e 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 wh