Reminiscences of Early Days in New Zealand
Reminiscences of Early Days in New Zealand
Towards the end of the year 1842, the good ship “George Fyfe” (Captain Pyke), after a long but fair passage of five months, arrived from England at Port Nicholson (Wellington). She was slow but sure – the fast-sailing clipper was not yet invented. She was a vessel of about six hundred tons, and had on board a number of emigrants brought out under the auspices of the lately formed New Zealand Company, whose noble purpose was to bring to New Zealand a selected lot of emigrants of all classes, to occupy the land just purchased, or to be purchased from the Maoris, and thus found a model colony.
I was among those new arrivals, and so one of the pioneer colonists, dating from the early dawn of the colony. New Zealand became a British colony in 1840, and we were here in 1842, the Redwood family, four sons and four daughters, with their parents, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Redwood. The eldest son, Henry Redwood, afterwards the well-known sportsman, fitly called “The Father of the New Zealand Turf,” was then about twenty years of age. The second son, Joseph Redwood, never came to New Zealand. He was left a youth in London to complete his studies and become a veterinary surgeon. Afterwards for years he practised as a veterinary surgeon in the Army, and married, but died childless at Dorchester, England. Years before starting for New Zealand, my mother lost a baby daughter named Esther. The very youngest of all the family, by name Austin, a baby somewhat over six weeks’ old, died at sea, and was buried in the deep. Then I – the future Archbishop of Wellington – became the Benjamin of the family.
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My age, on my arrival at Nelson in 1842, was three years and a half, and I am now in my 83rd year (1922). My sister, Martha, the second by age, had married, just before the voyage, a Mr. Joseph Ward, well-known afterwards for many years as a surveyor in Marlborough, and some time member of the House of Representatives, Wellington. My eldest sister, Mary, married a Mr. Greaves, and died twelve months afterwards at Nelson, leaving to my mother’s care, a baby daughter, Mary, who died, to our great grief, in her grandmother’s home at the age of six months. Her father, Mr. Greaves, then returned to England and married again, bringing up an only daughter. I paid him a visit in 1865, shortly after my ordination to the priesthood, and saw his daughter a child about twelve years old. He died an opulent banker in Worcestershire. The other members of the family, Henry, Thomas, Charles, Ann and Elizabeth, married in due time and had families, some of them large families. – Thomas, Charles and Ann. Martha (Mrs. Ward) had a very large family, and, at one stage of their life, her eight sons, all well mounted on horseback, used to ride their ten miles to Sunday Mass, and were called, from the family home, the “Brookby Cavalry.” All my brothers and sisters are now dead, and I am the only survivor of the original family.
Our family came in the aforesaid ship as steerage passengers, because my father wisely determined not to waste in cabin comforts the money – a decent sum – which he had realised from the sale of his farm property in Staffordshire, and which he reserved for future needs and enterprise in this new country. But he made a capital arrangement in our behalf by having all his family together with him in the fore-part of the ship, separated from the other emigrants. This added greatly to our privacy and comfort.
In London, before starting, he had bought, on spec, fifty acres of what, from the description given by the New Zealand Company, he judged to be good land – and good land, excellent land, it proved to be. It had been surveyed only one year before, 1841, and my late brother-in-law, Cyrus Goulter, was one of the survey staff, and, be it said by the way, was very near being poisoned to death by eating a tute [tutu]-berry pie. After the repast, he went into a sort of madness, and afterwards came to consciousness again, by finding himself in the neighbouring brook. The poison causes its victims to instinctively make for water. All the party that partook of the pie were very ill,
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but all luckily escaped death. They were thus taught the poisonous nature of the seeds of the tute-berries . The red pulp round the seeds makes a harmless and refreshing drink, and, under proper treatment, is converted by the Maoris into a fairly palatable jam.
Well, the land was fertile and easily cleared, and my father resolved to erect his first New Zealand home upon it. Later on, he added some hundreds of acres to the original fifty. To build a substantial and comfortable house for so large a family was no easy task under the circumstances of those early days. Where were the stones, the bricks, the lime, the timber? They had to be furnished and soon; and, indeed, they were shortly forthcoming.
The land was situated in Waimea West, that is to say, West of the Waimea river, which runs into Tasman Bay, then called by Captain Cook, Blind Bay, because he never sailed to the Nelson end of it. It went for some years (at least a part of it) by the name of Massacre Bay, because Tasman, who in that bay a century before the arrival of Cook, discovered New Zealand, had two of his crew killed by the hostile Maoris, and this tragic event caused him to sail away out of danger as soon as possible. The river runs between the Rabbit Island and the Mainland, and at low water is shallow and fordable, while at high tide it forms a good landing-place about seven miles from Nelson by boat. It was at that time much used by boats and canoes.
My father bought the pine timber used to fit up the emigrant quarters in the “George Fyfe,” and a considerable quantity of good canvas. Then, with my brother-in-law, Mr. Joseph Ward, and my brother Henry, he went in a boat beforehand with these materials and other requisites, to set a tent on the small estate, later on called Stafford Place, for the fit accommodation of the whole family, while the house was in course of construction. The house was built of peasy, that is, a mixture of clay and gravel, and finished inside and out by a coating of white plaster. A lime kiln was built at Stoke, and elsewhere bricks were made for the chimney. A comfortable two storey house was the result, and for a number of years it was the best house in the Nelson District, and one which stood without a crack through the violent earthquakes of 1848 and 1855. The tent meanwhile was sixty feet long with sufficient width, and divided into compartments by
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boarded partitions, and covered with canvas; the whole well fastened by ropes to stakes sunk in the ground. In this we lived comfortably for six months. How did the family get there? We came up in the boat and walked through the fern and manuka for upwards of a mile to the site chosen for the house. It was rather a painful walk – painful for me, I know, as they dragged me tired and crying through the scrub. An amusing incident happened, as I afterwards learned. The party came to a small cleaving, and there were some native daisies in blossom. Now the wild indigenous New Zealand daisy is very small and insignificant compared to the field daisies of Europe. My mother seeing it broke out into this rather bitter and reproachful exclamation to my father: “See what a beggarly country you have brought us to – it cannot even grow a decent daisy.” She made a great mistake; for in three or four years she lived to see fine grapes ripening on the thriving vine near her parlour window – a thing not to be seen in the colder land she came from. I may remark, in passing, that the Waimea Plains were then very hot in Summer compared to their present temperature at its maximum. The clearing away of the scrub and the letting in of the cold winds, combined with the plantations of so many trees, and the covering of the ground with grass and general verdure, have lowered the temperature by several degrees, so that grapes will not now ripen except under glass.
Well, we reached at last the site of the new house. A well was sunk, near the tent, and, at a depth of 17 feet, excellent clear gravel filtered water was found, and with a windlass, rope and bucket easily procured. On finding the water the well-sinkers found also a totara tree right across the well, proving thereby that this plain had once been much lower, when the trees and logs, floated down the river, were afterwards cast by the tide upon the beach. The totara wood was in a state of perfect preservation.
When I sometimes visit the Waimea Plains, and consider what they are now and what I knew them in my childhood and youth, I am astonished at the change and progress they exhibit. I remember them without a single European tree of any kind, having the New Zealand flora exclusively. I remember the first eucalypt planted in Waimea West. It was at Doctor Monro’s place (afterwards Sir [David Monro). He was our doctor and lived at about a mile from us. His place was afterwards called Berecroft, and is remarkable for its extensive
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and valuable plantations of fine trees due to the doctor’s taste and foresight. We used to go occasionally to admire the wonderfully rapid growth of that eucalypt. It was still unique in the district when I left for Europe in 1854. When I returned in 1874, after twenty years absence, I found eucalypts all over the district of Nelson and Waimea, and they had already grown to a respectable size. A general idea had prompted the inhabitants to plant these trees in all their properties.
