Lachlan Macquarie (1762-1824), British officer and governor of New South Wales, sought to improve the status of emancipists and undertook a major public works program.

Lachlan Macquarie, born on January 31, 1762, came from a poor Scottish family in the Inner Hebrides. The American War of Independence offered him an opportunity to rise in the world, and he joined a Highland regiment commanded by a cousin. In 1784 Macquarie returned to Scotland as a lieutenant and three years later embarked upon 16 years of military service in India and Egypt.

Promotion to major, prize money, and an inheritance from his first wife, a West Indian heiress, enabled Macquarie to accumulate a competent fortune, and in 1803 he returned home to take possession of a 10,000-acre estate which he had acquired from his uncle on the island of Mull. The outbreak of war with France led to his appointment as assistant adjutant general of...