Report of William Henry Ashhurst on 1 individual petition (prisoner) and 1 collective...

Report of William Henry Ashhurst on 1 individual petition (prisoner) and 1 collective petition (3 people, including the prosecutor) on behalf of Augustus Frederick Law, late a surgeon at Goudhurst (in partnership with William Hunt) but recently living at Witham in Essex, convicted on 15 March at the Kent Assizes at Maidstone, for a highway robbery on Miss Dyke and Mrs Austin. Evidences supplied by Edward Burlton and A[?] Dyke. There is also a reference to stealing a horse, property of Burlton. The petition gives a short life story of the prisoner from his birth in Albany, New York, education at the University of Leipzig, through to his work in England and up until his conviction. Grounds for clemency: mother had died and he was a support to his father, family had supported the royal family and British government during the American revolution and had lost their estates as a result, persecution after the revolution led him eventually to emigrate to England where he entered into a dubious and ultimately ruinous partnership with Hunt, had made an appeal to the Commissioners appointed to investigate the losses of American loyalists, he had travelled to London to redeem monies only to find the necessary papers needed had been stolen, turned to highway robbery to pay back his debts and so was forced by poverty and desperation to go on the highway, and people had been lying to blacken his name and prevent any pardon. Initial sentence: not given. Recommendation: none made; if true the case is 'deserving of compassion'.

Folios 161-167.