Early Governors' Papers

His Excellency Joseph M^cMinn Governor of the State of Tennessee

The petition of the undersigned respectfully represent To Your Excellency that at this present Term of the Circuit Court of Law for Greene County a certain James M^cGill charged with the commission of Simple Larceny was tried & convicted thereof and as part of his sentence was ordered to be taken to the public whipping post on the 2^nd day of October next and there receive five lashes on his bare back which sentence, although unavoidable from the proof of yet we [your? ?] for the following reasons would earnestly solicit Executive interfereance [sic] 1^st and principally from the [tender?] years of the culp= prits, his age being about fifteen or sixteen years. - 2^nd that this is the only charge that has been ever made against him and that his character is as good as most of the other poor boys in the neighbourhood 3. he was hired to a Mr. Coatney to labor for him one year that he ran off and took with him a coat pantaloons and shoes of common quality, belonging to Fielding Coatney the son of the man with whom he was hired that on the Sunday before he ran off and took said cloathes [sic] for which he is convicted the pantaloons ^being one garment of which he as convicted for stealing had been loaned To him to wear and which he returned on sunday morning. we your petitioners therefore pray your Excellency to extend pardon to the said James so far as relates to corporal punishment which if granted we request