GOVERNOR WRIGHT TO TILDEN
"Albany, May 1, 1845.
"My dear Sir,—Your note of the 26. ult. was duly recd. and I will attempt to give you a brief reply to it.
"The pardon of Honoria Shepherd was granted upon the exclusive application of the Inspectors and Keepers of the Prison, upon the ground that she was effectually reformed, and that longer confinement would be injurious, and not beneficial. Miss Bruce, one of the Assistant Matrons of the prison, came up in person to get the pardon, and said her health compelled her to leave the prison, that she was about to go to Illinois to reside, and that she proposed to take Honoria with her, and keep her with her in Illinois.
"I have sent copies of all the papers in this case to Judge Edmonds, who was a leading person in the application, upon whom I principally relied, and he will show them to you, if you wish to look at them. He, too, will advise about any defence of men in this case.
"Thomas Henry was pardoned upon the recommendation of the Board of Inspectors of the prison, upon the ground that he was in a confirmed consumption, was a patient in the Hospital, a constant expense, and must remain so while he lived, and that he had friends who were willing to receive, nurse, and take care of him, if pardoned. This was a voluntary report of the Board of Inspectors, embracing the report of the Surgeon upon 13 permanent invalid Convicts, only two of whom were known to have friends able or willing to take and take care of them, and those the inspectors recommended for pardons, considering it inhumane to ask pardons for the others to turn them out sick and without home, or friends. I. Parsons of your city is the father-in-law of Henry, and takes him to take care of him. Parsons is a Ship joiner and Spar maker, and his daughter, the wife of Henry, who came for the pardon, has a highly respectable appearance.
"The pardon of George Potter was granted upon the application of William F. Godfrey of your City, who gave his address to me as No. 94 Grove Street. He brought a letter of introduction to Judge Edmonds, speaking of him as his neighbor, referring to his business and saying 'I beg to say that you can fully rely upon his representations in the matter.'
"Godfrey presented a petition numerous and respectably signed, representing Potter, though guilty, as the dupe of old offenders, the offence for which he was convicted as his first offence, and him as very penitent and subdued, and earnestly praying his pardon.
"Potter was arrested on fresh pursuit, on the charge of picking a pocket in Broadway, and the report of the testimony showed that he was one of 4 or 5 who must have committed the felony. One witness was very positive that Potter took the pocket book, but another witness testified that he arrested Potter, that he kept his eye upon him from the time he started to run, and that, upon search, no pocket book, or money, was found upon him. Yet that he was principal or accessory, there is no doubt.
"A letter from James M. Smith Jr., Attorney for Potter on his trial, says Potter always avowed that he did not pick the pocket, and expresses the belief that, though guilty, he was the dupe of others.
"A letter from the Keeper of the Prison says 'Potter has conducted very well, since he has been an inmate of this prison, and he appears to show deep contrition for his "crime" and degradation; but he is a man of peculiar temperament, which renders it extremely difficult to judge, with any degree of certainty, the true state of his feelings.'
"This is a brief sketch of the paper case presented. Mr. Godfrey assumed to speak of Potter from personal knowledge, and said he came to this country from England, some year and a half ago, a young man, with a wife and two or three children, and with $15,000 in cash; that he fell into the company of some English blacklegs in New York, who induced him to gamble, drink, and carouse with them, until they stripped him of his money, and vitiated his habits, and rendered him desperate from want, when they commenced to initiate him into the art and mysteries of picking pockets; that in his first attempt he was caught and convicted, while the real rogues and the booty escaped; that his friends in England had been kept in ignorance of his course and his fate; that they were wealthy and respectable; that friends in New York had sent his wife and children to them, instructing her not to tell of his condition; and that they were satisfied his disgrace and punishment had prepared him, if pardoned and sent to them, to pursue a different and an honest and respectable course, and they only asked a pardon conditioned that he should leave the country, never to return to it.
"Confiding in these representations of Mr. Godfrey, I granted the pardon with such a condition, and I now suppose Potter sailed for England either on the 15th or 20th of April.
"Since I have seen the strictures in the newspapers upon this case, I have been very fearful that I was imposed upon by Mr. Godfrey, and especially as he has not come forward either to justify, or excuse, my act. I did act principally upon his representations, under Mr. Edmond's endorsement of him, and I should, at the least, have required him to put those statements upon paper, and made them upon his oath. I did neither.
"Now as to the matter of explanation and defense, I have felt in no haste, because I am sensible that I may deserve some castigation for having been too yielding in the first and last of these cases, and I have endeavored to school myself neither to wince, nor to be made sour by fault finding, which I am conscious I deserve, but to try to be improved and made better by it. If I were to make a defence for myself I should make about the substance of these remarks and this Confession a preface to it, and yet it might not be either very graceful, or very wise.
"This matter of pardons is the most troublesome to me of anything I yet find connected with my troublesome office. The applications will, I think, average from 3 to 5 per day, from the day I took the oath of office. My predecessor left an enormous legacy of undecided cases, and several with promises of pardons after specific periods, which are occasionally falling in, and this has greatly increased my labor.
"I do not intend to exercise this fearful power carelessly, or loosely, and yet I feel daily that I am in danger of doing it. I find that Courts, and Judges, and Jurors, and District Attorneys, sign with some of the facility which attends applications for office, and that the officers of the prison are also sometimes under the influence of the amiable weakness, so that there is no standard by which I can govern my action, and it is probably impossible to avoid occasional impositions.
"I thank you most sincerely for your friendly care, manifested by your note, and will now leave these cases with you, and Mr. O'Sullivan, with whom I had a hasty verbal conversation about them yesterday.
"Will you do me the favor to read this hasty letter to my friend Judge Vanderpoel, and say to him that I should have written it to him, if I had not preferred to trouble you with it, that I thank him most earnestly for his letter to Mr. Van Buren, and have intended to write him daily, since I saw that letter, but have not been able to find the time; and that, while I will hold this as the necessary answer from me to the part of it touching pardons, I will soon write him a satisfactory reply to the personal portions of it, for which I also thank him, as he is one of the last men I would have intentionally wounded by a careless, and what was intended to be a jocose remark.
"I am Very Truly Y'rs,
"Silas Wright."