To His Excellency Gov Bramlette

Your petitioners John Raley and W P Downs would state to your Excellency that they are indicted in the Ohio Circuit Court for Keeping a Tippling house, and they have given a truthful statement of the case. They say that they [are] doing a very small business in their neighborhood in merchandise. They state that their business was very limited as their means are and [are] both being in very poor circumstances — They now trading as partners. Like many others they got license to sell as merchants and are mistaken as to the privileges they [are] entitled to. They say that they get license from Jacob Leach as assessor or made or made application to him and procured the license to sell whiskey from W H Miller. Col collector both being United States officers. They positively assert that they honestly thought they had the right to sell and did sell publicly and by the glass and otherwise as purchases would want. They state that they asked different persons and they all thought that petitioners had the Right to sell and this too was the opinion of the sheriff of the county for they

asked his opinion. They paid twenty dollars to the officers afores^d.

They sold for about three months, dissolved and quit the business and are not now engaged in merchandising but are [at] work which they understand better and hope it will prove more profitable. They pray your Excellency for relief. The court is the 4^th Monday in March present month. The foregoing is a truthful statement and they do pray your Excellency for relief by the time the court comes.

John ^his X mark^ Raley
W P. Downs

Sworn to before me this 9^th day of March 1864 by John Raley ^W. P. Downs^ atto A. L. Morton Clk Ohio Cir Ct

Remit except fees & costs
Thos E Bramlette