When I was a boy in this district, there were no larks (save the small native so-called lark), no sparrows, no blackbirds, no thrushes, no linnets, no goldfinches, nor finches of any sort. When I returned from Europe in 1874, I was alike surprised and delighted to find these birds already more numerous than I had known them anywhere in Europe. I sometimes say to myself What does a New Zealand child born in our day known [know] about the flora of the land of his birth? He sees all sorts of trees and shrubs in garden and field, and fancies they belong to New Zealand native flora, and were always here, whereas the real native shrubs and trees are entirely outnumbered by flora imported from many remote lands. I pride myself, owing to my early arrival in the Colony, in being able to pick out the genuine New Zealand trees and shrubs and distinguish them from the imported article. Again, there were no black swans here in my early days; they had also been introduced during my absence, were put in one island only, but soon flew across the Straits, and visited every lake, lagoon, and pool of any size in both islands. Also the deer, that now abound in the Nelson Province, were turned out, while I was in Europe, and it was my brother Henry that loosed the first imported pairs – stag and hind, buck and doe (that is, red deer and fallow deer) in the hills behind Nelson. They took to the back valleys, and were unmolested for thirty years, when they were found to be in considerable herds, and afterwards deer stalking and shooting became allowed by law.
Regarding the first cultivation of the soil, we found that bullocks were the best teams for breaking the land. Slower, indeed, they were than horses, but safer, not so liable to break the ploughshares against stubborn roots. They required of course two men one to hold the plough and the other to drive the team; and often it happened that one driver would bring in a dozen or two of New Zealand larks; killed by his Iong whip as they closely followed the plough to pick up the grubs. These nice tame birds soon became rare, owing to the
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ravages of cats. I have known a cat with kittens to bring in a day to her young over a dozen larks. A similar fate attended the native white-breasted robin, now nearly extinct on the mainland, also the victim of cats.
About eighty yards from our home, my brother-in-law Joseph Ward, built his new habitation of wood, procured from the forest that filled, barring a few clearings, the whole valley up to present Springrove and Belgrove, which valley tapering off to a narrow vale, was familiarly called the “Tea Kettle Spout;” and the South West wind, furious at times, blowing from that quarter, is still named by the old settlers the ‘Spout’ wind.
A year after our arrival, Richard Tomlinson, who had worked for my father over twelve years in England, became lonely, and determined to follow his dear master, and so arrived, well-nigh penniless, with his young family, at Waimea West. His coming filled my father with mingled surprise and joy. Richard was allowed to build a temporary whare on our land, till he could get land of his own, which he soon did.
He went to live on a section just within the aforesaid forest, where fine totara and pine timber trees were in hundreds. Here he built his first lowly dwelling, afterwards, when he had bettered his condition, replaced by a large house of best heart of totara and replete with every comfort. He got a mate and both began to split posts and rails, and to saw, in an ordinary sawpit, timber of various qualities. These articles were much needed and sold well, and so Tomlinson succeeded remarkably well. At first he was economical to an extraordinary degree, as I illustrate by the following funny story. One day I visited the family, and, on the mantelpiece, saw a number of objects about the size of a nut, objects dry and grey. “What’s this,” I said to Dick’s wife Dolly. “Oh only Dick’s quids.” “Dick’s what?” said I. “Dick’s tobacca quids” – she said – “he chews them first and smokes them afterwards.” This story which I brought home amused my father very much, and smiling he said: “With thrift like that Dick is bound to get on.” And get on he did. Years, many years after, he died, not a miser, but a happy prosperous grandfather, at the good old age of 85. How I used to like him, when he came to dig ditches for my father! He was so nice to children! “Of all the men,” – my father used to say – “I have known Dick was the best spadesman. To see him ditching was a revelation; he was a spade artist. Not a useless
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stroke did he give, every sod dropping just into its place with the greatest nicety, and the work true and beautifully finished. Why, he challenged the two best spadesmen in the neighbourhood, and did more roods of perfect ditching, in a long summer day, than the two men together, and easily won his wager. He was a short spare man, weighing not ten stone, but all muscles and sinew as hard and tough as wire.
We were three young brothers, Tom, Charley and I, aged respectively five, seven and nine, and there was no school for us to go to. How were we to be educated? My brother-in-law, Mr. Joseph Ward, was a surveyor and a good scholar. For a suitable remuneration he – when not away on survey business – undertook our schooling, and right well he did it. He taught us reading, writing and arithmetic admirably. I learnt my alphabet from Mrs. Ward, my sister Martha. I was rather long, they said, in mastering my A.B.C., but afterwards improved very fast and soon became, for a boy, a good reader, and I was also proficient in writing and arithmetic – in short, I was a well taught boy. And, what is far more, I knew my prayers and my catechism perfectly.
The site of our house was upon a bank overlooking a stretch of water like a stagnant river or lagoon, bordered on both sides with flax and toi-toi. From a narrow gully, about four miles away, near a wood of fine lofty timber trees, issued a streamlet that, swollen by the winter rains, sent along a considerable volume of water. It entered a winding hollow and formed some miles of deep still stream, which lasted through the heat of summer, and sometimes broadened out, at flood time, into a swamp which became a temporary lake teeming with wild duck. Now all that has disappeared, leaving only a dry hollow which gives no idea of the extent of water once there. I remember that, once in a flood, this water was used to float down a large supply of winter firewood to the homestead. At a later period, my father, to get rid of this water, cut a deeper channel near the swamp, so that the mass of water flowed away, and the whole aspect of the landscape changed. For years before this alteration, the stream remained, and in a narrow but deep part of it, just opposite the house, my father had a large Maire-tree stretched across the water, and with a rope fastened to a series of poles, formed a convenient and safe foot-bridge. Before this, my brother Henry used to pass the stream in a tub (one end of a cask) worked by a pulley and rope. What a source of pleasure that stream was
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for us boys! In it, at the age of eight, I taught myself to swim, and what pleasant swims we all had in it, summer after summer! Moreover, my brothers built a wooden flat-bottomed boat, to row and sail upon its placid surface, when needed for duck shooting, in flood time especially. Oh the happy hours we spent in that boat! How changed now! No water remains stagnant there, but flows on, under the hills, to the right, till its joins a clear, running brook which, between banks lined with flax and manuka, reaches the sea.
What, then, was the landscape like when we lived in that tent? In the far west were the snowy peaks of Mount Arthur, sixty miles off, and the range of seaward mountains. In the direction of Tasman Bay, you saw a dry dullish plain of fern and flax and scrub manuka with an occasional lily-palm. Looking inland, you beheld a range of hills fringed with trees, circling round what is now called “Redwood Valley,” terminating with a series of wooded gullies. Beyond the aforesaid placid stream was an arid stony expanse of native grass and dull thorn bushes, with occasional strips of flax in the hollows. No visible human dwellings, no trees, no shrubs to relieve the monotony. In summer the whitened grass was so scorched by the heat that it crackled under foot, and it swarmed with myriads and myriads of small grasshoppers, a terror to those who crossed these parched spots, especially to ladies. In the air other but larger grasshoppers, or locusts, over an inch long, were flying in all directions pursued and caught and swallowed by hundreds of large seagulls, catching them just as swallows catch flies. Not a vestige of all this is there today; but the eye delights in viewing homesteads and gardens and orchards and fine plantations of varied trees from Europe, Australia and America. It is a dreary desert changed into a paradise. Cultivation has entirely destroyed the grasshoppers by destroying their eggs.
How at first did we fare in that tent? What sort of food had we? We were never seriously in want. Flour and groceries we purchased in the newly-opened Nelson shops, and we bought potatoes from the Maoris, unless we found some imported from Tasmania; and in the brook we caught eels for fish diet. No fresh meat of any kind, except of various kinds of birds, shot as wanted by my father and brother. In the wood, about four miles away, pigeons were in thousands; we thought they would supply the colony for ever; and to-day their scarcity requires them to be protected by law. Talking
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of pigeons, it is no exaggeration to say that when the Kaikatea [Kahikatea] (white pine) berries were ripe, a man could sit under a Kaikatea and shoot pigeons all day long, so plentiful were they and so hard to scare. A hundred a day was no extraordinary bag. My mother availed herself of such abundance, to cook us the most delicious dinners, and, with the feathers fully preserved, she made for all the family warm feather beds for winter. God bless the pigeons while they lasted! They, alas! will never come again.
Wild duck of different kinds filled the rivers and swamps, and sheldrakes (commonly misnamed paradise ducks), were very numerous, now almost extinct. Many also were the pukekos and kakas. The grass teamed with quails, the original quail like the Egyptian species, now extinct, I think, in New Zealand, but still found and shot in parts of Australia. My brother Henry used to bring in twenty brace in an afternoon. They were pleasant to shoot, and on the table simply delicious, far superior to the present Californian quail. Every day, therefore, or as often as needed, the men used to go and shoot the dinner, sometimes one bird and sometimes another, in charming variety.
