1878 - Wells, B. The History of Taranaki - CHAPTER XXVIII: THE TARANAKI PIONEERS

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CHAPTER XXVIII.

MR. F. A. CARRINGTON.

FREDERIC ALONZO CARRINGTON was born at Chelmsford, Essex, England, in the year 1807, and is the son of Captain William Carrington, afterwards barrack-master at Douglas, Isle of Man, whose father and grandfather were Senior Prebendaries and Chancellors of the Diocese of Exeter and cadets of the family of Carrington of Sponton, in Yorkshire. Mr. Carrington was specially instructed by the distinguished military engineer, surveyor and draughtsman, Robert Dawson, the father of Colonel Dawson, R.E., C.B., for the duties of the Ordnance Survey Department. He was appointed to office by His Grace the Duke of Wellington, Master General, and the Hon. Board of Ordnance in January, 1826. He surveyed tracts of country in Gloucester, Worcester, Hereford, Monmouth, and Glamorgan shires; triangulated, surveyed, and minutely delineated a continuous piece of country from Brecknockshire, through Glamorganshire, to the Bristol Channel. He revised blocks of original survey work in various parts of England, and--consequent on the Reform Bill of 1832--to a large extent determined on the ground and described for the Commissioners the Parliamentary boundaries of Boroughs in the districts from Bristol to Manchester. He compiled and reduced for engraving many of the original surveys, and minutely delineated in the field large tracts of country in different parts of England; he also, in the map office in the Tower of London, made the finished drawings of the Hills from Hertford to Halifax in Yorkshire for publication, embracing more than a thousand square miles of country.

In 1839, Captain Smith, of the Royal Artillery, who had then recently been appointed Chief Surveyor to the New Zealand Company, called at the Surveyor General's Office in the Tower of London for the purpose of consulting Mr. Carrington and his brother concerning certain duties devolving on him in his new capacity. In the course of his enquiries Captain Smith spoke in such glowing terms of New Zealand as to induce the young surveyor to desire to proceed thither, and shortly afterwards, by the advice of Sir Hussey Vivian, the Master General of the Ordnance, and by the offer of great inducements, he arranged to accept the appointment of Chief Surveyor to the Plymouth Company of New Zealand. It was arranged that his duties should be to select and found the settlement, and to purchase land for the Company, and that in addition to a salary of £350 per annum he should be supplied with rations for himself and family, and should receive the sum of 4d. per acre for all lands surveyed by himself and staff, and 1 per cent, on the price of all lands sold. Mr. Carrington

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sailed from London in the ship London, and arrived in Wellington in December, 1840. Colonel Wakefield having kindly placed at his disposal the barque Brougham, Mr. Carrington explored various parts of the coast, and under many difficulties selected, surveyed, delineated, and laid out the settlement of New Plymouth. Owing to the native difficulties which beset the settlement, and the differences of the New Zealand Company with the English Government, Mr. Carrington's services were dispensed with in 1843, and in 1844 he arrived in England. On the 6th of June, 1844, Mr. Carrington gave evidence before the Select Committee appointed by the House of Commons to inquire into the state of the Colony of New Zealand, and into the proceedings of the New Zealand Company. Mr. Carrington took to England a large and valuable collection of specimens and curiosities, consisting of bird skins, insects, Maori mats, models of canoes, war clubs, spears, native knives, nets, fish hooks and lines, musical instruments, carvings, coal, limestone, and marble, iron sand, and specimens of indigenous timber. These articles were exhibited at a soiree at Sir Roderick Murchison's house in Belgrave Square, London. The Prince Consort called to see the exhibition, and expressed himself much pleased with it. The marble was specially admired, and was pronounced to be superior to that of Carrara. The specimen was said to have been procured somewhere between the Waipa and the Mokau.

Mr. Carrington received the following testimonial from the Court of Directors of the New Zealand Company:--

"New Zealand House, 4th May, 1849.
"Sir:--Having laid before the Court of Directors of the New Zealand Company your letter of the 2nd instant, I am instructed to inform you that the Directors have much pleasure in stating that you were employed as Chief Surveyor of the Plymouth Company of New Zealand and the New Zealand Company for the Settlement of New Plymouth, from June. 1840, to March, 1844; that the sole cause of your leaving the service of the latter Company was the suspension of its colonising operations occasioned by differences (since adjusted) with the Home Government; and that the zeal and ability which marked your performance of the several duties with which you were successively entrusted in exploring the country, selecting a site for settlement, designing and laying out the allotments and roads, and in delineating the features of the ground, were at all times such as to call forth the perfect approbation of the Court.--I have, &c.
"T. C. HARINGTON,
"F. A. Carrington, Esq."

