James McGill made his will, providing for the founding of McGill College, on January 8th, 1811, two years before his death. He was dreaming of a great University which would rise at some distant but certain day in the new land of his adoption. He was doubtless dreaming, too, of a strong personality who would guide the University to its destined place in the country in which he had made his fortune and in which he had unbounded faith. At that very time another Scotchman, twenty-two years of age, was dreaming in his home in Banffshire--also, by a strange coincidence, the home of James McGill's ancestors--of the land beyond the horizon from which tales of fortune and happiness came drifting across the ocean. He was a Liberal in politics and a dissenter in religion. His independent spirit was revolting against conditions in his own land. It was not easy to sever the ties which bound him to the old home and to venture alone into an unknown and far-off country. But the new land was calling, and its lure was upon him. He resolved to go to Canada where he had heard that all things were possible to the courageous and the industrious, and where men lived a man's life based on merit and achievement, and unhampered by the fetters of worn-out fetishes and conventions. And so it happened that on the 8th of March, 1811, exactly two months after James McGill had made his will, this young Scotchman set out for the new world. The ship in which he was to take passage--a square-rigged, clipper sailing vessel in those steamless days--was to clear from Greenock, one hundred and eighty miles from Keith, his Banffshire home. He had no money to spare to pay for a conveyance. He must cover the distance on foot. He sent his heavy luggage by carrier, and with a pack of necessary clothes and provisions on his back, he set out with three adventurous but hopeful comrades on his journey. He walked through the Grampians, by Kildrummy Castle, on through the town of Perth, along the base of Cairngorm in the Highlands, through the long valley of Glenavon, and thence to the sea-port town of Greenock from which the packet ships went weekly out into the mists, heading for the land of promise somewhere beyond the sky-line. He slept with his companions on heather beds in front of peat fires in the homes of the Highlanders through whose villages they passed, and the Gaelic tongue of one of their number was always a charm sufficient to secure them food. He reached Greenock on the 20th of March, but because of unforeseen delay it was not until April 11th that he embarked for Canada. After a voyage of five tempestuous weeks he landed in Pictou, Nova Scotia, on May 19th, 1811, and there he determined to make his home. The young Scotchman was James Dawson, whose son was destined in 1855 to become Principal of McGill. [Illustration: Redpath Museum Photo Rice Studios _Sir William Dawson, C. M. G., M.A., L.L.D., F.R.S., Principal of McGill University_ 1855-1893]