SULLIVAN'S PARDON AND RELEASE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4153, 13 July 1874, Page 3

SULLIVAN'S PARDON AND RELEASE.

(From the Jjyitdton Times.) Such is the history, officially told in State papers, of Sullivan's pardon, release, and deportation from the Colony, and the question is —Have the Governor and Government acted rightly or wrongly ? There will naturally be great diversity of opinion on the subject, but we think the weight of argument and evidence is in favor of the course pursued. It will be urged that Sullivan should not have been pardoned.; that, having been, convicted of murder on his own confession, and .sentenced to death, he was very leniently dealt with when that sentence was commuted to penal servitude for life. Strictly speaking, the Government were not bound, by the promise made in the original proclamation, to procure his pardon after his conviction for a crime not specified in that proclamation. On the other hand, the spirit of that promise was to the effect that a pardon would be granted if Sullivan made " a clean breast" of all the crimes committed by the gang with whom he had been connected. In the opinion of those best qualified to judge, his confession was full and unreserved, and in making it he criminated himself. The considerations which induced Hi 3 Excellency to grant the pardon appear to us sufficiently weighty to justify the decision. Having pardoned Sullivan, the Government were bound, not so much for his sake as for the sake of the public, to afford him protection and assistance in leaving the Colony. If he had been " turned loose" the probabilities are that he would have been torn to pieces. He was not in a position to make inquiries himself about the means of transport from the Colony, and these had to be made for him by and through those who alone knew that he was free to depart. But the Government blundered seriously in arranging, as we assume they did, for his passage to San Francisco by the mail steamer. Everything might have been managed in a way that would have enabled Sullivan—as he has at length been enabled—to leave the shores of the Colony for some other country without being made the subject of sensational articles, bearing the burden and enduring the penalty of his atrocious crimes.