Edward Gibbon Wakefield : the colonization of South Australia and New Zealand

Chapter XII

Chapter XII

Wakefield in New Zealand—Sir George Grey—The First New Zealand Parliament—Illness and Retirement from Public Life—The Closing Scene—Estimate of his Work and Character

The good ship Minerva, after a voyage no less prosperous than that vouchsafed to her predecessor the Tory, cast anchor at Port Lyttelton on 2d February 1853. The unpopularity of which Wakefield acknowledged himself the temporary object did not prevent his receiving an address of thanks for his services in obtaining a constitution for New Zealand. In the course of a reply that touched on many topics, he warned the colonists against discord, and professed himself 'desirous of nothing more than to see the past entirely set aside in favour of confiding and harmonious action between the Governor and the popular party in the task of bringing the new constitution into useful and creditable operation.' The peacemaker, nevertheless, presented himself at Wellington rather in the character of a stormy petrel, arriving (9th March) in the midst of a tempest which equally prevented him from landing and Sir George Grey from putting to sea. Though beset by all the difficulties described by the author of 'To all you Ladies now on Land,' Wakefield managed to indite the following epistle to the evasive Governor, if by any means he might put salt upon his tail:—

Ship Minerva

'My dear Grey,—In hopes that you are still detained by the storm which keeps me on shipboard, I write to you, as to an old friend, for the purpose of earnestly begging that you will not go away without seeing me.

'Presently after landing at Canterbury, I discovered that there are great difficulties in the way of your establishing the new constitution with advantage to the country and credit to yourself; and I lost no time in doing the little which it was then possible for me to attempt with the view of smoothing your path. You will have seen my letter to Messrs Godley and Mathias, and you will have received from some Canterbury people one which the publication of that letter really suggested. Both were intended to assist in getting your past differences with the colonists laid aside by them, so that if you had the same desire, as I could not doubt for a moment, all parties might sincerely co-operate in giving effect to the objects of Parliament in granting powers of self-government to the colony. In the same spirit I now tender you my further services towards the same end; and if you accept the offer, it is, of course, indispensable that we should meet in order to talk over the state of parties here and the state of opinion at home with regard to New Zealand and yourself, with which I am intimately acquainted.

'But let me not be misunderstood. There is no favour which it is possible for the Governor of New Zealand to bestow upon me in a personal sense, though he may bind me to him in eternal gratitude by giving real and full effect to the New Constitutional Act. My object is single and unmistakable; it is the prosperity and greatness of New Zealand which, come when it may, will be my glory, and a personal reward surpassing in value any that the power of Government could bestow upon me; which will be your glory here and at home if you establish the new constitution in peace. I wish to help you, and can help you, in this rather difficult task. My experience in this sort of work—at least with regard to colonies—is greater than any other man's. If you go away without seeing me, I shall be very sorry, but will still do all I can to assist in the accomplishment of my only object. That, however, depends mainly upon you.

'Begging you to understand that in writing to you thus freely I do not forget the respect which is due to you officially as the Queen's representative, I remain, my dear Grey, yours very truly,

'E. G. Wakefield.'

'Will you walk into my parlour? said the spider to the fly.' Sir George answers in the spirit of a dove corresponding with a serpent. Differences with the people of the country? Difficulties? Who can have told Mr Wakefield that? Is not Sir George sincerely attached to them? and does he not find warm friends among them wherever he goes? It is true that his actions have been traduced by some persons (friends of Mr Wakefield's, Sir George is sorry to say); but Sir George bears no ill-will to those individuals, and will sincerely rejoice if he sees them doing anything for the public good, and Mr Wakefield setting them the example. As to meeting Mr Wakefield just then, prior engagements put it out of the question, but Sir George hopes to see him in about two months.

Mr Wakefield is equally astounded. No differences between Sir George and the colonists! What an extraordinary assertion! Why, there are more than Mr Wakefield could conveniently enumerate in one letter. What about Sir George's hostility to the Canterbury settlement? Why are petitions signed for his recall? When Mr Wakefield wrote the day before, he had refused to believe rumours that Sir George contemplated tam- pering with the sale of waste lands, 'but am now credibly informed that you have issued a proclamation having that effect, if it should be deemed a lawful measure.' It is not a lawful measure, of course. 'If there is yet time, I would again implore you to reconsider your position, and to see whether means may not be devised of enabling you to obey Parliament without being troubled by anything in the past.'

Thus do eminent statesmen occasionally condescend to piece out the lion's hide with the fox's brush. Wakefield knew perfectly well that Sir George was popular at Auckland, and Sir George was equally well aware that this popularity by no means extended to the southern districts. His adversaries, not wholly without ground, explained his good repute at Auckland by the propinquity of that city to the loaves and the fishes, the staunchest allies of all governments everywhere; his friends, with equal reason, thought that it redounded to his honour to be best liked where he was best known. In truth he inherited the disastrous legacy of Governor Hobson, who, by fixing the capital at Auckland when Auckland existed merely on paper, had engendered a soreness which existed until the association of the representatives of the various provinces in a common assembly under the new constitution, when it gradually died away. It would have been better if Sir George Grey had not prolonged this unfortunate state of things by his virtual refusal to convoke a General Assembly, although he did convene the Provincial Councils. This can only be accounted for by a determination to retain power in his own hands during the remainder of his administration. He quitted New Zealand at the end of 1853, to assume the government of the Cape, little foreseeing his second governorship and yet another important part reserved for him to perform in New Zealand politics long after his troublesome antagonist should be laid in the grave.

