"Commute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the English people. The nation had always been opposed to a standing force, and it was only now that the necessities of the country induced them to tolerate it. It was, however, recruited almost entirely from reckless and desperate men. Criminals were allowed to commute sentences of imprisonment for service in the army, and the gates of the prisons were also opened to insolvent debtors consenting to enlist. But all the efforts of the recruiting sergeants, aided by such measures as these, proved insufficient to attract a sufficient number ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... the presence of the Army Commander. He told me now that the only person who could stop the execution was the Divisional Commander, if he thought it right to do so. At the same time, he held out very little hope that anything could be done to commute the sentence. Once more I thanked him and went off. The brigade chaplain was waiting for me outside and we talked the matter over, and decided that, although the case seemed very hopeless and it was now half-past three, one last effort should be made. We walked ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... that the King was in his debt—some word of honor, and dare not refuse. The word of mercy came just in time, ordering Jeffries to commute your sentence. At first he swore he'd hang you, King or no King, but his nerve failed. My uncle said he roared like a bull. This Bucclough; is he ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... letter to Dr. Ryerson, his brother John gives an account of the efforts made to induce Sir George Arthur, the new Governor, to commute the sentence of ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... tried for treason, since the Bishops, it was averred, governed the Church for the Queen. A jury convicted him of authorship of the book. The Judges iniquitously held that to amount to a conviction of felony. They therefore sentenced him to death. He prayed Ralegh to intercede with the Queen to commute his punishment to banishment, 'that the land might not be charged with his blood.' Ralegh accepted the office, and Essex combined with him. Retailers of court gossip conjectured that his kindness was policy. They ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... me to pardon this most unfortunate lady; but I have recently pardoned so many convicted prisoners, that the press and the people generally are down on me, and I really dare not grant any more pardons at present. I will, however, commute the lady's sentence from two ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... Mayor of Ruraldene one book ago, our family group considers it extremely disloyal to stay in the big town for more than four hours at a time. So with us it is a case of catching those imitation railroad trains at all sorts of hours and commute to beat the band. ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... case will injure more than aid our cause; and as the use of his name furnishes me with an explanation that will satisfy the Assembly and people of this State, I can be less rigorous. That you should not endure one hour more of anxiety than need be, I have hurried to you, to tell you that I shall commute his sentence to imprisonment with the ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... the tyrant and the brutal guard had left the cell, he began to pace up and down, sorely disturbed. He had somehow cherished the hope that the miscreant would be induced to commute the sentence to lengthy imprisonment. But the diabolical vengeance which he had seen in the tyrant's eye undermined all hope. Some friends were admitted to his cell, and they informed him that they had pleaded for ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... certain value was bound to furnish a knight for his lord's service; and the barons thus held a body of trained soldiers at their disposal. When Henry called his chief lords to serve in the war of Toulouse, he allowed the lower tenants to commute their service for sums payable to the royal treasury under the name of "scutage," or shield-money. The "Great Scutage" did much to disarm the baronage, while it enabled the king to hire foreign mercenaries for his service abroad. Again however he was luckless in war. King Lewis of France ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... last resort," he replied, with a flash of humour and a touch of hope. "If you would—commute ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... and resolutions were passed in favor of abolishing the convict hulks. The popular feeling aroused against them was so strong and general that, although the government had sentenced Melville to death for killing the keeper in his attempt to escape, it was compelled to commute the sentence to imprisonment for life. He was not sent back to the Success, but was incarcerated in the jail at Melbourne. According to the official report, he committed suicide there, but the unofficial version of the affair is that he was strangled to death by a keeper during a struggle ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... the benefits of confession and absolution. Forgiving the atrocity of the act, Lady Cochrane, on the following morning used all her influence with the authorities, not for this alone, but to save the man's life, and at length wrung from them a reluctant consent to commute his punishment ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... the Executive this same night to commute the death sentence, but this was not communicated to the condemned men until the following morning. The night of suspense passed under the eye of the death watch with a dim light burning was a needless cruelty; it made the President's subsequent magnanimity more dramatic, but with ...
— A Woman's Part in a Revolution • Natalie Harris Hammond
... accompanied by a recommendation signed by a majority of its members in which they "respectfully pray the President, in consideration of the sex and age of the said Mary E. Surratt, if he can, upon all the facts in the case, find it consistent with his sense of duty to the country, to commute the sentence of death, which the Court have been constrained to pronounce, to imprisonment in the penitentiary for life." This recommendation for executive clemency remained unknown to the public until it was incidentally referred to by the Hon. Edwards Pierrepont, counsel for ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... object of the bitter hatred of the Popes, who had thwarted him in every way, when he himself led an expedition to Palestine, and now, since the conquests of the crusaders would go to augment his power, would willingly have checked them. Gregory IX. strove to induce the English party to commute their vow for treasure, but they indignantly repelled the proposal, and set forth, under the solemn blessing of their own bishops. In France, they were received with great affection by Louis IX., and with much enthusiasm by the ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... death by hanging—the doom of traitors. He did not fear to die, but that doom repelled him and he begged to be shot instead. Washington, however, in view of his great crime and as a most necessary example in that crisis, firmly refused to commute the sentence. So, on the second of ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer |
