smoking guns, and went afoot in Cape Town. The maintenance of peace,
among the pugnacious chiefs of South Africa, depended mainly upon his
personal influence with them. He borrowed horses and rode round among
those chiefs, binding them over, in their only recognisances, as
honourable men, not to disturb the country. It was a strange Pax
Britannica; an affair of novel, almost quixotic, elements. But it went
through royally.
'You know,' one fancies Sir George delivering himself during his circuit
of the kraals, 'the Queen, for whom I speak, has to quell a rising which
threatens all that is good in one of her other possessions. Those who
fight against her are of exceeding number, while her forces there are
comparatively few. Now, you are all warriors of experience who, if there
must be fighting, would like to see a fair contest. In England the Queen
has many soldiers, but England is as far again from India as we are.
Thus, I can send troops from here in less time, and I am doing so,
relying upon you, as gentlemen, to see that the peace is kept while they
are away. With you, therefore, I leave that trust, mindful that we are
all subjects of a Queen who loves those who serve her loyally, but who,
when justly angered, can strike heavily.'
The velvet glove, fastening with the steel button, was gladly taken up by
the chiefs, nor did they betray the Governor's confidence. His invasion
of Moshesh, in this relation, was quite an exploit, for the old fellow
was stern and wily. Sir George had brought about the cease fire, in a
quarrel between the Basutos and the Boers. That gave him the prestige
which was requisite for anyone who would go to Thaba Bosigo. Having a
Boer for guide, and a few natives for retinue, the Governor presented
himself at the outer postern of the stronghold, after darkness had
fallen.
'I was admitted,' he said, 'and found Moshesh ill in bed, a bright
nightcap, with a tassel, on his head. A more strange, more picturesque
conference, bearing upon the well-being of the British Empire, surely
never took place. Moshesh was propped up in his bed, his leading men
grouped themselves round, and we talked. A fire burned in the place, a
tallow candle or two spluttered, making lights and shadows as in a
Rembrandt picture. My natives understood Basuto and English, and were the
medium for my converse with Moshesh. He was really one of the cleverest
fellows in all South Africa, as well as one of the most powerful chiefs.
Thus, I was pleased with myself when I left Thaba Bosigo, no longer a
Mountain of Midnight, knowing that he was in my league of peace.'
This novel covenant was strictly observed by the chiefs, so assuring the
Governor against his neat venture. It hurled him, once more, through the
fabric of the British constitution, a road to which he had grown
familiar. What should he do but raise two regiments on his own mandate, a
usurpation of the sovereign rights. It occurred in this fashion. Bombay
had not taken the distemper, rife in such a large area of India. However,
Lord Elphinstone learned that a Bombay rising had been arranged for a
certain religious festival. He had not forces enough left him to overawe
the populace, or, failing that, to cope with an outbreak. He despatched
another express to Sir George Grey, at the Cape, to the effect: 'I know
you have already denuded South Africa of troops, but I am hoping you may
somehow manage to help us against this Bombay crisis.'
Sir George bethought himself of the men, formerly composing the German
Legion, who were settled in the Colony. He collected these with what
other recruits he could entice, formed them into regiments, and sent them
to Bombay. 'I signed the commissions for the officers,' he recalled, 'but
I'm afraid my signature would have meant nothing, after the ships were on
the high sea. In the event of the men creating a disturbance, the
officers would really have had no legal authority to quell it.' He
communicated with the East India Company, desiring that the regiments
should be put on a regular footing immediately they reached Bombay.
'For raising the regiments,' Sir George continued, 'I was charged at home
with a breach of the constitution. It was all that. I got word that I
should learn by a later mail what was to be the upshot. A friendly member
of the Government wrote me a note beginning: "Dear Grey, you have done
for yourself at last; I always feared it would come to this." My own
position was very plain. Here was an unconstitutional thing, but a
necessary thing.
'Meanwhile I had news from Bombay, that it was the provident arrival of
the Germans which, most likely, prevented the outbreak that had been
feared. I put the despatch in my pocket, with the reflection: "Ah, they
can now interfere with me from London if they will!" There, I judged,
they had similar information from Bombay, for I heard nothing farther as
to what was to be done with me.
