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74
promptitude ? And ought not these forlorn outcasts , no
longer free agents, no longer permitted to seek aid for
themselves , but depending as entirely as ch ildren upon tP e
care of their masters , to have been as kind ly and hwnanely
treated ? Justice and humanity both demanded it .
Ha ll1s fears that some neglect would occur again at th is time
of widespread sickness were not unfounded .
Soon after his return from
Hobart Town he heard that Thomas Sadler had died from dysentry on April 4
after three weeks ' illness .
Sadler was an assigned servant of
Captain Walter Synnott and his brother , Frederick, of the Hermitage ,
Shannon , a property ten -miles from Bothwell.
As neither Hall nor his
assistant during his absence in Hobart Town had been summoned as the only
doctor in the area to give medical aid, Ha l l's suspicions were immediately
aroused but , without any real knowledge of the facts and proper evidence ,
he was in no position to interfere .
The Synnotts , Irishmen from
Bal lymoyer , County Armagh, the elder of them an Assistant Police
Magistrate, were considered to be wealthy , and Ha ll knew that , in the
three years he had been in Bothwell, their payment to him of medical fe es
did not amount to ten pounds , not one sixpence of which was for assigned
servants .
However, several weeks later on Friday , April l as Hall was on
his medical rounds , he accidentally overtook on the Den Hill J. Walton ,
another assigned servant of the Synnotts , on his way to a sale at
Green Ponds .
On being questioned about Sadler 's death, Walton gave Hall
the details freely, adding his own comments ;
Hermitage, was a large one running many thousands of sheep ;
the Synnotts' property , the
in addition,
there were six hundred head of cattle with only three assigned servants
to care for the lot ; no free labour was employed ; Walton did the work
of ·three men;
Walter Synnott, though a magistrate , would not get medical
aid for the men but maintained a glass of grog would cure them ;
it was
no use the servants complaining about anything to the local Assistant
Police Magistrate, Barrow , as he was a friend to Synnott and often
visited the Hermitage;
punishment .
any complaint would be met by some form of
The details of Sadler 's death appalled Ha ll .
A young man of
twenty-five in the prime of life , a model of health and strength , Sadler
had been in the service of the Synnotts for four years , during wh 1 ch tiDe
he had not lost a day off from work for sickness . Owing to some misdeed ,
he was sent away to Hobart Town to undergo solitary confinement .
he returned on February 6, he was so changed in appearance , so ill and
1\n en