Bath, with Waka Nene and Te Puni for Esquires. He was one of the youngest
K.C.B.'s ever nominated, being only thirty-six, and he just preceded his
old friend Sir James Stephen. 'It struck me as a great shame,' his
feeling had been, 'that one to whom I was so much attached, whose
services to the State were so much longer than mine, should be made to
follow me in the "Gazette." I could have cried over it.'

The notion of Esquires belongs, no doubt, to the truculent age when a
brace of henchmen were useful beside the stirrup of a knight. Sir George
did not revive them, in New Zealand, as a body-guard in any warlike
meaning. Herein, there possibly lay a certain disappointment for his
friends Waka Nene and Te Puni, both Maori chiefs of martial qualities.
The purpose was to identify the Maori people with a reward, which the
Queen of England had conferred upon her representative in New Zealand.
'It is not for me alone,' Sir George Grey put the honour, 'but for all of
us in this distant part of the realm. Therefore you, Waka Nene and Te
Puni, shall join in the acceptance, in proof that the Queen forgets none
of her subjects, no matter who they may be, or where they may dwell.'

This was a sprig of the policy which he felt must be pursued by an Empire
called to boundless limits. Did it rest its control of the nations,
successively adopted into it, upon their fears, upon a compelled
obedience? Why, it would but grow the weaker as it spread, until
eventually a time must arrive when, from its very vastness, it would fall
into fragments. On the other hand, if, as it spread its dominion, it also
spread equal laws, the Christian faith, Christian knowledge, and
Christian virtues, it would link firmly to itself, by the ties of love
and gratitude, each nation it adopted. Thus, it would grow in strength as
it grew in area, its dominion being an object sought for, rather than
submitted to impatiently.

Go into the engine-room of administration, and listen to the clatter of
yon modest pinion in a corner! That is, follow the avoidance of a peril
in New Zealand, which might easily have sown more seeds of race warfare.
There had been a mysterious, deadly tragedy on the outskirts of Auckland,
a retired naval lieutenant and his family the victims. The affair
profoundly moved the young community, having regard to the unrest which
had been rife in the land. Several natives were arrested as suspects, and
Europeans put it to the Governor, 'We sha