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.