The Commissioner's arrival in Van Diemen's Land (1820) was attended with the same military honors: wherever he went he was received with ceremony, and watched with jealousy and apprehension. The habits of Mr. Bigge were simple, complacent, and industrious: he labored to draw from all classes their feelings and designs--nothing escaped his curiosity. His opinions are given on every subject with equal quietness, whether they relate to the salting of beef, or the most profound questions of government. The Reports he sent to the Secretary of State descended to the smallest matters: he noted every rood of land granted, and every ration issued. The style of these documents is felt to be prolix, and their arrangement perplexing. Their contents excited very general interest in England, and in Australasia unbounded indignation.[136] Whatever epithet of hatred and contempt could be applied by impotence and wrath, for years fell on the imperturbable Commissioner and his secretary. He was charged with eaves-dropping, back parlour scandal, partisanship, and wilful lying. The particular delineation of individual conduct, and which he thought requisite to illustrate systems, excited the utmost vexation: it was painful to officers, to find their character, their habits, and the profits of their places, laid open to national observation. Perhaps, those details were sometimes beyond an obvious political necessity; but the plain exhibition of principles in old English phrases--giving vice its true name--measuring the results of transportation by a standard recognised outside both the mess-room and the gaol--was of vast advantage to the colonists themselves. The reference made to Bigge's Reports in this work, however, is always limited to facts, which could not be distorted or colored. His connections, and the spirit of his mission, prejudiced his judgment, respecting a system which had been the growth of circumstances; but his integrity is transparent, not less than his prepossessions. Time will extract the sting of his disclosures; but their moral results will remain. They tended to destroy those evils which can only live in a congenial atmosphere--and wither, except in the shade.