With his brown subjects, Grey, after once beating them, trod the paths of pleasantness and peace.  The chiefs recognised his imperturbable courage and self-control, and were charmed by his unfailing courtesy and winning manners.  He found time to learn their language.  The study of their character, their myths, customs, and art was not only to him a labour of love, but bore practical fruit in the knowledge it gave him of the race.  So good were the volumes in which he put together and published the fruits of his Maori studies, that for nearly half a century students of Maori literature have been glad to follow in the way pointed out by this busy administrator.  Few men have ever understood the Natives better.  He could humour their childishness and respect their intelligence.  When a powerful chief refused to allow one of the Governor’s roads to be pushed through his tribe’s land, Grey said nothing, but sent the chief’s sister a present of a wheeled carriage.  Before long the road was permitted.  But on the all-important question of the validity of the land clause in the treaty of Waitangi, the Governor always gave the Maoris the fullest assurance.  Striving always to keep liquor and fire-arms from them, he encouraged them to farm, helped to found schools for them, and interested himself in the all-important question of their physical health, on which he consulted and corresponded with Florence Nightingale.

After a good deal of tedious litigation Grey was able to settle nearly all the outstanding land claims.  By a misuse of one of Fitzroy’s freakish ordinances land-grabbers had got hold of much of the land near Auckland.  Grey was able to make many of them disgorge.  His influence with the Maoris enabled him to buy considerable tracts of land.  By him the Colonial Office was persuaded to have a reasonable force retained for the protection of the Colony.  He put an end to the office of “Protector of the Aborigines,” the source of much well-meant but unpractical advice.  When Earl Grey sent out in 1846 a constitution prematurely conferring upon the Colonists the right of governing themselves—­and also of governing the Maoris—­Sir George had the moral courage and good sense to stand in the way of its adoption.  For this, and for refusing to allow private purchase of native land, he was bitterly attacked; but he stood his ground, to the advantage of both races.  Especially in the settlements of the New Zealand Company was the agitation for free institutions carried on with vigour and ability.

It is scarcely needful now to scan in detail the various compromises and expedients by which Grey vainly endeavoured to satisfy the Colonists, first with nominated councils, then with local self-governing powers; or how, finally, he completely changed front, went further than Lord Grey, and drafted and sent home a constitution which, for that day, seemed the quintessence of Radicalism.