Wakefield, meanwhile, elated by the flattering address he received on landing at Wellington, and by the apparent recovery of his health in New Zealand air, proceeded to dig this grave for himself by the eagerness with which he rushed into politics. 'I am going to throw myself upon the people,' he wrote to Lord Lyttelton. Far better for length of days and ultimate happiness if he had stood aloof from party strife, and become, as he might have in time, the acknowledged arbiter in public questions and moderator of political dissensions. 'Greater earthly reward,' Mr W. R. Greg nobly says in his essay on Sir Robert Peel, 'God out of all the riches of his boundless treasury has not to bestow.' It must be admitted, however, that Sir George Grey's land regulations were a challenge to Wakefield which he could not well decline, nor under any circumstances was he the man to play the part of a Peel. To his sanguine, impulsive temperament political excitement had the zest of an open-air game. 'You will see,' he writes to his sister, 'what a turmoil our politics are in. Though up to my eyes in it, I feel none the worse.' On this Mr Allom comments:—

'Much of this turmoil had been carefully arranged previously. I look upon this period as the most remarkable period of E. G. W.'s connection with New Zealand; the advent of men like Godley, Sewell and FitzGerald; the presence of the wily Sir George Grey; and finally the arrival of E. G. W. himself could not fail to produce a great political eruption. The result could be foreseen. I believe E. G. W. was mainly instrumental in bringing it about, and actually gloried in it quite as much as the schoolboy enjoys the bonfire he has made.'

Wakefield certainly thought himself the man for the time and place. After telling his sister (29th April) that he has attended a public meeting and 'actually spouted for an hour and a half, as I have not done since 1843 in Canadian House of Assembly,' he adds:—

'There is an immense task for me to get through, in consequence of the rotten state of public matters. But all looks well for the future, so far as the future may be affected by my obtaining an influence in the country greater than that of anybody else. Indeed, this is coming about already, by means of straight-forwardness and assiduity. I work like a horse, much aided by Jerningham, who is a faithful and diligent lieutenant. If, as seems probable, he should be able to conquer some colonial habits, he will be a leading person in this country. I mean nothing bad in the really bad sense, only habits of desultory application under inordinate excitement only, and of localism with respect to thought, as well as somewhat of a turn for wrangling. He is very sociable, and is now living entirely with me.'

Unfortunately poor Jerningham could not shake off the most pernicious of all 'colonial habits,' and what might have been a very brilliant career terminated in disappointment.

Meanwhile, the drama of New Zealand politics remained in a condition of rehearsal from the obstinate refusal of Sir George Grey to provide it with a stage. Until the General Assembly should meet, politics could be merely local. Far more interest attaches to the remarkable letter in which Wakefield communicates his impressions of the colony to his old friend Rintoul—so copious that retrenchment is necessary on the ground of space:—

'I am bursting with fulness of matter for writing to you. It must come out anyhow. In the first place, the country physically far surpasses my expectations. Not that it is different, generally, from my notions of it before touching the soil, but actual familiarity with particulars has made the old impressions more distinct. The climate is to my feelings delicious, though far from resembling what we call a delicious climate in Europe, such as that of Naples in winter. Its principal characteristic is some invigorating property which affects man and beast equally, so that both horse and rider are always in good spirits. I have not had since we entered Port Lyttelton a moment of that depression and feebleness which used to make me such a cripple at home. There is abundance of wind, and, this year, superabundance of rain, but the roughest weather causes no uneasiness, and the fine weather is glorious. Perhaps it is from having been so long ill that I value so much the constant feeling of health which this climate produces. Henslow resembles me in this, the poor, crawling, sallow invalid has become almost jolly, and is afraid to brag of his happy feelings lest it should provoke a change back to the old miseries. But fine health is general in old and young. All the Creole children are plump and ruddy when not suffering from some particular complaint. I have not seen an exception, and you know how I examine the children and dogs wherever I may be. One of my dogs—the bloodhound, Bogey—having lost his mother in childbirth, and been suckled by a poor little wet-nurse, had a bad constitution, and was always ailing at home, the voyage also disagreed with him, and on landing he was like a rake in a bag; he is now in the rudest and handsomest health…. I could give you plenty of facts like these, but must go on to other matters. The scenery is peculiar, though greatly varied. Upon the whole I think it most beautiful. But there are all sorts—the grand, the beautiful, and the pleasant; not even the centre of the great Canterbury Plain—an immense dead level in appearance—is ugly, because there are always in sight fine mountains, appearing, from the singular clearness of the atmosphere, to be near at hand. This district, Wellington, has great variety, though near the town, excepting the Hutt Valley, it is hilly and mountainous. Socially (I can speak from personal observation only of Canterbury and Wellington) there is much to like, and much to dislike. The newest comers from England are the best, on the whole, more especially the picked materials with which Canterbury was founded. At Canterbury I could have fancied myself in England, except for the hard-working industry of the upper classes and the luxurious independence of the common people. The upper classes are very hospitable, and very deficient in the pride of purse or mere station, and the common people are remarkably honest. Their entire independence is not disagreeable to me, who am accustomed to America, and like it. There is absolutely no servility. I think there is no lack of either real respect for what deserves it, or real politeness, though the mere outward manner of the common people seems rudely independent to such as have been always used to the hypocritical servility of tradespeople and lacqueys at home. I get on famously with the "unwashed," and like them. Sewell, as yet incapable of understanding them, thinks them rude and disagreeable. His Oxford and Isle of Wight habits of thought are shocked by the democratic ways of a carpenter here, who speaks of him as Sewell without the Mr, and calls a brother carpenter 'Mister Smith.' There is an intense jealousy of new-comers; a state of feeling which always takes possession of young colonies, and holds possession of them till they begin to grow old. For every new-comer probably comes to be the competitor or rival of somebody. Bowler has been quite upset by the shock of meeting this strong colonial sentiment, and it gives Sewell the stomach-ache. I am happily able to laugh at it. Indeed, though some are exceedingly jealous of me—those, that is, who fancy that I may trench upon their positions as political leaders—I must say the generality of colonists, and more particularly the older ones, behave very kindly to me, and seem to think that jealousy of me would be misplaced. But my case is exceptional on account of 'Auld lang syne.' The jealousy of Sewell is too strong to be at all concealed. Just what I told him would happen has come about more suddenly than I could expect. His plunge into public affairs has made his talents known, and here those talents are perfectly unrivalled. Consequently he is already feared and respected as well as—hated. Colonial jealousy of the new-comer passes away in time, and soon in proportion as the new-comer soon takes root in the land. When he is fairly planted, he in his turn becomes jealous of other new-comers.

