SQUATTERO-MASTIX 171 



be received with hostility by a portion of the Council 

 organized as a parliamentary Opposition. Why did 

 Lang necessarily become a unit of this faction ? As 

 almost ahvays with Lang, primarily for a personal 

 reason. Apparentlj', because Gipps refused to comply 

 with a recommendation of the Legislative Council that 

 a grant should be made to the Scots Church. Ever 

 afterwards, and in his History long after Gipps was 

 dead, he was extremely abusive of the eminent Governor. 

 He named Gipps, with more coarseness than wit, " Lord 

 Stanley's man Friday." He assailed Gipps as " not 

 having learnt the proprieties of his place." But there 

 were deeper reasons, inseparable from the nature of 

 the man. He was a reformer, like Wentworth in those 

 days, and like him, we may suspect, was a reformer 

 only till those above him had been levelled down to 

 himself, while he was little in favour of levelHng up to 

 himself those who w^ere politically below him. He was 

 accordingly in favour of extending the franchise, still 

 somewhat high, and he made strenuous efforts to have 

 it lowered. He denounced the nominated portion of 

 the Council as being contrary to the Bill of Rights. He 

 claimed that taxation M^as the inherent, incommunicable, 

 untransferable, and exclusive right of the people and 

 their representatives. He affirmed that the Civil List, 

 largely made up in England, and the appointment of 

 high officials in England, were infringements of the con- 

 stitutional powers of the free inhabitants. 



As always, Lang's attitude was affected and his posi- 

 tion complicated by financial embroilment. Presbytery 

 and Synod called for an explanation of certain trans- 

 actions connected with his College, and summoned him to 

 appear before them. He took no notice of the summons. 

 The Synod deposed him, and appointed one of its mem- 

 bers to preach the Scots Church vacant. Lang refused 

 to admit the minister to his pulpit. The Presbytery 

 refused to recognise him ; he would refuse to recognise 

 it. It went further. It transmitted to the presbytery 

 of Irvine, which had ordained him, all the documents 