Prom 1844 Mr. Carrington was occupied in delineating and modelling country, superintending and directing the surveying, and getting up Parliamentary plans and models for Parliamentary Committees on projected railways, waterworks, and harbors in England and Scotland.

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So much did Mr. Carrington excel in the art of modelling country, that he received on one occasion at Buckingham Palace the approbation of the late Prince Consort for his works, and Sir Robert Peel and Dr. Buckland paid visits to his studio.

The Times of September the 5th, 1849, thus notices his model plan of the Midland Counties:--

"Mr. F. A. Carrington, of 10, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, has just executed a model plan of the Midland Counties, which as a work of art is extremely interesting, and well deserves to attract public attention and patronage. Upon this plan are delineated with the greatest accuracy the varying surfaces of that great district which stretches from Lincoln westwards to Congleton in Cheshire, from Congleton northwards by Manchester to Burnley, thence eastward by Bradford and Leeds to South Cave on the Humber, and from the Humber south to Lincoln. Within this parallelogram are marked out the sites of 46 cities and towns, innumerable villages, parks, woods, roads, railroads, and canals; the great natural watersheds of the country, and the sources and windings of the Trent, the Mersey, the Derwent, the Don, and other rivers and streams are also traced. The mountain ranges, the extent of plain, and the physical peculiarities of the country are all definitely defined, and a bird's-eye view of the whole is obtained so complete, satisfactory and simple as to distance entirely every other form of topographical illustration.

"In a military point of view such works as this are of incalculable importance, but in these days of agitation for peace it is doubtful whether, were such the only uses to which his labors could be turned, Mr. Carrington's ingenuity would meet the reward which it deserves. His system of surface delineation and plan modelling, however, has far higher merits. It is, perhaps, the best means that has yet been devised for regulating the lines of drainage, as by it the lowest levels of any given district can be determined at once, and thus the nearest approach be made to that natural law which guides the course of rivers, and renders them the great means for carrying off superfluous water to the sea. The present system of sections and contour lines gives but a partial knowledge of the character of the ground, inasmuch as the undulation can only be shown where the traverse is made with the level. To contour ground for practical purposes is also very expensive, and to do so in towns with strict accuracy is impracticable from the obstructions offered by the buildings. Moreover it is impossible on a contour map to discover the direction in which the lowest level of a district runs, and valuable and indispensable as sections are, they fail to supply that comprehensive and detailed whole which is so desirable in designing and carrying out any great work.

"We understand that Mr. Carrington many months ago offered to complete a model plan of the Metropolis and its environs, from Greenwich to Chiswick, for the sum of £4,500. He offered if ten or twelve copies were taken to do the work at 4d. per acre; and

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there can be but little doubt that such a model plan would have been most useful in introducing a proper system of drainage into the Metropolis. By its aid every Commissioner could see at a glance what ought to be done, and the new works might have been set agoing without all the delay and expense which have arisen in connexion with the Ordnance Survey. The Commissioners of Sewers rejected Mr. Carrington's offer, and thus an interesting-branch of art suffers.

"Mr. Carrington was fifteen years in the Ordnance Survey Department. He was also employed by the New Zealand Company in selecting and surveying some of their settlements, and the large experience which he has had in that particular department of art to which he has devoted himself, makes it a matter of public interest that he should meet with encouragement to persevere. His model plan of the Midland Counties has been visited and admired by many of the most distinguished and scientific men of the country."

At the great Exhibition of 1851, Mr. Carrington was awarded the prize medal for models of country.

From 1851 to 1856 he was employed in making three special journeys to California and other parts of America, and one to Paris and Belgium, for the purpose of reporting on speculative business connected with the London Stock Exchange, and respecting projected railways and contract works in Paris, and for the purpose of valuing an estate in Belgium.