'When the first tidings of the trouble in India reached me, I laid it
down that all previous orders and directions from England were cancelled.
These had been given before the new position arose, and were, in my
judgment, over-borne by the new perils.
'As for myself, in a personal way, I felt that I should not feel it a
disgrace to be recalled for doing what I regarded as my duty. I had not
very much, but, at the worst, I had enough to live upon.'
Without a masterful Pro-Consul at the Cape, Lucknow might have fallen,
before there were forces to relieve it. That would have lit, for our rule
in India, a bonfire in which Bombay would only have been a crackling
twig.
It was a stirring British tune that the kilted pipers of the 93rd at
Lucknow played.
XV AYE DREAMING AND DOING
Carlyle and Sir George Grey, forgathered at Chelsea, walked up and down
in the open, as they often did, discussing some religious question.
Carlyle stopped, laid his hand on Sir George's shoulder, and, looking him
in the face, exclaimed, 'Oh, that I could believe like you!'
Well, no plank in the faith of Sir George was more firm than the one
marked: 'Mission and destiny of the Anglo-Saxon people.' He had been
planting the outposts of empire, and he saw these grow out towards each
other. Then, he beheld the old Motherland and them, twining ever closer
into a mighty garland, which should sweeten the globe with fragrance.
Nay, he even saw again, in the garland, a very radiant bloom that a
king's tempest had sundered.
'In effect,' said Sir George, 'I was recalled from South Africa, on
account of proposals I had made, towards federation in that part of the
realm. I planned to federate, for common action, Cape Colony, Natal, our
other territories, and also the Orange Free State. Farther, I had
virtually asked the co-operation of the Transvaal Republic, with the
Government and people of which, I was on very friendly terms. There was
to be no change anywhere; simply, a federal Parliament would manage
affairs that were of concern to all parties. I have little doubt that I
could have brought about federation, only I was not permitted to go on.
Much as my proposals were supported in South Africa, I could get no
hearing for them from my superiors at home.'
It had been the same when, in New Zealand, he took steps to paint all the
Pacific Isles, British. He wanted the Pacific, then largely an unstaked
claim, to have our flag flying in solitary peace. Thus the smaller
sections of the New World, like the larger areas, should be led onward,
undisturbed by the rivalries of the Old World. Fill the lap of England
with distant lands, but exact from her the most sublime service to them-
that of a mother. If Sir George had been supported, New Caledonia would
have entered the British nursery.
'I had,' that lost part of our history ran; 'regarded the New Caledonian
group as pertaining to New Zealand. Making a tour of the Pacific Islands,
with Bishop Selwyn, I visited New Caledonia. We had no representative
there, and three days before our arrival, a French frigate had put in and
hoisted the French flag.
'I protested against that, in an official letter to the French captain.
He declared his orders from the French Government to be specific; he was
to annex New Caledonia. I had an old brig, while he had a good man-of-
war. No doubt I could have spoken with more authority, if my vessel had
also been a man-of-war. However, as a result of my representations, it
was arranged that the French should do nothing, incur no expenditure,
which would interfere with the island being declared British, until we
had referred the matter to our Governments.
'This was about the time of the agreement, between ourselves and Louis
Napoleon, in reference to the invasion of the Crimea. It is conceivable,
that the French Emperor took advantage of the opportunity to lay hands on
New Caledonia. Anyhow, I feared that the alliance might counteract my
despatch to London. Most likely it did, for I was instructed that the
French were to be left in possession.'
While sailing the Pacific, Sir George also called at Norfolk Island, then
a prison house. The worst characters of the Australian penal settlements,
those to whom perdition beaconed, were drafted to Norfolk Island. The
whole scene shocked Sir George, as it rankled in his memory, a sombre
nightmare. It saddened him, to think that so fair a place should be one
of the black spots of the earth.
'Here,' he said, 'were nature and man meeting together, she at her best,
he at his worst. How beautiful we found Norfolk Island; how well graced,
with its pine and other trees! I suppose there is no tree, growing
anywhere, which for beauty could be given preference over the Norfolk
Island pine. It was an evidence of the bounteous garden, set by nature
amid a fresh, crystal sea, and wooed by a loving climate.
