sir George had no semblance of jurisdiction over British troops under orders to proceed without delay to the teat of war in China. The nesd of help in India was, however, urgent, and the position there was critical. Everything depended upon the prompt reinforcement of the small and hard-pressed garrison in that colony. Sir George acted promptly. He usurped the authority he did not possess, and gave to Colonel Hope written orders to bo far deviate from their orders in London as to call at Calcutta on their way to Sing;aj)ore.

Horses for the troops, vast stores of food for men and horses, and a quantity of ammunition and specie were also forwarded by him. By that reinforcement which on his own authority Sir George sent on to Calcutta Lord Elphinstone was assisted to hold the mutineers in check at Bombay, and Sir Colin Campbell was enabled to relieve IJavelock at Lucknow. This reinforcement, in the words of Lord Malmesbury, "probably saved India." Before finally stripping his own colony of all its gairison Sir Ge< rge, by dint of riding night and day, personally interviewed the n;i f .iV3 chiefs, whose enmity might have endangered the colonists, and assured himself of Ihoir loyalty. The Home Government expressed great satisfaction at the act of usurpation which Sir George had committed, and the Queen, in a private letter to him, conveyed an expression of her " high personal aporeciation " of his services and her " gratification at the loyalty of her subjects at the Cape." Sir George came more than once into sharp conflict with the Home Government shortly after this. Amcngst other things, the policy of federating the whole of the South African States and civilising the natives was expounded by him, A few months later the Volksraad of the Free State passed a resolution in favour of union or alliance with the Cape, and in 1859 Sir George communicated that resolution to the Cape Parliament, suggesting that they should devise a form of federal union, without which the South African States could hope neither for safety nor suscess. For his action in that matter he was recalled by the Colonial Office. "You have," the Home Government informed him " committed yourself to a policy of which her Majesty's Government disapprove on a subject of the first importance." The Earl of Derby was Prime Minister of the day, and he himself waited upon the Queen at Windsor with the decision of the Cabinet to recall the Governor from the Cape. Her Majesty protested against the dismissal of Sir George, but as the Minister insisted, she had no alternative but to give way. "One person in the Empire hold that I was right in the action taken," eafd Sir George publicly at Sydney in 1891, in reference to the matter, " and that person was the Queen." After having governed the Cape Colony with brilliant success for five years, however, Sir George was recalled. Colonists of all nationalities and colours petitioned the Home Government vainly for his restoration, and Sir George sailed for England. A strange tiling then happened. In the last day or two of Sir George Grey's stay at the Cape, Lord Derby's Government were defeated, and resigned. They were succeeded by Lord Palmerston's Government, with the Duke of Newcastle at the head of the Colonial Office. When the duke received the seals of office, the Queen at once urged him to cancel the orders for the recall of the Governor of the Cape, and the duke's first official act was to rexppoint Sir George Grey to the Governorship. It was not until he reached England that Sir George heard of his reappointment, and not until later on that he learned thai that reappointment was due to the personal intervention of the Queen. He returned, therefore, to the Cape, but, the native trouble developing again in New Zealand, in 1861 the English Government decided to avail themselves of, to use the Duke of Newcastle's words, " the remarkable authority attaching to the name and character " of Sir George and to reappoint him to the Government of this colony. In the interval between his first and SECOND GOVERNORSHIP honors had been showered upon him. He had been created a baronet, made a X.C.8., and the University of Cambridge had bestowed upon him its highest honours. When he returned to New Zealand, the colony was just out of the throes of a Maori was. The trouble had broken out in 1860 in Taranaki owing to a dispute over a block of 600 acres of land at Waitara, which the Government had purchased. Sir George had scarcely landed before he outlined the policy he hoped to pursue. Not to renew military operations, but to introduce institutions suited to the circumstances of the Maoris, formed the principal features of his scheme. To secure as many friends as possible, and thus reduce the number of probable enemies in case of war, was another object. Under his scheme the northern island was to be divided into about 20 districts and sub-divided into hundreds. Native magistrates and police officers were to be paid. The runanga, or Native council, of each district was to be composed of the civil commissioner and 12 persons. The runangas of