 Lane recruited many, and the first ship left Sydney in July 1893 for Paraguay, where the government was keen to get white settlers and had offered the group a large area of good land.While it is generally agreed that there were some able settlers, there seems to be some disagreement about the character of the New Australia settlers as a whole.It has been described as a Cave of Adullam to misfits, failures, and malcontents of the left wing of Australian democracy.