'By contrast, the convict settlement! The stricken creatures worked in
irons, and when evening came, they were turned into a great court where
they slept. The irons being, in most instances, removed, the quarrelling
and fighting began. I heard of a convict who had been tried for killing a
fellow, during some fall-out. He appealed to those judging him: "I came
here, having the heart of a man, and your convict system, with its brutal
associations, has given me the heart of a beast."'
England built in tribulations--nations! At first we had no better use for
Australia than to moor hulks to it. That was an eddy in the nobler stream
of tribulation which, like the Nile, bore all fertility in its waters.
Sir George Grey sat upon a Mount Pisgah that commanded the past and the
future. He saw the stream, beginning in far-away mist-crowned sources,
roll down the ages. It was a flood of destiny.
'I suppose,' he submitted, 'we all recognise that there are certain
driving forces behind the march of humanity. We may not see them, or we
may merely get a glimpse of them now and then, but they are there, and
always in operation. Providence; that is my word. The chief of these
forces we have, as I hold, in the evolution of the Anglo-Saxon race.'
Go back to the England of Elizabeth, and what did we find? A race of
hardy men, who took delight in sailing virgin seas, in becoming familiar
with new countries; who were opening up fresh tracks across the globe.
Following upon that, consider the drift of legislation in the British
Isles, from the period of Elizabeth. It was to appropriate the land into
the hands of a few, to create great landlords, to make individual men the
owners, nay the tyrants, of vast areas. This meant depriving the common
people of their natural means of subsistence. It forced them to maintain
themselves where there was actually no room, with the outcrop of want,
suffering, discontent.
The great eating up of the Irish land, the throttling of the natural
wealth of that country, began with the ill work done in the Elizabethan
age. Yet, the full mischief did not appear until Sir George's own early
days, when the Irish people were leaving their native land in ship-loads.
In England the result came sooner, and ran on continuously, rather than
burst the wave which was to engulf Ireland.
'Has it ever occurred to you,' Sir George asked, 'how beautiful a
contribution the Irish girl, driven to another land by starvation, has
made to the development of the English-speaking race? What a stretch of
Anglo-Saxondom has been peopled by her wages, hardly earned in service,
and sent home to Ireland for the emigration of her father and mother, her
sisters and brothers! She is a winning illustration of how the hard task-
master necessity, has been our architect for building up new nations.
Ireland has been tortured and beaten, and her daughters and sons, in that
torture, those blows, have done wondrous work for us.
Coupled with divorce between the people and the land, there arose in the
British Isles, religious persecutions and tyrannies. These were the twin
forces which, with just exception enough to prove the rule, planted the
Anglo-Saxon in every corner of the earth. Two great evils working out in
good; a sowing in wrong and wickedness, the garnering righteousness.
Cradling like that made men and nations. When Spain founded colonies, she
sent delegates designedly to do so. When France colonised Canada, that
was her model; and the like with other nations. They planted all the Old
World institutions, with their imperfections, on new soil, which, as time
had shown, was like building on sand.
Taught by bitter experience at home, Anglo-Saxons struck out fresh lines,
in the fresh lands where, thanks to the discoveries of adventurous
rovers, they could find asylum. The humanities in them got scope; they
carried tolerance and liberty ever with them. Take the Puritans who
founded New England! Was there ever such a noble band? Again, take the
Quakers or the English and Irish Roman Catholics! In some cases, when
there was persecution on the Continent of Europe, these British emigrants
attracted to them what was persecuted. South Africa was founded in
oppression, independently of us as it happened, since the forefathers of
the Boers were largely French Huguenots.
It was not enough, that the Anglo-Saxon should rush from starvation and
persecution, to a freer home across the seas. No sooner had he found it,
than the old oppression might again be clanking its chains at his heels.
The stern Mother more than once stretched out her hand to coerce her
freer children, forcing them ever to take new ground, and be, so to
speak, clear of her clutches. The instance of America occurred during
this second stage in the weft and woof of tribulation which was at the
root of our growth. The same with the Boers of South Africa, who, by
harsh regulations, were forced inland, thus opening up new territory. It
had all worked with the precision and force of a Nasmyth hammer.
