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city of Baltimore, at the approaching election, and we having
been made fully acquainted with all the facts and circumstances,
which have attended the subject, have fully concurred in all the
views and measures which he has felt it to be his duty to take,
from first to last.

W. H. D. C. Wright,
Rob't Clinton Wright.
Baltimore, Nov. 1, 1857.

The undersigned having been consulted by Governor Ligon,
in relation to the various measures adopted by him to preserve the
peace in the city at the approaching election, and having witness-
ed the loyal firmness with which he has exerted his constitu-
tional powers in this behalf, feel it to be our duty to tender our
testimony to this, in view of the certainty of the malignant mis-
representations with which his course will be assailed by a cer-
tain portion of the press.

But we were not willing to join in a paper signed by some of
our associates without accompanying it with this explanation.

In the terms of the letter addressed on Nov. 1st, 1857, by
Gov. Ligon to Mayor Swann, we know that no part of its
phraseology was intended at all to admit any other construction
than that the exercise of power to use the military was constitu-
tional and legal and had been only practically suspended because
of the assurances that the Mayor would compose a special
police of respectable persons without regard to party, and this
we hoped would be effective and sufficient for this occasion.

But we saw from circumstances around us that its language
would be distorted by the Press and partizan leaders, and that
the effort would be made to inculcate the belief that the letter had
been intended as a surrender of his right to use the military
power.

We knew that Gov. Ligon had come to this city with no view
of arraying that force against a political party, but against those
only who were believed to be a limited number of lawless men.
When therefore we saw the press of this party unitedly assailing
him for this purpose and the civil authority of the city, practical-
ly leading this excitement, we concurred in the expediency of
that letter with a view to avoid the general bloodshed which his
military might have to cause if some practicable arrangement of
peace was not adopted.

We thought it better therefore that the Governor should ac-
cept the Mayor's proffered responsibility for the peace of the city,
and hand it over after the 4th instant to the rule of the clubs and
a people whom we had reason to think, felt that a citizen soldiery
employed against lawless men, was a constitutional outrage,