His Virtual Recall.

The great department was not slow to take up the gage of battle. Grey had once been its pride and fondling. It freely and without solicitation gave him one high and responsible post after another. Long before he had reached middle age, and while he was still young in its service, it bestowed on him one of its highest distinctions. In its hours of difficulty and danger it fell back upon him when others of its servants failed it. It destined him for the most exalted position in its gift. It lavished praise on him in despatches, in Parliament, and in semiofficial treatises. It permitted him to do what it condemned and recalled other Governors for doing. It meekly accepted snubs at his hands. It pardoned rebellion. It could not pardon open defiance. In May, 1867, the Duke of Buckingham wound up a general despatch with the offhand announcement that, next time he happened to be writing to the Governor, he would inform him of the name of his successor. It was as if one should conclude an animated conversation with a knock-down blow.

It appears that the assommeur was not the Duke. He afterwards, when Grey visited him in London, disclaimed all knowledge of the insult and all intention of giving offence. The despatch was written (as we know, from the biographies and autobiographies of high officers of the Department, that such despatches are commonly written) by a clerk in the Colonial Office. None the less, page 160it bore the signature of the Minister and carried all the weight of his authority. It was not formally a recall. The Governor's six years' term was up, and the despatch simply drew his attention to the fact. The Colonial Office denied that it was a recall. Yet it appeared to himself in that light, and it was accepted as such by Ministers and throughout the Colony.

A recall it practically was. At his age, in the prime of his strength, with more than twenty years of active service ahead of him, and not yet qualified for a pension, he would have naturally been appointed to another governorship. No other was offered or mentioned. He might have been sent to more populous Australian colonies, such as Victoria or New South Wales. The governor-generalship of Canada might once more have been dangled before his eyes. He might have claimed, as it is understood that Governors are permitted to do, a year's additional service in New Zealand. Of all or any of this, not a word. He would be informed of the designation of his successor—and the rest was silence. He was at Queenstown, on Lake Wakatipu, when the, obnoxious despatch was received, and the news, which he made no attempt to disguise or withhold spread like wildfire. The shock was great. His pride, his self-consequence were deeply wounded. When he was recalled from the Cape, he entered London like a conqueror, knowing that the verdict against him had been already reversed, and he treated the matter jovially. It was far otherwise now. He was unceremoniously called away from a Colony to which he had been twice commissioned in hours of stress and danger. He had been its Governor for periods amounting to fifteen years in all, at first with virtually uncontrolled powers, then with high authority and unequalled prestige, at all times the peer of the greatest in his special vocation—the rule of nascent communities in their relations with barbarous indigenous peoples. He had done great things for them and for the Empire—and this was his reward. ''The gods declare my recompense this day." Now he was superseded by one who was scholarly and cultured indeed, but did not possess a tithe page 161of his governing force. He was going Home in disgrace, and he would re-enter London like a condemned malefactor. He appealed to the Queen, whom he believed to be favourably inclined to him, and the appeal was heard. But his Sovereign, who had aided him before in crises of his fate, could no more help him now than Apollo could aid Orestes in the grip of the Furies.