In January, 1857, Mr. Carrington again left England with his family for New Zealand, with the view of erecting iron works, and bringing into commerce iron from the iron sands of Taranaki, making a survey for a harbor, occupying his own land, and managing the property of others as an agent. The native rebellion breaking-out shortly after his arrival, he offered his services to the Government, and was appointed engineer for the purpose of making roads in Taranaki. In September, 1869, he was elected Superintendent of the Province, which office he continued to hold till the abolition of provincial institutions in 1876. For many years he has represented the Grey and Bell district in the House of Representatives, and he is a member of the Harbor Board.

For many years he strove to obtain compensation for lands selected by him on the banks of the Waitara in the early days of the settlement, for Messrs. Sartoris and Downe, but which were first seized by the natives, and afterwards by the Government as a site for the town of Raleigh, and in the Session of 1877 he obtained his long sought object.

Sir Roderick Murchison has given the following testimony of Mr. Carrington's ability:--

"He possesses a remarkable faculty in delineating the true physical features of any tract, and I have no hesitation in saying that if I wished to be satisfied in my own mind of the real relations in detail of any piece of country, I should feel entire confidence in his faithful report upon it. His geometrical measurements may be most entirely relied on."

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Mr. Carrington also holds testimonials as to his professional ability from General Pasley, R.E., Major-General T. Colby, R.E., Colonel Mudge, R.E., Sir John Rennie, C.E., F.R.S., and from Sir. H. T. De la Beche, the geologist.

CAPTAIN HENRY KING, R.N.

The half-masted ensign on the flagstaff at Mount Eliot on the afternoon of June the 6th, 1874, announced to the people of New Plymouth that a chief had fallen, and the intelligence soon spread abroad that Captain King was dead. The deceased officer had long passed the usual bounds of human life, being at the time of his death in his ninety-second year. He was the, last survivor of those who took part in the battle of St. Vincent, and after fighting his country's battles he came out to Taranaki to do battle with the wilderness, a hale man of fifty-eight, an age at which most men seek repose. After his arrival he lived a second life of thirty-three years in the Colony, taking his full share in the arduous work, excitement and perils of a pioneer. At last his vital force showed signs of exhaustion, and on May the 30th, just a week before he expired, he was seized with paralysis of the throat. On the following Tuesday he revived, was cheerful, and even jocose; this revival however, proved to be but the last flicker of the flame of life, for he speedily relapsed into a comatose state, which ended in death.

Captain Henry King was born at Torquay, Devonshire, England, on the 7th of April, 1783. He entered the Royal Navy as midshipman on board the Namur, Captain Sir James Whitshead, on the 27th of November, 1795, being at that time but twelve years and eight months old. He was present at the battle of St. Vincent, which took place on the 14th of February, 1797, the Namur forming a part of the fleet under the command of Admiral Sir John Jervois, afterwards Lord St. Vincent. Mr. King served five years in the Namur, distinguishing himself by many acts of daring in connection with cutting-out expeditions, and left his ship with the rank of third lieutenant. He next joined the Canopus, Captain Sir G. Campbell. There, at the recommendation of his captain, he was promoted to a second lieutenancy. His next ship was the Ambuscade; after serving in her for some time, he was appointed to the Unite, a vessel which afterwards lay for many years as a convict hospital hulk off Woolwich Arsenal. He was invalided from this ship, having his leg broken in three places by the topsail tie falling upon him. On his recovery he was appointed first lieutenant of the Sea Horse, Captain, afterwards Sir Alexander Gordon, and served in her in the Potomac and at the taking of Alexandria in the American war of 1812-14. A number of merchantmen at Alexandria, laden with corn, cotton, and tobacco, requiring a convoy, the Sea Horse was ordered to perform that service, and successfully conducted the fleet through the midst of the enemy; for this service Mr. King obtained his promotion to the rank of commander, Sir Alexander Gordon, in his official letter to Vice-Admiral Cochrane giving an

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account of his operations in the Potomac, dated from H. M. S. Sea Horse, Chesapeake Bay, September the 19th, 1814, thus speaks of his first lieutenant:--

"So universally good was the conduct of all the officers, seamen, and marines of the detachment, that I cannot particularise with justice to the rest, but I owe to the long tried experience I have had of Mr. Henry King, first lieutenant of the Sea Horse, to point out to you that such was his eagerness to take the part to which his abilities would have directed him on this occasion, that he even came out of his sickbed to command at his quarters, while the ship was passing the batteries. The first two guns pointed by Lieutenant King disabled each a gun of the enemy."

