Just who was the man whose name is proudly borne by Australia's oldest city, and by another city in Canada? When the British cabinet accepted his recommendation to send convicts to Botany Bay, Lord Sydney, as secretary of state, instructed the Treasury 'forwith' to provide for the First Fleet. A John Bull figure, full of bumptious ambition and self-confidence, Sydney had a remarkable political career, largely in opposition. He had sympathised with rebebllious American colonists while holding true to British interests, and in 1782 he led in settling the peace between Americans and Britons. As a peer he chose the name Sydney for his barony in memory of his distant uncle Algernon Sidney, beheaded in 1683 for writing 'the people of England... may change or take away kings'. This very fine biography is a story to savour.