THE SQUATTERS' APOSTATE 163 



But " the principle of his life was change," said Wcnt- 

 worth, and again his opinions were transformed. He 

 deserted the squatters as he had deserted Gipps. Again 

 he clung to his seat, though he forsook his principles, 

 and once more, according to Wentworth, ho " choused " 

 his constituency out of its representation. Yet again 

 he made " a treacherous detour " and " stabbed in the 

 back " his " old comrade," WcntAvorth, as that old 

 comrade declared. " A parasite of the moment," in 

 1848 he stood for Sidney, and on the hustings the rivals 

 fought a battle-royal. Not till 1895, when Sir Henry 

 Parkes and Sir George Reid contested the King division, 

 was there another such duel. Having previously spoken 

 of Wentworth as " that great son of the soil," he de- 

 plored that he had lauded the statesman " in the sim- 

 plicity and the folly of his heart." Still impartial, 

 Sydney elected both ; and, when another election came 

 round three years after, Lowe had gone Home. 



He went. Lord John Russell hinted, because the Colony 

 had grown too hot for him, and he could remain no 

 longer. " Many former associates felt obliged, for 

 reasons to which I need not now advert," added Went- 

 worth, " to drop his acquaintance." So far did his 

 opponents carry their animosity that a number of in- 

 dividuals, squatters and politicians, refused to sail in 

 the ship that was to carry Lowe back to England, and 

 the Australian Jonah had to find another. That is an 

 entirely Wentworthian account of the matter, and is 

 given by Wentworth in a political pamphlet. Could 

 his malignity not sleep ? Alas ! Lowe had waked it 

 afresh. Having " old scores to pay off, mortifications 

 and insults to forget, and vengeances to wreak," he 

 opposed in the House of Commons the Constitution 

 bill for New South Wales, which Wentworth was urging 

 through Parliament. We might acquaint the squatters' 

 tribune, if his ghost still haunted his tomb at Greycliff, 

 on the romantic shores of Vaucluse, that Lowe aban- 

 doned New South Wales for the same reason as Went- 

 worth himself forsook it : he had grown too great for it. 