But the worst feature, I think, of this colonial society is a general narrow-mindedness. Everybody's ideas seem to be localised in his own part of the country. I have not met with one person who is as well acquainted as I am myself with New Zealand in general. Thought abstract from the individual seems totally absent. The interests and amusements of each person are the only subjects of his thoughts. This is partly owing to the want of intercommunication among the settlements, which are, and will be, until they get local steam navigation, as much cut off from each other as if separated by a thousand miles of ocean, so that each community is naturally as small in its ideas as in its numbers; but the evil in question has another cause, which is the cause of many more evils, namely, the total absence of popular power and responsibility. The total want of political liberty produces a stagnant frame of mind, except as regards getting money or spending it. I can't find one person who has it in his head to contemplate the prosperity and greatness of this country; not one who really sympathises with my dreams of the last fifteen years. Some say that they do, and believe what they say, but a bat could see that they do not really. It is a miserable state of things, and you will think I must be very unhappy. But I am not so at all. On the contrary, I am sure that there is a good foundation to work upon in the best set of colonists that have ever left England in modern times; that poverty and crime (crime in the old country sense) are impossible; that the country is unrivalled in climate and productiveness; and that the mind of the people will be changed by the coming responsibilities of political power. Only there is heavy work for me, if I can but keep health for doing it. At present I am not in the least down-hearted.'

Mr Allom, to whom we are indebted for a copy of this invaluable letter, comments upon it as follows:—

'This letter, written little more than two months after his arrival in the colony, is an illustration of the difference between theory and practice in matters colonial, as in all others. Here we have the views of the great thinker and theorist when confronted by actual facts. We see by the manner in which he opens his heart to Rintoul, his old friend and fellow-labourer, how delighted he is with the country and the climate. But I think there is apparent throughout the letter a slight shade of disappointment. It is characteristic of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, that sometimes his own thoughts are expressed as those of others. In this way he refers to the sentiments of Sewell and Bowler, which I believe were equally his own. He seems to have quite understood the sturdy and independent attitude of the newly-arrived labourer towards his capitalist employer, and probably he recognised the position as a foreshadowing, in some degree, of those great political changes which in more recent years have become so marked a feature of our colonial democracy. It is interesting to note his remarks about the jealousy of Sewell being too strong to be concealed, and of Sewell's unrivalled abilities which have already made him feared and respected as well as—hated. I cannot help thinking that these references to Sewell apply quite as much to himself.

'In striving, at this time, to obtain for the people greater political power under the new constitution, I cannot believe that he thought it would be for their good that the "common people" should acquire the almost unlimited political power which they have since attained.'

The convocation of provincial councils before the election of a General Assembly undoubtedly worked ill for the colony. 'Superintendents and councils,' says Mr Gisborne, 'unchecked, without experience, and revelling in political freedom, seemed at first as if too much license had made them mad. But there was this method in their madness: they strove to get into their hands as much power as they possibly could.' The infinite divisibility of the public revenue became an article of faith. For a long time the provincial institutions maintained their ground as a geographical necessity, but at length disappeared—a result which Mr Gisborne thinks need not have come to pass if they had been from the first har- moniously co-ordinated with the General Assembly. This body, to which Wakefield was returned as Member for the Hutt district, in the province of Wellington, commenced its career under Colonel Wynyard, commander of the troops, who ex officio occupied Sir George Grey's post in the character of Acting-Governor, under very curious conditions. There was no responsible Ministry, all posts in the administration being held by officials holding permanent appointments from the Crown. There was, consequently, no front bench, and no Opposition technically, though, practically, all the House was Opposition. The principal Member of the Government was Speaker of the Upper House, and therefore speechless. By an oversight of the draftsman, the Lower House had no power of stopping the supplies, and was thus unable to control the Government. It was impossible, however, to delay the assembling of the General Legislature any longer, and Colonel Wynyard opened it on 27th May 1854, with an address assuredly not composed by the gallant officer from whom it professedly emanated, and which seems to bear traces of Wakefield's pen. The most remarkable feature was the declaration that the Provincial Councils needed much watching, and that 'it will rest with the General Assembly of these islands whether New Zealand shall become one great nation, exercising a commanding influence in the Southern Seas, or a collection of insignificant, divided and powerless petty states.' Apart from the evidence of style, so many of the ablest men in New Zealand were interested in propelling the provinces into virtual independence, that it may be doubted whether anyone else who could have said this so well would have said it at all. The point should be remembered in connection with Wakefield's subsequent action.

