Perhaps Sir George Grey’s nearest passage with death, in Maoriland, occurred during the first war, but he did not learn of it until later.  ’I was,’ he said, ’in the habit every forenoon of riding between our military camp and the sea-shore, where the warships lay at anchor.  Having regard to the unsettled state of the country, it was maybe imprudent of me to do this, and moreover I was only accompanied by an orderly sergeant.  It seemed that some Maoris hid in wait for me in a valley, intending, I am afraid, to fire upon me.  Two things fortunately happened.  I rode down very early that day, and some turn of duty took me back by another road.  Then, it proved to be the last day on which it was necessary for me to communicate with the ships.  Good luck attended me, as I congratulated myself, when informed of the plot and its failure by a Maori who had knowledge of it, Upon what slight chances do things depend!  No, they only seem so to depend!’

As to Wereroa, it must be captured by strength of arms, or rather by a subtle use of these.  There could be no idea of attacking it from the front.  That would have been a funeral march for Sir George’s handful of men.  He devised the capture of a rough spur of ground which commanded the pa.  The Maoris built square to a hostile world, and forgot this height behind them.  If it should be attained, they were out-manoeuvred and helpless.  The British fighting men, with Maori allies, marched off to break in upon the rear of the Wereroa.  They filed past the Governor, shaking hands with him; the moment was tense.

‘Assuredly,’ Sir George remarked, ’the mission was not without danger, as what venture can be in war?  Only, my people must have felt that I would not put them to it, unless there was every hope of success.  That little parade brought up thoughts in all of us, and was very touching.’

The vital spur was captured, and with it a cohort of Maoris who were marching to relieve the pa.  The garrison of Wereroa were beaten by tactics, the most deadly of weapons, and they accepted the verdict.  The victory was the more complete, in that the Governor lost never a man of his tiny army.  It would be hard to aver that he did not, even as the grave Pro-Consul, love such an adventure for itself.  That tune sang in the blood.

Here a signpost is reached.  Thirty years had passed, since Sir George Grey waded into the surf where savagery and civilisation meet, stilling it for the latter.  The harness of empire on him, had been at full strain all the time.  He had come through the passes, alike in the conduct of wars, and in the higher mission of spreading light and happiness on the wings of peace.  But much sunshine had covered his track, and it was a light which would not fail.

     What think’st thou of our Empire now, though earn’d
     With travail difficult?

No, the cold hand of Downing Street intervened; his second Governorship of New Zealand slammed to a close.  It was an era when the Imperial spirit was niggardly, obscurantist.  Brushing aside details, it is easy to see how the servant and the official masters, choosing different roads, would ultimately part.  The ‘dangerous man’ was outcast, and thereon he said in ripeness:  ’If my going was equivalent to recall, I have nothing to regret in what I did.  Farther, I think history has vindicated my work as a whole.’