Naturally, a time would arrive when the liberty and freedom of the Saxon,
gone over sea, should react upon the Old World. Sir George held it proven
that the inspiration of the New World had, in real measure, been the
emancipation of the Old. Very many of the inventions of the nineteenth
century, which were the threads of modern progress, were to have their
origin in the New World. She would heap coals of fire on the head of the
Old.
How, to help this girdling of the whole world with beneficent influences,
through the medium of the Anglo-Saxon? Sir George turned him on his Mount
Pisgah, first in New Zealand, later in South Africa. He had been looking
at the scored, furrowed, violent past. It had worked out its meaning, nor
was there doubt as to the bearing of that message upon the future.
At Pisgah's highest peak the sun shone, only there were mists, which it
did not pierce, in the valleys below. Just, it caught one wisp of the
vapour, and twirled it about in the wind. The errant thing flung into a
sign--Federation of the English-speaking People; and was gone.
Sir George Grey dipped for a Grand Pacific Isles Protectorate, and a red
noose from Downing Street strangled it. He dipped for a Federated South
Africa, and the red noose caught himself. That is, he was recalled from
his Cape Governor-ship on account of his projects. Ah, that he had been
permitted to go on with them! All the gold of the Randt would not have
weighed in the scales like that.
True, he was returned to South Africa, which clamoured angrily at his
recall, but, as he said, 'It was with strict injunctions to stop my
federation schemes, for these would not be tolerated.'
They were a generation too soon. Yet, their author had already drawn on
posterity in order to develop English colonies. Was it right to tax
posterity? High talk turned on this at a dinner in London, where Sir
George met Gladstone, Macaulay, and other celebrities. 'Certainly,' Sir
George argued, 'if some large expense is undertaken which will benefit
those to come after us, as well as those already here, it is more equity
that the former should be charged with their share.' The principle had
been put into practice in the Colonies, and he imagined that this dinner
helped its advance in the Old Country. Especially, he applied that
opinion to the taking over, by Government, of the English telegraph
lines.
'I recall very well,' Sir George stated, 'the picturesque way in which
Macaulay expressed our common trait of being interested in trifles that
affect us closely, to the neglect of large happenings which are distant.
"Here," he said, about some item of news, "is a mandarin in China who has
beheaded a thousand people in a batch. I was quite shocked when I read of
it this morning. During the day I contrived to cut one of my fingers. I'm
ashamed to confess that I thought so much about the finger, that I quite
forgot the massacred Chinamen! That was Macaulay's illustration."
'As the dinner party was breaking up, I stood for a minute with him. He
had not been enjoying very good health. When I congratulated him on his
seeming revival in strength, he showed me his hand, which was puffy and
blown, and answered: "Oh, I'm not so well as you might think." Poor
fellow, the remark was too true, for he died within a fortnight from that
evening.'
To South Africa, soon after Sir George Grey had resumed duty there, came
a member of the Royal family. This was Prince Alfred, later the Duke of
Edinburgh, now the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Sir George suggested the
visit, and he believed it had excellent results. It delighted the
colonists to have a son of the Queen among them. Seeing him the natives
could exclaim, 'Again, the Queen loves us or she would not send us her
son!' The visit drew out the regard of South Africa towards England and
its Sovereign. Certainly the federal idea!
'Prince Alfred,' Sir George made an appreciation of him, 'was a nice,
frank, handsome boy; an excessively taking little boy. In his honour, we
had perhaps the largest hunt that ever took place in South Africa. It was
calculated that he shot more deer in fifteen minutes, than his father
would have shot in the Scottish Highlands in a season.
'The Prince had to face a different sort of experience at a town, Port
Elizabeth I think, which we reached on his birthday. He had to walk
between lines of girls, laden with bouquets, which they flung down before
him, to the words: "Many happy returns of the day." It was rather trying
for a midshipman.