By degrees cattle came, followed in due course by sheep and horses. First came working bullocks already broken in to the yoke. My father bought a team of six for £60. He also purchased imported drays and ploughs and harrows etc., and set about cultivating the fifty acres, which were soon surrounded by a ditch and bank topped with manuka branches. Soon we got cows and welcome milk. Then sheep, then horses. Regarding horses, the Maoris afforded at times great amusement. At first they were amazed at the sight of a horse – they did not know what to call it – a big dog or what? They learned the name “horse” from the Europeans, but unable to pronounce the “s,” their best attempt was “hohio” which remains to this day the Maori name for horse. It was great fun (not for the unfortunate animals) to see the Maoris handling and riding their new steeds which they eagerly bought. How we used to see them scampering and racing up the valley on the way to Motueka! They would, on arrival, turn out the poor exhausted animals all white with foaming sweat; and, of course, in many instances, they caught a chill and died from neglect.
In reference to cows, a funny experience, which might have been tragical, happened to us one night in the tent. A neighbour had a white bull, fitly named Snowball. We had
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killed a calf, and part of its blood lay a few yards from the tent. Snowball, in his nightly rambles, came along, and, smelling the blood gave, as bulls will at blood, an awful roar, and our attracted cattle joined Snowball in the frightful concert. The women folk were scared beyond description, fearing that the enraged beasts might assail the tent and rip it to ribbons. The incident ended quietly and well, by my father and brother going out, with ready loaded guns, to drive the bull away. Such little incidents helped to sweeten the sameness of daily life.
For two years and more, having no priest, we could not assist at Holy Mass. My father began to feel keenly for himself and his large family the want of a resident priest, and he had made up his mind that, unless a priest should come from somewhere to visit us at least periodically and regularly, pending the time when we should have the blessing of a resident priest, he would sell out and go to Tasmania where he believed priests could be found. His anxiety was relieved by the coming of Rev. Father O’Reilly from Wellington with the Right Rev. Dr. Pompallier, Vicar Apostolic of Oceania, which included New Zealand. Father O’Reilly was a Franciscan capuchin, who, with leave and approval of his superiors, had come from Dublin, as a chaplain of Lord Petre. Once in New Zealand he determined to remain permanently, and he fruitfully spent his holy and zealous life in Wellington, where he was the first Catholic Priest to celebrate Mass, and he did so on the beach in the open air. Later he used to celebrate in a shed, then in a very small chapel, the historic precursor of the splendid church, St. Mary of the Angels, lately opened. To him it owes its name, St. Mary of the Angels, in Franciscan memory of the great Basilica of that name in Assisi, where Saint Francis died, and where he was born. In this first visit Father O’Reilly, whom we venerated almost as an Angel from Heaven, came up to Waimea West, and an appropriate room in our house became the hallowed place of the Holy Sacrifice. All the family – except those too young – gladly availed themselves of the long desired opportunity to go to their duty, and to all of us it was a day of real joy. Bishop Pompallier did not visit the Waimea, but remained in Nelson, where he was able to address the numerous Maoris in their own language. So I never saw a Catholic Bishop till I arrived, years after, 1855, in France.
When we had no priest, we took the right means to keep our faith lively, and our appreciation of religion keen. Every
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night we had family prayers in common, preceded by the reading of one of Challoner’s Meditations for every day in the year. On Sundays we dressed up just as if we were to attend Mass, and, in the morning, we had what we called “Mass Prayers,” that is, suitable prayers recited while we directed our intentions to some Mass actually being said somewhere in the world. In the evening, we had evening Sunday prayers – the Psalter of Jesus, or a Litany) etc., as a substitute for Church evening service. Father O’Reilly – God bless him! – was most faithful and self-sacrificing to visit us once a year; on one occasion he crossed Cook Strait, and came to us in an open whaleboat. Thus we had Mass and the Sacraments seldom but regularly, and that was no small grace.
At last Bishop Viard, my predecessor in the See of Wellington, sent us for our resident priest the venerable and beloved Father Anthony Garin, S.M. He resided at Nelson, in a house of English timber and removed from its first site, on other Catholic ground, to where the present boys’ school stands in Manuka Street. From Nelson his administrations radiated all through the whole of Nelson and Marlborough districts. Prior to this, he had been, for seven years, a missionary among the Maoris, in the vicinity of the Bay of Islands and Hokianga, and had endured every kind of hardship, as heroic missionaries in savage lands usually do. He had acquired their language and spoke it well. In English, when he first came, he was not so fluent, but he soon improved, and his sermons, aided by his sanctity, did much to instruct and edify his flock. He was indeed a saint, and attracted universal respect, and in many sincere veneration. He was one of that heroic band of the first Marist Fathers lately founded in France. He knew the glorious apostle and protomartyr, Blessed Chanel, and he emulated his apostolic virtues. To him, under God, I am indebted for my vocation to the priesthood, and all its momentous consequences in time and eternity. My Brother Tom had made his first Communion in England.
Finding that my Brother Charles and I knew our catechism perfectly, and seeing our age, Charles thirteen, and I eleven, Father Garin called us to make our first Communion without delay, and, to prepare us well, he took us with some other boys, the Sullivans and Dwyers, to Nelson and boarded us for a week in his own house, where we had a regular spiritual retreat – instructions and prayers every day. We made our First Communion on Christmas day, at the Midnight Mass,
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1851, and I was chosen to read the acts of faith, hope and charity, just before Communion. There were some Germans, the Franks, in Nelson, good Catholics, and they could sing. So the midnight Mass was sung by Father Garin and his little choir. We had spent our recreations during the week in decorating, to the best of our knowledge and power, under Father Garin’s directions, the little lowly, unlined wooden chapel (no larger than a good sized room) with ripe cherries and roses, making such sentences as Gloria in excelsis Deo, and such like. The little sanctuary was bright with flowers and redolent of their fragrance.
From that First Communion sprang my vocation, the first vocation to the priesthood in New Zealand. And it may be that I was chosen by God’s inscrutable mercy, because I was the most unworthy and sinful of the group. However that may be, I was chosen, and my parents soon approved of my desire to be a priest. But how was I to be educated to that holy and exalted dignity and state? I could begin my studies in Nelson, and rely on Providence to supply the future means of completing them in Europe. So I was put as a boarder to begin Father Garin’s boarding-school so highly appreciated for many years. That school had, in his mind, a two-fold object and valuable results. It helped him to live with the very meagre support derived from his very small congregation of Catholics in the Nelson district, and, as years went on, it did an incalculable amount of good by educating in a proper Catholic manner, a number of Catholic youths, who have kept the faith and spread it through the whole Dominion. The second boarder – not a Catholic, but a very good moral boy was George Bonnington slightly younger than I, afterwards well-known as a prosperous chemist in Christchurch, where, after his death, the firm still flourishes. His name is familiar throughout Australasia by his largely advertised “Bonnington’s Irish Moss,” his vaunted remedy for colds and coughs. In after years I used, as Bishop of Wellington, to pay him a visit unfailingly, whenever I came to Christchurch, which was then included in the Diocese of Wellington, and then we had some delightful chats about old times. He kindly, as a boy, taught me to play the violin, at least as a beginner. It happened this way: The Bonningtons, shoemakers by trade, had just arrived from England, and Charles, the eldest son, was a violin artist taught in London. In passing, I am happy to add, in his praise that, later on, he married a Catholic, and became one himself. He and his family afterwards went to settle in
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San Francisco, where, I am told, they prospered. Charles had taught his little brother the violin, and, at least in the first position, to play a number of simple tunes of which he had the music. I asked George to teach me, and he instantly promised he would, if I got another violin. So I borrowed one from a neighbour, and soon, under his tuition (he had been taught well) I was able to play as he did.
I had leave to go home to Stafford Place once a month. It was distant fourteen miles. I used to walk the distance at my leisure, and wade the Waimea River. I had no fear of water, being a good swimmer. Arriving on the Saturday evening, I was at hand to serve Father Garin’s Mass on Sunday, in our house, which then served as the only available church. On the Monday I walked back to Nelson in my own way, as Father Garin did in his, he visiting the people as he thought fit. I came home, one Saturday, with my fiddle in a green bag. “What have you got there in that bag, Frank” – they said. “A fiddle” – said I. “A fiddle, what do you know about a fiddle?” – said they. “I will soon show you” – I replied. And forthwith I began to play a number of favourite familiar tunes. It was a surprise and a revelation. My father was so pleased that, hearing of the artist, Charles Bonnington, he ordered me to take lessons from him, which I did. Afterwards, in France, I had a good professor trained at the Paris Conservatoire, and I won the first prize at the French College, St. Chamond, Loire, and became first violin in the, college orchestra.
