SIR GEORGE GREY.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 146, 21 November 1874, Page 4

SIR GEORGE GREY.

The Auckland correspondent of the Otago Daily Tim?s gives the following information regarding Sir George Grey :—lt may not be uniuteresting to your readers to hear something about Sir George Grey, as he is to most of the Otago people a perfect stranger. I need not say anything of his long connection with the colony, of his wide experience as a Governor, and of his acquaintance with the inner-circle of English official life, and with the leading politicians of the Liberal school. When in England, he stood for Parliament, but his Tiews being of an advanced character of the same tone, in fact, as those of his friend Mr Edward Jenkins—he retired in favor of a second liberal, who was put by local influence in the field against him. He took this step rather than split the votes of the constituency against his party. The whole of the proceeding are chronicled in Jenkins' Lord Bantam; the election scenes in which book are those of Sir George Gray's candidature, pourtrayed by Mr Jenkins, who was with him at the time. I have bad an opportunity of meeting a friend who knows much of Bir George Grey and of his pursuits at Kawau,aud who has only recently returned from a visit to that island. He tells me that he never saw Sir George more in earnest, or more aroused than by the prospect of the constitutional changes before us. For several years he has been leading the life of a hermit so far as general society is concerned. His chief occupation has been the improvement of bis beautiful, but by no means fertile, island, on which he has expended large sums of money. Kawau is about thirty miles from Auckland, and 10,000 acres in extent. It was formerly well known as the site of the operations of an English company, who erected smelting works and mined for copper on the island in the old New Zealand days. The smelting works are Btill there, and the copper ore abounds, but Is too poor to pay so far as yet discovered. Sir George Grey has paid no attention to it, but expends his ample income in importing rare trees and plants, and in putting the land into English grasses. The island is dotted over with labourers' cottages, and is a favourite resort for picnic parties on great occasions. In a beautiful quiet little bay the owner has built his house, and has therein collected what will form a very valuable addition to the Museum lucky enough hereafter to obtain them. Black letter books of the most rare character, and beautifully illuminated —an original Caxton of which the counterpart sold for £320 in London lately—fine specimens of block printing in valuable old books, and a rare collection of manuscripts, form part of the library which Sir George Grey has gathered about him. Among the manuscripts are some considered very precious, and of great historical value. There is a secret treaty between Cromwell and the Hanseatic League and other Prostestant powers, to uphold Protestantism in Europe in case of attack. This treaty has not, I believe, been ever published, and is doubly valuable because in the handwriting of John Milton. Among the signatures and seals are the name and seal of P. Lisle, the husband of the Lady Alice Lisle, beheaded in James the first's reign for befriending rebels. There are also draft despatches prepared for Cromwell's perusal, with the corrections to be made in them in his own handwriting. In one instance, complaining of the treatment from a foreign power as being " barely civil," old Oliver has dashed his pen through the milk and water phrase of his secretary, and substituted for it " hardly borne." In others he has, with a bold dash, erased whole paragraphs of compliment or useless verbiage. Then we have a valuable collection of despatches to Thurloe, Cromwell's Secretary of State, from Sir Philip Meadows. In one of these Meadows writes in the most artful strain to Thurloe. He tells the secretary that he has just had a long interview with, I think, the King of Sweden ; that the King is grieved to hear of the attempts made on his Highness's life, and of the troubles by which conspirators are surrounding him. Having gradually worked to the point, he quietly goes on to say that the King expressed his surprise that his Highness did not avail himself of the right to which he had so clear a claim, and shield himself from these base attacks by assuming the Crown of England, and the sacredness with which that Crown would surround him. Never was temptation more skilfully, more ci»nningly, put before any man than in the few fell lines of this secret despatch. The collection has been for many years Sir George's hobby, and no chance has been lost of making it more complete. On one occasion he heard of a sale of records and documents about to be made in Cologne, and sent an agent to that city, who succeeded in obtaining a fine collection of old Beals attached to the documents with which German students and mechanics had their visits to various cities formally attested during their Wanderjahr. Add to all this, a rare collection of books, of paintings, and of engravings of various epochs and various masters and you may form a fair idea of the mode in which Sir George Grey occupies the leisure hours after actively superintending the work on his plantation and farm.