It is probable that his next important step was preconcerted with the Governor, for nothing else could have given constitutional government a start. It was to move 'That amongst the objects which the House desires to see accomplished without delay, the most important is the establishment of ministerial responsibility in the conduct of legislative and executive proceedings by the Governor.' 'The subject,' says Mr Swainson, then Attorney-General, and the chief contemporary authority for these transactions, 'was discussed in a debate of three days' continuance, if debate it may be called in which no difference of opinion was expressed.' The resolution was carried with virtual unanimity, but the difficulty was how to carry it into effect, the existing officials holding patent appointments under the Crown. It was at length agreed that the Colonial Secretary, the Colonial Treasurer and the Attorney-General should remain in their offices 'until they could with propriety retire,' and that four Members of the Assembly, Messrs FitzGerald, Sewell, Weld and Bartley, should be added to the Executive Council, charged with the preparation of parliamentary business, and the carrying of it through the House. Nothing less could be done if constitutional government was not to become a farce, but subsequent events showed that the country was not really much excited upon the subject. 'The Auckland members, in their humility, acknowledged that Mr Wakefleld had taught them what responsible government was.'

Wakefield's first feelings were of wild, enthusiastic exultation. With all his shrewdness, no one was more liable to be carried into extravagance under the influence of excitement:—

Auckland,

14 th June 1854.

'My dear Catherine,—By the newspapers which I send with this you will see that New Zealand has undergone neither more nor less than a revolution. Do not be alarmed; the change, though enormous, has been peaceful, and will be very conservative in its results. The mutilated constitution has been healed, and brought into vigorous action by the friendly concert of pro-Governor Wynyard and the House of Representatives. Mr Sewell is a Cabinet Minister, as I might also have been had I pleased. You will open your eyes and ask what all this means. It means (confining myself to what you will most care about) that after trouble and annoyance, and disappointment and suffering without end, I am as happy as anyone can be in this world, having a full realisation of what I have hoped and longed and striven for during so many years. The only drawback is a kind of apprehension arising from the greatness and suddenness of the success. My health and strength are wonderful. The greater the danger, the louder the raging of the storm, the more important the crisis, and the larger my own share of responsibility and labour, the more I have been capable of doing whatever I wished to do. Neither effort nor the highest excitement have disturbed or fatigued me. I have been as cool as you would wish, and have slept like a pig. This is all about myself, but you will like it the better for that. I write in haste to catch a Sydney mail, and my hands are full of work. God bless you both. Kind love to all.—Ever your most affectionate

'E. G. W.'

A letter to Lord Lyttelton, written the same day, reiterates much of the above, indulges in speculations, probably visionary, as to what the provinces might have done if responsible government had not been conceded, and declares that a little child might guide the New Zealand representatives in the right way. Probably the little one did not present himself, and the legislators, needing to be led somewhere, followed other guidance, for when Parliament met again, after a short recess, things had manifestly altered for the worse. Mistrust and ill-will reigned universally, nobody could quite tell why. Mr Brittan said at Canterbury that it all arose from the new Ministers having held a conclave from which Wakefield was excluded. If this is true they were to blame for having ignored him, and he was equally to blame for having retaliated; but no intrigues of his could have produced the occurrence which actually led to the break up of the Ministry, which seems to suggest the prosaic explanation that there were not places enough for the place-hunters, and that the only acceptable programme would have been quot homines, tot portfolios. The new Executive Ministers demanded that the three old officials who had been associated with them under the compromise of June should resign, pleading private understandings to this effect, too private to be capable of proof. The officials declined to budge. Mr FitzGerald and his colleagues, expecting to coerce the Governor, tendered their own resignations. The Governor, to their dismay, sent for Wakefield, who advised him—to all appearance rightly—that he had no power to dismiss officials holding their posts by direct appointment from the Crown. The officials professed their readiness to give up their places whenever His Excellency should ask for them, but not till then—and Wakefield advised him not to ask. It is easy to imagine the odium he thus incurred with those whom he prevented from—

Fulfilling the prophecies
By only just changing the holders of offices.

