14 THE EARLY TASMANIAN PRESS, ETC. 



Sorell. The colonists did not welcome the new-comer, 

 Sorell had been easy-going and affable. His rule had laid 

 lightly on the free settlers, and he was no fastidious wor- 

 shipper of elaborate organisation or regulation. On the 

 other hajid, Arthur's reputation was that of a stern soldier, 

 with a high hand and an iron heel; a man keen on order, 

 efficiency, and discipline ; a man who, placed at the head 

 of a colony which was a penal settlement as well as a home 

 for free settlers, would rule it as a. penal settlement, pure 

 and simple. Such a man was bound to clash with the 

 spirit which was manifesting itself among the free settlers. 

 They were formulating demands for liberation from the 

 control of Sydney, for trial by jury, and for representative 

 government, demands which were not all compatible with 

 the fnnda.mental character of the settlement. 



The trouble soon commenced. Immediately on his 

 entry to office, Arthur appointed his nephew, John Mon- 

 tagu, Colonial Secretary, and drew round himself a circle 

 of advisers and officials appointed almost entirely from 

 amongst the new arrivals. He reorganised the prison sys- 

 tem, tightened the discipline, and by a series of orders' 

 placed the whole penal and political life of the colony on 

 a different footing. He seems to have paid little regard 

 to those who had been the friends and advisers of his pre- 

 decessor, and even less to the manner in which things had 

 been done formerly. 



Such an attitude promptly aroused opposition from 

 those who thought themselves slighted, and this was re- 

 flected in the correspondence to the Gazeffe. When the 

 new Governor arrived, Bent determined to shake himself 

 free from such Government supervision as had formerly 

 been attached to his paper. Up to this time, the editor 

 had been appointed by the Governor, but Bent now dis- 

 missed the old editor, and appointed Evan Henrv Thomas, 

 a well-educated and fluent writer, in his place (28). 

 Thomas soon began to venture an occasional mild protest 

 against official sins of omission and commission, and passed 

 for publication one or two letters in which the protests 

 were more strongly worded. Chief amongst the critics of 

 the Government was Robert Lathrop Murray, who wrote 

 under the nom-de-plume of ''A Colonist." Murray's let- 

 ters usually filled three or four columns of the paper, and 

 contained a few grains of wheat in the midst of a stack of 

 chaff. There was plenty of vague generalising, largely 

 much ado about nothing; but having read throush the 

 mass of words, one perceived dimly that ''Colonist" had 

 been criticising the new Governor. The editor, in pub- 

 lishing such lettei^, pleaded for greater brevity, and stated 



