ful spectacle of a nation of
criminals!

The desire to possess free institutions, brought the question of
transportation to a crisis. The patriotic association advocated an
unrestricted concession of political rights; the anti-emancipists a
limitation of the franchise to such as were always free. This division
of opinion was characterised by the usual warmth of political faction,
aggravated by personal anger. The petition of the exclusionists called
the attention of parliament to the state of the convict question, and
solicited enquiry.[221] Macarthur, whose work is a commentary on the
petition, full of valuable information, suggested the abolition of
assignment, the separation of the convict department and colonial
government, and the establishment of large gangs, in which labor might
be exacted, without partiality.

Such was the state of this important question during the last years of
Arthur's administration. When he deemed the details of his penal system
nearest perfection, the main principles on which it rested were
undermined. The severity enjoined by Lord Stanley, and the lenity
exercised by General Bourke, raised an outcry against transportation;
and once more propagated the idea that in its lenity it was corrupt, and
its severity cruel. A running fire was kept up by the press, which
returned to the question of secondary punishments with new vigour, and
repeated all the problems on this perplexing subject--perhaps, destined
to confound the wise, and furnish a theme for dogmatism through all
time.

In 1837, the House of Commons appointed the committee, of which Sir
William Molesworth was chairman.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 216: _Mudie's Felonry._]

[Footnote 217: "I thought them a villanous shabby set, compared with
convicts in Van Diemen's Land." "There appeared a great deal of
flogging." "My men did twice as much work." "I told my brother, if he
used his men as we did, he would get more work: he said _it would be
ill-received through the country_. They had very inferior clothing, and
got very little meat. These remarks were applicable to the estates in
general."--_Mr. P. Murdoch's Evidence_--questions 1397 to 1403.]

[Footnote 218: _Par. Pap._]

[Footnote 219: _Sydney Gazette, April 1835._]

[Footnote 220: "It was the uniform tendency or design of the writings of
these individuals, as it has been also that of all other public writers
of convict origin in the Australian colonies, to reduce the reputable