CO129-008 - Foreign Office - 1844 — Page 247

objections to transporting Colonial offenders

to Van Diemen's Land, the

only

other

of

The Australian Colonies to which Convicts are now sent, and that consequently some other secondary punishment must be devised for persons who, like Salvador Lacrase, have rendered themselves

amenable to the highest degree of

punishment, but who

may

be

deemed fit objects for merciful consideration, so far at least as their

lives are concerned.

Lord

you

will doubtless receive from instructions on the

Stanley

general question of secondary punishment, and therefore I only think it necessary to say with regard

to Salvador Lacrase

that

244

that when the nature of the secondary

punishment to be established in

for offences of a grave nature is

decided upon, the sentence

of

death

passed upon him should be

commuted.

that

may

be

for such an amount

of

secondary punishment as you

consider commensurate with

the crime

of which he has been

convicted.

The latter part of

the letter

from the Colonial office refers to

4. Mr. Bingass and recorded the opinion entertained in the papers connected with the case

of

Lacrase, as to the necessity of suspending execution in capital cases until

the pleasure of the Crown is

ascertained