168 THE PASTORAL AGE IN AUSTRALASIA 



grants — his father, mother, and brothers. He showed 

 his faith in the Colony by determining to build up a 

 clan in Australia ; it was the first of his many points 

 of resemblance with another great Presbyterian divine 

 that, like Dr. Chalmers, who had " sixty cousins in 

 Edinburgh," he could count on the support of a numer- 

 ous clan. For his father he procured a grant of 2,000 

 acres and for his brother a grant of 1,000 acres. In 

 1828 he experienced the first of his disappointments 

 at the hands of the authorities : with his customary 

 daring and largeness of view he projected a Scots 

 College, the nurse of a future university, but Governor 

 Darling refused to let the structure be raised by convict 

 labour, and as there were then few mechanics, had there 

 been money to pay them, the scheme necessarily lapsed. 

 He did not therefore drop the project. In 1830 he made 

 another trip to England, where, so great were his powers of 

 persuasion, he prevailed on the Secretary of State, Lord 

 Goderich, to give him an order on the Colonial Govern- 

 ment for a large sum (£3,500), provided an equal amount 

 were previously raised by subscription. Of this sum 

 one-half was to be appropriated for the payment of the 

 passage-out of 50 or 60 Scottish mechanics whom Lang 

 had induced to emigrate. It was the first of his immi- 

 grating bands, for Lang was to build an enduring fame 

 as a leader of peoples. Then, as always, he brought 

 out immigrants of the best sort — blacksmiths, carpen- 

 ters, masons, and plasterers, as if to rear the college on 

 which he had set his heart. He again visited England 

 in 1833-5, and again he paved the way for valuable 

 immigrants — this time 250 vine-growers, engaged by 

 himself in Germany, but (if one rightly remembers) 

 the emigrants were allured by the inducements offered 

 them in Brazil, and there deserted the man who had 

 made it possible for them to reach the shores of the 

 New World. He was a man of many disappointments, 

 but his robust nature triumphed over them all. 



Detained in New Zealand on his way back to England 

 in 1839, Lang there found little to approve of. He 