In my serious studies for the priesthood, I practised the violin very little and occasionally, and it was only when I became Bishop, and wanted something to fall back upon in loneliness and stress of business, that I took to the violin again, and made it a pleasure and solace, particularly after I was fortunate to get a genuine “Strad.” George Bonnington never became a Catholic. He kept up his music and, for years was the leader of the Christchurch orchestra.
I spent, as a student of Latin and French, three years at Father Garin’s, 1852-3 and most of 4. During a part of that time Rev. Father Forest, S.M., came, to Nelson to recuperate after a severe illness, and he spent about a month at Stafford Place, in my mother’s devoted care. Father Moreau, S.M., was sent by Bishop Viard as an assistant to Father Garin, and he, in regard to teaching me French (while I helped to improve his English) did more than Father Garin, whose time was
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largely taken up by parish concerns. But the one who assisted me most in acquiring French was the saintly and ever-remembered Brother, Claude Marie Bertrand, who here deserves special mention and my expression of deepest gratitude. When the Marist missionary Fathers first came to evangelise Oceania, the supply of mere lay-brothers in the Society of Mary, at its outset, was insufficient. As far as they were available, these Marist lay-brothers went as companions and aids and cooks and tradesmen to each missioner. Prior to this, Venerable Father Champagnat S.M. had founded the teaching body of the Little Brothers of Mary (commonly now called Marist Brothers). Some of these were allowed to go as companions and aids to the departing Marist Father. It was on their part an act of heroism. Now, Brother Claude Marie Bertrand was one of these, and, in his own language, a good scholar, while he also knew Latin. I used to sit beside him in the long studious silent evenings, and, while he read his spiritual books, I studied Latin and French, and, many a time, when I knew not the meaning of a French word or found a puzzle in French grammar, instead of losing time with my dictionary, I would ask Brother Marie the meaning or the solution of the difficulty. Thus I gained much time and made rapid progress. At the end of the three years, I could read an ordinary French book without the aid of a dictionary, and I knew my French grammar, especially the irregular verbs, perfectly. I never had any trouble with them afterwards in France.
At harvest time I had to go home and do my fair share of work in the harvest field. Machine reapers and binders were yet unknown in New Zealand. The crops were gathered by hand. I was, for a boy, a very expert reaper with a sickle, and did my half-acre a day, or thereabouts, as well as the men.
Harvesting in those early days was quite Homeric in its main features and environment, reminding me afterwards of what I saw described by Homer on the wondrous shield of Achilles, the God-like work of Vulcan. There was the master of the field, staff in hand (Homeric style) in the person of my father, in the midst of his men and boys, directing and encouraging the reapers. There was the golden wheat gathered in sheaves and stooks. There were the workers round the festive meal, with abundance of good small beer, my father’s special brew for the harvest. There were my mother’s dainty cakes and fruit pies, and the soothing tea. Ah! I shall never forget that tea refreshment at four o’clock in the scorching summer
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afternoon. Nothing like it to allay thirst and mildly stimulate. Unlike the Homeric chieftain, my father often took his sickle and did his part as a reaper, and meanwhile regaled the company with a good anecdote or story.
Besides being poetical, farming paid well in those days. I remember distinctly that, one year, my father grew, in a hundred acre field just cleared and fallowed, a crop of wheat splendid to behold. It was taller than a standing man, and was reaped by men who had not to stoop. Afterwards the high standing straw was burnt. It yielded sixty bushels to the acre of the very finest sample of wheat – six thousand bushels in all – which my father sold for ten shillings a bushel, because owing to the Australian gold diggings, wheat was wanted at almost any price. With the money thus gained, my father bought an extensive sheep run in Marlborough at ten shillings an acre, the low price then offered to induce persons to settle upon the land.
I now come to a great crisis of my life, the decisive turning-point of my career. It was determined that I should go to France, study completely, and become a priest, the first fruit of the priesthood from this fair adopted land. But how had divine Providence provided the means? They were shown with unexpected suddenness. And in this wise. A small brig, the “Mountain Maid,” 150 tons, suddenly arrived from Wellington. She was not a usual trader at Nelson, but she came, because Providence had foredoomed her coming, though some emergency cargo was the natural allurement. Father Comte, a Marist Missioner, was on board, bound to Sydney and from Sydney to London. Father Garin saw at once the unmistakeable hand of Providence. He came to me and said: “Frank, Providence has acted in your behalf in answer to my long wishes and prayers. One of our Fathers is leaving the Maori missions for good, and is retiring to France. He is a Frenchman, but knows English fairly well. He will take you to Sydney and thence to France. He will watch over you, and improve your French on the voyage. He will introduce you to one of our colleges, where you can study and so in time, please God, become a priest. The vessel is to sail away on the third day from now. Make up your mind and seize the opportunity held out to you by God’s favour and mercy, will you go?” – I went to the little chapel, I prayed as I never before prayed, and I made up my mind to face the great sacrifice of home and parents and friends, and to go into an unknown land, guided, I felt, by the call and hand of God. A great, an extra
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ordinary grace was given me, and that grace was for life. I came to Father Garin and eaid [said]: “I will go.” “God be praised!” – he said. And now there is no time to lose. The brig sails in three days. I will prepare a letter for your father, who will come at once in his gig to Nelson, and we will settle with the Bank about your voyage to Sydney and France.” He prepared the letter and I prepared myself to start on foot as usual, but not on the usual day of the week. I started at about 9 a.m., with the letter, and I hurried on more briskly than usual to Stafford Place. I tried on arrival to compose my features and temporarily conceal my errand. My. sister Ann (Mrs. Goulter) happened to be staying with her husband at our house. At once she guessed the errand and exclaimed: “Frank, you are going to leave us, you are going to France, I see it in your face;” and she began to cry – womanlike. “Yes” I said, with tearless eye and firm voice – Grace helping me – Yes, I am come to wish you all goodbye, and I am leaving Nelson by the “Mountain Maid” for Sydney on the day after to-morrow.” Shortly after, I handed to my father the fateful letter. He read it; got his gig ready at once, and, taking my brother Charles with him, started with his fast trotter for Nelson, and there arranged all matters with the Bank. I had to wish goodbye to my mother, and in very distressing circumstances. A few days before, unknown to me, she had met with a bad accident while driving home with my brother Charles. They were coming full trot along a good road and, near a hollow, were passing close to a post and rail fence, and one rail being turned into the road, the gig wheel ran up it, and the gig was instantly upset. Charley luckily escaped unhurt, but the gig fell upon my mother’s leg and broke it. Charley got the doctor’s assistance as soon as possible and the leg was set, but badly set, so that my mother was lame for life. I found her in bed with her broken leg. Yet grace sustained me, and I did not cry even then. I resisted all thoughts of not going, as I would a temptation, by prayer and by turning my mind from them. She was a strong-minded woman, and consented to my departure, with tears, indeed, but resolutely, seeing in it the hand of God. But after some moments of reflection, she looked at the matter with her sound practical sense, and said: “But you have no proper outfit for a voyage to Europe. A few shirts and socks won’t do, how shall we manage?” And she thought awhile in silence. At length she said “I have it; I see a way to meet your needs.” Now, a young English gentleman, a non-Catholic, named Whitehead, had a
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fine outfit left at our house, while he was a hundred miles away learning sheepfarming at our Wairau sheep-run; for on that purpose he had become our guest. I used, for practise in letter-writing, to correspond with him, and we were firm friends. My mother said: “I will take what you want from Whitehead’s outfit, and replace it by articles of equal quality.” And this was done; so that much of my linen was marked Whitehead and some marked Redwood. And when, afterwards I was at college in France, the old French laundress said: “How’s this? Some articles are marked Whitehead and others Redwood.” “Oh,” I said,“ Whitehead and Redwood in English must mean to you the same thing. It’s all right.” She never asked another question; and Whitehead and Redwood served the same purpose admirably, all through my college course.
