While Bigge was trying to turn back the clock, ex-convicts
and their sons and daughters were demanding greater
rights. Most important, they realized, again just as in the
United States, that to consolidate their economic and
political rights fully they needed political institutions that
would include them in the process of decision making. They
demanded elections in which they could participate as
equals and representative institutions and assemblies in
which they could hold office.
The ex-convicts and their sons and daughters were led
by the colorful writer, explorer, and journalist William
Wentworth. Wentworth was one of the leaders of the first
expedition that crossed the Blue Mountains, which opened
the vast grasslands to the Squatters; a town on these
mountains is still named after him. His sympathies were
with the convicts, perhaps because of his father, who was
accused of highway robbery and had to accept
transportation to Australia to avoid trial and possible
conviction. At this time, Wentworth was a strong advocate
of more inclusive political institutions, an elected assembly,
trial by jury for ex-convicts and their families, and an end to
transportation to New South Wales. He started a
newspaper, the Australian , which would from then on lead
the attack on the existing political institutions. Macarthur
didn’t like Wentworth and certainly not what he was asking
for. He went through a list of Wentworth’s supporters,
characterizing them as follows:
sentenced to be hung since he came here
repeatedly flogged at the cart’s tail a
London Jew
Jew publican lately deprived of his license
auctioneer transported for trading in slaves
often flogged here
son of two convicts
a swindler—deeply in debt
an American adventurer
an attorney with a worthless character
a stranger lately failed here in a musick shop
married to the daughter to two convicts
married to a convict who was formerly a
tambourine girl.