Life of Sir George Grey: Governor, High commissioner, and Premier. An Historical Biography.
His Health
His Health.
A medical practitioner whom he transferred from New Zealand to the Cape to superintend his scheme of South African hospitals, Dr. Fitzgerald, referred to Grey's delicate health during his first term in New Zealand. He himself mentioned, a little theatrically, that he had drafted the constitution of the Anglican Church in New Zealand "on a sickbed in Taranaki." He was subject to severe spasms of the heart. Yet he must have had extraordinary powers of endurance. He had the large feet we associate with the explorer, and in his expeditions in Western Australia he performed exploits that would have been beyond the capacity of most men. His powers remained nearly intact to an advanced age. When he was past seventy, he would leave Auckland after breakfast, arrive at Kawau in the evening without having partaken of lunch, and immediately set out to show a visitor round the island. At times, in 1888, he was so exhausted that he could hardly stand, but he could not be induced to take a seat. Two or three years later he frequently walked on a Sunday afternoon from Parnell (Auckland) to visit an acquaintance residing in Epsom—a journey of some miles—and people who saw him tottering wondered how he was ever to get back, but he rejected aid. His power of rallying was an old feature that baffled prognostics. On a stumping tour through the Colony in 1879, when he was Premier, he would arrive in a steamer in a state of prostration, but as the hour approached for addressing a public meeting, the old war-horse woke up at the sound of the trumpet, and he proceeded to the hall and delivered an impassioned address. After a similar tour in 1884 he returned to Auckland more vigorous than when he set out. It was otherwise in 1887, when he came back from such a tour in a state of complete prostration, from which it took him weeks to recover. There was therefore a tough vitality that rose afresh from weakness and (more than half spiritual) preserved him through apparent failure to win for him, just before the end, a semblance of victory.