just received. Do just as you say
about the money matter.

As you well know, I have not time to write a letter of respectable length.
God bless you, says

Your friend,

A. LINCOLN.

RESPITE FOR NATHANIEL GORDON

February 4, 1862

A. LINCOLN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

To all to whom these Presents shall come, Greeting:

Whereas it appears that at a term of the Circuit Court of the United
States of America for the Southern District of New York held in the month
of November, A.D. 1861, Nathaniel Gordon was indicted and convicted for
being engaged in the slave trade, and was by the said court sentenced to
be put to death by hanging by the neck, on Friday the 7th day of February,
AD. 1862:

And whereas a large number of respectable citizens have earnestly besought
me to commute the said sentence of the said Nathaniel Gordon to a term of
imprisonment for life, which application I have felt it to be my duty to
refuse:

And whereas it has seemed to me probable that the unsuccessful application
made for the commutation of his sentence may have prevented the said
Nathaniel Gordon from making the necessary preparation for the awful
change which awaits him;

Now, therefore, be it known, that I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the
United States of America, have granted and do hereby grant unto him, the
said Nathaniel Gordon, a respite of the above recited sentence, until
Friday the twenty-first day of February, A.D. 1862, between the hours of
twelve o'clock at noon and three o'clock in the afternoon of the said day,
when the said sentence shall be executed.

In granting this respite, it becomes my painful duty to admonish the
prisoner that, relinquishing all expectation of pardon by human authority,
he refer himself alone to the mercy of the common God and Father of all
men.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto signed my name and caused the seal of
the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this fourth day of February, A.D. 1862,
and of the independence of the United States the eighty-sixth.

A. LINCOLN.

By the President: WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

MESSAGE TO THE SENATE.

WASHINGTON CITY, February 4. 1862

To THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES:

The third section of the "Act further to promote the efficiency of the
Navy," approved December 21, 1862, provides:

"That the President of the United States, by and with the advice and
consent