James Milne - The Romance of a Pro Consul

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THE ROMANCE OF A PRO-CONSUL

BEING THE PERSONAL LIFE AND MEMOIRS OF THE RIGHT HON.
SIR GEORGE GREY, K.C.B.

BY JAMES MILNE

AUTHOR OF "THE EPISTLES OF ATKINS"
"MY SUMMER IN LONDON," ETC.

THOMAS NELSON & SONS
LONDON, EDINBURGH, DUBLIN AND NEW YORK

A WORD TO THE READER

When Sir George Grey died, twelve years ago, he left a message as well as
a name to the English-speaking people. It was that their future rested in
the Federal Idea of communion and government. He saw, vision-like, the
form of this new age arise, because changed needs called it. As Pro-
Consul he laboured for it unceasingly in our over-sea Commonwealths, and
South Africa has most lately given answer. Now, at a historic turning in
British Institutions, we hear of "Federal Home-Rule," and that may be a
signpost to far travel along the road which Sir George Grey "blazed."
Certainly it sends us to the spacious life and high thoughts of the
"Father of Federation," whom Time in its just goodness will also call
the Walter Raleigh of the Victorians. Hence this people's edition of a
book wherein, "he, being dead, yet speaketh."

JAMES MILNE.

LONDON, March 1911.

A guide to Sir George Grey's career as soldier, explorer,
administrator, statesman, thinker, and dreamer.

1812 Born at Lisbon April 14, during the Peninsular War.

1829 Gazetted from Sandhurst to the 83rd Regiment Foot, and served to
a captaincy.

1837 Sailed from Plymouth June 20, on the ship 'Beagle,' as leader of a
Government expedition to explore North-West Australia. Engaged in
this work, and as Resident at King George's Sound, until 1840.

1841 Named to the Governorship of South Australia, aged 29; held it
until 1845, and during that period rescued the Colony from a state
of chaos, getting it on the high road to prosperity.

1845 Appointed Governor of New Zealand, when the first Maori War was
raging. Established peace and authority, and continued in office
until 1854. Refused to proclaim the constitution first designed by
the British Government and Parliament for New Zealand, and was
given power to draw up another.

1854 First Governorship of Cape Colony, to 1859. Two dramatic events of
it were the rising of the Kaffirs, at the call of a girl regarded
as a Messiah; and the deflection to India, where the Mutiny had
broken out, of the troops on their way to Lord Elgin in China.

1859 Re-called from the Cape, because the Government at home
disapproved of his action in endeavouring to federate South
Africa. Reinstated, but with orders to drop his federation
plans; and remained at Cape Town until 1861.

1861 Second Governorship of New Zealand, to 1867. Second Maori War.

1868 Active in English public life to 1890; and in Australasian affairs
from 1870 to 1894.

1877 Was Premier of New Zealand to 1879 so achieving the unique
distinction of ruling, in that capacity, a country of which he had
twice been Governor.

1898 Died London, September 19. Buried in St. Paul's Cathedral,
September 26.

CONTENTS

I, PERSONAL AND PARTICULAR

II. HOME IS THE WARRIOR

The return to England, 1894, with incidents of the Queen, the Earl of
Rosebery, and James Anthony Froude; a memory of Lord Robert Cecil, and
some notes on London.

III. YOUTH THE BIOGRAPHER

Or how the child was father to the man. Olive Schreiner's greeting; an
orangestall eloquent; a flight from school; a surpassing encounter at
South Kensington; and a glimpse of Archbishop Whately.

IV. SAXON AND CELT

A young soldier in the Old Ireland of the Thirties; varying scenes of
Irish life and character; and stories of Dean Swift, Daniel O'Connell,
and Sir Hussey Vivian.

V. SOUTHWARD HO!

The call to the New World; musings of the voyage and the sea; and, by
contrast, the London perils of Thomas Carlyle and Babbage, Sir Charles
Lyell's spear-head being also mentioned.

VI. MAN AND NATURE ABORIGINAL

A battle with the blacks, wherein, unhappily, their leader fell, the
white chief being seriously wounded; and later, a valiant march across
the blistered Australian country.

VII. PLANTING THE BRITON

First principles of nation making; a harvest in South Australia; the
witchcraft of Turner's wig; the vanity of riches; keeping the Anglo-Saxon
ring; strange human documents; and a reference to Sir John Franklin.

VIII. PICTURES IN BLACK AND WHITE

Food, as man's leading motive; curing a witch doctor; a problem of Kaffir
women's ornaments; elevating the native; a Tasmanian study; a new Sabine
story; the Aborigine and his surroundings; lastly, McFarland's elopement.

