MEANWHILE, the progress of settlement was not rapid, and in 1845 a suggestion offered to the Home Government being approved by Mr. Gladstone, then Secretary of State for the Colonies in Sir Robert Peel’s Cabinet, led to steps which, if persisted in, would have entirely changed the condition and blasted the present character of its population and institutions. Colonel Barney’s project was the establishment of a new colony to the northward of Moreton Bay by a population of "exiles." He indicated Wide Bay as a suitable locality. The settlement would grow sugar, cotton, and other tropical products. He affirmed that it could be made self-supporting in three years. The British Government appear to have jumped at the conception as offering a means of relief from a difficulty which had begun to seriously incommode, them —the disposal of criminal offenders, the colonists of New South Wales having just expressed their determination to receive no more of them. The term "exile" was a new name invented for the occasion, and the class indicated was criminal of a lighter dye —convicts who by good conduct had deserved some alleviation of their fate. To such, conditional pardons were, on their arrival at the settlement, to be accorded. Some were to be sent direct from Pentonville House of Detention, others were to be transferred from the penal establishments of Van Diemen’s Land. The exiles were to be allotted portions of land of from five to ten acres, to be held free for three years, and thereafter to be purchased by them at one pound per acre in ten yearly instalments. A double lot was to be allowed to an exile whose wife was with him. Lots of from twenty to forty acres were to be sold to settlers payment to spread over ten years, in half-yearly instalments. For over forty acres cash was to be demanded; exiles were to be free to become purchasers; no free grants were to be permitted; rations and bedding, etc., were to be provided for the first twelve months. After a certain period the exiles were to be permitted to leave the settlement and seek employment in New South Wales. At first the expenditure on public works and buildings was to supply remunerative occupation. Free settlers were expected to be attracted, and it was presume that capitalists would also come. The idea of thus combining a colonisation of territory with a humanitarian scheme for affording opportunities to offenders to retrieve the past, and co-operate it mutual reformation, appears to have had peculiar fascination for the mind of Mr. Gladstone, who threw himself heart and soul into the task of its accomplishment. Beaten on the anvil of his powerful and imaginative-mind, the project expanded, and took definite and even attractive form. Having observed the formation in New South Wales of a regular and law-abiding community, evolved out of a revolting chaos of elements chiefly evil, and despite the absence of all sorts of encouragement, and in fact despite every disadvantage which ignorant and careless misgovernment could interpose, he might naturally contemplate with sanguine expectancy the operations and possible results of a scheme thoughtfully defined, and conducted with a prudent mingling of paternal authority and solicitous affection for the welfare of the participants. He entered into a copious correspondence with his colleagues, and with the Governor of New South Wales. He was at pains to secure the assent of the Treasury —ever apt to veto projects which would require for their realisation disbursements previously unprecedented. As it was hopeless to expect any reformation in a community from which the softening and refining influence of domestic life should be withheld, he made arrangements for the conveyance to "North Australia," as the new colony was officially designated, in advance, of the families of the happy exiles. From the prisons and the workhouses he looked to procure female emigrants. Expiree offenders were also to be encouraged to proceed thither. In March, 1846, he formally offered Colonel Barney the charge of the proposed new colony, impressing upon him at the same time the importance of the trust and the necessity for "the promotion, by all means in your power, of a healthy moral tone in the community, whose foundations you are about to lay." The colonel, having signified his acceptance, proceeded to submit his plans. He sought instructions with respect to correspondence, officers, a clergyman, school, survey, wives of exiles, and female emigration. He asked and obtained leave to sell his commission in the army. He applied for sappers to conduct surveys, for a convict sailor, for a whaleboat, and for ten pounds wherewith to buy presents for the blacks. Meanwhile, the Peel Ministry had resigned, and Earl Grey’s Administration had succeeded to them. Still the scheme went on. Sir Charles Fitzroy received a fresh commission appointing him first governor of North Australia, the southern boundary of which was fixed at twenty-six degrees south, which is a little south of Wide Bay.

