Early Governors' Papers

was only equated by the certainty of the offence, his character having hitherto been unstain^d, with any actions which youths of good fame & respectable families sometimes commit, and upon his Examination & commitment a thorough conviction rested upon our minds as well as the minds of others present of the participation of an other or more in the deed which impression notwithstanding the trial of the offender is past, is still retaind by numbers in the neighbourhood.

The offender has not of our knowledge petitioned for mercy himself. - nor did the parent have a disposition to withhold from the rigid services of the law the Child; when held up to public scrutiny & to public justice but resigned (to that power essential in in all free governments) the correcction of a near allied member of his family without complaint & with =out remonstrance - nor has a single relative thus asked his liberty. But persons unconnected by affinity or consanguinity to his famiy - have through respect and for the restoration of Ease & comfort to them, and from feelings of sympathy for the deluded youth, Thus petitioned your Excellency for his release. The petition first forwarded you - we can say was from the kind hands of strangers and nothing more than the impression form^d upon the trial, led their minds to conceive him to be an object of Executive mercy. The present petition being from the neighbourhood in which his parents reside we hope will strengthen the grounds of the principle on which his freedom is solicited. We would remark that the youth is poor & pennyless. The father with a large family of small children to support is an object of commiseration & pity-

James Reid Wm D. Orr Community Magistrates -