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Fifteen years form a long space in a man's lifetime; and during so many I have been from time to time collecting and collating materials, and endeavouring to accomplish the publication of the history which is now submitted to the public. Four years since a portion was published in one of our local journals; but failing health, and inability to use my right hand, prevented its completion at the time;—a circumstance which, however I may have suffered from its causes, I cannot say that I regret. Time has been afforded for revision, for additional information, and for the correction of conclusions which, although not hastily formed, prove to have been arrived at upon insufficient basis. Nevertheless, the diligence with which facts had been sought out, and the care with which their alleged authenticity was sifted, were, at the time I allude to, admitted by those most entitled to express an opinion on such matters;—the few who, having taken an active part in the foundation of the colony, survived to witness the changes which more than a quarter of a century has effected in its position, and a growth flattering enough to the people, but owing more to the beneficence of Providence than the foresight or wisdom of man.

The division of the history into two parts was not decided upon without careful consideration. Necessarily the growth of the colony before and since its separation from New South Wales differs in essential points;—a difference not so much due to mere alteration in the administration of government as is sometimes supposed. The changes wrought by the development of material science within the last few years, have greatly intensified those which might have been looked for in the ordinary onward march of civilisation; and we have less to create than to follow and grasp the benefits flowing from the succession of discoveries. Since the year 1859 what marvellous applications of science have we seen; and we can scarcely appreciate their influence, unless we ask ourselves what, had they not been made, would most probably have been the position of the colony at the present hour. But we ought not to be blinded by the glare, however dazzling, of scientific light, to the value of the unobtrusive material which in other respects the earlier history of the one time infant settlement offers to us. Men wrought, toiled, suffered, were misgoverned, and endured; and after many years, apparently, gained the independence that was the desire of their hearts. And the student who watches the political discussions which have now most interest to us will be amused by finding how much of value in them was initiated in those early days. Our schemes of government, our theories of finance, our land legislation, our plans of settlement, seem the echoes, too often faint and feeble, of the voices of those, not in reality so remote, but yet which seem to us, far off years: and when we are most proud of novelty we are often most certain to have been anticipated in our inventions.

There are, moreover, some features in the early history of Moreton Bay which cannot be repeated in any attempt at further colonisation;—not likely to be fettered by such troubles as beset the foundation of the colony in the obstacles presented by the expiring struggles of the transportation system. It may be suggested that the narration of those struggles imparts less of dignity than degradation in the retrospect; but they left their traces long after they ended, and they were so much mixed up with the twin contest for representative institutions that it is necessary to go into detail to some extent with respect to its incidents. Nor will the successive changes which the formation of parliamentary government underwent, from the time that a fragmentary sort of self rule was first granted, until the final embodiment of 'William 'Wentworth's most practical views of the Constitution of New South Wales—the parent of our own—be without interest to the thoughtful observer: and we shall find that, had the suggestive recommendations fostered by the late Earl Grey been given the weight due to them, we might have been spared the trouble of discussing federal systems, and local administration would have long since passed from the region of experiment to complete fulfilment. These difficulties and fluctuations indicate how important a revolution in the character of the relations of the mother country with her Australian colonies was, almost without observation, slowly and surely making its way; and thus they became of historic value to ourselves. Age and transition leave an authoritative stamp upon many circumstances which, from a commercial or presently social point of view, seem comparatively worthless; or those researches, which occupy so much of modern industry and speculation, would be only so many proofs of the perversion of intellectual power: he who ignores the past simply deprecates the value of his own existence to the future. And, apart from the philosophic interest of the facts presented, there must be the local feeling, connected with places and persons, incorporated in the recollections of many of our people,—with the associations and fortunes of the majority,—the preservation of which, in a permanent form, cannot but be gratifying to them, of whatever use it may be in educating the rising generation. Of the few thousands of native Queenslanders living amongst us in 1881, how many may be supposed to know anything of the history of the country of their birth? Yet, surely, if it be essential that they should be certain how much remains of the old Saxon laws in the British constitution, and be familiar with the origin of the British nation, it is, at least, equally so that they should not be left in ignorance—fruitful parent of prejudice—as to the origin of what may be called their own laws, of the growth of their own people, and of the foundation of their native land.