AT the same time, the principal officials were gazetted. Colonel Barney, superintendent; Mr. Billyard, Judge; Mr. Mereweather, first clerk; Mr. G. H. Barney, second clerk; Mr. J. S. Dowling, clerk of the peace; Mr. W. A. Brown, sheriff; and Captain Day and Colonel Grey, magistrates. Unfortunately for himself, Colonel Barney changed his mind respecting the probable best site for his settlement. In October, 1846, he informed Governor Fitzroy that he proposed going to examine Port Curtis. In December of the same year he had accomplished his purpose, and reported to the governor. He utterly condemned the place. There was neither water nor wood available; the soil was poor; there was an unhealthy fringe of mangroves. But Fitzroy appears to have considered that all the northeastern coast was very much alike. Colonel Barney had suggested that from eighteen to twenty degrees would be a preferable locality. The tract indicated is the coastal district extending from the present site of Bowen to Townsville, and a few miles farther north. Fitzroy’s instructions id not permit of delays for further explorations. His advices probably told him of the two hundred and ten exiles who were to have been ready to sail from England in the preceding May. Barney, therefore, had to make the best of Port Curtis, and accordingly proceeded with his full staff, and the nucleus of is intended settlement, in the steamer "Lord Auckland," in February, 1847. Port Curtis was neared without accident, and the superintendent is alleged by tradition to have ordered a formal debarkation in state, all officers to wear full uniform. But in threading the somewhat intricate channel leading into the really fine harbour, the "Lord Auckland" ran aground, and the intended dignity of the landing degenerated into an unceremonious scramble ashore. The name of Gladstone was conferred on the new settlement, and preparations were made for the expected exiles. But before two months had elapsed the whole project was practically at an end. A despatch from Earl Grey was on its way to Fitzroy directing him to abandon the place, an instruction repeated with emphasis in a still later despatch which informed the governor that the new ministry had other views; that the establishment ha now become a needless and impolitic measure; that convicts were, for the present, to be retained in England and Van Diemen’s Land; and, in fine, that Her Majesty’s present confidential advisers dissent from the views taken on this subject by their immediate predecessors, even in reference to the state of facts under which they acted, and to the considerations by which they were guided. The establishment was broken up. Colonel Barney was indemnified by an appointment as Chief Commissioner of Crown Lands. The former limits, or absence of limits, of the colony of New South Wales were restored in Governor Fitzroy’s commission on his representation that his Authority must be re-extended, as "squatters were rushing up." Captain O’Connell, afterwards colonel, and President of the Legislative Council of Queensland-a fine, dashing soldier, who had served, and had been wounded, with De Lacy Evans’ British Legion in the first Carlist war in Spain —was placed in the commandant’s house as Government Resident, a position which he filled until the separation.

THE scheme for the establishment of the North Australian colony had been accepted with considerable favour by the pastoralists of Moreton Bay and adjacent districts. In consequence of the cessation of transportation, the ordinary supply of labour had already begun to fall, and the squatters looked hopefully to the new colony as likely to meet their requirements in that particular. But, by the slowly-increasing population of the towns and the free labouring class the indulgence shewn to the exiles, to whom were allotted sections of land on easy terms, was complained of as placing them in a better position than colonists of unsullied antecedents.

This complaint was natural, and was justified by the administration of the lands. While there was no difficulty in the well to-do proprietor of stock obtaining occupation of any amount of land on lease, and there was even a disposition to compel him to buy considerable areas of his leasehold whether he so desired or not, the beginner and the town-dweller were almost altogether ignored. These might buy at auction for cash, at a high rate, such town sections as were from time to time offered for sale; but if they aspired to enter upon agricultural pursuits or to acquire a homestead in suburban localities, they had to be content with longing. The squatter’s leasehold extended to the town boundaries. The "milkers" and "nags" of the townsmen strayed on the run in search of pasture, and proved a perpetual nuisance. The owners of vagrant town stock disturbed the cattle camps, and hunted the station horses from their usual haunts. The town dairyman’s little herd proved miraculously prolific when a station mob of cattle was handy.

Thus envy on the one hand and irritation on the other were engendered. The population was split into two classes, separated by a chasm across which no bridge appeared. There were no obvious stages by which the free settler, who had taken up his quarters in the town, could progress to the dignities and profits of squatterdom. Even agriculture was placed out of his reach. The antagonisms due to these conditions became later, when population increased, productive of considerable consequences, and the influence of such feelings can scarcely be said to be extinct even at the present day.

