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DICTIONARY OF AUSTRALASIAN BIOGRAPHY.
[Ang

purchase-money, on condition that the price of the land was reduced to 12s. per acre from 20s., at which it had been fixed. This was agreed to, the Company was formed, and the £35,000 worth of land was then transferred to them at cost price, Mr. Angas being appointed chairman of the first Board of Directors. This was the origin of the South Australian Company, which started in Oct. 1835 with a capital of £200,000. Mr. Angas now found that the Government considered the duties of a commissioner and of a director of the Company incompatible. As, however, his colleagues on both boards were desirous of retaining his services, Lord Glenelg was interviewed upon the matter, but ultimately decided, with great reluctance, that if Mr. Angas remained a director of the Company he could not continue a member of the Board of Commissioners. He thought, however, that there could be no objection to Mr. Angas remaining on the Board of Commissioners till his successor was appointed, or for a limited period, say of three months. This decision Mr. Angas accepted, and then resigned in Dec. 1836. In the meantime the success of the Company's operations was almost wholly due to the individual energy of Mr. Angas, under whose auspices the first shiploads of emigrants were despatched in Feb. 1836, the colony being proclaimed by Captain Hindmarsh, the first Governor, in December following. At Mr. Angas's suggestion, and almost entirely on the lines he sketched out, a banking department was instituted, and proved of immense use in affording financial facilities to the early settlers. In 1841 the department (again at Mr. Angas's instigation) was formed into a separate concern, with the title of the "South Australian Banking Company," which latter was in 1867 again transmogrified into the "Bank of South Australia." In 1837 Mr. Angas became one of the founders of the Union Bank of Australia, and was the first chairman of the Board of Directors, all of whom were appointed on his personal selection. Amongst the stipulations in the deed of settlement of the Union Bank was one restricting them from opening a branch in South Australia without the assent of the South Australian Company. In the same and the next year Mr. Angas laid the foundation of German emigration to South Australia by advancing a large sum of money to enable several hundreds of Prussian Lutherans to seek refuge in the new colony from the persecution with which they were threatened, in consequence of their opposition to the Government scheme for uniting the Reformed and Lutheran Churches. In 1838 Mr. Angas cautioned the British Government against the danger of having New Zealand exposed to the risk of a French annexation; and, as the result of his expostulations, Captain Hobson, R.N., was sent out to treat with the natives for the acceptance of the Queen's sovereignty only just in time to avert the action on the part of the French Government which Mr. Angas had foreseen. For the next few years Mr. Angas was plunged in financial embarrassments, owing, in a large degree, to the unauthorised action of his confidential agent, Mr. Flaxman, who had gone out with the first batch of German emigrants, in buying considerable tracts of Land in South Australia, and then drawing on his employer for large sums to meet the purchase-money. Just at the pressing moment the German emigrants, to whom he looked for partial relief, failed to pay up the instalments of the money advanced them as stipulated, and thus added greatly to their benefactor's difficulties. Amidst his own distresses he was, however, able to lend a helping hand to South Australia when her affairs became involved, through the dishonour of Governor Gawler's drafts on the Home Government; it being greatly owing to his exposition of her resources and prospects before the select committee which was appointed, that the Imperial authorities were induced to come to the assistance of the nascent colony. Mr. Angas was, in the meantime, indefatigable in his efforts to popularise South Australia as an emigration field; delivering lectures on the subject in various parts of the country, and starting two weekly newspapers, The South Australian Colonist and The South Australian Weekly News, at a heavy financial loss, in order to disseminate reliable data. Mr. Angas's two eldest sons had already proceeded to South Australia, and as his prospects