The timid apathy of the Colonial Office was no more than the reflex of the dead indifference of the nation.

None but a man of genius could have breathed life into it.
Fortunately the genius appeared.
Though the name of Gibbon Wakefield will probably be remembered as long as the history of Australia and New Zealand is read, the man himself was, during most of his active career, under a cloud.

The abduction of an heiress--a mad freak for which he paid by imprisonment and disgrace--deprived him of the hope of ordinary public distinction.
For many years he had to work masked--had to pour forth his views in anonymous tracts and letters, had to make pawns of dull men with respectable names.

This and more he learned to do.

He found information and ideas for personages who had neither, and became an adept at pulling strings and manipulating mediocrities.