story ends where Australian history, as it is generally written, begins;
but the work of the forgotten naval pioneers of the country made that
beginning possible. Four sea-captains in succession had charge of the
penal settlement of New South Wales, and these four men, in laying the
foundation of Australia, surmounted greater difficulties than have ever
been encountered elsewhere in the history of British colonization. Under
them, and by their personal exertions, it was made possible to live upon
the land; it was made easy to sail upon the Austral seas. After them came
military and civil governors and constitutional government, finding all
things ready to build a Greater Britain. Histories there are in plenty, of
so many hundred pages, devoted to describing the "blessings of
constitutional government," of the stoppage of transportation, of the
discovery of gold, and all the other milestones on the road to nationhood;
but there is given in them no room to describe the work of the sailors--a
chapter or two is the most historians afford the naval pioneers.

The printing by the New South Wales Government of the Historical Records
of New South Wales has given bookmakers access to much valuable material
(dispatches chiefly) hitherto unavailable; and to the volumes of these
Records, to the contemporary historians of "The First Fleet" of Captain
Phillip, to the many South Sea "voyages," and other works acknowledged in
the text, these writers are indebted. Their endeavour has been to collect
together the scattered material that was worth collecting relating to what
might be called the naval period of Australia. This involved some years'
study and the reading of scores of books, and we mention the fact in
extenuation of such faults of commission and omission as may be discerned
in the work by the careful student of Australian history.

The authors are very sensible of their obligations to Mr. Emery Walker,
not only for the time and trouble which he has bestowed upon the finding