SIR GEORGE GREY, K.C.B.,

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 4, Issue 195, 14 June 1860, Page 4

SIR GEORGE GREY, K.C.8.,

GOVERNOR OF THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.

This gentleman is perhaps, foremost among “ the men of the times ” connected with the history of our Southern Colonies, His Excellency Sir George Grey, K.C.8., Governor of the colony of the Cape of Good Hope, and her Majesty’s High Commissioner of British Kaffruria, is a self-made man—a man of the people—whose sagacity, honour, perseverance, experience, and great administrative ability combined, have won for him the goodr will and confidence of almost every Minister for the Colonies; from the time that Lord Glenelg held the seals of the Colonial Department to the present hour, when the Duke of Newcastle is at the head of that department in Downing-street.

Sir George -Grey was born at Lisbon, on the 14th of April, 1812 —two days before his father, Lieut.-Colonel Grey, of the 30th Foot, urns killed at the siege of Badajoz. His mother was Elizabeth Ann, the eldest daughter of the Bey. John Vignolles, of Cornaliir, in the county of Westmeath, Ireland. /She was afterwards married to the Bev. Sir J. G. Thomas', Bart., Vicar of Warding and Bodiham, in Sussex. The subject of this memoir is therefore hull-brother to . the present Baro-

net.’ The earlier years M his boyhood were spent with his relatives in Ireland. When he was sufficiently advanced in age and books he was sent over to .England, to prepare to follow his father’s profession; aud, accordingly, he entered /Sandhurst. On the 14th of ■January, 1830, he obtained his commission as Ensign in the 83rd Regiment. In 1836, Mr. Grey, then a Lieutenant, and Lieutenant Lushington, of the 9tli Foot, proposed to Lord Genelg, Secretary of State for the Colonies, to form a party to explore the northern arid western coasts of Australia. The offer was accepted; and with the aid of Government, and the assistance of the Royal Geographical Society, Mr. Grey organised an expedition, which, after many very severe trials and disappointments, accomplished a great part of its mission. Its history and results are well described in two volumes, which appeared in 1841, entitled -V**. Journals of Two .Expeditionsof Diooovery iri North -We Strand W es - tern Australia,; during die years 1837, 1.838, and 1839, under the authority of her-Majesty’s Government, &c. By George Grey, Esq., Governor of South Australia.” From them we learn also that his political career commenced as Government Resident at King George’s Sound. There he also discovered that Australia had other charms than noble streams, fine pastures, and magnificent scenery; and the daughter of Sir Robert Spencer, Iqis friend and predecessor in office, became the wife qf the future Sir George Grey. While residing in Mauritius, in 1840, he drafted an elaborate statement of his views on the policy to be pursued in the government of colonies such as Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, and forwarded it to Lord John Russell, Secretary for, the Colonies; and the principles which he then laid down he has consistently adhered to, especially in New Zealand and the colony over'-'which he at present rules. We might expatiate''on the merits of that policy, b.ut this is pot the time nor the plape. The effects of his administration are seen in the prosperity of those dependencies which have had him for their Governor.