IX. OVER-LORD OF OVER-SEAS

Lamech's slogan and the task of stilling it in New Zealand; with, arising
therefrom, martial chronicles of Hongi, Heke, and Kawiti, Maori chiefs,
and of the taking of the 'Bat's Nest' stronghold.

X. 'TWIXT NIGHT AND MORN

An Easter scene and earlier; on tramp with Selwyn; the kidnapping of
Rauparaha; Rangihaeta cajoled into road making; how the Maoris rubbed
noses; and the boycott as peace-maker.

XI. THE THRILL OF GOVERNING

Knight and esquires; a secret of empire; the tragedy of the naval
lieutenant; Patoune's fallen-out tooth; to the hills for New Zealand's
constitution; playing 'cock-fight'; and repulsing the Ngatipoa.

XII. IN THE QUEEN'S NAME

Showing the management of another danger spot of the realm, to which
picture there come in, details of the winning of the African natives to
the Queen, a comedy of witchcraft and widows, and a German Legion
difficulty.

XIII. OCEANA AND A PROPHETESS
From the plight of Sir John Herschel in London, to the stir made in South
Africa by Nongkause, a Kaffir girl turned Messiah; and between pages
Sandilli, Moselekatsi, Bishop Colenso, and Bishop Wilberforce.

XIV. A SAVIOUR OF INDIA

The activities of a hunter, prelude to a narrative of how a British
military force, under orders for one theatre of war, was boldly diverted
to another; incidentally the bearding of Moshesh; and a queer Pax
Britannica.

XV. AYE DREAMING AND DOING

The effort to federate South Africa; the gathering in of the Pacific,
involving visits to New Caledonia and Norfolk Island; the Irish girl as
empire builder; a meeting with Macaulay; and Prince Alfred at the Cape.

XVI THE FAR-FLUNG BATTLE-LINE

Two Kings of Maoriland, Te-Whero-Whero and Tawhiao; Sir John Gorst and
the newspaper battle, 'Lonely Sparrow on the House-Top' v. 'Giant Eagle
Flying Aloft'; the storming of Wereroa Pa; and an escape from an ambush.

XVII. FOR ENGLAND'S SAKE

Keeping the painter from being cut; an election contest at Newark; a
visit from Mr. Mundella; the pacifying of the tribes; and finally the
golden legend of Hine-Moa the Maori maiden.

XVIII. A FATHER OF FEDERATION

A word on Mr. Gladstone, and many words on Anglo-Saxon federation, the
ideas underlying it, elements making for it, and the benefits which would
follow in its train.

XIX. WAITING TO GO

Backward and forward, being farther memories, one telling of a tryst with
Dean Stanley; then, an exposition of simple faith and the romance of
death, as leading to the Hereafter.

THE ROMANCE OF A PRO-CONSUL

I PERSONAL AND PARTICULAR

'Perhaps there is something in old age that likes to have a young mind
clinging to it.' Sir George Grey was speaking of the famous people he had
known in his youth long, long before. He struck an inner note of nature
which is surely equally valid the other way? Whenever I think of the
remark, I am inclined to discover one reason why I came to know Sir
George so well.

I met him, as I have met other characters of English story in our own
day. You go into these great waters, seeking that all who care may know.
You cry across them, answer comes back or it does not, and there endeth
the lesson, until the next time.

It was different with Sir George Grey. He hauled me straight in-board,
saying, 'Now, call upon me often, and we'll talk mankind over. Going by
myself, no two people can meet without being a means of instruction to
each other, to say nothing else. You are where the swing of events must
be felt, and I am in the back-water of retirement. It may entertain us
both, to study new subjects under old lights.'

Thus flew many an hour, and many an evening, and the memory of them is
green and grateful to me. Here was an incident, there a reflection, and
always it was Sir George Grey intimate, whether in a frame large or
small. It is the rivulets, babbling to the big stream, that really tell
its tale, for without them it would not be; and so with the river of
life. Beside me, a scarred veteran looked back upon himself, hailing some
venture from the mist of years. Again, it might be an event on the wing;
or the future, and him bending eagerly forward into its sunshine.

We wrote things, he inspiring, I setting down, and by and by I exclaimed:
'Why, I am getting, to be quite a depository of your memories and ideas.'
At that he smiled, 'And who, do you fancy, would thank you for them?'
Thus a portrait of Sir George grew with me, and I was for stroking it
down somehow. 'Oh well,' quoth he, 'let's try and gather together what
may be fresh, or suggestive, in my experiences, and yours be the blame.
Whatever you do must have a certain spirit of action--you know what I
mean!--or nobody will look at it. You'll need to whisk along.'

