AustLit

Epigraph: Eora people asked the question, Waube-rong orab, Where is a better country? This thief colony might hereafter become a great empire, whose nobles will probably, like the nobles of Rome, boast of their blood. The Morning Post, London. 1 November 1786.

Author's note: I have taken the liberty in quotations from historic sources to standardise spelling, and in the cases of misspellings left intact, to avoid the use of mannerism (sic). Any insertions I have made for the sake of clarifying the intentions of the original writers are signalled by square brackets. All Aboriginal personal and place names have variations with which generally I have avoided burdening the text, though some of the variant spellings can be found in the notes. As the text makes frequent use of imperial measurement, a conversion table to metric has been provided at the end of the book. T. K.