"His Excellency is sensible that this end could never have been so successfully attained as it has been, without the zealous co-operation of the colonists at large, who in conjunction with a due exaction of labor, have very generally insisted upon the observance of orderly and regular conduct. "As it is through this good feeling on the part of the colonists generally, that the police has proved so efficient an auxiliary in the general control of the convict population, and as it would be unjust to allow the exceptions which may yet exist to affect the reputation of the colony at large, the government will still more firmly pursue the course of withdrawing assigned servants from all masters who neglect to regard cleanly, decent, and sober habits in and out of their huts, and a seasonable attention to moral and religious duties, as part of the compact under which the labor is placed at their disposal. "The Lieutenant-Governor on this occasion feels it due to the general body of the settlers, to acknowledge his obligation to them for the cordial support he has received at their hands in the control and management of the convict population, with which no political differences have been permitted to interfere, and his Excellency does so with the more satisfaction, at this particular time, when the attention of the Imperial Parliament is so especially drawn to the consideration of the important subject of prison discipline, and when the state of things in the colony has placed the local government in a situation to contradict the unjust imputations which have been raised against transportation as a punishment. "By his Excellency's command, "J. BURNETT."] [Footnote 211: Backhouse and Walker's observations. This evil was corrected on their representation.] [Footnote 212: _Par. Papers._] [Footnote 213: "The Rev. Dr. Bedford, in the course of his remarks, stated that his duty had imposed upon him the painful task of attending between three and four hundred executions, and that more than nineteen-twentieths of the unhappy men who had thus miserably perished, had been brought to this end by the effects of drunkenness."--_Courier_; Speech at a meeting of the first Temperance Society at Hobart Town, 1832.