Though Sir George Grey had now a House of Representatives and a Legislative Council, he did not summon the General Assembly. He had already applied to the British Government to remove him from a position in which he had spent thirteen years of strenuous life--five in South Australia, eight in New Zealand--battling with, and for the most part overcoming, formidable difficulties; setting one colony upon the high road to success, relieving another of many of her burdens, bringing to her much-needed peace, and providing her with a Constitution and Representative Government. After such a long period of arduous toil he felt that he had a right to crave leave to rest awhile. He left New Zealand on the 31st of December, 1853, carrying with him the best wishes of the best of the colonial population, and the whole-hearted devotion of the Maori race. It was not only as Governor that Sir George had gained the respect of the Maori; his qualities as a man--not the least of them his manliness--had won their regard, and they admitted yet another debt. He had learned their language, and had set down in that wonderful thing, a printed book, some of their most cherished traditions and legends, which must otherwise have been lost to them and to the world. Sir George Grey being gone--having no presentiment that, as "Fighting Governor," he was to return to his ancient battlefields,--the honour of opening the first session of the General Assembly fell to Lieutenant-Colonel Wynyard, who had assumed the administration of the Government. Auckland was, of course, the place of meeting; and there New Zealand's first Parliament assembled for the first time on the 27th of May, 1854, just fifty-four years ago. The second Parliament met in April, 1856, after the new Governor, Colonel Thomas Gore Browne, C.B., had assumed office. The early months of Colonel Wynyard's administration were marked by a sad calamity. Measles broke out at the Bay of Islands and, finding virgin soil, spread, like a rank weed, from end to end of the land. Four thousand Maori died before the epidemic was stamped out, among them old Kawiti, at the age of eighty-four. He had fought more than one good fight against the British leaders; but this time there came a captain he could not defeat, so he drew his mat across his face and slept with his fathers.