To His Excellency Hon Thos E Bramlette
Governor of Kentucky

The undersigned would respectfully ask Your Excellency to pardon A T [...] Forsythe indicted in the Bourbon Circuit Court jointly with [...] Meramee and John McClintock for the murder of R T Armstrong. From our knowlege of the facts as they occurred and were developed at the examining trial we are satisfied that he was not guilty of any complicity in the atrocious deed On the contrary he was proven to have been up to the time of the unhappy occurrence the warm friend of the murdered man and that when Meramee was about making his assault upon Armstrong Forsythe interposed to prevent ^it^. His having gone with Meramee to the place where he met Armstrong is the leading fact that led to his arrest and indictment during the strong excitement in the community following the murder But we think this fact is fully explained by the statements made to him by Meramee tending to induce the belief that his purposes in going were pacific and friendly

Mr Forsythe is a young man of good habit, and character and highly esteemed in the community. He has already been subjected to great annoyance and expense on account of the indictment -an expense he is but little able to bear being dependent upon his own earnings We believe that his pardon would be but an act of Justice for the relief of an innocent and injured man