The strong will of the prisoners thus encountered opposition on every hand. They were hedged round with restrictions; they were at the mercy of the magistrate, and subject to the lash, for offences which language is not sufficiently copious to distinguish with nicety.[188] Their unsupported accusations recoiled on themselves. They were entitled to complain, but the evidence they could generally command, was heard with natural suspicion. So well did they understand the hopelessness of contest, that they rarely replied, where a defence sometimes aggravated their punishment. The convict was subject to the caprice of all his master's household: he was liable every moment to be accused, and punished.[189] Unknown, without money, he had no protector or advocate: one magistrate could authorise fifty lashes; one hundred could be inflicted by the concurrence of a second. It was asserted by Arthur, that the statement of their liabilities produced an expression of dismay in the countenances of convicts newly arrived. The indefinite character of these offences; the boundless discretion of the magistrate; the influence of the master; the presumption always against the accused; the dreadful nature of several of the punishments--doubtless created in many the recklessness of defiance and despair. A prisoner's sentence might be extended one or three years; he might be doomed to a penal settlement and chains. Nor could he liberate himself from his servitude: he came back from the triangles or road party, and stood at his master's door. The determined resistance of change, except for punishment; the indissoluble tie of men to masters--was one part of Arthur's plan. The knowledge that submission was the only chance of happiness, caused many to yield to their destiny without a struggle; and where masters were humane, the connection lasted, without murmuring or oppression, until the close; but with many more, it was a period of misery, mental and bodily--the fierce passions breaking into open war, and seeking nothing but revenge or freedom. The rolls of the muster-master exhibit curious instances of this long struggle: there are several now before the writer, in which punishments succeed each other with a frequency so terrible, that the mind is only relieved by the belief that sensibility is destroyed by incurable misery.