On the morrow, I left the dear old home, driven to town by my brother-in-law, Cyrus Goulter, and the most terrible pang, the most fearful wrench I felt was when, as I passed the last gate, I looked back at the old place. I shall never forget that wrench. All other wrenches – and I have had many – were nothing in comparison. But the great grace sustained me and gave me victory. I met my father returning from Nelson, and I bade him good-bye in the road, near Appleby, in a new road just cut and metalled through a swamp. I know the place to this day, and I never pass it without emotion. When Charley wished me good-bye he said “Frank, what a happy fellow you are to go and see the wide world.” He had at that moment no supernatural views like mine. I never saw my father again. On his death-bed he learned my appointment to the See of Wellington, but was too weak to utter a word about it. My mother, who died at 85, lived five years after my arrival in New Zealand as Bishop, and often saw and heard me; on one occasion, I had her, in company and care of Mrs. Tom Redwood, her daughter-in-law, for my precious guest for several weeks in Wellington.
The morrow, 8th December, 1854, was a memorable day for me, and a memorable day in the History of the Church, and the annals of eternity, the day of the solemn proclamation to the rejoicing world, of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mother of God, as an article of Catholic faith. On that day I bade farewell to Father Garin, who gave me the following sealed letter to be opened at sea.
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Nelson, Immaculate Conception, 1854
A.M.
My dear Frank,
I feel happy to think that you undertake your noble career at the time of the festival of Our Immaculate Mother. Such a circumstance puts me in mind that, fourteen years ago, on the very day of the Immaculate Conception, we were sailing off from Gravesend, to cross over the vast ocean and come to New Zealand; and I remember, we took it as a good prognostic, and were happy to think that our guide was the “Star of the Sea.”
I should feel lonesome, my dear Frank, at your departure from me, but I cannot but rejoice in thinking of your design. Oh! yes, your undertaking – and you will see it – will be envied by many a soul! Angels themselves would take it as the greatest favour. How do we not admire the dignity and honour conferred upon those heavenly Messengers, who, from time to time, were sent to deliver to men the Word of God! And when man is called by God to be invested with the same office, ought we not to consider that call as the greatest favour man can in this world receive? The Almighty, to condescend to our own weakness, has decreed that man should be governed and ruled by man; had men to do with God alone, or Angels, they would feel overpowered with the majesty and consider the command impracticable. What would soldiers do if, sent to fight by their King, or his ministers, they were left to their exertions and sagacity? They would have no heart nor courage. But if an officer at the head of a detachment, after having sounded the charge, opens himself the way at the risk of his own life, see how the soldiers will rush after him, under the fire of an enemy even more powerful ! Why? Because it is in the nature of man to follow his fellow. It was therefore, to condescend to our own nature that God ordained that man should be ruled by man.
Now, when man is called by God to be a leader of his fellow, God endows him with powers and grace to enable him to do it in a proper manner, and, because he himself is subject to the weakness of human nature, he must endeavour to make a proper use of those powers and graces. That he will do by a great humility and the spirit of prayer and meditation.
Yes, my dear, I feel happy at your calling, and I trust that you will answer the call by a great submission and docility to the directions of your Ananias. I cannot let you go
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without giving you some advice, because I, also, have been appointed by divine Providence to be, although unworthy, a guide for you in your tender years; and I must give you this testimony, that I found you docile in following my advice; so you must continue to do with the man to whom God will send you, as Paul to Ananias.
Your voyage to France will be like a usual voyage at sea. As you will feel sick for the first few days, so also you will likely feel a little sick on the first day of arrival at the place of your studies; such a sickness is not in the body but in the mind, a sort of loneliness, that students always feel on the first days of their entry at the college, and it is caused by the separation from relations and friends; but that will not last long and you will bear it easily, because you know it will likely be the case; as at sea you will have fine days and bad days, so you must expect to have at the college such feelings at times; by times you will feel quite happy in your mind and some other times dull; because you go into a different country and among people of different tongue and habits, you must never take in bad part what children or youth cannot conceal; their nature is to laugh at everything, but when you see that it is not with bad intentions, nor with a spirit of mockery, you must not mind it at all, the best you have to do is to laugh with them. I never took in bad part such little trifles, as you could remark it several times even among yourselves. Such differences will make you appreciate more and more the beauty of a religion which unites in one faith and one heart nations which differ in so many other ways, habits and manners.
At sea, sometimes a storm arises when not expected and seems to carry the vessel against the rocks, so if, when you do not think of it, a storm arises in the mind, if a violent temptation arises either against morals or against faith, imitate that prudent and wise captain who, in the storm, keeps quiet, looking at the compass, firm at the rudder; be quiet, look up to heaven, be firm and stick to the principles of the Church, our rudder.
If you have to travel by yourself alone, there is no occasion to say what you are going to do, unless you would think it necessary. It is enough to satisfy the curiosity of persons, who may ask you questions, to say that your business calls you to France.
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In any circumstances keep up to your prayers and spiritual reading. But when you will be for sometime out of the troubles of shifting from one place to another, as when on board of the vessel, rule your time so as not to spend it disorderly. So you might dispose it in this way or approximately. For your getting up in the morning, see what hour may be the most proper, so as not to give too much to sleep or too little; when you have fixed your hour to get up, keep it regular; this is most important, for if you do not keep it, all your other exercises of the day will likely suffer.
When you are up and have washed yourself, say your prayers, then give a quarter of an hour, or at least ten minutes to meditation. If you get up early, as I think is most wholesome, and before there is any noise upon the deck, it is a most precious time for meditation, as the sight of the ocean brings more to the mind the idea of the greatness, majesty and power of God, as well as the meanness and weakness of man.
After your prayer and meditation, you may read some instructive book; after breakfast take some recreation for one or two hours; then you might either write exercises or translations of English into French; after the lunch take also some recreation for two or three hours, then read or write some thing. At night read a spiritual book for a quarter of an hour, say your Rosary and night prayer, and go to bed early at eight, never after nine o’clock.
But you will be better able to regulate your time according to circumstances as they may occur, than I can tell you. The principal is to keep to it when once regulated.
If you are by yourself alone, you may ask the Captain if, upon Fridays, he could get you fish or something else instead of meat, but, if there is any difficulty, you may eat flesh meat, and say some prayer, as a penitential work, for instance, the “Miserere.”
If you are in company of Protestants, avoid arguing with them, avoid controversy; you may, by a general answer, cut short with them, for instance: that it is safer to believe what was believed for 15 Centuries by the Church founded by Christ Himself and governed by thousands of bishops who according to the Gospel were appointed by the Holy Ghost to rule the Church, than to believe the opinions of a few individuals who came without any authority.
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If you are in company of Frenchmen, remember that among the French there are many good Catholics, but that there are also many infidels, whose company is most dangerous.
If you are on board of a vessel, do not accept wine of others, unless through need, and do not offer them the same; there are some inexperienced persons who lose a great deal of money, and, more than money, their souls.
Farewell, my dear, pray for me, trust in God.
Anthony Garin AP. Miss.
I put this beautiful, timely, affectionate and wise letter into my coat pocket, and leaving the presbytery, went to bid good-bye to the relations and friends who happened to be in Nelson, among them my sister Betsy, (Mrs. Bolton), whose husband accompanied me with several friends to the Nelson harbour, about 3 p.m.
