'
It had been carried express from London, first overland to Suez where the
"Elphinstone" awaited, and then by sea to Adelaide. The British
Government, much alarmed as to affairs in New Zealand, borrowed the
"Elphinstone" from the East India Company. In effect, it was adopting the
Suez Canal route, long before the Suez Canal existed. Not often, perhaps,
did the Colonial Office, of the young Oceana period, have such a healthy
attack of nerves. Also, it spoke of Sir George Grey handsomely in these
despatches; which was encouraging.
Noting his career as a whole, you seem to perceive the scales of official
praise and disgrace rising and falling, like a see-saw. Now, he was being
set to the straightening-out of some twist in Oceana, to the healing of a
sore which threatened one of her limbs. Then, when Oceana, in that
quarter, was waxing strong on his regimen, Downing Street, not having
prescribed it all, would trounce him. The calls to South Australia, New
Zealand, and South Africa were in the agreeable key. The other note piped
in the good-byes to South Africa and New Zealand, and in the registered
blue-book phrase 'a dangerous man.' It was the ancient, merry way of
regarding the Colonies; with, in conflict, a masterful Pro-Consul who,
being on the spot, would there administer.
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