Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/565

of all desperate powers of legislation, an ex post facto law." It was difficult to know which was the most pitiable—a man of the ability and in the position of Forbes recommending such a remedy, or a man of Wentworth's masculine honesty so duped by Forbes, or so blinded by prejudice, as to seek to throw the blame upon Bannister. The new Constitution Act, passed in July 1828, removed from the path of the political Chief Justice the stumbling-block of Grand Juries.

It was during Brisbane's government that a young Presbyterian minister, who was to become notorious in colonial history, immigrated to Sydney. Mr. (afterwards Dr.) John Dunmore Lang arrived there in 1823. A brother was there in 1821, and through the intervention of Commissary-General Wemyss received an appointment as clerk in the Commissariat Department. The Presbyterians in Sydney had no organization, and the clerk suggested that his brother John might become their minister. Sir Thomas Brisbane was friendly to the suggestion. Dr. Lang was ordained in 1822 at Irvine, and arrived in Sydney in May 1823. He recorded, in his History of New South Wales, that his Church in Scotland regarded his emigration with "cold-blooded and unnatural indifference."^[1] He was hospitably invited to the house of Mr. Wemyss, and cheerfully accepted the invitation."^[2] The "solitary friendless wanderer," as he called himself, was to play no ordinary part in the colonial drama. At first it was religious. It became political when he bid for popularity in public affairs to obtain control or purchase favours. His appearance as defendant in actions of libel, for emissions in what he called religious newspapers, were numerous. Grasping at money, he cared not for it for its own sake. To maintain a foremost position in public regard, or wreak his wrath upon an enemy, he would have compounded for a life of imprisonment. His admirers were astonished when, on going to condole with an incarcerated martyr, they found him gaily reading a newspaper and sipping his coffee. Indomitable in will, unscrupulous in word and deed, vigorous in mind and body,