Again, there is much in the history of Australian geographical exploration which belongs to the time before Moreton Bay expanded into Queensland. The discoveries of Allan Cunningham, the adventurous journey of Leichhardt, the patient perseverance and mournful death of Kennedy, the keen logical induction and special insight of Clarke, the unruffled endurance of Gregory:—all belong to those early days. In whatever of triumph is due to the foundation of the colony science surely has her share: whether that is sufficiently vindicated in this history the reader must judge. If it is not interesting it will not be from the absence of eminent labourers or worthy achievement. The fault will rest with the narrative, not with the work recorded.

I believe that, both in the old country and in the neighboring colonies, as well as in Queensland, the early incidents of our origin and growth will furnish a by no means useless contribution to the great store of facts which concern the general progress of humanity. Unfortunately, few amongst us have time or opportunity to collect that portion which elucidates either; while day by day the sources of information are decreasing, and those who could either furnish it, or indicate where it could be found, are silently passing away. Thus believing, and thus regretfully observing, I have collected the material for the first volume, and wrought as I have been enabled in its arrangement and distribution.

The period since the separation of Moreton Bay from New South Wales has been one of self-government, and necessarily presenting a species of facts differing from those found in its predecessor, requires a different kind of record. We have reached, although few in numbers, a position in the colonies sufficiently marked to justify more of analysis and less of narrative than was thought desirable in the first instance. We have had twenty-one years of the mimicry of politics, and of the reality of class and personal interests and strife; we have arrived at the dignity of a public debt equal to that of some sovereign states of almost secondary eminence,—larger in proportion to our numbers than that of our own neighbours,—and the questionable distinction of being by far the most heavily taxed community in Australia. We have constructed great public works; we have manufactured a statute book which, after two successive purgations, offers the reader four goodly volumes as the result of a third revision, which, within a very moderate period, will require revising itself; we have had three or four systems of land law, each at first deemed perfection, each in its turn decried and condemned; and are now casting about for another; and we have still to discern a plan of immigration which will meet the wants, not only of labor but of that class of employers having moderate means which forms the most substantial buttress to the State. And we are on the eve of great changes. Up to a very recent date, the independence of this colony was, in some important respects, as I have before suggested, more apparent than real. It labored, and other men entered into its labors. It had the slightest direct actual commercial status in the mother country; its trade was filtered through New South Wales; its leading exports found no recognition as from itself in the European markets; and its financial concerns were in the hands of banks and agencies, most of them having preponderating engagements and connections elsewhere, and looking on our local interests as proportionately subordinate and subsidiary. The first stroke at the fetters thus imposed, was the establishment of a local bank; the second, the securing of a direct steam service with Great Britain. The effect of the freedom thus opened to us should be seen in insistence on the quotation of our product as our own on the London market, and in the initiation of a steady and efficient and, while continuous, a self regulatory system of immigration. We are brought into fair contact with the world of commerce, and of culture as well, and it will be our own fault if we do not avail ourselves of the opportunity thus presented.

And further, in that extraordinary impetus given to enterprise, in one direction by the unexpected and simultaneous disclosure in districts widely apart of enormous mineral wealth—indeed offering "the potentiality of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice,"—and in another, by the almost sudden awakening to the possible magnitude of the sugar industry, there is sufficient indication that we are emerging from the condition in which weak and childish localisms can be allowed to interfere with the general progress and the general good. More, perhaps than either, the discovery of a process which opens an ever growing market for our flocks and herds, has infused new life into a pastoral industry which otherwise seemed likely to be suffocated by its own luxuriance of production. The far seeing judgment of that excellent man, the late Thomas S. Mort, has been vindicated, if not in the kind of process, amply in the results an efficient one is bringing about: it being in his case, as in others, that "wisdom is justified in her children," although they may not be permitted to see the fruition of their labour. I speak then but the language of truth and soberness, when I say there is no country on this earth—

"Whatever clime the sun's bright circle warms"

more certain, by the prudent use and husbandry of its resources, by bold and high principled statesmanship, by wise and just legislation, to become the fair and fruitful and happy home of teeming millions, than this colony of Queensland. Let me add that there is no country whose future may be more marred by the greed of classes, or of individuals, who cloak an insatiable avarice of power or wealth beneath the ample folds of an ostensible patriotism; that there is no country in which it is more necessary to cast class and even national prejudices on one side, and to remember that if the earth was created for man to replenish and subdue, the present inheritors of this vast territory are not all mankind; nor are the interests of all others of God's creatures to be subordinated to what a few thousand souls, scattered over nearly seven hundred thousand square miles, may be pleased to consider their own.

