State Prison for this crime, four under sentences for life, and nine for terms varying from seven to ten years. In classification, these defendants are supposed to stand with the thirteen, and it seems to be considered that their punishments should be assimilated to the most guilty of their class, and the extreme punishment of the law be reserved for those whose moral as well as legal guilt is without mitigation. This course, it is confidently asserted, will best promote the cause of law and order, because it will avoid all pretext for a complaint that inequality, or injustice, has characterized the execution of the law.

If I had not found the statements of the jurors in these cases, and especially in the case of O'Conner, controlling upon my action in this matter, these wide spread and strong expressions of a sound and unprejudiced public opinion, formed from a careful examination of the testimony in the cases, as publicly reported, recommending as they do the same commutations of the punishments, would have added great weight to those statements. The disposition, apparent upon the face of these expressions, to sustain the law, with the least practicable degree of rigor, and to try the effect of lenity rather than severity, wherever there is a ground for reasonable question as the effect of the one or the other, upon the disturbed portion of the public mind, is worthy of an intelligent and patriotic people, and should have weight with their agents in the administration of the laws.

In addition to these reasons, inclining my mind towards the commutation of these sentences, four of the county judges, who were members of the Oyer and Terminer at the time of the trials of these defendants, have, with a feeling honorable to their characters as judges, communicated to me the fact that they have been solicited to sign petitions for the commutation of these sentences, and have declined to do so, not because their minds were made up in favor of the execution of the defendants, but because they did not consider it proper or expedient that they should interfere with the sentences of the court in that way. They state that their information, as to the recommendations of the respective juries, and as to the expressions of the public judgment, is not such as to enable them to form conclusions from those evidences; and that their impressions, derived from the trials, would leave them in great doubt what advice they ought to give, if called. upon to give any; but they feel it to be their duty to advise me that, if my sense of public duty, from all the facts before me, shall lead me to the conclusion to commute the sentences, they shall most cheerfully concur in that decision. The remaining judge was absent from the State, and could not be consulted.

I regret to be compelled to say that the evidences before me do not authorize the belief that all disposition to resist the law has been surrendered; and I have no right to hope that there are not those, in the excited counties, who will seek to make the commutation of these sentences the foundation for new encouragement to their deluded followers, who have been engaged in opposition to its execution. I will hope that such efforts will be confined to the few, and that the many, who have been deceived and led away by unprincipled leaders and

demagogues, have already seen enough of the unmixed évil of their unlawful course, to satisfy them that neither wealth, nor happiness, nor liberty, nor security are to be found in that direction.

If, however, this reasonable expectation shall be disappointed. and the commutation of these sentences shall be made an encouragement to farther crimes, the public, as well as those entrusted with the execution of the laws, will be consoled by the reflection that lenient means were tried and spurned, before the rule of extremest severity is adopted as the only alternative.

I have been urged to find a ground for commuting these sentences, in the consideration that the offences are political, and therefore entitled to a different and more lenient treatment than ordinary offences of similar grades. To my mind this consideration presents no meliorated aspect of this murder. If I could, in my classification, call this insurrection, commenced and prosecuted to resist the collection of admitted debts, a rebellion, or attempt at revolution of the State government, I should find, I fear, much more room to add the crime of treason to the catalogue already made up, than to discover a ground for indulgence in its political character.

The other considerations, however, which I have presented, have induced me, not without much hesitation, to conclude that the commutation of these sentences may be more beneficial to the cause of law and order, than the execution of the defendants. If I have not mistaken that point, my public duty is plain, and its performance in entire accordance with the personal feelings which must prevail with every citizen. But for a firm belief in its imperious necessity, no one would desire a public execution; and when there appears to be even an equal probability that a mitigated punishment may produce equally salutary results upon the great interests of society involved, a trial of the lenient course would seem to me to be alike the dictate of duty and inclination.

I have, therefore, decided to commute the sentences of the prisoners in your custody, John Van Steenburgh and Edward O'Conner, from that of death, pronounced by the Court, to that of imprisonment in the State Prison, during the terms of their respective natural lives; and I shall send you herewith the necessary papers to authorize you to transport them to, and deliver them at the proper prison.

I am, very respectfully,

Your obedient servant,

SILAS WRIGHT.

PROCLAMATION.

By SILAS WRIGHT, Governor of the State of New-York.

By Proclamation, issued on the 27th day of August last, in conformity with the provisions of the 19th section of the act entitled "An act to enforce the laws and preserve order," passed April 15, 1845, the county of Delaware was declared to be in a state of insurrection, according to the provisions, and true intent and meaning of that act. The reasons for that declaration, and the evidences upon which they rested, were given at length in the Proclamation.

It is now certified to me, by the principal civil authorities of the county, the same upon whose application I am required by the law to make the above declaration, that they hope and believe the insurrection recently prevailing in that county is effectually quelled. This certificate of the sheriff, district attorney, and judges of the county is concurred in by other prominent civil officers of the county, by the officer in command of the State troops in service there, and by several distinguished citizens of Delaware; all expressing this hope and belief, though not entirely free from apprehension.

Indulging strongly the hope, patriotically expressed by these individuals, that what has transpired in that county will satisfy all that the laws must and will be executed; and also that a revocation of the proclamation, declaring the county in a state of insurrection, and a withdrawal of the military force in service there, may tend to allay irritation, and to restore sober reason and calm reflection to the minds of the excited portion of that population; I cheerfully avail myself of the occasion thus presented, to recall a declaration made under a sense of imperious public duty, to withdraw all the military force in the service of the State from the county of Delaware; and to leave that heretofore peaceful and patriotic county again to the natural love of order of its inhabitants, and to the fidelity and energy of its own civil authorities. If evil influences shall hereafter be carefully avoided, and bad counsels firmly resisted, by those who have once yielded to dangerous delusions, insurrection will not again make its appearance in this county; and time, forbearance, and good conduct, will soon wear out the deforming traces of that which has terminated.

In the earnest hope that the wisdom and patriotism of the people of that county will be unitedly and unremittingly exerted to secure to themselves, their families, and their cherished county, these most desirable results:

I do hereby, in conformity with the provisions of the same section of the law which directed it, revoke my proclamation of the 27th day of August last, declaring the county of Delaware to be in a state of insurrection, from and after Monday the 22d day of the present month, and declare that the same shall cease, and have no force or effect, from and after that day.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto affixed the privy seal of the State. Witness my hand, at the city of Albany, this [L. S. ] eigteenth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-five. SILAS WRIGHT.