In Froude's phrase, the life of Sir George Grey had been a romance, and
that was the road which caught me. No wonder, for it was a broad road, in
the sense that his whole being was a romance. He saw things beneath a
radiant light, and he saw many which to others would have been invisible.
Nor, was his grasp of them less accurate, because he strained his eye
most earnestly for what was most beautiful. The romantic element in his
outlook gave colour, vividness, meaning to the unconsidered trifles--in
fine, you had a chronicle and a seer.

On the one hand, then, I sought for the texts with a likely stir in them;
on the other for those of personality, streaked by affairs. The
references were consulted, or Sir George's own words of old delved among;
and from his discourse there sprang a regular series of notes. 'It's a
kind of task,' he remarked once, 'that might easily enough lend itself to
vain-glory. We must avoid that.'

If there is anything that could so be read, I alone am the sinner; for
with his memories there go my interpretation and appreciation of him.
What should I do but write of Sir George Grey as I beheld him, of his
career as one captured by it? His nature, like every rich nature, had
folds, but I only knew their warmth. With that, I step round the mountain
side.

II HOME IS THE WARRIOR

Things call to each other after the great silence has fallen, scenes come
together, and that is how it seems here.

A ship, bound on a far voyage, lay in Plymouth waters the day that the
Queen succeeded to the throne. It was laden with an expedition for the
new wonderland of the Australias, whither it duly sailed. As leader, the
expedition had a young lieutenant of the 83rd Foot Regiment, George
Grey.

On a spring afternoon, fifty-seven years later, there landed at the same
port, from a New Zealand liner, an aged man who received marked
attention. He was as a gnarled oak of the wide-ranged British forest, and
the younger trees bent in salute to him. It was Sir George Grey, returned
finally to the Motherland, which had sent him forth to build nations.

He had gone in a tubby wooden craft, the winds his carrier, across oceans
that were pathless, except to the venturer. He returned by steam, through
seas which it had tamed to the churn and rumble of the screw. What
thought in the contrasting pictures of the world! The two Englands might
have met each other in the street, and passed, strangers.

'From the windows of my hotel at Plymouth,' Sir George recalled, 'I
watched the citizens proclaim the young Queen. Who among them could have
imagined the glorious reign hers was to be? It was to surpass in bounty
of achievement all foretelling.'

Now, he would meet, for the last time, the Sovereign who, like himself,
had tended the rise of Oceana. This was at Windsor, to which he had
summons soon after he reached England. He had been exalted a member of
the Privy Council, and must be sworn in by the Queen. The tribute was
cheerful to him, since the very nature of it set seal upon his services
to the Empire. The longing for some word of England's remembrance had
assuredly been in his heart, which had often been left desolate. It was
all rapture to England, like a child's to its mother.

'For mere honours themselves,' was his broad attitude thereon, 'I
entertain no special regard. A title to one's name, a red ribbon, or
something else, what are they but baubles, unless there is more? What
more? Why, they hand down a record of the public work that a person may
have endeavoured to perform. In that respect they should have esteem,
being the recognition of efforts to serve Queen and people.

'Nothing could be more unfortunate than that a country should neglect
services rendered to it. The loss is its own, because, apart from justice
to the individual, his example is not kept alive to encourage others
coming after. In so far, then, as that reasoning may apply to myself--not
very far, perhaps--I do sincerely value any honours I have received. Not
otherwise; and it is easy to understand that a distinction, granted
without adequate cause, might exercise a really pernicious effect upon
the tone of a nation.'

While Sir George awaited the Queen's commands at Windsor, she sent him
them. He was not to go on his knees, a usual part of the ceremony of
swearing in a Privy Councillor. She had remembered, with a woman's
feeling, that here was a patriarch, nimble no longer.

The meeting between Queen and servant was stately, in that they were the
two people who linked most intimately Great and Greater Britain. To them
Oceana was a living, sentient thing, not merely a glorious name and
expanse. It had squalled in their ears. They could go back to the
beginnings, could witness the whole panorama of the Colonies unroll
itself. They stood for the history of a high endeavour, which had been
nobly crowned. Oft, there had been weary clouds across the sky, not
seldom heavy darkness. But the sun was kept shining, and finally all had
become light. Oceana was grown up, and she gathered the four corners of
her robe into that Windsor audience chamber.