Bearing in mind these considerations, I have adopted, in the second volume, a different distribution of matter from that employed in the first. Instead of carrying on the narrative generally I divide it under the separate heads under which, for each subject to be thoroughly understood, it should naturally fall. Our social progress, our great public works, our state finance, our land legislation, our agricultural failures, and the advance in the three great industries which furnish our staple exports, require to be dealt with from the beginning as, so to speak, separate wholes. The parliamentary history I include in the ordinary narrative; because, when the legislative procedure which relates to the other subjects is eliminated from the general record, there is not much to be noticed, and what there is runs easily enough along with the general current of the history.

I am not unaware of the difficulties and dangers which may beset a writer who ventures to bring his narrative down, as it were, to the immediate present. I think it was old Fuller who remarked, that he who holds a candle to lighten posterity, may burn his fingers withal—a fate which might seem certainly to await one who has mingled not inactively in the disputes of the day. But as to this I must take my chance; being nevertheless of opinion that the historian who becomes a partizan, to the extent that he does so, discredits not only his judgment, but his accuracy. What facts are necessary for the elucidation and completeness of Queensland history, will be brought out with such clearness and vigor as I can exert; what is unnecessary to that main purpose, and would gratify only mere curiosity, or personal spite, will be as vigorously suppressed. That some conclusions should be deducted, some opinions expressed, is inevitable; but I trust to escape the censure passed by one of our most brilliant British critics upon a colonial author—in his day eminent and useful nevertheless—that his history was one of his own sayings and doings, with some references to the colony of which he professed to write. In the first volume, the object is to preserve what would be useful and interesting of what would otherwise be lost; in the second, to present, in a connected and available form, information enabling the reader, whether in the colony or in the mother country, to understand how we arrived at our present position; what that is; and what our possible future may be; what is required to rectify the errors of our early career, and to make even our failures contributory to our success. On the accuracy of the statements made in both volumes, I challenge the criticisms of my fellow colonists: as to the value of conclusions drawn from them, that must be left to public opinion to decide.

It would be ungrateful in me to close these remarks without expressing my thanks to the friends who have so kindly assisted me in the search after information. To the late Sir M. C. O'Connell, the late Mr. Charles Coxen, and the Late Mr. G. H. Davenport, I was largely indebted. To Mr. A. C. Gregory, Mr. C. Barton, of Maryborough, Mr. Landsborough, Mr. George Bourne, Mr. Wm. Thornton—I am under great obligations; and especially to the Hon. James Swan for assistance which no other person in the colony could have rendered. If I were to conclude by thanking Mr. Petrie, Mr. Walter Hill (the late curator of our Botanical Gardens), Mr. Warner, senr., Mr. P. Phillips, and the proprietors of the Queensland Times for the aid rendered me in the necessary researches into our earlier history, I trust I shall not be thought ungrateful to many, who, from time to time, supplied a fact or suggested a question which has been utilized, although, with a negligence common to authors, the source has been forgotten. To the President of the Legislative Council, and the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, my thanks are due for the access afforded me to the Parliamentary Library; and to many of the Clergy—of whom particular mention will be found in the proper place, I am indebted for facts which they only could have given me the opportunity of tracing. The courtesy of the official departments whenever I have had occasion to refer to them, I gladly acknowledge. I can affirm for myself, that I have spared no pains in the collection of information, and in testing the accuracy of that which was obtained; and it only remains for me to ask the indulgence of the reader for the faults he may find in the use made of the material so kindly afforded.

South Brisbane, January 1, 1882.