In the tiny colony of New South Wales, Australia, in the early nineteenth century, William Charles Wentworth stood as the single most politically powerful figure; he went on to become one of the colony's wealthiest men. Wentworth gave his weight to early forms of limited self-government, using whatever public forum was available to propound his plans for the colony and to undermine his opponents. Broadsides, exploration journals, the press, poetry, the courtroom, and the floors of the Legislative Council of New South Wales and the House of Commons in England's Parliament were the forums in which he attacked the Exclusives (those who opposed civil and military preferment for pardoned convicts and wished to see the colony administered by a small group selected by the colony's wealthiest), various governors, and critics of his family. He lived in the manner of the Roman senators upon whose rhetorical style his own...