'Everybody was delighted with Prince Alfred, and even the President of
the Transvaal Republic called him "Our Prince." For his progress through
the country, I had a beautiful wagon made. At the close of the tour
Prince Alfred gave it, a friendly gift, to the Transvaal President. You
can understand how it would be regarded by him, even be useful. Moreover
it was calculated, while only a wagon, to impress the burghers of the
Transvaal with the greatness of England. A simple pastoral people, they
could not themselves have begot such a vehicle and team.'
Prince Alfred confided to Sir George Grey, with boyish certainty, that he
never wanted to succeed to the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg. He wouldn't have it.
'I have been all over the place,' exclaimed the dashing young sailor,
'and, believe me, it hasn't a pond on which you could sail a punt.'
XVI THE FAR-FLUNG BATTLE-LINE
A captain of the sea most proves himself that when it storms, and so a
captain of empire.
The danger signal was flying again in New Zealand, and Sir George Grey
must needs be asked to get it down. Hardly had he been keel-hauled for
his doings in one colony, when another required him. He must have been
uncertain whether to despair or smile. It was like love-making.
During his first rule in New Zealand, Sir George held a conference of
Maori chiefs, Te-Whero-Whero being present. He had come along, in the
train of the Governor, without any of his own people, who lived farther
north. It grieved him to be thus situate, at a crisis when the ability to
tender assistance in men, might be of the utmost worth.
'Those other chiefs,' he addressed Sir George, 'are all inferior to me,
but they have their retainers with them. They are promising you to bring
so much strength into the field, while, for myself, I have no one here. I
seem not to aid you at all, but as long as I am separated from my own
people I'll fight in the ranks of some other chief. You have treated me
badly, in that I am here without support to give you. You force me to put
myself in quite a humble position.'
The speech was esteemed by Sir George at more than warriors, and the
memory of it made him exclaim: 'Ah, they were fine fellows, those old
Maori chieftains! You required to understand them, but they were worth
every study; nobles of a noble race!'
Meanwhile, Te-Whero-Whero had died. A concert of tribes had made him
Maori King, and his son Tawhiao succeeded to the newly set up throne. It
was the symbol of a movement to keep the Maori nation intact, though land
rights were the immediate subject of clash. Many things had happened
while Sir George Grey was in South Africa; he was the problem-solver
called in late.
'You might put it broadly,' he expressed the problem, 'that the Maoris
were making a last stand for their fatherland, and credit be to them in
that sense. They, no doubt, wished to be full governors of New Zealand,
and they talked of driving out the Europeans. I set to work, with my best
energies, to smooth away the troubles which threatened so thickly.'
Sir George went quietly among the disaffected natives, hence a dramatic
scene at the graveside of Te-Whero-Whero. He journeyed alone to the Maori
headquarters, feeling that he was in no danger. When he arrived, the
place was almost deserted, the Maoris being elsewhere in council. He
sought out the grave of Te-Whero-Whero, bowed his head in tribute over
it, and there stood to ruminate on old associations. Thus the Maoris
discovered him, to their astonishment, and they cried: 'Come here! Come
here!' If there had been no welcome for him the Maori cry would have
been: 'Go away! Go away!'
'Word of my presence,' Sir George remembered, 'was sent to King Tawhiao,
and he started to ride to me, but was unable, being worn out, to complete
his journey. With royal etiquette, he had a certificate to that purport
made out and sent on to me for my satisfaction. It was drawn up and
attested with every precision, and I got it all right, nor could I help
laughing at the idea.
'But Tawhiao's anxiety that I should be assured of his good faith, even
in so trifling a matter, struck me as a pleasing item of character. I
took a fancy to him after we became personally acquainted, and he was one
of the last persons I saw, when I finally left New Zealand for England.
Years before, I had bidden him another good-bye, he being then the one
who was setting out on a visit to England.'
Estimated by his name, Tawhiao was a 'scorner of the sun,' but unhappily
not of spirits. They were apt, in the days when his kingship had grown an
empty name, to make him quite unkingly. He naturally called upon Sir
George Grey, for years out of official life, to learn about England.
'Will you answer me a question?' Sir George broached him, adding: 'There
need be no false modesty between friends.' Tawhiao waited sedately for
the question, which was: 'What would you think of a man who, by some
wrong means, had brought about the death of a fellow-being?'