In 1840 the colony of /South Australia was completely bankrupt. Land speculations had ruined the colonists ; the Governor’s drafts on the Imperial Treasury, to the tune of ,£69, 000, were dishonoured; and the Governor, Colonel Gawler, was recalled, and blamed far more than he deserved. The man who had so well conducted his temporary government at King George’s Sound was selected by Lord John Russell to fill the vacancy at Adelaide. The New Governor (then Captain Grey) assumed the reins of office with a deficit of .£210,000 in the colonial treasury. Before bis five years’ tenure of government expired he had helped the colony to-recover Jrom its wretchedness, find to establish its prosperity. In 1844-45 serious disturbances arose between several of the northern tribes of New Zealand, the New Zealand Company, and the Government. The Governor, Captain Henry Fitzroy, was removed ; and the .Earl of Derby, then Lord /Stanley, who had succeeded Lord John Russell in Downing-street, sent out instructions foy Captain Qrey to proceed from Adelaide and assume the direction of affairs at Auckland. Here he arrived on the 14th of November, 1845. Reinforements were sent to him from Australia; and, before the close of 1846, he carried conquest and »übju? gation where his predecessor had been defeated by the warlike Maories. On the ] 3rd of September, 1847, the Governor reported that all disturbances, were terminated. Peace was followed by evidences of prosperity ; and her Majesty the Queen, as an acknowledgment of Captain Grey’s valuable services, created his Excellency a Knight Commander of the Most iVoble Orfier of the Bath. This was on the 29th of April, 1848. The firm course taken by Sir George Grey iu New Zealand towards both aborigines and European settlers was such as to prove to the world that he is no common man. At a public meeting held very lately in Cape Town, Cape of Good Hope, we find it was stated of him by one of the speakers-rr-Mr. Saul Soloiqon, a member of the House of Assembly—-that “ in the maintenance of his policy, which he believes to be a right one, no power on earth shall make him act contrary to that in it which he conscientiously believes to be for the benefit of the colony over which lie rules. And, with that view, he is ready at any moment, to sacrifice his own interests.” He had not been very long in New Zealand before representative institutions were-granted'to the inhabitants by an Imperial 4ct. The Constitution which Iwas granted by the Crown in 1846, his Excellency was bold enough, because he believed it was his duty, to suspend for five years, of his own firm wiliand on his individual respons ibility. And such “was the high opinion of his judgment entertained by the Home Government at the time that this, despotic intervention was approved by themand a new form of Constitution, on the federative principle, was afterwards, sent out, but it did not come into operation until the year 1852: Haying seen a. moral revolution take place in New Zealand, and established everything connected with the government and the people on a liberal and prosperous basis, Sir George Grey was beginning'to feel that a. res t froni the arduous duties, of office was necessary for his health, when.he was called to a. higher, and wider sphere of ' duty? by being appointed, tq succeed Sir George Catiicart as’ Governor, of the colony of the Gape of Good Hope, in.addi-. tion to which he was specially charged with the management of affairs in British Kaffraria. The Duke of Newcastle was then, as he is now, Secretary of State for the Colonies, and he had appointed Sir George Cathcart, Adju-tant-General of the Army. The date of Sir George Grey’s promotion is the 24th of, July, 1854. On the sth of December, his Excellency

arrived at the Cape, and was warmly received by the inhabitants of the metropolis. Accustomed to grapple with difficulties, and well informed ol the nature of the aboriginal minds of the tribes of the southern hemisphere, Sir George Grey went out prepared to combat and overcome the restlessness and the evils which the border tribes of - the colony had created. At the Cape, more perhaps than in any other colony, conflictiqg interests had long separated into opposing factions the several classes, whose blood is as various as are the denominations and sub-denominations of the creeds which they adopt, or who otherwise are sunk into the outer darkness of heathenism, which blinds the minds of the whole of the native races. The spirit of antagonism lias reduced the original inhabitants of Southern Africa, the Hottentots, to a mere handful. The Kaffir tribes—haughty, warlike, and revengeful—have been driven backwards. They and the white man have stood in an attitudo-of dctcrmined antagonism to each other. Long and blood-stained wars had opened fresh wounds, and the depredations on the frontier had thoroughly darkened the minds of the agriculturists against all belief in the possibility of a cure for this wretched state of things. Sir George Grey’s twenty years’ experience in the sister colonies of the Cape well fitted him for breaking down this barrier to the progress of the people, native and European. He examined the country with his own eyes, he made himself personally acquainted with all the chiefs of the tribes within and on our borders, and then took steps for spreading his policy. He selected officers of known temper and forbearance to support his plans. Medicine, education religion, and the arts of husbandry, were made familiar by competent teachers and officers to all the native tribes. He built hospitals, established schools, placed a magistrate with each of the chiefs, made British law paramount over every other, and by this process succeeded greatly in removing one thing hateful to and dreaded by the settlers—the power of the chiefs over their people. Providence aided his intentions and efforts. A frenzy seized on the minds of the Kaffirs so widely and ruinously that hundreds, of thousands perished by starvation and cold, and tens of thousands more were spread over the length and breadth of the country to seek labour and food. The troublesome chiefs he transported, others he engaged on public works, and others again he drove far beyond the limits of the colony. The end justified the means. He had to crush for ever the power which he at first v r as content only to undermine, and he did so boldly. Kaffirland is now at peace; and, so far as the Kaffirs are concerned,Jit will ever remain so. But the circumstances of Kaffirjand inyolvjgiL-his Excellencv with the Home Government in some way as yet unknown to the colonists; aud the Derby ministry, four days before it was superseded by the present Cabinet, recalled the Governor, but failed to name his successor.

