No. 55

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your Despatch No. 60
of the 23rd of August, reporting the grant of a free pardon to an Indian
named How-a-Matcha, who had been convicted of the murder of another
Indian.

Feeling that the importance of giving the Indians to understand
the necessity of conforming to Christian Laws must not for a moment be
lost sight of, I should wish some further explanation of the reasons
which induced you to set this prisoner at liberty.

I have great confidence in your judgment and in your experience of
the management of Criminals, but in the absence of fuller information I
should have thought that, if you had felt it was right so far to defer
to the Judge and Jury as not to carry the extreme penalty into
execution, you would have inflicted some punishment exemplary in itself
and likely to be regarded as an earnest of the more complete execution
of our Law in future cases.