To the Hon Beriah Magoffin Governor of of the commonwealth of Kentucky.

The undersigned citizens of Lewis county show to your Honor, that Melchor Bolinger, a German, was, at the present term of the Lewis circuit court, convicted of the crime of shooting at a citizen of this county with an intent to kill, & the jury fixed his term of punishment at six months imprisonment — That there was not a single mitigating ^circumstance^ proved upon the trial — yet they are informed that a petition has been sent to your Hon to interpose the powers vested in the Executive, between the culprit & punishment. This petition, they are informed, has been signed by the jury who tried the prisoners; if this be true, the jury must have done so through a misplaced sympathy for its prisoner, it having been proved upon the trial, that the person whom he attempted to kill, rested the gun from him, & with it, gave the prisoner a sound beating — The evidence upon the trial conclusively proved that there was not the slightest provacation, or even excuse for the crime — That it was committed upon the premises of person whose life was attempted to be taken — The undersigned, your petitioners, firmly believe that the prisoner has not the slightest claim to executive clemency — & they pray & hope that it will not be extended to him.

Mitchnor Bolinger
Lewis Co —