The Story Begins:

In late 1787 Lachlan Macquarie began his preparations for returning to full-time military duty. He had spent the intervening years since his return to Britain from Jamaica in February 1784 coming to terms with the disbandment of his regiment, the 71st Highland Regiment, and his 'retirement' to the half-pay of the Army, after seven years military duty in the Americas. He was now aged almost twenty-seven, and apart from nine months in Edinburgh and London, he had spent the past two and a half years working as a factor on the Lochbuie estate of his uncle and benefactor, Murdoch Maclaine (1730-1804) on the Isle of Mull.

These years are largely blank in terms of surviving documentary indicate Lachlan Macquarie's thoughts and activities. However, in December 1787, he commenced a diary that marked the beginnings of a remarkable archive documenting his personal activities in the next twenty years in widely dispersed places in South Africa, India, Sri Lanka, China, Egypt, the Persian Gulf, Iraq, Iran, Russia, Denmark and Sweden. He returned to Britain only once in the period 1788 and 1807 — during the years 1803-1804. However, he always maintained close links and associations with his Scottish kinsmen and friends in his Hebridean homeland of Mull and Ulva, as well as in the Western Highlands of Scotland, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and the environs of 'North Britain'.

Now read the thoughts and actions of this future governor of New South Wales as he began the middle stages of his adult life...