1846, back in Britain, the Government had changed and Henry Grey, 3rd Earl Grey had replaced Gladstone as Secretary of State for the Colonies. The new government had decided to abandon the new colony and advised the Queen to revoke the Letters Patent. This decision took many months to reach the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Charles Augustus FitzRoy, and then to be transmitted to Barney ordering the abandonment of the North Australia colony and the return to Sydney. The officials in Port Cursis had endured 4 months of indecision, rain, heat, and mosquitoes before they returned to the civilisation of Sydney where they arrived in May 1847. No pardoned convict ever reached the new colony. 1851 John Dunmore Lang colony In 1823, John Dunmore Lang (1799–1878) a Presbyterian clergyman, politician, immigration organiser, educationist, journalist, patriot and statesman arrived in Sydney to take up his ministry. Lang soon realised that the poverty he left behind in Britain could be relieved to some extent by emigration to Australia, feeling that a well-off protestant peasantry would reduce the problems of English industrialism. To this end he was always looking for suitable new areas and country away from the problems of Sydney and Hobart. In 1845, Lang visited Moreton Bay and was so impressed that in 1848 he persuaded and personally selected approximately 600 immigrants to come to Moreton Bay, who arrived in Moreton Bay in 1849 on the ships , Chaseley, and Lima. Lang's promise of free land in proportion to their passage money was not realised due to colonial bureaucracy and his scheme failed. In the years 1847–49, while visiting England, Lang wrote a series of letters to Earl Grey (Secretary of State for the Colonies) recommending that a new colony be created out of New South Wales to the northward of 30 degrees of south latitude. The British Government must have been influenced by Lang’s proposals as in 1851 they passed an Imperial Act, the Australian Colonies Government Act, which contained a clause (Section 34) which provided for the establishment of new colonies in the future. In 1856, the Secretary of State for the Colonies announced that it was their intention to create a new colony whose southern border line would run not far to the south of 30 degrees south latitude (just south of present day Grafton, New South Wales) but would be accommodated to suit the natural