'Mr Wakefield,' remarks Mr Swainson, 'was much too formidable to be lightly made into an enemy; and so long as he continued to be simply a member of the House the true feelings of a large portion of the members towards him were concealed by a cloak of reserve; but no sooner was he seen in a position of influence than all reserve was thrown aside. Courted, fawned upon, and flattered, but scarcely ever trusted at the commencement of the session, Mr Wakefield was now assailed in the House in the most violent and opprobrious language, transgressing even the license of colonial debate.' It is a common misadventure in politics to be hoist with one's own petard; and many a man besides Wakefield has found the fulfilment of his hopes the disappointment of his expectations. The legislators he had struggled so hard to bring together, lately so anxious to get rid of the permanent officials, petitioned the Governor to consult them instead of his irresponsible adviser, and was informed that they always had been consulted. A long message from the Governor came down, and was being read by the clerk, when it was discovered that a page was missing. Wakefield coolly pulled a duplicate from his pocket and offered to supply the omission, which produced a scene only to be paralleled by that which occurred a few days later when the House filled up the interval between reading a message from the Governor threatening and a second message decreeing their prorogation by passing fierce resolutions, the second message meanwhile lying unread upon the table. Left, as he thought, with a clear stage, Wakefield tried to form a new Executive, but found himself unexpectedly checkmated by Mr Swainson, the Attorney-General, a sedate, astute lawyer, no great legislator, but an excellent draftsman of acts under the inspiration of Chief Justice Martin, who virtually expressed the opinion that the permanent officials could get on very well without the aid of coadjutors from the Assembly, or any such impertinences. Wakefield's minute of his interview with Mr Swainson is printed in the latter's book on New Zealand, and is one of the most curious and entertaining productions of his pen. His Excellency taking Mr Swainson's view, Wakefield 'at once retired from the position of temporary adviser, receiving the grateful acknowledgments of the Acting-Governor for the zeal and ability with which his services had been rendered.' These were not unmerited, for during the prorogation the Opposition entirely collapsed, partly from want of support in the country, and partly from the consideration touchingly set forth in their address to the Governor, 'that a large proportion of the Members of the Legislature have been detained from home upwards of five months, and will be obliged to return by the next steamer'—minus their salaries, they might have added, unless they dutifully voted the Estimates. They did vote them, and the Parliament from which so much had been expected broke up amid universal dissatisfaction: Wakefield finding himself ostracised where he had expected to rule, Mr FitzGerald 1 and his friends having thrown away places which they might very well have kept, and even the victorious officials feeling the sword of Damocles suspended over them.

New Zealanders have naturally felt ashamed of the fiasco of their first essay in Parliamentary Government, and have generally agreed to visit their mortification upon Wakefield, who seems, however, to have been mainly the victim of circumstances. He could neither help the jealousy with which he was regarded by his fellow-legislators, nor the quarrel between the old and new officials; nor could he prevent the political suicide of the Ministry, or refuse his advice to the Governor when called upon, or honestly give any other advice than he did, or control Mr Swainson when circumstances had made that gentleman master of the situation. His chief faults were to have participated, near the end of the session, in an attempt to set up an abortive Ministry, and to have inspired it, though ostensibly keeping aloof, with a scheme for the restriction of Provincial Councils, which under the circumstances was justly considered wild and unconstitutional. Yet it was rather unseasonable than unsound. The perception of the necessity for

limit-

1 Wakefield afterwards penned an unflattering character of Mr FitzGerald, one of the most vigorous pieces of invective in the language; much better unwritten, nevertheless. It is highly to Mr FitzGerald's honour to have in after years spoken of his assailant as he does in his memoir of Godley.

ing

the encroachments of these bodies runs like a thread through all his political action of this period; and his foresight was vindicated when by-and-by the question arose 'whether,' in Mr Gisborne's words 'the provincial institutions were not, under the guise of local self-government, gradually absorbing general government, and tending, sooner or later, to the division of New Zealand into federal states.' One curious result of the campaign was to make Wakefield popular in Auckland, which he had always disparaged, and unpopular in the colonies which he had founded himself.

Wakefield's great mistake, however, was to have taken any part in politics except as a writer. The buoyant health of which he speaks in his letter to his sister was the effect of an unnatural stimulus, and was to be expiated by a reaction which secluded him from the world. The mortifying incidents of the session must have preyed upon his spirit, and the scenes through which he had passed might have tried stronger constitutions than that of an invalid barely recovered from paralysis of the brain. 'What he went through at Auckland,' his brother Daniel wrote, 'Chief Justice Martin tells me, was enough to break up the constitution of a very strong man. Constant labour in planning measures in the Assembly, writing, and above all, talking against a mob of opponents was too much for one in but feeble health.' In addition to this he had taken a large share in the Committee work of the House. The ultimate breakdown is thus described in a letter from his son to Catherine Torlesse:—

'Wellington,

8 th May 1855.
'… About the first week in December last he attended a meeting of his constitutents in the Hutt Valley, and spoke with great earnestness and vigour for five hours consecutively in a densely-crowded room. In order, I suppose, to get away from the noise and excitement consequent on such a political meeting, he drove home in an open chaise, nine miles in the face of a cold, south-easterly gale, at two o'clock in the morning. Although he began to feel ill, he accepted an invitation a day or two afterwards to dine with the members of an Odd-fellows' Lodge in this town, and sat in a hot room with an open window at his back. 1 The next day he was attacked with rheumatic fever, and suffered acute pain. This turned, I believe, into neuralgia, every nerve in his body being affected. At first he was attended by Dr Prendergast, but fell back upon complete quiet of mind and body with an occasional "lamp." For a long time he would let no one know how ill he was, and would see no one. But he then wrote to me at Canterbury, asking me to come to him. I arrived about the first week in January. I found the pains were going off, but that he was

1 It will be remembered that December is the height of summer in New Zealand.

dreadfully weak, very nervous, and at times desponding, with no appetite, and irregular circulation. I remonstrated against the rejection of the drug system without substituting his own panacea of "packing," in which he used to have such faith. But he always replies that he feels a presentiment that the effort would be too much for him, that he has an idea it would choke him, and so on. So that he positively does nothing but rest, opens no letters, reads no local papers, indeed, tries to think about nothing on which his thoughts can have any influence. 1 To a certain degree I think this is right. He has sadly overtasked both his bodily and his mental powers during the past two years, and complete rest for the brain as well as the body will, I have no doubt, do much to restore him in course of time. My being here, of course, saves him from attending to any business, public or private, and I pass an hour or two with him nearly every day. I hope and believe him to be out of all danger for the present, but his recovery must necessarily be slow and tedious, and perhaps never perfect. My great desire is to see him strong enough to get a change of air, such as up to Charles's sheep station at Rangiora, or perhaps to Sydney, and I also trust that he may make up his mind to give up the idea of any more active political labour. But I confess to a

1 'The surest mark of the intensity of suffering is the limitation of the sufferer's desires to absolute repose.'—Anthony Trollope.

dread lest, as soon as he feels at all strong, he should again endeavour, by his own efforts in public life, to arrest the progress of what he may think evil in the colony. At present he cannot walk across his room.

