It was finely remarked by Carlyle that the history of the world is the biography of its great men. So the early history of the Australian colonies has been most clearly told by narrating the deeds or quoting the words of the Governors who were on the spot, irresponsible; or of those few men who, like John Macarthur in resisting Bligh, or Wentworth in denouncing tyranny whether of one man or of many, made themselves the observed of all observers.

The time approaches when individuals will cease to rule. No mountain height will dominate the landscape. Primitive upheavals are not rivalled in later epochs. Successions of undulations displace the more picturesque features of the past. One becomes very like another, and from the monotony of repetition the annalist must take refuge in summing up the general effects, gradually produced not so much by the energy of any one man, as by the resultant of forces many of them mean and some uninteresting except as errors to be avoided, and as proofs that even in the days of unlicensed printing the experience of one country cannot save mankind from re-enacting follies which have become elsewhere the scorn of the wise. Wentworth forms a partial exception; and, as one of the firstborn of Anglo-Saxon race on Australian soil, deserves special notice. But his power waned as the electoral suffrage was lowered. In the halls of counsel he might be unanswerable. At the polling-booth he might be ostracised.

The history of the Australian Colonies may after the year 1856 be much condensed. Results rather than details of events will suffice. The pilgrim fathers only can command the interest which justifies a large mingling of biography with the general narrative. A few familiar names will still recur, some few incidents (such as that in which an imprudent Governor strove to do violence to the Constitution of New South Wales in 1861) will deserve dramatic treatment; but, in the main, personal details will be unnecessary.

The course of exploration of the continent may first be dealt with. The successful journey of Leichhardt, in 1844, to Port Essington, through wide tracts previously unseen by Europeans; his fatal expedition in 1848; the hardships encountered by Sturt in 1844-5-6 in the interior; the several journeys of Mr. Roe the Surveyor-General and of Mr. A. C. Gregory in Western Australia up to the year 1848; the expedition in which Sir Thomas Mitchell, in 1846, named as the Victoria river what is now known as the Barcoo or Cooper's Creek; the disastrous death of Kennedy near Cape York in 1848, may be remembered. Discovery for a time received a check throughout the continent. Commercial calamities, the distraction of labour to California, the all-absorbing pursuit of gold, in turn diverted public attention.

In 1854, Mr. Austin, an assistant-surveyor, led an expedition which only added proof of the sterility of Western Australia and of the endurance of her explorers.

The discovery of gold in Australia, though destined to effect great and sudden changes, both social and political, was made many years before those changes were produced by abrupt disclosure that it existed in enormous quantities, and could be obtained by simple methods at what were called “alluvial diggings;” i. e. those, where by digging pits, extracting the goldsprinkled earth, and washing it at the water-side in a wooden cradle (with a series of checks to arrest the gold as the mud and water escaped) large quantities of granular or laminated fragments of gold were collected without scientific knowledge or appliances, and by unskilled labour.

Edward Hammond Hargraves was the unscientific person who disclosed the fact. He had migrated from New South Wales to California. When seeking for gold there, and observing the facility with which it was washed from the detritus or alluvium in which it was imbedded, it occurred to him that he had seen in New South Wales places in which the soil and conformation were like those which yielded gold in America. Possessed of the knowledge needful to test the matter practically, he returned to Sydney. But long before that time gold had been picked up in Australia, and had excited eager but evanescent curiosity. Count Strzelecki, in 1839, reported to Sir G. Gipps that he had found in the Vale of Clwydd, “an auriferous sulphuret of iron yielding a very small quantity of gold, although not enough to repay extraction.”

It must ever be an interesting study to analyze the transformations of the Constitutions of the Australian colonies after they were submitted to local arbitrament. New Zealand formed an exception. In the other colonies changes, whether wise or foolish, were made after discussions, and in terms of local or Imperial enactment. In New Zealand it may truly be said that the adoption of responsible government was the unlawful result of insidious claims made by members elected under her Constitution Act (15 and 16 Viet., cap. 72), which had not provided, and was not intended to provide in any manner, for local responsible government. The Act contained no word about it; and though speeches of law-makers must not be called in to construe their handiwork, it is fair to say that the absence of any allusion to responsible government in speeches in the Houses proves that the subject was not considered or decided upon. The title of the Act designated it as one to “grant a Representative Constitution.” Such institutions had existed for many years in Australia without responsible government. Moreover, there was ample proof, internal in the law, and in the Royal Instructions which accompanied it to the colony, that the perversion of the Constitution was unwarrantable.