James Blay Sr and his friend and business partner, James Triffitt Sr spent more time in Hobart Town than planned. There had been changes to the place and its feel, and they took longer to sort out their properties. Free settlers were arriving in their hundreds, and Blay noticed this was at the expense of the natives and the convicts.
‘It is looking more like an English village,’ Blay lamented to Triffitt. ‘Why do they travel to the other side of the world to make it look like the place they left? If the place they left was so wonderful, why did they leave?’
‘Some of them are making their fortune here and returning to England,’ Triffitt replied.
‘Good riddance to them then. They should leave us alone.’
Blay had not seen firsthand the punishments Arthur was inflicting on the convicts of
