that Dr. Lang's mental endowments and political capacity were of a distinctly commoner type than those of the subject of this brief memoir, or of his great Australian rival.
Public feeling at Sydney in 1846 was at fever-heat. Sir George Gipps had publicly notified, six years before this date, that criminal transportation to the Colony had ceased. But although an overwhelming number of the colonists had hailed this new departure in the policy of the Home Government with intense delight, there was a small but influential minority who were grimly dissatisfied. Mr. Gladstone, who was then for a short time Secretary of State for the Colonies, had forwarded a somewhat enigmatical despatch to Sir George Gipps with regard to the renewal of transportation. This led to a state of the wildest public excitement in the colony, and at the monster meetings which were held in Sydney no speaker was listened to with more delight, and certainly none was more deserving of attention, than Robert Lowe.[1] In fact, from the years 1844 to 1850 no colonial public man was more active or more influential than he. On all the great questions of the hour he was on the
- ↑ See Appendix A.
