THE SQUATTERS' TRIBUNE 147 



when Darling was leaving the Colony, he organized a 

 disgraceful orgy at his home of Vaucluse and under 

 the cabin-windows of the ship in which the anti-emanci- 

 pist Governor was to sail. 



With his innate distinction and his squatter's habits 

 and surroundings, Wentworth can never have been a 

 democrat. Yet it is notable that, unlike James Mc- 

 Arthur, Charles Cowper, and other squatters, or Robert 

 Lowe, M^ho was the squatters' friend, he never sat for a 

 county in the Legislative Council. As if he were too 

 great to belong to a party or a class, he habitually pre- 

 sented himself to the electors of Sydney, even after he 

 had lost much of their confidence. Indeed, he professed 

 to be a tribune of the people. He showered contempt 

 on the nominee members of the Legislative Council. 

 He asked the 'pUhs if it would tamely submit to an in- 

 tolerable form of government. He urged it to demand 

 the common-law rights of every subject, which an un- 

 reformed Parliament had for forty-five years withheld 

 from it. He denounced financial arrangements — 

 namely, the fixing by the Government of the permanent 

 officers in its emploj^ment — made without the know- 

 ledge of the Council. He claimed for the Council the 

 right to control the proceeds of the sale and leasing of 

 Crown Lands. It was their industry, he told his hearers, 

 that raised the revenue ; would they endure taxation 

 M^thout representation ? If they did, they were " a 

 conquered, an abject, a degraded people." All this 

 was in 1833, and he aided in forming a Patriotic Asso- 

 ciation to demand a reformed constitution. He led 

 the patriots, but he also led the Emancipists, and it was 

 on this ground that most of the squatters deserted him 

 for a time. 



His temper was autocratic. He browbeat a sheriff 

 who, presiding at a political meeting, ruled a point 

 of order against Wentworth's party. " I will neither 

 be curbed myself nor suffer any friend of mine to be 

 curbed," he haughtily cried. It was not justice for 

 others that he sought, but justice for himself. Like 