Of the Queen's order Sir George had the simple deliverance, 'It showed
how careful Her Majesty is to manifest a strong consideration for all
those who come in contact with her, a most taking quality in a
Sovereign.' Yet, for the first time in his life, he was to disobey that
Sovereign. Nothing, not even her protest of 'No, no,' could stop him from
getting down on his knees, as if he had been a younger subject. The
infirmities were conquered by his desire to pay to the Queen that
reverence and loyalty which had always been hers. The bonds of age were
burst, although his quaint complaint about himself that very evening was,
'You know I want a minute or two to get in motion.'

Despite bowed shoulders and rusty joints, he still had something of the
lithe, strenuous carriage of his youth. In his dignity of manner, there
almost seemed to you a glimpse of the gallant age when forbears had gone
whistling to the headsman. He was of a line which counted in English
history, which among its women had a Lady Jane Grey. His mother, with the
mother's wistful love and pride, had traced that line for him. He was not
deeply moved, unless by the romance and the tragedy that gathered about
it.

But the aristocrat abode in the democrat, nature's doing. He was of the
people in being whole-souled for them; he was not by them. Verily, he had
been through the winters in their interest. The ripe harvest was in his
hair, which had become thin above a face, rugged with intellect; over a
broad, decisive brow, strewn with furrows. It was a head of uncommon
shape, with bumps and a poise, indicating at once the idealist and the
man of action. There it spoke truly, for Sir George was both; the two
were one in him.

The chief secret of his personality seemed to rest in his eyes, and it
was in them you met the dreamer of dreams. 'So I was often called,' he
would mention, 'and the answer is to hand. Many of the dreams which I
dreamt have been realised; that knowledge has been permitted me. Whether
it is any comfort I'm not sure, because, after all, my dreams are not
nearly exhausted.

'Dreaming dreams! I trust that Englishmen will never cease to do that,
for otherwise we should be falling away from ourselves. To dream is to
have faith, and faith is strength, whether in the individual or in the
nation. Sentiment! Yes, only sentiment must remain, probably, the
greatest of human forces governing the world.'

The store, reflected in Sir George's eyes, was what gave him his control
over men. In those depths, blue as a summer sky, were many lights, which
caught Robert Louis Stevenson and were comprehended of him. The return
observation was, 'I never met anybody with such a bright, at moments
almost weird, genius-gifted eye, as that of Stevenson.' Sir George could
fire imagination in the most ordinary mortal, carrying him off into
enchanted realms. He sailed to strange skies, a knight-errant of a star,
and he could tow the masses with him. He lifted them out of themselves,
and put a label on their vague yearnings. They had imagination, the
instinct upward, and were grateful to have it discovered.

The poetry of Sir George's nature flavoured his language, alike in manner
of delivery and turn of phrase. It had a quaint old-world style; it fell
slowly, in a low, soothing voice. He might have spent his, days in the
cloister, rather than in the din of hammering up hearths for the Anglo-
Saxon. Perhaps it was that he had talked so long to the hills of Oceana,
catching their simplicity and music. You were reminded of the measured
English of an old and lovable book, just as you grew used to read in his
face what he was to say, before the words had begun to flow. Never was
there a face more quick to reflect the mind, more pliable to humour, more
luminous at some stirring idea or deed, more indignant at the bare notion
of a wrong inflicted, softer at the call of sympathy.

Sir George had travelled to Windsor with the Earl of Rosebery, then Prime
Minister, and that was an agreeable memory. Being asked what
characteristics he noted as most prominent in the Premier, he replied:
'Oh, his extraordinary readiness at seeing the humorous side of anything,
his almost boyish love of fun. He seems to have a power of dismissing the
weight of public affairs, of diverting himself with the playfulness of
youth.' Sir George was living in Park Place, St. James's, and on
returning from Windsor the Premier drove him there. His rooms were at
Number 7, and here the street ended in a sharp incline, with somebody's
yard beyond.

Sir George suggested that the coachman should stop, and let him down at a
point where the horses could readily turn. 'Not at all,' Lord Rosebery
insisted, 'I'll drive you to the door and we'll manage to turn somehow.'
A trifle anxious, Sir George waited on his door-step to see how this was
to be done.

'Quick of eye,' he related, 'the coachman discerned the possibilities of
the yard at the top of the incline. Accordingly, he whipped into it,
wheeled round, and trotted gently away past me. There sat the Premier in
the carriage, waving his hat in a triumph, the fun of which quite
infected me.'

Sir George appreciated kindly attentions the more, in that he was himself
a king in courtesy, with his heart ever on the latch. He estimated the
side of Lord Rosebery's character, thus manifested, to be among the best
ornaments he could have. 'It seems clear to me,' were his words, 'that he
is a man of sincerity and simple nobility, one who wishes with all his
heart to do what he can for his fellow men.' That was Sir George's test
of all public effort, as it had been what he applied to himself. There
could be none higher.

