This limitation did not apply to former convicts whose terms of servitude had expired, or who had been unconditionally pardoned, and more than half of all male convicts did leave the Australian colonies on the expiration of their sentence [it was more difficult for female emancipists to leave, as they had fewer opportunities of "working their passage" away from the colonies].
The Exclusives (who included many free settlers, civil servants and military officers) often shunned the society of emancipists, and considered them to be little more than criminals.
When Governor Lachlan Macquarie invited emancipists to social functions at Government House, for example, many military officers refused to attend.
Macquarie (Governor from 1810 to 1821) insisted that emancipated convicts be treated as social equals and, very conscious of the critical shortage of skills in the young colony, appointed emancipists with talent to official positions.
On 14 July 1792, Irving's Warrant of Emancipation was received in England and acknowledged by Henry Dundas, the Secretary of State.