To his Excellency B. Magoffin Esqr, Governor of Kentucky

Your Petitioner, S. P. McMahon, would respectfully reresent. That at the present (November) Term of the Estill Circuit Court, a Judgement was rendered against him, for the sum of $50.00 on an Indictment agaisnt him in said Court, for Carrying Concealed a Deadly weapon -- He says that the said Indictment was gotten up against him under the following circumstances He was a bar keeper at the Tavern house of William D Douglass in Irvine Estill County Ky and was very much annoyed by men who were drinking and behaving badly and had on several occasions to put such men out of the house on account of such conduct this exasperated such these men and their friends against him and he found it necessary in his own defence to prepare himself with a Pistol and to prevent such injury being inflicted on him. It was for having this weapon on his possession that he was Indicted and fined as aforesaid. He could not or the trial of his case prove any threats made against him although these threats had been made to his face repeatedly by these men as above set forth, and on the day he was proven to have had the weapon he did not strive to conceal, but so carried it that it might be seen and in the way he hoped to intimidate those who were in the habit of misbehaving themselves in the house and thus prevent such conduct at the time