Book V of The Australians. 1815. The Battle of Waterloo is over. To the war weary survivors of a European holocaust a generation long, a new continent beckons. New horizons, new opportunities and above all, a refuge from old authority. And indeed, Australia has been transformed. Sydney, once a den of vice, is now a neat, well-ordered town with clean streets, fine new buildings and good roads to outlying settlements. But in making it so, Governor Macquarie has made enemies. The coming of a Commissioner, sent by the Home Government to investigate his expenditure and the complaints against him signals the climax to a bitter struggle for power...