Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/410

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"When a man's career baa been blackened by one writerJ it iH iiiHuttjcient for another to assert that the first ia] untriifttwnrthy, HiBtory cannot be written negatively. ThoHe who know the viiuUctitor of the truth will, of course, bBlieve lihii, bitt be writefi for many who know him not. Un*ku' ihvm cin.uiniBtances the government of King has] b^en cliosen to ilhiKtrate the daily doings of the colonists;] to tracn their liouKehold life and their excursions of discovery; | to follow tboin to the cain|), the market-place, the reforma- tory; to deHcril^e the Courts, Civil and Criminal, and the arbitrary edietw of the Governor; and the steps taken on liiB reconniiendation to guard the nhoreb of Australia from the taloiiH of the eagles of Napoleon. It would be tedious j to write all history at such length; hut an aii' of romance c]jn*>;B to the character of pilgrim fathers and of t*iKHiiti*Miary i^overnorR, and no period seemed fitter for pittturiiig the life of the colony than the one which jU'eviouH misreprestintations bad made it necessary to i c^xamiiitj ek)8ely. The tibres of the transplanted tree reward scrutiny better in the time of King than at any other |>eriod. History is but the drama of the lives of those who pass like waves over the ocean of time. Many sccni?s nuist be unrepresented, but '* the age and body of tbe time, its tbnn and pressure," ought to be made known, Scenes which have been by others falsely exhibited have now been shown in their true colours, under the light obtained from contemporary records, not written to deceive, but prompted by the exigencies of the horn*; in a time of war, of tumult, and of pressing needs. To dis|>el faLseluxKl and bring truth to light has been a labour which, though often toilsome in poring over musty manuscripts* has been lightened by the hope of com* municating to others the sparks of long-lost truth which have gleamed upon the author in the course of his ^les. He has aimed not to represent King as wiser V was, but to show exnelly how and why he acted. His was a disert^tionary government, often highly arbiUmiy* It waa inci)mpatible with any uxtant written law, and when he rei|uired new jx>wers he wrote a fresh General ()it)er» - ' " <l it* He was his own interpreter of it m llie .1 rt. Lik^ th^ couUqI uf a maa-of-w&r» Iha