National History of Australia, New Zealand and the Adjacent Islands

The want of a reliable, fairly connected, and consecutive account of the events of Australian history must long since have been apparent to those who have taken sufficient interest in the past of their native or adopted land to pursue the disconnected and incomplete records which, so far, are all that are available for the study of the inquirer or earnest scholar.

In compiling this history to the Centennial year, the author was confronted by the difficulty, which was not so patent in the subsequent addition, that for a great portion of the period dealt with, Australia was not one country politically, but any number up to six, and that whilst it has been naturally one and indivisible, and as such required a general or national history, it also, as pohtical divisions of it were made, called for a special account of the events of the individual units, and as to do reasonable justice to them needed that some of what was embodied in the account of the whole should be incorporated in their individual narratives, the presence of a certain amount of repetition was apparently unavoidable. However, if this has lengthened the volume of the history, the recapitulations will serve to impress facts that are dealt with on the minds of the readers, a consideration not without value having regard to the scarcity of knowledge of the history of this country that is evidenced by the remarks of many persons in prominent positions.