the hundreds were to select representatives for the district runanga, and the Governor would generally appoint them, giving preference to those acquainted with the English language. The new plan was welcomed by the loyal Natives and many others, but, despite all the Governor's efforts, the Waikato chiefs held aloof. Moreover. Sir George's endeavours to settle the Waikato block difficulty were unsuccessful. At this time (1862) the Duke of Newcastle consented to the devolution of the control of Native affairs from the Governor upon his responsible advisers, and Sir George Grey declaied 1 his intention of acting in these matters upoii the advice of his Ministers. On the 22»<i April, 1864, he notified that he did not think the purchase of the Waitara land was either a desirable one or such as the Government should make, and he, therefore, abandoned the intention of making the purchase. Objections were raised by the Government of the day, and it was not until the Bth May that the abandonment was officially proclaimed. Unhappily, however, owing to the delay caused by the reluctance of the Ministry, the concession came too late, and war was inevitable. On the 4th May, while Lieutenant Trajett and Assistant-surgeon Hope, of the 57th, on private business, were travelling along with a small party of men who were escorting a military prisoner to Taranaki for trial,' they were fired on from an ambush at Oakura, and all but one or two were killed at the first volley. Then on the 12th July General Cameron crossed the Manugatawhiri, and the Waikato war began. During the whole of that campaign Sir George Grey was involved in disputes with-iiis Ministry, at one time in regard to the Waitara blocks and at another as to the treatment of prisoners and the confiscation of rebel "lands: but with a vigilance, a patience, a perseverance probably unparalleled in the lives of colonial Governors, he laboured to bring that tedious war to a satisfactory termination. His knowledge

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of the Maori character and tho Maori tongue enabled him to favourably influence the most jvarlike of the chiefs, and he certainly always endeavoured to see that they obtained their just rights. At the close of the Waikato ■war, in 1864-, the Governor issued a confiscation proclamation. The war had now spread to tho Wanganui district, and Sir George instructed General Cameron to attack Wereroa pa, but tho latter refused to undetake the duty, alleging that he vrould require 2000 extra soldiers, making 6000 in all. Sir George then assembled a force of 500 men — friendly Natives and forest rangers — and personally conducted an assault upon the pa, which was taken on the 20th July, 1865. This incident was the occasion of a quarrel between tho Governor and General Cameron, in which the Home Government espoused the cause of the latter, who had accused the Governor of countenancing subversion of discipline. Subsequently, in General Chute's Taranaki campaign, an unfortunate dispute arose in connection with the shooting of a prisoner of war. Colonel Warre, an officer under General Chute, had charged tho. Governor and his Government with urging Chute to take no prisoners alive. Sir George indignantly denied this, and Lord Carnarvon, at the Colonial Office, accepted his denial, but rebuked him for the tone of his despatches, and requested him to withdraw them. This Sir George Grey refused to do. Then the Disraeli Government went out, and the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos succeeded Lord Carnarvon, but this change made no difference to the position of Sir George Grey, who had clearly become obnoxious to the Colonial Office. In August, 1867, he was recalled, and the Colonial Parliament immediately adjourned as a mark of respect for the Governor and regret at his recall, while an address from the Houses was presented to him in which the hope was expressed that his Queen would reward him for his services by some signal mark of honour. AS A POLITICIAN. In 1858 Sir George left New Zealand for England, where in the leading centres of population he delivered addresses in opposition to the policy then advocated by several prominent statesmen of getting rid of the colonies. He became a candidate for West Worcestershire and Newark seats in the House of Commons, but he was not acceptable to the Liberal leaders, who evidently regarded him, as a dangerous man, and he retired in each case before the poll. In 1870 he returned to New Zealand, and took up his residence in his beautiful island home at _Kawau, where he lived in retirement until the inauguration of the public "works policy and the abolition of the provinces was proposed by Sir Julius Vogel, and then, in compliance with the request of a deputation of Auckland^oitizens, he consented to be nominated first for the position of Superintendent of Auckland, and then for the Auckland City' West seat in the House of Representatives. He was elected to both positions, and the year 1874beheld the unparalleled sight of one who had b3en a colonial Governor for nearly 30 years, talcing