Peace being shortly after this proclaimed, Captain King retired from active service. In March, 1852, he was gazetted post captain on the retired list.

On his retirement from the service Captain King went to reside in his native Devonshire, where he soon became actively engaged as a barge master on the Bude and Holsworthy Canal, conveying a shelly sand from the sea-coast to the interior, where it is extensively used as a manure. On the establishment of the Plymouth Company for colonising New Zealand, he was appointed Chief Commissioner of the Company, and came out to the Colony in the Amelia Thompson, arriving in New Plymouth on September the 3rd, 1841. Immediately on his arrival he was appointed Police Magistrate, his appointment being published by Governor Hobson's command in the Wellington Gazette of September, 1841. In consequence of the amalgamation of the Plymouth and New Zealand Companies, he was shortly after his arrival superseded in his Commissionership by Captain Liardet, R.N. In connection with his brother-in-law, Mr. George Cutfield, formerly a naval architect in Plymouth Dockyard, Captain King settled on the suburban section now known as Brooklands. Shortly after his arrival he took a voyage to Sydney, and returned with a cargo of cattle for the settlement in the barque Jupiter. After this he never again left the settlement. At an early period he was appointed Resident Magistrate, in connection with which office he acted as Government factotum for many years. In those days crime among the European settlers was so infrequent that he had to commit but one person for trial during ten years that he exercised judicial functions. The conduct of the natives, however, demanded of him the utmost amount of discretion. The handful of peaceful country farmers who at that time formed almost the entire European population of the settlement, neglected by the Home Government, poor, and defenceless, were at the mercy of a band of insolent manumitted slaves and returned refugees of the Maori race, and the threats and war-dances of these people were successfully met by the brave but judicious old Captain with the only possible effective weapon--diplomacy.

In 1852, Captain King retired from active life, receiving a piece of plate from the settlers as a token of their grateful recognition of his

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services. In March, 1860, the breaking out of the Maori rebellion necessitated his retreat from the pleasant villa at Brooklands within the lines of New Plymouth. On the 8th of February, 1861, his only child, Captain William Cutfield King, of the Taranaki Volunteers, a young man of great promise, was killed by a party of rebels in ambush, within sight of a garrison of British troops on Marsland Hill.

If the gallant deeds of this brave Naval officer are lost sight of in England in the midst of the galaxy of glorious achievements effected by his contemporary heroes, his peaceful, but no less honorable and useful services in the foundation of the Province of Taranaki will be honorably remembered in the Colony for ever.

MR. CHARLES BROWN, SENR.

Mr. Charles Brown was born in 1786, and was in early life a Russia merchant, but failing in business through the substitution of fringe whalebone for bristles, and the anticipation by Britain of a war with Russia, he devoted the remainder of his days to literature and art, and to the society of literary men. He was intimate with Charles Wentworth Dilke, John Hamilton Reynolds, Thomas Hood, Leigh Hunt, Walter Savage Landor, Lord Byron, and had brotherly affection for Keats. Mr. Brown was of Scotch extraction, the family tradition being that his father left Long Island with a Bible as his sole property, and proceeded to London, where, by wisdom, prudence, and industry he attained affluence and a good position in society.

In 1809, when Mr. Brown was 23 years of age, he composed a Comic Opera, which was performed at Drury Lane Theatre, and for which he received a silver ticket, admitting him for life to the theatre. The following is one of the songs of the opera:--

THOU ART ALL TO ME, LOVE.

[Sung by Mr. Braham in the Comic Opera of "Narensky; or, the Road to Yaroslaft," at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The Poetry by Charles Brown, Esq. The Music by Mr. Braham, London. Printed by Goulding, D'Almane, Trotter and Co., 20, Soho Square, and to be had at Westmoreland Street, Dublin.]

