1499. RB to Alfred Domett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 153–154.
New Cross, Hatcham, Surrey,
Jan 8. 1844.
My dear Domett,
This, which I had meant to be a long letter (—when I saw by the “Times” that a ship was just leaving—) [1] will be short, for somebody called and hindered me: I will write again,—but must say how unutterably glad & thankful I & all your friends are, that you are out of the horrible story of the massacre– [2] But what melancholy work for you—most of the poor fellows must have been your friends—what can you be doing but one of two things—either “coming forward,” [3] and supplying the place of one or other of these “public characters” (as our papers call them)—or picking-up potatoe-crop & packing-up moveables,—and coming back to us– Oh, the day! .. which day was six months ago & more, and as you are not here—it is too clear you are there, and all must be made the best of! [4] C. Dowson was with me the other day—he thought you would not “come forward”—I differed with him.
I shall receive some letter, at least some news of you, long ere you get this—but do write—though but a line, or less.
News here—none. Melvill is going to leave, to everybody’s sorrow, [5] and, I suppose, the saving his life,—so ill is he, in looks at least. I put up a Review that notices me, [6] with this, as an advertisement at the beginning—tells you what little I am about—but I meditate better things, of which more in my next– Alas, that in “meditating” these things we grow grey & greyer and at greyest I shall be ever yours, my dear Domett,
R Browning.
All here send their perfect remembrance, & truest regard to you.
Publication: RB-AD, pp. 99–101.
Manuscript: British Library.
1. The Times of 8 January announced the departure of a ship for New Zealand on the 10th.
2. The New Zealand Company was charged with acquiring land on behalf of settlers, each of whom was entitled to buy 150 acres. In June, a surveying party was dispatched to the Wairau valley, some 70 miles from Nelson, although, under the Treaty of Waitangi, the Maoris had the right to decide what areas to give up and had declined to sell this particular parcel of land. The Maoris harassed the surveyors, but the only violence offered was the burning of one of their huts. Subsequently, when an armed party was sent to arrest the Maori chief on a charge of arson, gunfire erupted and 19 of the Englishmen were killed. The Times of 15 December reprinted accounts of the affray from The Wellington Spectator of 28 June and The Auckland Chronicle of 15 July.
3. At a formal inquiry into the disaster, Domett was one of the spokesmen for the settlers, part of his argument being that, despite the Treaty, “the rights of the aborigines to the land, of the capabilities of which they cannot avail themselves, are not to be considered of any great value or entitled to much respect” (Report of the Select Committee on New Zealand, 1844, p. 707). A summary of Domett’s involvement can be found in The Diary of Alfred Domett, 1872–1885, ed. E.A. Horsman, 1953, pp. 15–19.
4. It is not clear what day RB refers to; possibly he means Domett’s birthday, 20 May.
5. Melvill, who had been the incumbent of Camden Chapel since 1829, had been appointed principal of the East India College, Haileybury.
6. Assumed to be the notice of The Return of the Druses in The Foreign and Colonial Quarterly Review of January 1844 (see pp. 337–340).
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