Your petitioner would respectfully represent to your excellency that there is now a writ of capias pro fine in the hands of the Sheriff of Henderson against him for the sum of $220.¹⁶ which issued upon a Judgment under the Decr- Term of the Henderson Circuit court 1857- That said Judgment was upon an indictment against him for permitting gaming upon his premises, That the prosecution was set on foot & carried out through the malice of the Eastin Family against your petitioner, that the facts as proved by the only witness W A Eastin, showed your petitioner to have been absent at his home some 3 miles distant & the gaming took place between some of his hired hands at a point where he was working for coal- and at a time when he was absent- to well convinced was the commonwelths Attorney that malice was at the bottom of it- that he dismissed several other inditements upon information given by Eastins- & this verdict was upon technicality of the law, only — & so contrary to plain justice that the Jury offered to petition

to your excellency to remit it, & his attorney promised to attend to the matter & endeavor to obtain your executive Clemency, & your petition was informed & beleived that it had been done, & that your excellency had remitted the fine- until within the past few days- the Sheriff informed him of the writ before mentioned,

Now your petitioner would further state that he is in humble circumstances, with a family to Support, & that to require him to pay that fine, such times as now exhist, would be impossible, & that to imprisson him, would be, to deprieve his family of their only means of support, Your petitioner did not intend to violate the laws, but through their stringency he has been fined unjustly, He therefore in the name of himself, wife & children appeals to your clemency, to release him of this heavy burden-

N L Cooke

We the undersigned were Jurors who rendered the virdict above & beleive the facts therein stated are true, & think the case is one in which your excellency would do great justice by remitting the fine,

W, R, Lancaster
J, B, Rusk
Sol. S. Sizemore
G W Johnson
A. T. Goode
T J Hopkins
John E Taylor
J H Fulwiler
W M Ladd

State of Kentucky
Henderson Circuit } Sct

I T. J. Hopkins clerk of the Henderson Circuit Court do certify that the foregoing nine signatures are the names of nine of the Jurymen that brought rendered the verdict against him, as the same appears of Record in my office in Order Book "M" Page 449.

Witness my hand this 6^th June 1861

T J Hopkins C. H. C. C
By Fred Pentecost D C