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In June, 1818, Brown and Keats started on a walking tour among the English lakes, and the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. During this tour Keats, who had an hereditary tendency to consumption, caught a severe cold among the swamps of the Island of Mull, from which he never thoroughly recovered. The summer of 1819 was spent by the two friends in company at Shanklin, in the Isle of Wight. There they amused themselves by sketching the beautiful scenery of the Island, and by conjointly writing the tragedy of "Otho the Great," Mr. Brown supplying the fable, character, and dramatic conduct, Keats the diction and verse. The two composers sat opposite at a table, and as Mr. Brown sketched out the incidents of each scene Keats translated them into rich and ready language. In August the friends removed to Winchester, where they shortly afterwards parted for a time, Keats remaining at Winchester and Brown going to London. A gloomy letter of Keats took Mr. Brown back to Winchester in September, and the two friends shortly afterwards proceeded to London. After reaching town, Keats ruptured a blood vessel in his lungs, and Mr. Brown was unremitting in his attention to him. During the winter Mr. Brown occupied himself with drawing. In February, 1820, Keats in a letter to Rice says, "Brown has left the inventive and taken to the imitative art. He is doing his forte, which is copying Hogarth's heads." On the 7th of May the two friends parted never to meet again; Mr. Brown determined on a short tour in Scotland, Keats being too weak to accompany him remained behind. After Mr. Brown had gone, Keats fancied that a trip to Italy would do him good. Mr. Severn, the artist and composer, agreed to accompany him to Rome, and the two set out on their journey, before Mr. Brown's return from Scotland. As soon as Mr. Brown heard of the increasing illness of Keats he lost no time in embarking at Dundee--this was in September, 1820, and he arrived in London only one day too late. Unknown to each other the vessels containing these two anxious friends lay a whole night side by side at Gravesend, and by an additional irony of fate, when Keats' ship was driven back into Portsmouth by stress of weather, Mr. Brown was staying in the neighborhood, within ten miles, when Keats landed and spent a day on shore. Nothing was left to Mr. Brown but to make his preparations for following Keats as speedily as possible, and

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remaining with him in Italy, if it turned out that a southern climate was necessary for the preservation of his life. On the 23rd of February, 1821, Keats died at Rome, having received the almost womanly care of Severn, and before his friend Brown could reach him.

A letter from Mrs. Dilke, to her father-in-law, in 1820, has the following:--

"There has been a wager between Dilke and Mr. Charles Brown. It was made on Christmas Day. The conversation turned on fairy tales--Brown's forte--Dilke not liking them. Brown said he was sure he could beat Dilke, and to let him try they betted a beefsteak supper, and an allotted time was given. They having been read by the persons fixed on--Keats, Reynolds, Rice and Taylor--the wager was decided in favour of Dilke. Next Saturday night the supper is to be given; beef steaks and punch--the food of the Cockney school."

Shortly after the death of Keats Mr. Brown retired to Italy, and took up his abode at Florence. On the 12th of November, 1822, he wrote to Mr. Dilke, "When Lord Byron talked to me of the Vision of Judgment I interrupted him, for a Blackwoodish idea came across my mind, with "I hope you have not attacked Southey at his fire side," when he expressed quite an abhorrence of such an attack, and declared he had not. There never was a poor creature in rags a greater radical than Byron. My qualms were satisfied much in the same reasonable way as they were executed, and my satisfaction will appear to you just as unreasonable. I was angry with him not for expressing an opinion on Keats' poetry, but for joining in the ridicule against him. He did so in a note forwarded to Murray, but soon afterwards, when he learnt Keats' situation and saw more of his works, for he had only read his first volume of poems and new out at the passage about Boileau, he ordered the note to be erased, and this, foolish soul that I am, quite satisfied me together with his eulogium on Hyperion, for he is no great admirer of the others."

In 1826, Mr. Dilke, with his son, visited Rome, and went with Mr. Brown to see Keats' tomb, which had been erected by Severn, then a rising artist, without permitting Brown to pay part of the expense of it. Mr. Brown was brought to tears, and young Dilke also cried. During his sojourn in Italy, Mr. Brown employed his time in writing for some of the London magazines, and translating. He was intimately acquainted with, and intensely enjoyed what has been called the frailer charms of Southern song. Ho hardly ever passed a day without translating some portion of that school of Italian poetry, and he has left behind him a complete and admirable version of the first five cantos of Bajardo's "Orlando Innamorato." He also to some extent followed art. The present writer has seen a series of heads, copied from Hogarth's "Rake's Progress," which was drawn at Florence in 1831, and so beautifully executed that he can fully appreciate the statement made by Keats while the two

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friends were living together at the Isle of Wight, that if Brown had taken a little of his advice he would have been the first palette of the day.

In 1833, Mr. Monckton Milnes met Mr. Brown at the villa of Landor, the poet, in the beautiful hill-side of Fiesole, and a friendship from that moment sprang up between the two which never ceased till Mr. Brown's death.