SThis act has been felt throughout the British possessions in South Africa, from Cape Town to Bloemfontein, and from the Free •State to Natal, as one of gross injustice, not to the colonists, but to Sir George Grey. The excitement and strong feeling which have ensued have been universal in the colony. Public meetings have been held in almost every town to express the sentiments of the colonists upon the recall. Addresses have literally been so numerous that his Excellency could not reply to them all before leaving the Cape. Every class in the community has expressed its thoughts about the matter, and petitions have been addressed to her Majesty the Queen, praying that the services of Sir George Grey may be retained by the colony, and that no one but himself be sent out again to the Cape. Subscriptions to a considerable amount were also raised in Cape 2 own to erect a statue to his honour, and by the last mail-steamer an eminent Cape merchant—Mr. T. Ansdelh—arrived in England, commissioned to makefile necessary arrangements for carrying out this object. Sir George Grey is now in this country, having arrived by the August steamer, hut his recall has been cancelled by the present ministry. —lllustrated London News, Dec .

An Advice from Mr. Thackeray. —At the fourth Annual Festival of the London Dramatic, Equestrian, and Musical Sick Fund, Mr. Thackeray, who presided, said in the course of his speech,—“ We cannot all expect to do leading business in the drama of life, gentlemen, and that isk tlro -only morarof tire fittle story I have to tell you. Every man, whether he be the Gravedigger , or Rosencrantz, or Polonium, or Laptes, or Hamlet, or (to come to the equestrian school) the sawduster iu the circus, the squire of the ring, or the Bohemian cavalcadorof twenty-four horses at one time—every one of those, from the highest to the lowest—can have the aim to be an honest man. We can all be good fathers and. the friends of our neighbours ; and, by G.od’s help, we should all wish to attain that position. (Cheers.) If we fail in the race, as the best of us may, if we break down, we shall have to cheer us after our defeat, not that pity whiph is akin to contempt, and from which the Lord deliver us all—(cheers) — rbut that hearty sympathy and regard which an honest man will always give to other honest and brave men in misfortune.” . Benedict’s Griefs and Ccelebs’ Consolations.—Once at Shrublands I heard steps pacing overhead at night, and the feeble but continqed wail of an infant. I wakened from my sleep, was sulky, but turned and slept | again. Biddlecombe, the barrister, I knew f was the occupant of the upper chamber. He . came down the next morning looking wretch- ’ edly yellow about the cheeks, and livid round the eyes. His teething infant had kept him ' on the march all night, and Mrs. Biddlecombe,

• i'- Q lam told, scolds him frightfully besides. H munched a shred of/toast, and was off by the omnibus to chambers. I chipped a second egg ; I might have tried one or two other nice little things on the table (Strasbourg pate I know I never can resist, and am convinced it is perfectly wholesome). I could see my own sweet face in the mirror opposite, and my gills were as rosy as any broiled salmon. - “ Well, well!” I thought, as the barrister disappeared on the roof of the coach, “ he has damns and placens uxor —but is she placens? Placetne to walk about all night with a roaring baby ? Is it pleasing to go to bed after a long hard day’s work, and have your wife nagnaggxng you because she has not been invited to the Lady Chancelloress’s soiree, or what not? Suppose the Glorvina whom-you loved., so had been yours ? Her eyebrows looked; a& if they could scowl; her eyes as if they could/ flash with anger. Bememtber what a slap she gave' for upsetting the butterboat oyer her tabmet. r Suppose purvtaus auiu , a little bachelor, your son, who had the toothache all night in your bedroom?” These thoughts passed? rapidly through my mind as I helped myself to the comfortable meal before me. “I say, what a lot of muffins you’re eating !” cried innocent Master Lovel. Now the married, the wealthy, the prosperous Mr. Biddlecombe only took his wretched scrap of dry toast. “ Aha! ” you say, “ this man is consoling himself after his misfortune.” O churl! and do you grudge me consolation ?—» Cornhill Magazine for March.