Mere weight of years could not quench the ardour and hope which had
always burned so brightly in Sir George Grey. As well expect him to
forget that chivalrous manner of his, bewitcher of the veriest stranger.
He would, find his tall hat, search out his staunch umbrella, and convoy
the visitor forth, when the hour of parting had arrived. Nothing less
would suffice him, and as to his company, it was a delight for ever.
Another veteran might have been lonely with a younger generation knocking
at the door, indeed in full possession. He was not; he strode in the van
with the youngest.

Yet he felt, perhaps, the void time had wrought in the circle of his
friends. He held the fort silently, while the long scythe cut another
swathe very near him. He heard that his friend, James Anthony Froude, who
had been lying ill in Devonshire, was steadily losing strength.

'I have made inquiries about him, poor fellow,' he murmured, 'but now I
must telegraph for the latest particulars. He and I are old companions,
and I have liking and admiration for him. When he visited me at my island
of Kawau, off the New Zealand coast, we had a capital while together. He
wanted to ask me, if I approved the manner in which he had written
Carlyle's life, a subject that brought him a good deal of criticism. My
reply was that I believed Carlyle would have wished to be presented just
as he was; not a half picture, but complete, for that would ultimately
make him appear all the greater.'

Somewhat before his illness, Froude published a book, and the London
daily paper which Sir George Grey took in, had a handsome review of it.
'I'll send the cutting to Froude,' he declared; 'it will do him good to
know that his latest writings are thoroughly appreciated.' Within a few
days, he had news from Devonshire that Froude had been able to have part
of the article read to him, and that he was gratified by it. Sir George
was happy at his little service having carried so well, and mentioned a
larger one which Froude had wished to render him.

'Hardly was I in England this time,' the history of it ran, 'than I had a
letter from Froude, intimating how glad he would be to put my name
forward for that high distinction, the Oxford honorary degree. This gave
me a grand chance to rally him, since I was already in possession of the
honours of Oxford and Cambridge. Those of the former I received after my
first administration of New Zealand, those of the latter when I was re-
called from South Africa. At Oxford, the students, with riotous zest,
sang the "King of the Cannibal Isles," which, more or less, I had been.
Froude had forgotten all that, but he agreed that no man could hope to
have such a treat twice in a lifetime.'

It would have been curious if Sir George, a maker of British Parliaments,
had not found his way to their cradle at Westminster. He had himself been
a candidate for membership, but the House of Commons was only to know him
as a visitor. 'Why,' he said, 'I met Adderley, now in the Lords, who once
wanted to impeach me. Perhaps I deserved to be impeached--I don't
remember!--but anyhow we had a very agreeable chat about old days.' Sir
George, as a Privy Councillor, had been escorted to the steps of the
throne in the House of Lords. There he met again the Marquis of
Salisbury, who, as Lord Robert Cecil, had stood up for him, years and
years before, in the Commons, even to the extent of criticising the
English of Bulwer Lytton's despatches. When he went to Australasia, to
fortify his health and study the New World, he was the guest, for a
period, of Sir George in New Zealand.

'Some of his friends,' said the latter, 'were great friends of mine; for
example, Beresford Hope, who founded the "Saturday Review," and Cook, who
edited it. Lord Robert was tall and slight, and, when he came to New
Zealand, not at all strong. While he was with me, he saw a good deal of
the manner in which a Colony was conducted, and of the relationships
between it and the Mother Country. He would read the despatches that I
wrote and received, and generally made a study which may have proved
useful to him in his subsequent career.

'As I recollect Lord Robert Cecil in New Zealand, he was not more fond of
exercise than Lord Salisbury appears to be to-day, always being studious.
He did not care to take long walks, but once I persuaded him, with
another young Englishman, to go and see the beautiful Wairarapa Valley.
They walked there and back, and on the last evening, while returning,
were caught in a terrific rain-storm. They sought the shelter of some
rocks, contrived to make a fire, and over it dried their shirts.'

Nothing afforded Sir George more genial occupation than a talk about
books or politics, the latter always on the lofty ground to which,
somehow, he could at once lift them. He had a knack of taking a question
and shaking it on to your lap. You had it, as you never quite had it
before, and to your fascinated ear the version seemed the only possible
one. The secret was that Sir George laid hold of the kernel of a subject,
and worked outwards--an expositor, not a controversialist. When evening
waned he would turn to Epictetus, and then to a well-thumbed New
Testament. It was the hour of meditation.

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