Jenks's Portland Gazette

If a man write two books against religion and one against all kinds of government he shall have a frigate of the United States, and the affectionate esteem of the President; if he will compile all the current lies of the country to serve a political purpose, he shall have one hundred and sixty six dollars out of the treasury of Monticello, and two hundred from the treasury of the United States; if he will steal private letters and talk of shooting the father of his country, he shall sell the United States four thousand reams of paper at four dollars the ream, which any one else would sell for three; and if he will assault with intent to murder the editor of a federal newspaper, and head a riot to awe congress into bad measures, or to insult its members for acting uprightly, why then he may murder his wife in the district of Columbia, be reprieved from execution, and in decent time pardoned The man who assaulted Mr. Fenno in his office with the evident design of destroying him, the man who marshalled a mob in Washington to terminate the conscientious opposition of the Federalists to Mt. Jefferson, the man who murdered his wife while in a state of pregnancy, even this man, James M'Kirk, has been reprieved from his punishment, and is now a fair candidate for the lenity of the executive. There is no doubt that he will be pardoned, and the ostensible defence of the measure will be that he did not intend to kill, and Mr. Augustus B. Woodward, will be said to talk good sense when he says that "perhaps if she (the wife) had been of a more robust constitution the cruelty used towards her would not have injured her; perhaps if he had not been in a state of pregnancy the same degree of cruelty would not have affected her; perhaps if he had not been pregnant with twins he would still have borne it with safety;" but there is a reason of justice which is one thing, and a reason of State which is another thing, and a reason of contract which is a third thing, about which Paine and Duane and M'Kirk may know as much as Callender.

[Gaz. U. S.]