2.
From the List your Excellency will observe that Prisoners James Wilton and William Vance were sentenced to Seven years' transportation so far back as the 9th May, 1848, being upwards of eighteen months ago; and considering the length of the imprisonment they have undergone, the nature of that imprisonment and the respective circumstances, I should, under ordinary circumstances, have considered their sentences to have expired, but as they have been sentenced by a Court Martial and are Military Prisoners I think it preferable to bring their case to the notice of Your Excellency, that I may be instructed how to deal with them.
3.
I cannot well receive a reply to this communication before the 20th April, 1850, by which time these two prisoners will have undergone twenty-three months' close imprisonment, and perhaps, under these circumstances, Your Excellency may be pleased to direct their release, when opportunity offers for sending them home. It would be obviously impolitic to let them loose in the Colony, after the fact of their being released.
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