his place as a private member in a colonial House of Representatives. In October, 1877, on the defeat of the Atkinson Ministry, Sir George became Premier of the colony, but in July, 1879, his Government were defe.itad. They appealed to the country, but v/ere defeated at the pollf, and were succeeded by a Ministry under Sir John Hall. Sir George himself stood for two seats — Auckland and Christchurch — at the election, and was returned for each, but on petition he was unseated for Christchu' i ch, not on the ground of any impropriety, but because he had been previously elected for the nox-thern constituency. He continued a member of the House of Represeni atives froaa that time, with the exception of ono session, down to 1893, when ho was returned at the head of the poll for the City of Auckland, vhero he always held a pafo seat, but he did not take his seat after tho general election in the year, mentioned, and, having finally returned to England, resigt.ed his seat alter Parliament had granted him leave of absence for a whole session. His parliamentary careor waa marked by his advocacy of advanced Liberal measures, and also in various respects by his impracticability. He was a Bti iking figure in the House. The fascinating cbaim of hid personality and the • eloquence of bis speeches gave him a preeminent position, and secured for him the admiration even of those who disagreed with him. In 1891 the Atkinson Government paid him the compliment of selecting him as one of the three delegates by whom New Zealand was represented at the Federal Convention that was held in Sydney in that year. At the Convention he stood almost alone in his advocacy of the "ono man one vote" principle as the condition precedent of federation, and he also argued in favour of the Governor-in-Chief of the projeted Commonwealth being chosen by popular election. After the dissolution of the Convention Sir 'George spent two months in travelling about Australia. His tour was a triumphal procession. On his seventy-ninth birthday he re- ' .visited Adelaide, where tho fiftieth anniversary of his assumption of the Government of South Australia was celebrated with extraordinary demonstrations of regard and respect. He also received great ovations at public meetings which he addressed in the principal centres of population in New South Wales and [Victoria. The last few years of Sir George's strange, eventful life were spent in quiet in England. He had married in 1859, Harriet, daughter of Admiral Sir R. W. ypeneer, K.H., formerly Government Resident of Albany, West Australia, and to them, was born a son, of whose futiiro hopeful affection drew bright pictures. But when Captain and Mrs Grey left Adelaide for New Zealand in 184-5 they took with them tho memory only of that young life. When, nearly 50 years later, Sir George revisited Adelaide his first act was to search out the grave of that only son in the cemetery. And for the greater part of that long period of years the father and mother had lived apart, estranged through, it is believed, some common misunderstanding, but in the declining years of the life of each they were happily re-united, and in that way the chief object of Sir George's return to England was accomplished. While he resided in the old country in these last few years of his life it was, too, that the high honour was conferred on Sir George Grey of making him a member of the Privy 'Council. The magnificent gifts made by Sir George to the cities of Capetown and Auckland cannot be overlooked. While Sir George was Governor of Capetown, the Duke of Edinburgh laid the foundation stone of the Capetown Public Library, and to it Sir George subsequently presented his literary treasures, forming one of the finest private collections in the world. Immediately in frcnt of tho library, the Caps people erected a statue of Sir George Grey, the rare instance being furnished of a statue in honour of a man being erected in that man's own life time, tiis gift to the City of Auckland wae bo less notable timn tha one he imci made to the people of Souih Africa. During the 25 years that followed the presentation of his magnificent library to Capetown, he bad once more aobumulaled £ priceless collection of

literary treasures — for the second time in his life he found himself the possessor of the most valuable private library in the Southern Hemisphere — and this he presented to the City of Auckland, thereby enriching the people of New Zealand as he had previously enriched those of South Africa. And now, at the age of 86, full of honour as of years, he has gone- to his rest. Who will say he has not earned it ? Heimdal, though one of the immortal gods, Resigned of free will Valhalla's joys; To stand on guard at Bifrost, that his voice Might warn the world of dangers from the foe, Seeking its overthrow. That noble spirit who has passed away : He was the Heimdal of the People's cause, Guarding it, self-forgetting, without pause, Into the morning of a brighter day. Then he retired upon the Norna's call To take his seat within the stately Hall Of the immortals. O. E. Hugo.