This volume was published in 1891.
From the book's Preface:
The narratives which follow have, with one exception, already been published in the Australasian weekly newspaper.
They were dug out by me at odd times during a period of three years, from the store of pamphlets, books, and records of old
times, which is in the Public Library; and in their narration, I
lay claim but to such originality as belongs to the compiler. The
fact, that, being in a measure themselves records of bye-gone
days, they have tickled the memories of old colonists, and so
attracted an attention altogether out of proportion to their
literary merits, is my reason for publishing them in a collected
form.
I have done my best to secure accuracy in names, dates, and
minute particulars; but the meagreness of the early colonial
newspapers, the wanton destruction or mutilation of many of
the early colonial official documents, the jealousy with which
colonial families guard the secret histories bequeathed to them
by their ancestors, and the fact that the rude, adventurous
life of those early colonial days prevented the registration of
the very romances which it induced, render it difficult to ob-
tain correlative evidence of many statements quoted, and
have compelled me in some few instances to accept the
narrative as correct on the sole authority of the first and
only narrator.
I shall therefore be glad to receive any corrections or suggest-
ions from persons whom accident has furnished with fuller
information than I possess, on the subjects treated of in the
following pages.
Marcus Clarke, The Public Library, Museums, etc.
Melbourne,
30th November, 1871
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CONTENTS
The Settlement of Sydney
George Barrington, Pickpocket and Historian
William Buckley, the "Wild White Man"
A Leaf from an Old Newspaper
The Rum-Puncheon Revolution
The Rule of the Bushranger
The Adventurees of Captain Jorgenson
Governor Ralph Darling's Iron Collar
The Settler in Tasmania Fifty Years Ago
The Seizure of the "Cyprus"
The Last of Macquarie Harbour
The South Australian Bubble
An Austrailian Crusoe
The First Queensland and Explorer
John Mitchel's Escape from Van Diemen's Land
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