THE QUEEN'S PARDON.

Temuka Leader, Issue 208, 9 December 1879, Page 3

THE QUEEN'S PARDON.

The Queen was not twenty years of age when she ascended the tlnone. Coming into possession of power with a heart fresh, tender, and with all the instincts inclined to mercy, we may be sure that she found many things that tried her strength of resolution to the utmost. On a bright, beautiful morning, the young Queen was waited upon at her palace, at Windsor, by the Duke of Wellington, who had brought from L ondon various papers requiring her signature to make them operative. One of them was a sentence of Court-Martial pronounced against a soldier of the line, the sentence that he be shot dead. The Queen looke 1 upon the paper, and then looked upon the wondrous beauties that nature had spread to her view. " What has this man done ?" she asked. The Duke looked at the paper, and replied, " Ah, my royal mistress that man I fear is incorrigible, lie has desprted three times." " And can you say anything in his behalf, my lord !"' Wellington shook his head. " Oh, think again, T pray you !'•' Seeing that rLr Majesty was so deeply moved, and feeling sure she would not have the man shot in any event,'he finally confessed that the man was brave and r allant, and really a good soldier. " But," he added, " think of the influence." " Influence !" the Queen cried, her eyes flashing and her bosom heaving with strong emotion. " Jet it be ours to yield influence ;. I will try mercy in this man's case, and I charge, your Grace to let me know the result. A good soldier you Baid. Oh thank you for that! And you may tell him that your good word saved him." Then she took the paper and wrote, with a bold, firm hand acros? the dark page, the bright saving word—" Pardoned ! " The Duke was fond of telling the story, and he was willing also to confess that that the giving of that paper to the pardoned soldier gave him far more joy than he coukl have experienced from the taking of the city.