Already an occasion for antagonism had arisen. The squatters were in great straits, through lack of labourers, and on their part essays were made to supply the want from every direction save the one which the town settlers and free whites regarded as the right one. Mr. A. Boyd, of Sydney, imported some Polynesians; Chinese coolies were brought; Indian hill coolies were introduced by Mr. Gordon Sandeman. In their anxiety to secure plenty of hands, and to get them cheap, and amenable to discipline, there was no race too degraded for the pastoralists to regard with longing eyes. Fortunately for the future of the colony, although the non-squatting population was without influence adequate to effectually oppose these attempts, other and potent antagonisms were incidentally brought into play. The Government of India interposed a stolid resistance to the schemes of adventurers and agents who desired to set up a trade of exporting coolies. The red-tape system of the Indian bureau effectually disheartened enterprise in that direction. The Attorney General intervened with respect to Mr. Boyd and his Polynesian immigrants, and worried the projector into discouragement. Lord Grey had no idea of injuring his cherished scheme of renewing criminal transportation by allowing the demand for labour to be satisfied by importations of Chinese. On this subject the Foreign Office and the Colonial Office exchanged views and held consultations. Should it be permitted? It was not now illegal. It was difficult to stop. The indentures of the sample lot had been for five years’ service —men to receive two and a half dollars per month with rations; boys, one and a half dollars. These rates, ridiculously low as they appear at the present day, seem to have been specially attractive by virtue of relative cheapness even at that time. Coote has given in his volume a quotation of wages ruling for white men’s labour about the same period. According to his figures, married couples then received thirty pounds a year and double rations; single men, twenty pounds and single rations. The economy to employers by substituting coolies for white men would have been considerable. But the coolies would have been cheaper even than assigned servants, and the demand for convicts would have ceased. Governor Fitzroy was instructed to stop the Chinese immigration-if he could. In December, 1848, the first vessel bringing free immigrants from England to Northern Australia direct, cast anchor in Moreton Bay, and discharged her freight of two hundred and forty souls.

AT this time Dr. Lang was in England labouring with characteristic energy to promote free emigration to the Moreton Bay district. No man could have possessed higher qualifications for the task, and none could have been handicapped by more serious drawbacks. His restless and combative disposition had involved him in bitter contentions with almost all influential bodies, classes, and individuals, in Australia. At Government House, his fierce denunciations of Sir George Gipps had earned for him the notoriety of a man equally to be dreaded and hated by officialdom. His admirable foresight had, by prompting him to an uncompromising advocacy of separation of both the Port Phillip and the Moreton Bay districts from New South Wales, brought upon him the rancorous animosity of the men most potent in commercial and financial circles in Sydney. By a deplorable intolerance in theological matters, he had incurred and deserved the resentment, not only of Roman Catholics, whom he habitually insulted by opprobrious language, but also of every protestant body, including even the Presbyterian Church, of which he was an ordained minister, and from which, in indignation at compliances to the civil power which he denounced as Erastian, he had separated himself. His impetuous character was not unknown at the Colonial Office in London, even before he made his appearance there. There was a disposition to let him know his place, ere he began in his usual fashion to demand as his right what a milder and more prudent man would have solicited as a concession. Inspired by an intelligent appreciation of the adaptability of the Moreton Bay district for the cultivation of all sorts of tropical products, and fired by his conviction of the magnificent future awaiting those regions, he essayed to trample difficulties under foot, and even dared attempt to force the hand of the Premier of Great Britain.