Captain Cross, the pilot, a splendid specimen of a British captain, had previously taken out the “Mountain Maid,” with Father Comte on board, at high tide; and she was riding hove to beyond the Boulder Bank. The captain of the brig, by name Peacock, had waited on shore with the crew of the pilot’s whaleboat, in order to go on board at the last moment, and then, after wishing the pilot good-bye, to let him return ashore in his own boat. I went with the captain. As the tide was full, we crossed the Boulder Bank by a narrow boat passage (now widened and deepened into the present ship-passage of the Nelson Harbour). There was a north-west breeze blowing, and the boat, once in the bay, rocked very uncomfortably for me, who had not been at sea since I arrived as a child in New Zealand. An internal revolution of my vitals was the consequence; I felt faint and ill. After rowing a mile or so, we reached the brig and I in my turn climbed the rope ladder. Her motion was worse for me than the boat’s. The steward welcomed me, and, seeing me pale, said: “Would you like a glass of sherry, sir? I did not know whether sherry was good for seasickness or not, and, boylike, replied: “Thank you.” The sherry came, I put it to my lips, and instantly away went sherry and everything else into the sea. I was sea-sick down right. I shook hands with the pilot; and, twenty years after, in 1874, when as Bishop I made my first visit to Nelson, Captain Cross, still pilot, was proud to tell everybody that he was the last man in Nelson to shake hands with me as a schoolboy, and the first to shake hands with me as a Bishop. He fired a
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cannon from the flagstaff in my honour, and got blamed for it; but he said he would do the like again if any man from Nelson returned to honour Nelson as Frank Redwood had done. Sea-sickness, loneliness, grief, and the reaction after my trying efforts to bravely depart, brought on some agonising moments; but I bore them as a penance, and as a necessary trial, and was soon in inward peace again. Fit after fit of sea-sickness was endured, and, on the third day, far out on the ocean, I was retching in vain, and nothing would come up, when a kind old sailor passed by and said to me. “Sir, my lad, you have got enough up, you must now keep something down.” “I would if I could” said I, – “what am I to do?” “Look here, sir” he said. “Go and ask the steward for a nobbler (dram) of brandy; soak in it a piece of sea-biscuit; swallow the biscuit; that I think will stick.” I did as he directed, and I felt my stomach instantly settled, and myself quite cured of sea-sickness, from that day till my arrival in London. Having now got my sea-legs, I enjoyed the trip. We reached Sydney, eleven hundred miles, in eleven days, a very good passage. We had some head winds, but generally they were fair. One night we met a severe thunderstorm, and the sudden passage, again and again, from the sight of the raging sea, under the lightning flashes, to the instant pitchy darkness was for me awful and appalling.
We entered Sydney Harbour in a beautiful clear, summer, starry night, and reached the anchorage at 11 p.m. At the Heads the porpoises were playing merrily round the vessel a novel sight for me. As the captain wanted all hands to get the brig ready for anchorage, he told me to hold the wheel for a while till he would come and change the course. It was an honour and a trust for a boy of fifteen. Sydney Cove (now called Circular Quay) was where we anchored at fifty yards from the land. It had no jetty or quay, no wharf. We stepped from the boat on to the bare rugged rocks.
We landed at 9 a.m. on the 20th December, 1854. Sydney was not much of a city then, not comparable to Wellington of to-day. I walked one day up George Street, which had no really fine buildings, right out to the Brick Fields (now Anthony Hordern’s great store), and beyond into sandhills. The south-west wind comes from that quarter, bringing alternate thick dust or heavy rain, and hence is called the “Brick-fielder.” The present Hyde Park had then its name, but was only a large enclosure of gum trees, with grass at that season
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parched by the drought till it crackled under foot. Woolloomooloo was a houseless forest. North Shore was covered with trees and scrub. The Botanic Gardens, already beautiful by their site and contents, extended to the harbour, ending in rocks – no enclosing wall nor reclaimed land in those days. It had, even then, some noble and conspicuous Norfolk Pines, high already, but now very lofty and over a century old, with promise of many a year more. Sydney had no wharves of any consequence, only jetties, where lighters from the ships out in the harbour discharged their cargoes. No steamers then in Sydney, save a small paddle-steamer plying between Sydney and Parramatta, to which place a railway was in course of construction. In that steamer with some Marist Fathers, who kindly met us at the landing place, Father Comte and I went to old Villa Maria, now replaced by the present Villa Maria at a mile’s distance. From where the steamer landed us to old Villa Maria was about a mile. The site of old Villa Maria has now silted up, and the small inlet of the sea near which it stood has disappeared, in fact, the place is unrecognisable. The present Villa Maria occupies, I think, the spot where the French Consul’s house was situated. I remember that, one day, passing by that place with my gun, I shot a flying Australian pidgeon, so different from our New Zealand specimen in size and plumage.
During my month’s stay with the Marist Fathers, they gave me the use of a good double-barrelled shot-gun, with no stint of powder, caps and shot, and told me to enjoy myself in the surrounding wild woods to my heart’s content. Good shot as I was (all the Redwoods are), and fond of the gun, what could a boy want more? Provided I was in for meals and bedtime, I had the day to myself, and I roamed through that virgin forest, admiring as I went along the successive huge anthills, and shooting every bird I could find, which birds a neighbour naturalist was glad to stuff, when they were not too mangled by shot. On Saturdays, a Mr. Ellis (a young gentleman of twenty) used to come from Sydney, bringing his rifle, and then we had target practice on a selected tree. That same Mr. Ellis, as regularly as clockwork, continued, for over thirty years, to so spend his Saturdays and Sundays with the Marist Fathers, thus acquiring a perfect practical knowledge of the French language, and keeping out of city dangers. He lived and died an excellent Catholic, and he never married. He was a successful and opulent lawyer. I shall never forget the too short hours I spent in his genial company.
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I spent Christmas Day in Sydney. The finest building in Sydney was St. Mary’s new Catholic Cathedral, since burnt down and replaced by the present splendid fane now in course of completion. Little at that time did I think that I should be privileged to preach the opening sermon, in 1882, at the Triduum celebrated by Archbishop Vaughan. Old St. Mary’s was a gothic church of stone, with some features of beauty, and its lofty polished cedar pillars were a novelty, and gave much dignity to the interior, which also had many stone statues, the work of a Benedictine, John, father or brother, I don’t remember which. As I had been introduced to the Sydney clergy in the quality of an aspirant to the priesthood, I met with a hearty welcome at their hands. Archbishop Polding was away in Europe, so I never saw him. I was provided with a bedroom in the presbytery, and, on Christmas Day, dined with the clergy, to the number of about a dozen. There was a capital peal of bells in old St. Mary’s towers, and they rang out “Adeste Fideles” shortly before midnight. There was also an organ, at the midnight Mass, and, as I had never heard an organ before, I found it delightful, a sort of musical thunder, when at full power.
After a very pleasant month, despite some very hot days when the thermometer registered 112 degrees in the shade, spent with the Fathers at old Villa Maria, Father Comte and I went to fix up our cabins in the “Lady Ann,” the ship we selected to take us to London. She was a new wooden ship, 900 tons, declared A1 at Lloyd’s for 13 years, which meant a ship guaranteed perfectly seaworthy for that period of years.
I took a first class passage to London for £70. We were eleven passengers all first class (no ladies, as it happened); nine of the party being young gentlemen returning to Europe after making their fortune at the gold diggings of Ballarat and Bendigo. They were a very steady lot. As regards drink we were, on the strength of our passage ticket, treated most liberally, and no one ever abused that liberality by imbibing to excess. There was brandy, gin, rum, beer, port and sherry and (in the tropics) claret wine – all gratuitous at discretion; and, on festivals, or when something unusually lucky had happened in the course of the day, the captain (by name Dixon), like a father at the head of his family table, stood first rate champagne all round.
In those days it was customary, before embarking, for intended passengers to go beforehand on board the ship and get
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their single cabins fitted up, at their pleasure, by the ship carpenter; and, if afterwards on the voyage the arrangement was not found satisfactory, the carpenter was always at hand to make required changes and improvements. So Father Comte and I fixed up our cabins in that way, and also the cabin of Father Fonbonne S.M., an invalid Marist Missionary returning to France, where I, in after years, met him as chaplain to a community of nuns at Sainte Foy-les-Lyon (Rhone) France. He kept to his cabin and bed for the first month of the voyage. He could not speak English, but I practised speaking French with him. He was very kind and gentle, and, in the beginning, suffered considerably.
As l, being absolutely free from sea-sickness and strong in body for a boy, wanted to climb the rigging, and go aloft wherever ropes and ladders go, and have experience in that line, I spoke to the captain and asked him leave to do so. The captain was a kind man of advanced years, a married man with his family in Europe, and a perfect, seaman, having risen a boy from the mast to his present position. He said “You may go aloft in due time at your own peril, if you like; but you must first pay your footing, else the crew will play tricks on you as an intruder, and, perhaps, tie you up aloft” “What means paying your footing?” I asked. “Why, giving all the crew – he replied – a treat in rum, by a liberal increase of their daily allowance. I will tell you how and when.” The crew comprised 36 men. “How many bottles – I asked – will be required?” “About 16, not at once, but on two fit occasions, eight bottles each time, just enough to cheer them. We shall soon be in rough weather, and I will tell you when your treat will be best relished.” I had plenty of money from my father. So I went to the steward and got 16 bottles of rum, excellent rum and cheap, for it paid no duty, not leaving the ship. All came about as the captain foretold; the men got their treat, and I earned their goodwill and friendship. They taught me how to climb about without undue danger, and in a seaman-like, manner. What happy hours and hours I subsequently spent in that rigging! how delightful in the tropics, with my foot round a ladder-cord, and a book in my hand, to sit behind a sail cool in the breeze and shade! One day, in answer to the captain’s request prompting me to find out how many ships I could from aloft see becalmed like ourselves near the Equator, I counted 19, some of them with the tops of their masts peeping over the line of the horizon. I spent the days of the voyage (103 to Gravesend) very pleasantly, varied with
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prayer, meditation, study and a liberal amount of recreation according to the regulation suggested in Father Garin’s letter. The captain liked to play draughts with me; and thereby hangs a tale. An old soldier at Father Garin’s in Nelson, a first rate draughtsplayer, had taught me the game, and taught me well. He put me up to such secrets and combinations as few persons ever know. I was therefore immeasurably superior to the captain, a mere ordinary player. One day I beat him six games in succession and, in a fit of vexation, he pitched the board into the sea as being unlucky. On reflection, however, a fresh board was soon, on the captain’s order, made by the carpenter, and we played again. I had seen my mistake, and resolved to, make it no more. I could win every game if I thought fit; but I took good care never again to beat the captain more than one game at a time, and often not even that. And so we were the best of friends. He thought his wins genuine, and I quietly chuckled at his harmless deception and pleasurable wins.