'I have had great satisfaction in being able to agree with him thoroughly and unreservedly in all that he has done, and of supporting his policy by every effort in my power. Although in a minority at first, his views are daily gaining strength, and I rejoice to think that but a few years will elapse before it will be generally acknowledged that a true and far-seeing patriotism has alone dictated all his public policy.—Your affectionate nephew,

'E. Jerningham Wakefield.'

Wakefield could never again have appeared upon a platform, but some thought that his pen would still have been active if he could have felt more confidence in the political future of his son. This may be doubted, the intellectual faculties were not in themselves impaired, but he appeared to feel that his grasp upon them had become uncertain, and that a slight shock might dissolve it altogether. He seemed at first to take refuge in absolute silence, calling to mind, perhaps, the days in Lancaster Castle, when he had boasted what good company he could find in his own self. But this was not to be; as formerly in Newgate, sunshine stole into the shady place in the person of a little girl. His niece Alice, daughter of his brother Daniel, and afterwards, as Mrs Harold Freeman, daughter-in-law of the illustrious historian, has graced the writer's pages with her affecting reminiscences of this tender sequel to a stormy life.

'The first recollection that I have of my uncle Edward Gibbon is the night of the great earthquake at Wellington. 1 I was carried out of my bed, and found myself amongst a number of frightened people who had come from the houses round, and were all passing the night out of doors. In the middle of the group was my uncle seated in an arm-chair, and he was of much interest to me, for, though we lived in the same house, I do not recall having seen him before. My father and mother had left their home in Wellington Terrace and come to live with him at his house in the Timahori Road. 2My father, who was always devoted to his brother, had thrown up his appointment as Attorney-General on account of disagreements between Sir George Grey and my uncle. At the earthquake my uncle's attention was drawn to me, and from that time to his death in 1862 I was a great deal with him. The

1 This alarming convulsion is graphically described in Thomson's Story of New Zealand, vol. ii. pp. 231-233. 'For fourteen hours the town trembled like a shaken jelly.' The site was permanently raised from three to six feet, and an intended dock is now a pleasure garden.

2 This house had been exported from England, and had been previously occupied by Mr Eyre, celebrated as an Australian explorer and as Governor of Jamaica, at that time Lieutenant-Governor under Sir George Grey.

feelings of love and admiration that I had for him it is impossible to describe; my greatest pleasure was to be in his company; his slightest wish was my law, at any sacrifice of my own pleasure. It is only fair to my mother to say that she encouraged this devotion to my uncle, feeling that in his solitary life, often seeing no one but his man-servant William Schmidt and myself, I was the only pleasure that was left to him. All was done for me according to my uncle's views of making a child strong. I had a cold bath in the morning, then walked with him for half an hour before breakfast, then had porridge. William Schmidt was a native of Schleswig Holstein, who liked to call himself a Dane. He had been a sailor aboard the ship my uncle came out in, and broke his leg by a fall from the mast. My uncle visited him in the hospital at Wellington, and asked him if he would like to become his servant instead of returning to the life of a sailor. William proved most faithful; he was always at hand, and looked upon his master with the greatest affection and respect. My uncle gave him some land in Christchurch, and after his death William became quite a rich man. He was very fond of carpentering, and made very pretty boxes and frames out of the honeysuckle and other fine New Zealand woods. In his workshop I passed many hours with my uncle. We walked up and down a very small space, our companions, besides

William, being "Powder" and "Blucher," two bull dogs considered very fierce, but perfectly gentle with us.

'I feel convinced that I have never met any man with the power that E. G. Wakefield had, and I have never come across anyone who cared for young people and their improvement in the way that he did. I used to read books with my mother, and then repeat them chapter by chapter to my uncle. I read the whole of the Waverley Novels through twice over in this way, except Castle Dangerous and Count Robert of Paris, which he did not think worth my reading; his favourites were Guy Mannering, Rob Roy, Waverley, and Old Mortality, Repeating them like this, and listening to my uncle's comments was, I may say, a good education, and I can turn now with pleasure to Walter Scott when I do not care to read a modern novel. I also learned the whole of the Lady of the Lake, not one line was allowed to be missed, and in reading I was carefully taught never to skip or look on. I obeyed the slightest wish my uncle ever expressed, and never cared to do anything but what he approved. Two trials I remember, having to choose between some rather dry travels in Japan and The Daisy Chain. "Which would you like me to read?" said I, and on being told The Travels, gave up The Daisy Chain. On another occasion he told me I was too old to play with dolls, and I never played with a doll after that day. My uncle was not able to bear any noise, so that we never went on his side of the house, or used the rooms nearest to him: neither did my little playfellows come to visit me. I went to see them and they would say, "Do you not dislike having to go back every day at four to walk with your uncle?" I know the very question astonished me, and I warmly replied there was nothing else I enjoyed so much. I do not remember my uncle seeing any visitors but a friend to whom he used to give lessons in the open air to cure his stammering, and another who lent him books on the Millennium. He saw my mother and Jerningham occasionally. I have a prayer book with his name in his own writing, and he once said that he should have gone to church, only from fear of disturbing people with his breathing from asthma. Colonel Palmer of Nazing 1 told me that he should always remember my uncle rather offending some Americans in conversation, and that when he saw this was the case he said, "All this does not matter; we speak the same language and are brothers; if we were in any trouble it is to you that we should look for help, and I know that you would give it." The Americans after this were quite content.

