Utopia is across ocean, in the Antipodes. If the invasion of Australia initially had need of a grotesque aesthetic, its ultimate aim was redemption. This became clear as the frontier moved further inland. The first architect of this redeeming vision was Lachlan Macquarie – though John Macarthur had already sketched the outlines of a colony grown rich on the back of sheep. Macquarie, who arrived in 1810 to take up his appointment as Governor, created the civic apparatus and leadership necessary to transform the colony from a frontier outpost into a significant settlement. He even gathered ‘about him a circle of poets, painters and architects who would turn Sydney into “a second Rome, rising at the antipodes”’. It is not that the killing stopped; in fact, it increased. But with the battle further away, Sydney and its environs began to take on the trappings of Western civilisation. However, if the frontier was out of sight, it was not out of mind.

Following the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815, when large numbers of convicts were transported, policies were put in place to attract free settlers, as if from slavery and genocide could be born prosperity. Yet even before the full effects of these changes were felt, the colony prospered of its own accord. The wealth of the few gentleman migrants who held large estates ‘was more than matched by that of the ex-convict merchants and tradesmen’ – whom Macquarie encouraged.