'Perhaps I shall live ten or twenty years, and look back and say, "I recollect how in '64 I really almost thought I should not last long." But don't fancy that I am morbidly cherishing such fancies. Only I like you all to know me as I am changing in feeling from time to time. There is quite enough to account for it all.'
A few days later he returned to Auckland, and thence wrote to me a letter on the pros and cons of a move from New Zealand. The sight of ships and the town he had ceased to think of great importance, and older scholars had ceased to care for it, and there was much at that time to recommend Curtis Island to his mind. The want of bread-fruit was the chief disadvantage he then saw in it, but he still looked to keeping up Kohimarama for a good many years to come. I cannot describe how tender and considerate he was of feelings he thought I might possibly have of disappointment that St. Andrew's was not a successful experiment as far as health was concerned, evidently fearing that I had set my hopes on that individual venture, and that my feelings might be hurt if it had to be deserted.
The next letters are a good deal occupied with the troubles incident to the judgment upon 'Essays and Reviews.' He took a view, as has been seen, such as might be expected of the delicate refining metaphysical mind, thinking out points for itself, and weighing the possible value of every word, and differed from those who were in the midst of the contest, and felt some form of resistance and protest needful. He was strongly averse to agitation on the subject, and at the same time grieved to find himself for the first time, to his own knowledge, not accepting the policy of those whom he so much respected; though the only difference in his mind from theirs was as to the manner of the maintenance of the truth, and the immediate danger of error going uncondemned-a point on which his remote life perhaps hardly enabled him to judge.
All these long letters and more, which were either in the same tone, or too domestic to be published, prove the leisure caused by having an unusually small collection of pupils, and happily all in fair health; but with Christmas came a new idea, or rather an old one renewed. Instead of only going to Norfolk Island, on sufferance from the Pitcairn Committee, and by commission from the Bishop of Tasmania, a regular request was made, by Sir John Young, the Governor of Australia, that the Pitcairners might be taken under his supervision, so that, as far as Government was concerned, the opposition was withdrawn which had hindered his original establishment there, though still Curtis Island remained in the ascendency in the schemes of this summer. The ensuing is a reply to Sir John Coleridge's letter, written after hearing of the attack at Santa Cruz:-
'Kohimarama: March 3, 1865.
'My dearest Uncle,-Many many thanks for your letter, so full of comfort and advice. I need not tell you that the last budget of letters revived again most vividly not only the actual scene at Santa Cruz, but all the searchings of heart that followed it. I believe that we are all agreed on the main point. Enough ground has been opened for the present. Codrington was right in saying that the object of late has been to fill up gaps. But some of the most hazardous places to visit lie nearest to the south, e.g. some of the New Hebrides, south of the Banks Islands. My notion is, that I ought to be content even to pass by (alas!) some places where I had some hold when I had reason to feel great distrust of the generally kind intentions of the people (that is a dark sentence, but you know my meaning). In short, there are very few places where I can feel, humanly speaking, secure against this kind of thing. It is always in the power of even one mischievous fellow to do mischief. And if the feeling of the majority might be in my favour, yet there being no way of expressing public opinion, no one cares to take an active part in preventing mischief. It is not worth his while to get into a squabble and risk his own life.
'But I shall be (D.V.) very cautious. I dare say I was becoming presumptuous: one among the many faults that are so discernible. It is, dear Uncle, hard to see a wild heathen party on the beach, and not try to get at them. It seems so sad to leave them. But I know that I ought to be prudent, even for my own sake (for I quite suppose that, humanly speaking, my life is of consequence for a few years more), and I can hardly bear the thought of bringing the boat's crew, dear good volunteers, into danger. Young Atkin, the only son of my neighbour, behaved admirably at Santa Cruz, and is very staunch. But his parents have but him and one daughter, and I am bound to be careful indeed. But don't think me careless, if we get into another scrape. There is scarcely one island where I can fully depend upon immunity from all risk. There was no need to talk so much about it all before.
'As to Curtis Island, I need not say that I have no wish indeed to take Australian work in hand. I made it most clear, as I thought, that the object of a site on Curtis Island was the Melanesian and not the Australian Mission. I offered only to incorporate Australian blacks, if proper specimens could be obtained, into our school, regarding in fact East Australia as another Melanesian island. This would only have involved the learning a language or two, and might have been of some use. I did not make any pledge. But I confess that I think some such plan as this one only feasible one. I don't see that the attempts at mission work are made on the most hopeful plan. But I have written to the Brisbane authorities, urging them to appropriate large reserves for the natives. I tell them that it is useless for them to give me a few acres and think they are doing a mission work, if they civilize the native races off their own lands. In short, I almost despair of doing anything for blacks living on the same land with whites. Even here in New Zealand, the distrust now shown to us all, to our religion even, is the result in very great measure of the insolent, covetous behaviour exhibited by the great majority of the white people to the Maori. Who stops in Australia to think whether the land which he wants for his sheep is the hunting ground of native people or not?
'I confess that while I can't bear to despair and leave these poor souls uncared for, I can't propose any scheme but one, and who will work that? If, indeed, one or two men could be found to go and live with a tribe, moving as they move and really identifying himself with their interests! But where are such men, and where is a tribe not already exasperated by injurious treatment?
'It was the statement for our mode of action which commended itself so much to people in Australia, that they urged me to try and do something. But I answered as I have now written; and when at one meeting in Sydney I was asked whether I would take Australians into my school, I said, "Yes, if I can get the genuine wild man, uncontaminated by contact with the white man." I can't, in justice to our Melanesian scholars, take the poor wretched black whose intercourse with white men has rendered him a far more hopeless subject to deal with than the downright ferocious yet not ungenerous savage. "If," was the answer, "you can get them, I will pay for them."
'Indeed, dear Uncle, I don't want more but less work on my hands: yet as I look around, I see (as far as I can judge) so great a want of that prudence and knowledge and calm foresight that the Primate has shown so remarkably, that I declare I do think his plan is almost the only reasonable one for dealing with black races. Alas! you can't put hearty love for strangers into men's hearts by paying them salaries.
'I think that in two or three years I may, if I live, have some preparatory branch school at Curtis Island. If it should clearly succeed, then I think in time the migration from New Zealand might take place. I do not think two schools in two different countries would answer. We want the old scholars to help us in working the school; we can't do without them, and the old scholars can't be trained without the younger ones, the material on whom their teaching, and training faculties must be exercised.