In the year 1837, Mr. Brown returned to England, and took up his residence at Laira Green, near to Plymouth. Here he edited the Plymouth Journal, and gave lectures on Shakespeare at the Plymouth Institution. These lectures he published in a collective form in 1838, under the title of "Shakespeare's Autobiographical Poems." The work bears mark of considerable ingenuity and research, and is an attempt to deduce Shakespeare's character and biography from his works. About this time he was busy editing Shakespeare's Poems. The chief task, however, which he set himself, was the publication of the "Remains of his friend Keats," few of which had escaped his affectionate care. The preliminary arrangements for giving them to the world were actually in progress when the accident of attending a meeting on the subject of the formation of a Plymouth Company for colonising a portion of New Zealand altered his plans and determined him to transfer his fortunes and the closing years of his life to this country. Before he left England he confided to Mr. Monckton Milnes' care all his collections of Keats' writing's, accompanied with a biographical notice.

Mr. Brown was so eager to engage in colonial life that he despatched his only son to New Plymouth by the Amelia Thompson, which sailed from Plymouth Sound on March the 25th, 1841, and followed himself in the Oriental, which left Plymouth on the 22nd of June of that year, and arrived at New Plymouth on the 19th of November. The stern utilitarianism of pioneer colonial life such as existed in New Plymouth in those days must have been a great, and we should think distasteful contrast, to the life Mr. Brown had led in London and Florence, among the elite of literature and art. It was, we believe, with the hope of benefiting his son that he took this step. After seven months' residence in the colony, he suddenly expired in a fit of apoplexy, in June 1842. Mr. Brown was buried on the brow of Marsland Hill, in New Plymouth, facing the sea. A large slab of stone was placed over his grave, but when the hill was escarped and fortified during the war this rude memorial was covered with earth, and only a few old settlers can now point out exactly his resting place.

MR. RICHARD CHILMAN.

Mr. Richard Chilman was born in London, on the 6th of May, 1816, where his father was in business. He received an excellent commercial education, and became a skilful penman and arithmetician. When a youth of sixteen he embarked for America, and after travelling through Canada, and visiting New York, New Orleans,

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and other places in the States, he returned to London, In 1840, in his twenty-fifth year, and having recently married, he embarked with his wife at Plymouth, in the Plymouth Company's pioneer vessel the William Bryan, and arrived at New Plymouth on the 30th of March, 1841. On the passage, Mr. Chilman received from Mr. Cutfield, who had charge of the expedition, an appointment as clerk, which he held under the successive agents of the Plymouth and New Zealand Companies until the New Zealand Company ceased its operations. He then commenced farming at the little farm on the east side of the Henui Paver, near to the Beach. Prom thence he removed to a suburban section on the south side of the Devon Road, and nearer to the Waiwakaiho. In 1849 he removed to Mangorei, where he cultivated a farm in the forest, and planted an orchard. A representative constitution having been granted to New Zealand, Mr. Chilman, in September, 1853, was appointed Provincial Treasurer, which office he held till March, 1861, when he received the appointment of Collector of Customs at the Port of New Plymouth. He was also appointed Provincial Auditor, Receiver of Land Revenue, and Acting-Paymaster of the Province of Taranaki. Mr. Chilman was an energetic settler, and took a deep interest in the progress of Taranaki. He was Chairman of the Petroleum Company, the Opunake Flax Company, and the Pioneer Steel Company. He was one of the founders of the Taranaki Institute, and held the office of Treasurer for many years. He was a Justice of the Peace, a Trustee of the New Plymouth Savings' Bank, a Trustee of the New Plymouth Building Society, Chairman of the New Plymouth Harbor Board, and Warden of St. Mary's Church. Having obtained leave of absence of the Government, he, on May the 6th, 1871, left the Colony, and proceeded via San Francisco to England, for the purpose of inducing English capitalists to work the iron sand. He took great interest in the running of the sand at the Henui works in 1876. Latterly Mr. Chilman's attention was chiefly directed towards the obtaining of a harbor for New Plymouth, and with this end in view he labored assiduously. Feeling his powers decline, he in 1876 obtained his superannuation, after which his constitution rapidly broke up, and he expired at his residence, Fern Dell, New Plymouth, on the 12th of March, 1877, in the 61st year of his age.