As we had all passed the Equator, at least once before, we had not the usual ceremonies and sports got up in honour of Neptune, regarding those persons who cross the Line for the first time, and who have to pay tribute to the majesty of the old surly sea-god.
Some events on the trip deserve mention and description. On the 23rd January, the sixth day after leaving Sydney (17th January), we were suddenly caught in a terrific squall, about the latitude of New Zealand. It happened as follows: A strong fair wind was on our quarter, and every stitch of canvas was drawing; we were running 13 knots an hour, as the log told us, just as we went to dinner at 6 p.m.. We were joyous and elated, and the captain in his very best humour. At dinner, he stood champagne for the first time on the voyage, and we were all as merry as a lark. The first mate had charge of the ship during the dinner. Now, he was a reckless kind of fellow, and loved to carry on and force the ship along, heedless of danger, wind or weather. He overlooked the coming squall. After dinner, just as we got on the poop, the squall struck us with the suddenness of a ball from a cannon, amid thunder, lightning and rain. The captain shouted to the men to cut away the sheets holding the sails, and thus ease the strain – too late! There, was only one man at the wheel. In the terrific rush through the water, he was unable to control the rudder, and the ship turned broadside to the wind, and over she heeled on her beam-ends. We were tossed as from a
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catapoult against the lower bulwark. Again she heeled deeper still, and down came the main topmast broken in the middle, and it and the topsail with other rigging crashed into the sea, while all the studding-sail booms were snapped asunder, and every sail ripped to ribbons. Had the ship not been so well laden and deep, she would have turned turtle and been lost. All this happened much quicker than I can tell it.
Our elation was changed into sorrow and anxiety. What a wreck we looked! But the squall was over, and only a good fair breeze remained. Means were immediately taken to lift the topmast and other wreckage upon the deck. Fresh sails, were got out and set, and before midnight we were running ten knots an hour under all available canvas. Next day a spar was unloosed from the deck, and the carpenter began to shape it into a topmast. All things were repaired by degrees and soon; the new topmast was set up at sea, with what skill I need not say, and, in ten days, the ship was all right as though just coming out of port. We rounded Cape Horn, despite the delay of the accident, in twenty-nine days, a fast passage.
As it was summer, the captain, to obtain strong winds, went very far south of Cape Horn, down to the 57th degree of south latitude, and alas, found the ship unexpectedly surrounded by huge icebergs, which had floated up north two degrees since his last passage. Some of these bergs were three hundred
feet high and a couple of miles long, with their blue sides and their roof of snow. The danger was very great at night. Sailing due north we took four days to leave these icebergs safely behind. Though it was February and still summer, the cold became intense, and we had no fire except in the galley; and, one night, after rain, the sails were frozen stiff as buckram. The only means to keep us warm was exercise in the day and a hot drink before going to bed. One day we had to go ten miles out of course to windward of one huge berg and its debris. Providentially we sighted none during the night, despite the very sharp lookout – men searching the sea with glasses to distinguish the regular ocean waves from waves breaking over ice. We thanked – at least I did – the “Star of the Sea” for our preservation.
As a venturesome boy I longed to see a real tempest. Well, we got one about two hundred miles to the west of the Cape of Good Hope, and, for three days and nights, laboured in a sea with mountainous waves appalling to behold and feel. The decks were washed again and again with water three feet
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deep, and more at times. One huge wave, early in the gale, was shipped into the foresail and ripped it to shreds. The ship behaved well, and, under close reefed topsails, gallantly rode the gale. No food could be cooked, the galley being deluged with water.
We lived for three days on biscuits, cheese, and cold diet, passed round to us individually, for we could not sit at table, so fearfully was the ship tossed. To go from the cabin to the poop was an adventure full of peril. Most of us were soused in the attempt. I was washed off my feet, and swam from side to side till I was able to clutch something, and come out unhurt. I was lucky not to be dashed against a hard thing and hurt, perhaps killed. The ship came out of the gale with comparatively little damage; but I was cured for ever of my longing for a storm at sea.
On Easter Sunday, 8th April (my birthday), I was sixteen years of age. We had a delightful time in the fair south-east Trade winds, running about 12 knots an hour, for a fortnight with hardly the change of a sail, and all our canvas spread. But when we neared England we met with strong north-east head winds, and what we gained by tacking we lost by leeway. For over ten days, we kept tacking here and there, between Cork and Bordeaux, unable to enter the English Channel. At last we reached Land’s End, and the pleasant smell of the land was very perceptible. We had been 93 days without sighting land. While lying almost becalmed, about ten miles from land, we sighted the “Vaimira,” a ship which left Sydney eight days before us, and about which our captain had bet her captain a dozen of champagne that he would arrive at Gravesend before her. It was a race up the English Channel, in light or head winds, for eight days – what is done by steamers in a few hours. We anchored at Gravesend after a passage, of 103 days, on 1st May, and we were towed next day to St. Katherine’s dock, London. We found that we had beaten the “Viamira” by ten hours; so our captain won his wager, and I trust he enjoyed his champagne.
On our way up the Thames we passed close to one of those vessels, or rather batteries, which were being built for Cronstadt, during the Crimean War. We also saw the huge hull of the “Great Eastern,” 10,000 tons, then in course of construction. A few day afterwards one of the batteries caught fire and was burned to ashes.
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We stayed for about a week with the Marist Fathers, at St. Ann’s, Spitalfields, during which time we went to the Crystal Palace, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s, the National Gallery, the Thames Tunnel, the Tower. We desired much to visit the British Museum, but it was not open. The places that pleased me most were the Crystal Palace, Westminster Abbey and the Tower. The Marists were erecting a fine gothic church at Spitalfields, and its walls were about four feet high. In that church I was consecrated Bishop by Archbishop Manning in 1874.
On arrival in Paris we went to the house of the Marist Fathers, No. 31 Mont Parnasse, and were there received with every mark of kindness. During our stay there, about a week, our time was not idly employed. We saw the Garden of Plants and the Palais du Louvre. At the latter place we saw a great number of pictures, many of them masterpieces of the greatest painters. When I saw the National Gallery (London), I thought it magnificent, but it is not comparable to the gallery of Louvres. it is not one-tenth of the size, nor are, to my mind, the pictures so good. I saw many artists taking copies of the pictures. One of them particularly took my attention as well as Father Comte’s. He was a German painting a picture of the Blessed Virgin with the infant Jesus. The picture was about seven feet long and six broad. It was so exactly taken from the original that it was hard to see any difference. He told me he had been working at it six months.
