Book V of The Australians. Europe is still shattered by the Napoleonic War and a survivor of Waterloo sets sail for Sydney Town - Lieutenant Rick Tempest, brother to Abigail and Lucy and friend to Justin Broome. On the voyage out, HMS Kangaroo comes across a small boat containing the last survivor of the Providence, the beautiful American Kate O'Malley. In Sydney, Governor Lachlan Macquarie has transformed Sydney from a den of vice into his vision of a town of beautiful buildings, clean streets and good roads leading to newly-settled districts. But in doing so he has incurred the lasting displeasure of a parsimonious Foreign Office and the jealousy of his enemies.