interests of the Hawaiian people. Wilcox along with Charles Wilson and Sam Nowlein, planned a coup d'état to replace Kalākaua with his sister Liliuokalani, but the plot was never executed. On February 11, 1888, Wilcox left Hawaii intending to return to Italy with his wife. Rebellion of 1889 Instead of returning to Italy, Wilcox took up residence in San Francisco, California, and worked as a surveyor while his wife Gina earned extra money teaching French and Italian. When he decided to return to Hawaii in the spring of 1889, Gina refused to go with him, and took their daughter back to Italy. Wilcox planned and this time executed another attempt to force King Kalākaua to sign a new constitution to replace the 1887 Document on July 30, 1889. Kalākaua, apparently aware of the plot, avoided the palace, afraid that the rebellion would replace him with his sister Liliuokalani. Thus stymied, Wilcox was finally confronted by the Honolulu Rifles militia unit. After a pitched battle, Wilcox surrendered. In October 1889, he was tried for treason before judge Albert Francis Judd but acquitted by the jury. Being one of the few leaders to stand up to the conservative royalist Reform Party earned him respect among the people. The American minister John L. Stevens, who called Wilcox a "half breed", wrote: "The trial is tending plainly to show that the Hawaiians are numerously in sympathy with Wilcox." He helped form a new political party called the "National Reform Party" which advocated restoring power to the monarch. Wilcox was again elected to the royal legislature where he served from 1890 to 1893 representing the island of Oahu. However, the conservatives in the original Reform Party, backed by the economic resources of the "Big Five" industrial corporations remained in power. In 1891, King Kalākaua died and his sister Liliuokalani became ruling monarch, swearing to uphold the 1887 Constitution. Wilcox was angered that Queen Liliuokalani did not choose him to be in her government, and he then formed his own National Liberal Party in November 1891. Although he did not explicitly advocate ending the Monarchy, the party advocated restoring power to the people even if it meant a republican form of government. After the elections of February 1892, when only 14,000 people were allowed to vote, letters and petitions demanded reforms to the Constitution of the Kingdom. On May 20, 1892, Wilcox and associates were arrested