THE GOLDSEEKERS

WILLIAM STUART LONG

Volume 7 in The Australians series moves to a major turning point in Australian history -- the discovery of gold.
   For the first sixty years of Australia's existence, proof that her mountains and rivers were rich in gold was rigorously suppressed by successive governors. Lachlan Macquarie said that the future prosperity of New South Wales lay in its agriculture. 'The people would starve if they were permitted to squander the bounties of nature in a wild quest for gold.'
   The California Gold Rush of 1848-1849 brought Australians determined to use their mining skills in a search for the country's undiscovered riches. Amongst the motley crowd of avaricious gold seekers was Jasper Morgan, who had murdered his Californian partners. Learning in San Francisco that their quarry has taken ship to Australia, Luke and Mercy join Claus Van Buren's clipper ship, the Dolphin, to work their passage to Sydney . . . Also returning is Red Broome.
   By the time the two ships reach Sydney the Australian gold rush has begun. The harbour is filled with vessels deserted by their crews and in the towns and on the sheep and cattle station workers have abandoned their employment to join 'the wild quest for gold' that Governor Macquarie so greatly feared...
   Readers who have followed the series so far will find that it's now the descendants of the original characters who take the stage; Justin and Jessica Broome's sons and their daughter Jenny; Rick and Katie Tempest's children, and those of George and Rachel De Lancey; the lonely little boy Claus Van Buren, now grown to manhood; Jamie Willoughby and his sisters; Dickon O'Shea and Alice Cox.