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cared for the children, and a married ticket-of- leave man and a married
female assigned servant \'lho acted as domestic servants - a total of nine
persons who \'/ere all to be supported on a salary of £100. 7. 6 per year
and \•lhatever else Hall could earn in private practice.
prevai ling economic conditions made his task doubly diffitult .
Moreover, the
1834, was a hard year . Owing to the failure of the \'lheat crop in
1839, like
New South Wales in 1838, and the consequent large exportation of grain to
meet the demands of Ne\'1 South Wales, Adelaide and Port Philip, grain prices
reached famine height.
In Hobart TO\'In hunger and distress \'lere so
\'lidespread that Officer called a meeting at the Town Hall on August 24, 1839 ,
to form the Society for the Relief of the Distressed. l Franklin, too ,
offered to supply a liberal donation of vegetables each \'leek from Government
House gardens for the soup kit chens .
Perhaps financial difficulties and worries affected the
dispositions of some Bothwell residents too .
Certainly Hall \'las not
received with \'lelcomng arms by all in the district, especially not by
Scha\'1 of the 21st Regiment \'lho as senior Government official should have
known better.
Exactly why Schaw adopted such a hostile attitude to so
important a man in the community as the do ctor so early in their relationship
is not at all clear, but by November 1839 his feelings had become so obvious
that the True Colonist out of sympathy for Hall dre\'1 the fub lic 's attention
to the injustice of the Major's slander , although being careful to avoid
stating the exact details.2
Several years later Hall, too , in a letter to
Clarke on October 4, 1841, commented upon the treatment he received from
the beginning .
.... Persecuted as I have been by the Assistant Police Magistrate
ever since my appointment here in. May 1839 - I never thought of
appealing for protection to His Excellency in private matters ,
otherwise I shoul long since have shown that he has evinced his
determination to crush me , not by empty threats but by most
injurious acts
3
Scha\'1 may have been friendly with the former Assistant Police Magistrate at
Bighton, Roper , with whose actions Hall had disagreed, or rumours of
Hal l's attitudes to the welfare of assigned servants had already reached
his ears .
Probably the explanation of his conduct lies in his own
character and in the circumstances in which he lived at the time.
As
Courier , October 18, 1839 .
Colonist, Nov . 3, 1839 .
c.s.o. 22/8/284 .