To the realisation of his emigration projects, Dr. Lang, in the United Kingdom, devoted all the vigour of his energetic nature. He lectured; he wrote in the newspapers; he conducted a voluminous correspondence; he travelled extensively. After these preparatory labours, he attempted the formation of an industrial and philanthropic association, to be called the Cooksland Colonisation Company-a title which sufficiently indicates the objects of the organisation. In especial, the cultivation of cotton by the intended emigrants was to be entered upon. The financial, basis of the enterprise appears to have been founded on an assumption that the British Government would concede substantial encouragement, either in the free conveyance of the company’s emigrants, or of grants of land, or leases on exceptionally easy terms with right of subsequent purchase. Such expectations would not have been unreasonable had any other man of position except Dr. Lang been the moving spirit in the proposed company. The principle of permitting persons to nominate emigrants for free conveyance to the colony, on prepayment for land to be occupied by them on arrival, had been adopted by the government, and commonly practised; so also had a system of bounties per head on immigrants landed. The proceeds of land sales in the colony had similarly been applied, sometimes in the form of advances by way of mortgage, to defray the cost of conveying emigrants. There was, consequently, nothing unreasonable or startling in Dr. Lang’s overtures so far. He commenced his negotiations by applying for bounties on protestant emigrants to be sent to Port Phillip and Moreton Bay. He wanted a million acres reserved for them. In addition, he had a Port Phillip railway company —or, as it would now be termed, syndicate —in hand, for which he solicited grants of land for each mile of railway constructed. The Colonial Office would have none of this. To send protestants only would be sectarian; to send foreigners, as proposed, was contrary to the Land Act. A million acres was preposterous, since the company had only five thousand pounds subscribed per annum. In. short, the authorities would not consent to injure the squatters and the colony in that way. Quite undaunted, Dr. Lang lost no time in applying for a charter of incorporation for a Moreton Bay cotton company. He explained that the company would send out experts from America to teach the immigrants how to cultivate the plant. The land required would be paid for-half in emigrants and half in improvements. He urged that Her Majesty’s Government should approve of the project as one which struck at the roots of slave labour by opposing an industrial establishment of free whites to the cotton plantations of America with their servile associations. It was of no use. The Colonial Office referred all such communications to the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners —a board of place-men upon whose functions Dr. Lang’s proposals were an intrusion, and to whose indolence and incapacity his activity and practical experience afforded an offensive contrast. These commissioners advised accordingly. They could not "see why the public should pay private individuals for the outlay they make in the hope of gaining a profit." There was, besides, a fatal flaw in Dr. Lang’s proposals. His company was not actually formed. The Colonial Office very properly declined to grant the free passages until the formation of the company should afford adequate guarantee that the emigrants would be properly provided for on their arrival in the colony. Still Dr. Lang persevered. The demand of cash in advance for land he endeavoured to evade by expressing a preference for leasing on easy terms near Brisbane town and near Ipswich. In December, 1847, he was peremptorily informed that his terms were altogether inadmissible. But still the promoter stood doggedly to his guns his projected company was sufficiently organised to permit of his working in its name. Accordingly, the company became the applicant, and repeated Dr. Lang’s solicitations, finding support also in memorials from Manchester and Glasgow. Dr. Lang himself besieged the Colonial Office anew, and appears to have succeeded in extracting from an under-secretary a verbal assurance that the authorities in the colony would allow to any immigrants despatched under the auspices of the association, land-orders to the same amount as were allotted to persons forwarded by the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners. Acting upon this pledge, as he afterwards alleged, Dr. Lang despatched two hundred emigrants in the ship "Fortitude," and wrote to the Colonial Office formally demanding bounty to the extent of eighteen pounds-per head. His letter had, however, a postscript as significant as that to a lady’s note is proverbially said to be. It ran thus: —"P.S. —As this letter has been accidentally detained, I beg to add that the ‘Fortitude’ sailed from Gravesend on the 14th instant." This was dated from Glasgow, September 19th, and was not received by the Colonial Office until the 22nd. Dr. Lang had now fairly committed himself to the mercy of his antagonists. The under-secretary’s memory could not charge itself with the alleged promise. Earl Grey put his foot down with emphasis. Dr. Lang must have known that the rules opposed his act of sending people. No bounty would be allowed. Governor Fitzroy was instantly and peremptorily instructed to pay no bounty to Dr. Lang’s immigrants, as these were despatched under the supervision of private individuals, and in disregard of the regulations of the government. In vain the company sued for reconsideration in vain Dr. Lang gave rein to his powers of vituperation. Lord Grey merely became infuriated. He treated Dr. Lang as if he were no better than a scamp and a swindler. He descended to the most paltry vindictiveness. He wrote to Governor Fitzroy that Dr. Lang had deceived the "Fortitude" emigrants. He warned the governor against him as a dangerous character, instructing him to "guard against any mistakes" in dealing with Dr. Lang. The correspondence was terminated by a trenchant letter from the doctor to the earl, couched in those terms of vehement impeachment of which no English writer —not even Junius —was more complete master than John Dunmore Lang. The indignant colonist fastened upon the minister personal responsibility for the rudeness and neglect which he had experienced at the hands of "the paltriest underlings of your lordship’s department," who, like the mutes of an oriental despot, "regularly strangle every honest man and honest measure connected with the colonies." "Your lordship has," concluded the sturdy colonist, with a sort of prophetic emphasis, "for three years past been virtually knocking at the gate of futurity for the President of the United States of Australia."

When the "Fortitude" arrived in Moreton Bay, and the immigrants landed, there was, of course, a great commotion. Every art that malignity could invent appears to have been resorted to in order to overwhelm the reputation of Dr. Lang with contumely and disgrace. It is impossible to acquit him of blundering and precipitancy; but his character has been, by the operation of time, fully cleared from the meaner allegations of covetousness and deliberate deception of the poor emigrants which were reiterated at tie time. The "Fortitude’s" proved so superior a class that the benefit derived from their accession to the population, and later on from the further contingents sent by Dr. Lang in the "Chasely" and the "Lima," was felt to compensate for any unintentional shortcomings in the manner of their despatch. The new arrivals themselves, despite their disappointment in the matter of land-orders, could not, with few exceptions, be induced to turn upon and rend the doctor, whom they had to thank for a scale of provisioning during the voyage infinitely more generous than that ordinarily provided by the Government Emigration Commissioners.

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