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The property was advertised .again on June 28 , July 19 and July 26 .
fami ly never returned to Seymour Cottage which was probab ly sold.
rest of his life Hal l lived in rented houses .
The
For the
Hall's time in Brighton , from mid 1834 to the end of April , 1839 ,
sa\'1 many changes and the glimmeri.ngs of greater ones which would vitally
affect the lives of all concerned.
lng term of t\'lel ve years as Governor ended;
of "progress and excitement" .
section of the community he wrote :
By this
On October 20 , 1836 , Sir George Arthur 's
he described it as a period
Speaking of the agricultural and grazing
It is rather the general movement and the steady progress of the
settlers as a body that attracts attention . Both the one and
the other are , however, I should conceive, quite unprecedented
There is no parallel of such rapid progress in any former instance
of civilization . Never in so short space of time did the first
possessors of any territory pass from a state of comparative
poverty , into one not only of abundance but of ab solute wealth.12
time , apart from the western part of the is land, almost all the
available pasture land had been appropriated .
New immigrants with capital
found they had to become either tenants or purchase the estate of another,
or put their money into other business ventures . Arthur 's successor ,
Sir John Franklin, who spent a month on an acclimatisation tour of the
colony soon after his arrival on January 6, 1837, was enthusiastic in his
praises :
I have been agreeab ly surprised by the advanced conditions
of the co lony in ·nearly all respects , by the ease and opulence
in which the settlers live, and by the degree of intelligence
wh ich I have found among them . Good roads and bridges with a
few other improvements ... seem alone wanting to gi've full
development to the resources of the country and advance it to
a high state of prosperity ... 13
Frank lin also noted that there was a strong desire for increased moral and
re ligio.us education in the colony and that an "inconvenient degree of
excitability of pub lic feelng 111 4 existed .
On this first tour , Franklin
did not pay much attention to the conditions of the convicts at road
stations , surprised and delighted as he was by the enthusiastic welcome he
received everywhere and the novelty of the situation .l5
Certainly the
conditions at some of the road stations were very bad, the Brighton area
being no exception.
On March 19 , 1838, De Little complained that the
12 GO 33/20 p. 240 .
13 GO 33/26 p. 196 .
14
GO Ibid., p. 198 .
1 5 Colonial Times , Feb . 7, 1837.