We went to Versailles and saw all the Palace and Park. I think there is hardly anything in Paris more beautiful, if so beautiful, as this Palace and Park. The Park is particularly celebrated for its fountains, but when we were there they were not playing. I am told it is one of the finest sights in Europe to see them in full play. Some throw the water 60 feet high. We visited most of the principal churches in Paris, and among them the church of the Invalides, where we saw Napoleon’s tomb. We saw the Paris Exhibition (1855), but not one twentieth part of the exhibits were in view. The Exhibition would not be quite complete before two months. I was particularly pleased with the silks of Lyons. To describe all that we saw in Paris would take a volume. There are, I believe, few of the principal monuments and curiosities we did not see. In my opinion, London is not so nice a city as Paris. Certainly I did not see so much of London as of Paris, but I saw enough. Paris is made for pleasure and London for business. I saw the Emperor three times and the Empress twice. The first
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time I saw the Emperor he was riding in an open carriage drawn by two bay horses; the Empress was not with him. The second time he was with the Empress, going from the Tuileries to open the Exhibition, in a carriage drawn by eight horses. There was a great concourse of people, and a great many troops drawn up in two lines, between which the Emperor and Empress passed, and the air rang with shouts of Vive l’ Empereur. It was a magnificent sight, I was within ten yards of the carriage, so that I had a very good view of their majesties, who bowed as they passed, while the troops presented arms, and the people, taking off their hats, shouted Vive I ’Empereur. On another day Napoleon was shot at by an Italian, who was executed on the 17th May, the day before we left for Lyons. Returning from the exhibition, I saw for the second time the Empress. The Emperor was riding a beautiful bay horse, and the Empress was in an open carriage. I was about six yards off both. The Emperor is a fine energetic man, and the Empress is very pretty. (Note: All these appreciations about London and Paris are taken verbatim from my letter, of which I have a copy, dated 19th May at Lyons, 1855. They give a fair specimen of my style and thought when I was just 16 years of age.)
On the 18th of May, we took the train for Lyons, where we arrived at 7 p.m. I became the guest of the Marist Fathers, and had the great privilege of meeting the Venerable Founder of the Society of Mary, Father Colin, whose cause for Beatification is already far advanced. A few days afterwards, when I had visited the principal sights of Lyons, I was examined by Father Morcel in Latin. The book chosen was Cornelius Nepos. I construed some sentences to his satisfaction, and he declared me fit to enter the fifth class and read Caesar. Shortly after he conducted me by train to St. Chamond (Loire) about 30 miles from Lyons, to become a student in St. Mary’s College, conducted by the Marist Fathers. As I arrived at the end of May and the College vacation was to begin early in July, it was not thought fit to put me into any regular class till the following year. Meanwhile I spent my time very profitably, improving my French by talking to the boys in their recreations and walks. I spent the vacation at Belley (Ain,) in the scholasticate of the Marist Fathers, and we made some delightful excursions in the beautiful hills sloping up to the Alps. The mountain scenery delighted me immensely.
In September, 1856, I entered the fifth class at St. Chamond. I held my own very well in all except Greek, of which
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I did not know the alphabet, while the other boys had studied Greek for a year and a half. The problem – a hard one for me – was how to reach their level in Greek, as soon as possible. I had already learned how to go about the study of a language, owing to my experience in Latin and French. My fear was that my low place in the Greek compositions would badly lower my standing for general proficiency – called by us “excellence” – and in my notes sent to my parents and Father Garin, I wanted my place in excellence to be good. Hence I was in agony at the very thought of the first Greek competition coming off in about two months. These were test competitions and counted much in regulating a boy’s position in excellence. How I did study, in odd moments, in preparation for the dreaded ordeal! I learned the Greek declensions and conjugations thoroughly; and the daily exercises in Greek with the other boys had trained me somewhat to construe Greek sentences. The competition came – it was a Greek version. I thought, of course, that I should be the very last in the class when the results were told. To my utter amazement, and that of the other boys, I was not further down than the middle of the class; and this was the case in the subsequent test competitions throughout the year – and, two years afterwards, I won the first yearly prize for Greek.
At the end of my course (1860) I, with Camille Rousellon, my rival, took almost all the first and second prizes, and, what was thought wonderful, though quite explainable, I won the first prize in Rhetoric for French discourses, as I had, the year before, won the first prize in French narratives. The explanation is easy. It was not that I wrote French better than the French boys, but I wrote it well, as well, perhaps, as they, after a training of several years and the study of the best French authors; but this was my advantage: I was somewhat older than they, had seen more of the world, had read some of my Shakespeare and other English authors; so when we were left to our own endeavours, only the subjects and occasion of the speech or narrative being given, I had more thought than any competitors, and more general acquired knowledge. The substance and thought in my compositions told their tale and made me winner. I have known the like victory of other English students over French in similar circumstances. Thought is what counts in a written speech more than diction.
In the Autumn of 1860, I entered the scholasticate of the Marist Fathers, near Toulon and Hieres, at Montbel, a beautiful
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property well tilled and planted, besides being admirably irrigated by a large barrage, where, as a rule, the summer knew no rain for three months or more. Here, to my delight I unexpectedly found several of my college mates, and our agreeable surprise was mutual. We had kept to ourselves, as advised, our desire to become priests, St. Chamond being a College that trained in classics for all careers. Here also,
I found John Ireland (later Archbishop of St. Paul, Minnesota) and Thomas O’Gorman (later Bishop of Sioux Falls). I subsequently formed a friendship with John Ireland, and to a certain extent, with Thomas O’Gorman, that lasted our lifetime, growing warmer as time went on. John Ireland was in theology when O’Gorman and I were in philosophy. This was so in the beginning: afterwards we all three read together the same treatise. Ireland and O’Gorman were never intended to be Marists, whereas I aspired to join that society, of which I am proud to be a member – and the first Archbishop of the same Society.
How came these two seculars to be my fellow-students in a Marist Scholasticate? Here is the explanation. Bishop Cretin, the first Bishop of St. Paul, Minnesota, was a great friend of the saintly founder of the Society of Mary, Father Colin. John Ireland, and Thomas O’Gorman were boys of slightly different ages from Ireland, and both, in Bishop Cretin’s mind, were promising candidates for the priesthood. Accordingly, he sent them for their classical course to Meximieux (Ain) France. The little Seminary there, which once had Father Colin for its superior, was noted for its good studies; and there, indeed, the two boys got an excellent classical training up to philosophy. Bishop Cretin, who wanted them looked after more especially than was possible in the Great Seminary of Lyons, appealed to his friend for a great and exceptional favour, namely, that the two boys should follow the Marist course of philosophy and theology, observe the common rule, but should be exempt from the special Marist religious training. For once – to oblige his friend – Father Colin granted the favour, never to be repeated; and thus I came to know them. At the end of their Theological course they both were ordained in America, and there finished their glorious careers.
On the advice of my spiritual director, I interrupted my studies in order to settle my vocation and make my year’s novitiate at St. Foy near Lyons. And one day, only one day, after its termination, the Provincial of Paris, Father Martin
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S.M., came to claim me, to replace in Dundalk, Ireland, a professor of Latin and Greek, Mr. Reid, who had fallen ill, and a substitute was urgently needed. I was in due time to make my vows and finish my ecclesiastical studies in Ireland, which I afterwards did. We started, Father Martin and I, by the express train for Paris, the next morning, and, by the fastest possible trains and steamers, reached Dundalk in May, 1863. There and then I took the place vacated by Mr. Reid. And now, as my career in Ireland and elsewhere from that day to this, is well-known and chronicled, I end these Reminiscences. I have written them, at the desire of some friends wishing to know my childhood, youth, and early experiences, and also some authentic details about my extraordinary vocation, the first of the kind in New Zealand.
One great lesson arises out of them – the immense importance of a prompt and decisive response to God’s call, the moment it is surely heard, for the happy direction of a life-long career. How wonderful, indeed, have been the ways of God in my behalf! What favours and graces and dignities I have received at His hands! No thanksgiving here below is at all adequate. I must wait for eternity, now not far off, to sing, I hope, the mercies of God for evermore. “Misericordias Domini in aeterum cantabo.”
Wellington, June 23rd. 1922.
C. M. BANKS, LTD., PRINTERS, WELLINGTON.
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Description
Forebear of Ward family members who live in Hawke’s Bay
Subjects
Format of the original
BookletDate published
1922People
- Brother Claude Marie Bertrand
- George Bommington
- Venerable Father Champagnat
- Father Comte
- Captain Cross
- Reverend Father Forest
- Father Anthony Garin
- Ann Goulter
- Cyrus Goulter
- Mary Greaves
- Sir David Monro
- Father Moreau
- Reverend Father O'Reilly
- Right Reverend Doctor Pompallier
- Captain Pyke
- Austin Redwood
- Charles Redwood
- Elizabeth Redwood
- Henry Redwood
- Mr and Mrs Henry Redwood
- Joseph Redwood
- Thomas Redwood
- Richard Tomlinson
- Bishop Viard
- Joseph Ward
- Martha Ward
Accession number
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