Office of the Historian

Lord Stanley to Mr. Adams

Foreign Office, May 26, 1867.

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt, at a late hour last night, of your letter of yesterday, interceding for the prisoners Burke and McCafferty, now lying under sentence of death in Ireland for the crime of high treason.

I need scarcely assure you that any representation which you might make under instructions from your government in behalf of persons whose lives were forfeited on account of their participation in even so heinous a crime, would always receive from her Majesty’s government the most serious and earnest consideration; and in the present case I am most happy to inform you that, after fully weighing all the circumstances of the case, with the view of deciding whether it were right or possible to remit the extreme penalty of the law in favor of the two prisoners for whom you especially intercede, her Majesty’s government came yesterday afternoon to the conclusion that there were grounds on which they might recommend them to the clemency of the Queen, so far as their lives were concerned; and as I cannot doubt that the Queen will gladly accept the advice of her government thus tendered to her Majesty, I feel that I need not hesitate at once to assure you that the sentence of death passed on these prisoners will not be carried into execution,

I may also say that it will be a source of no small satisfaction to her Majesty’s government that the clemency shown in this case will be gratifying to the government of the United States, in whose name you have appealed to them for the mitigation of the punishment so justly due to persons who have wantonly engaged in treasonable acts against the peace of the Queen’s dominions.

I have the honor to be, &c., &c., &c.

STANLEY.

Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.

P. S.—May 27.—I have delayed sending you this letter in the hope that I might be able to add to it the reply of the Queen to the recommendation, which I inform you had been made on Saturday to her Majesty; and I am now in a position to acquaint you that the Queen has been graciously pleased to comply with the advice of her ministers, and to signify her assent to the sentence of death, passed on the prisoners Burke and McCafferty, being commuted for penal servitude for life.