of commercial articles imported from abroad in the hands of Simeon Lord and other dealers was £15,000". Though his position was not comparable with that of Robert Campbell, it is clear that already he was one of the leading merchants of Sydney. His business was on the site of the corner of Bridge Street and Macquarie Place. In 1807 Governor William Bligh spoke adversely about his business dealings with the masters of ships, and Judge Field several years later spoke in a similar way. Aspersions of this kind against members of the emancipist class at this period must, however, be accepted with caution. No doubt Lord was a keen business man well able to look after his own interests, but he also had enterprise and courage, valuable qualities in the developing colony. About 1805 Lord began a relationship with Mary Hyde (1779–1864), a convict who had arrived in Australia in 1798. Mary already had two children from a previous relationship a business associate of Lord's, the deceased privateer (state-sanctioned pirate) and ship's officer Captain John Black, and Lord became their stepfather. He and Mary went on to have 8 children of their own over the next 15 years. Also in 1805 Lord went into partnership with Henry Kable and James Underwood, but their association ended in legal disputes in the courts of New South Wales, as did many of Lord's ventures. Lord was immensely litigious, and his affairs also took up a large percentage of the early appeals from the Colony of New South Wales to the Privy Council in England. The records of the Privy Council indicate that his opponents may have had good grounds for arguing that he used the Privy Council as a means of warding off his creditors rather than in a genuine attempt to test the legality of judgments against him. In his partnership with Kable and Underwood he was active in developing the sealing boom at the Antipodes Islands to the south and east of New Zealand's South Island in 1805 to 1807. Before Lord had begun his relationship with Mary Hyde, he had adopted the orphan Joanna Short (1792–1841). Joanna was the orphan of convicts Elizabeth Drury (died 1793) and Joseph Short (died 1795). In 1806 Simeon's adopted daughter, who was no more than 14, married Francis Williams, a business partner of Lord's, and the couple travelled together to London on business for