'There were one or two breaks in this complete seclusion. My father died when I was eight years

1 The same gentleman whom we have seen endeavouring to raise a monument to Wakefield in South Australia.

old, and then my uncle was very kind to my mother, and gave directions about his funeral. At another time there was an election in which he was interested; our walks then were beyond our own gates, and I listened to my uncle persuading a man to vote, saying it was the duty of every man to vote; that, ill though he was, he would rather be carried to the poll in his bed than not give his vote. Another time I heard a long conversation which I am sure related to his first meeting with Lord Durham. It must have been about this time that I persuaded my uncle to come with me to feed an old white horse in a field near us, and he said, "Why, that is quiet enough for even me to ride," and for some time he had this horse to ride very slowly upon. 1 One morning he surprised us by going off very early and being photographed; this is the photograph after which the bust by Durham in the Colonial Office was executed. I think that his mind was in full vigour up to the last, but his bodily health had failed, and he could no longer struggle with the world.

'We moved from the Timahori Road to Wellington Terrace. Shortly afterwards the two bull dogs got out into the road and began fighting with another dog. William went out to separate them, and Blucher flew at him and bit him in the face. I carried off Powder, and shut him up in the stable. William went to my uncle and asked permission, to have both the dogs shot. This was allowed, to my great grief; and my mother said she was sure he must be feeling much worse to have consented. No doubt the strong will had given in, and the end came very soon after. One night, 16th May 1862, he woke up William, who slept in his room, with the words, "William, this is death." 1 William woke up my mother and myself; we hurried to the room. My uncle held my hand with a tight clasp, and looked in my face with an expression that I shall never forget; he could not speak. When Jerningham entered the room in answer to a hasty summons, his father struggled hard to speak, but nothing more than the name Jerningham was distinguished.

'I do not recollect who came to the funeral. I know that two Maoris came to follow after the funeral had started. He was laid by the side of two brothers, who had been devotedly attached to him, Colonel Wakefield and my father, also my sister; the four graves are close together.

'On one occasion my uncle spoke before me with bitterness of the quick way in which people were forgotten after death, and I burst forth with the assurance that I should never forget him. This promise I have certainly kept, and I think that, child though I was, I felt the power of his mind, the fascination of his manners, tone and general bearing. All his precepts were good, and likely to influence youth for good. Nothing that I have been able to write does justice to his memory.'

Thus the powerful mind and persuasive tongue that had given so mighty an impulse to the practice, and

1 The dying exclamation of George the Fourth.

such new life to the theory of colonization, that had perplexed Ministries with fear of change at home, and profoundly modified relations between the mother country and her children abroad,

That launched a thousand ships,
And shook the topmost towers of Ilion,

passed gently away in guiding and instructing a little girl. It seems profanation to add aught to so simple and touching a narrative: Manum de tabula. Yet something like a general view of Edward Gibbon Wakefield's character is necessary. As his niece, Mrs Burney, tried to describe him orally to the writer, one word was continually on her lips—'complex.' This suits him well, and is probably what Lord Lyttelton had in his mind when he described him as 'A man of much vicissitude of fortune and much inequality of character.' It does not mean that this character was a jumble of conflicting qualities, but that it was developed unsymmetrically on the two sides which are inseparable from the conception of a finite object. Ancient psychology expressed this quality by distinguishing between the animal and the intellectual soul, the inert groundwork of natural instincts and propensities, and the busy impressionable mind that soars above. In the first respect, Wakefield offers little to censure or regret; few have been more richly endowed with courage, perseverance, generosity, affection, or humanity. His faults, such

as resentment degenerating into rancour, and playfulness into mischief-making, were such as are almost inseparable from an opulent nature, exuberant in all it brings forth. It was when reason was divorced from instinct, and action was entirely directed by the speculative intelligence that he sometimes went astray. His errors may be summed up in a word—unscrupulousness. Not unscrupulousness which aims at personal advantage, even in the great offence of his life, the motive was not love of money, but love of influence; but the unscrupulousness of a strong will intolerant of opposition either from men or morals, and of a statesmanship which, impatient of the jealousies and misunderstandings of inferior men, deems it no sin to circumvent where it cannot overthrow. If statesmen wielding powerful parliamentary majorities are not exempt from insincerity, if they introduce measures which they have no intention of passing, and make professions up to which they have no idea of acting, what excuse should not be made for a man without fortune, without station, and the object of general suspicion and disapproval, conscious, nevertheless, of magnificent aspirations, and full of projects in which he has unbounded faith, but of which he is impotent to realise the smallest particle, save by impressing, persuading, or cajoling? Add to this necessity of his position an unequalled personal fascination, a genius for managing men, and the instinct of a born educator, derived from

