Governor Arthur addressed a despatch, on "secondary punishments," to Viscount Goderich, intended to answer the report of the select committee of 1832. He thought the witnesses were not conversant with the state of the prisoners--a fact not surprising, since even the effect of English penitentiaries was debated under their very walls. The gentle system of Governor Macquarie was a tradition among the criminal population of Great Britain; but in this country, colonised at a later date, and by settlers of a higher class, the advantages of the convict were small, and his control more complete. Arthur thus delineated the condition of the assigned servant: deprived of indulgence, living in the interior, employed in clearing and cultivating forest land, allowed no wages; idleness, even looks betraying an insurgent spirit, exposing him to the chain gang or the triangle; deprived of liberty, subject to the caprice of a family, and to the most summary laws. He was a slave, except that his master was not trusted with the lash, and his claim for service terminable. True, he was well fed, while many in England labored hard, and yet were hungry and poor; but nothing reconciled the prisoner to bondage: he compared his condition not with the British pauper, but theirs who, though working in the same field, were masters of their own labor. He asserted that the bravado of persons, who affected indifference when ordered for Macquarie Harbour, was fully answered by the murderers who, to enjoy a momentary escape, ventured their lives; by the desperate efforts of many to conceal themselves in vessels, deprived of food for days, and tortured until their limbs mortified; by the despair of many rioters who arrived in the _Eliza_, who, dejected and stupified by grief, soon drooped and died. He maintained that transportation, though not absolutely successful, was to be preferred, as frequently most dreaded, reformatory, and final. He maintained, that the current reports respecting transportation deserved no credence, and were unsafe as foundations of public policy. Often, from the most selfish motives, the most delusive statements had been forwarded by prisoners. He instanced a woman from Liverpool, who arrived with her four children, allured by the representation of her husband, and sent out by the charity of his prosecutors; and who had informed her that, beside L60 per annum, he was lodged and fed for his labor. In this case, however, the man wrote falsely; but at that moment there were many who might have made the statement with truth.