his father and grandmother, and it will not appear so extraordinary that a warm-hearted, sanguine man of almost extravagantly high spirits should have gained the reputation of a cold-blooded schemer and manipulator of puppets for selfish ends. Mr Gisborne, the miniaturist of New Zealand statesmen, who had, however, a personal dislike to Wakefield, writes of him: 'His deceptiveness was ineradicable, and, like the fowler, he was ever spreading his nets. Always plausible, and often persuasive, he was never simple and straightforward. He was calculating and self-contained, and had no particle of generous chivalry in his nature.' The injustice of this character is manifest from its inconsistency with the traits most distinct in Wakefield's life and writings: yet there is this much truth that 'the skilfulness in handling puppets in high places,' which Mr Gisborne justly attributes to him, was a snare to him. Though the handling was not for private but for public ends, the puppets no less resented it when it was found out, as it could not fail to be. It is undeniable that he wore out the goodwill of several successive sets of supporters; on the other hand, the persons thus alienated were for the most part, comparatively speaking, inferior men, and the highest minds evinced the most constancy of attachment. Lord Durham and Lord Metcalfe might or might not have been estranged from him if their lives had been prolonged, but certainly gave no sign of estrangement while they lived.

Rintoul never once failed him during an intimacy of twenty-two years, and Rintoul was a shrewd Scotchman, by no means addicted to excess of sentiment. Wakefield's anonymous contributions to his Spectator would make a very thick volume. Charles Buller's regard survived even his official connection with Wakefield's bête noire Earl Grey, and Lord Lyttelton's the yet more serious trial of Wakefield's break with Godley. This grievous misfortune would not have occurred if the two had not been at opposite sides of the world; but whatever blame is to be ascribed to the men falls principally upon Wakefield, one of whose most unfortunate characteristics was an unreasonable suspiciousness. His view of human nature was anything but morbid, but in matters where he did not see his way quite clearly, his active imagination conjured up motives, intentions and proceedings which had no existence elsewhere. 'The surmises, suspicions and impressions expressed by Mr Wakefield,' drily remarks Mr Swainson, 'are to be received only as surmises, suspicions and impressions.' This defect was correlated with the vein of paradox, also the offspring of a teeming imagination, which runs through his soundest projects and best-considered writings, and the exaggerated vehemence with which he assails open adversaries and backsliding disciples. All that can be said is: no imagination, no originality; and no originality, no place among great men.

'He is all fault who hath no fault at all'

If Edward Gibbon Wakefield had not possessed the imaginative genius from which some delusions and some extravagances are inseparable, it could not have been said of him, as was said with perfect truth by Thornton Hunt in his obituary notice in the Daily Telegraph: 'There is no part of the British Empire which does not feel in the actual circumstances of the day the effect of Edward Gibbon Wakefield's labours as a practical statesman; and perhaps the same amount of tangible result in administrative and constructive reform can scarcely be traced to the single hand of any other man during his own lifetime.' This is true, and yet the practical side of Wakefield's work seems second to the ideal, the conception of a system which methodised the previously irregular and haphazard attempts at colonization, and made it a department of statesmanship; and perhaps even this is less than the new way of regarding the relations between the mother country and the colonies, of which the system of responsible government recommended in Lord Durham's Report was the most conspicuous manifestation. Modern states, up to quite a recent period, have regarded colonies as establishments for the benefit of the mother country, and have formed new settlements as a tradesman establishes branch shops, with no notion of allowing money to accumulate in the subsidiary till. The Greeks did not thus; their colonies were entirely independent; the Roman colonies, though dependent, were never tributary; but the colonies of modern states have usually been both, and have only obtained self-government at the cost of long and cruel warfare. The idea that a colony does not exist for the mother country but for itself is an evident corollary from Wakefield's general principles; and its tacit adoption since the publication of the Durham Report has kept the British Colonial Empire intact, while others have crumbled away. 'Can one,' he asks, 'read Gibbon without seeing that the Roman Empire fell to pieces because its government was a government of mere force, which, when applied to a great and diversified empire, is necessarily weak because force cannot stretch so far, and because there is no attachment in the subjects towards the central power?'

The Colonial Office wars no longer with Edward Gibbon Wakefleld; his bust adorns one of its corridors, and his spirit in a great degree animates its policy. We do not now hear eminent statesmen denouncing the idea that colonies can contribute anything to the strength of the mother country as 'a superstition as dark as any that existed in the Middle Ages'; or find veteran officials discussing in their correspondence how the parent can with least violence to her feelings turn the daughter out of doors. But while the depart- ment of State which he combated has recognised his desert, the colonies which he created have done nothing for his memory—absolutely nothing, whatever. It cannot be thought that this will long continue. The storied urn will not always be lacking to Adelaide or the animated bust to Wellington; and it must be hoped that the portrait of the body will be accompanied by a portrait of the mind in the shape of an edition of his principal writings—obsolete, no doubt, as regards many of the questions discussed, but still retaining all their worth as illustrations of colonial and economical history, and capable of firing the enthusiasm of many a generation to come. When a monument does arise, whether in the South Australian capital or by the waters of Cook's Strait, it cannot—after due acknowledgment of his special achievement as founder of the colony—be more fitly inscribed than with words adapted from two distinct eulogies by Lord Lyttelton, who knew the man and had shared in his work:—

The man in these latter days beyond comparison of the most genius and the widest influence in the great science of colonization, both as a thinker, a writer, and a worker; whose name is like a spell to all interested in the subject.