"Commute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were the advantages of such a scheme, the House showed its sense of the political difficulties involved in it by referring it to a commission. James in turn showed his resentment by passing over the attempts made to commute for a fixed sum the oppressive rights of Purveyance and Wardship. But what the House was really set upon was religious reform; and the first step of the Commons had been the naming of a committee to frame bills for the redress of the more crying ecclesiastical ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... 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 ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... out, as usual, in printed declarations, which the belligerent powers diffused all over Europe. In the beginning of the season, the states of the circle of Westphalia had been required, by the Imperial court, to finish their contingent of troops against the king of Prussia, or to commute for this contingent with a sum of money. In consequence of this demand, some of the Westphalian estates had sent deputies to confer with the assembly of the circle of Cologn; and to these the king signified, by a declaration dated at Munster, that as this demand of money, instead of troops, was ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... appropriately express his opinion, though that opinion he is well aware has been rendered entirely unnecessary by the honorable mention since attached to the name of Fremont by the highest officer in the American service, by the recommendation to the President of the officers of the court to commute the sentence, and by the President of the United States in appointing, unsolicited, the court-martialed Conqueror of California to the high and important trust of commissioner to run the boundary line ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... money from these metropolitan hayseeds," says Silver, "than there is of cooking rice in Charleston, S. C. They'll bite at anything. The brains of most of 'em commute. The wiser they are in intelligence the less perception of cognizance they have. Why, didn't a man the other day sell J. P. Morgan an oil portrait of Rockefeller, Jr., for Andrea del Sarto's celebrated painting ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... eyes what the reader might surmise it to be—a mere interlude in his career, a period of patient waiting. Such is far from having been the case. The missions are eminent works of Catholic zeal, and there is not any vocation known to the active ministry which may not commute with them on equal terms. Human nature has never felt influences more deeply religious than those set at work by missions, recalling the effects of the preaching of the Apostles themselves. Remorse of conscience, loathing for sin, terror at the divine wrath, confidence in God, sympathy for our ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... me to commute the capital sentence on Calvi for twenty years' penal servitude. Oh, I am not reminding you of that to drive a bargain," he added eagerly, seeing Monsieur de Granville's expression; "that life should be safe for other reasons, the ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... acknowledge to have killed a slave, to have assisted at the death of a Jew, and to have drowned an aga, you certainly deserve death; but, on consideration of the excellence of the wine, and the secret which you have imparted to us, I shall commute your sentence. As for the captain and the remainder of the crew, they have been guilty of treachery and piracy on the high seas—a most heinous offence, which deserves instant death; but as it is by their means that we have been put in possession of the wine, I shall be lenient. I therefore sentence ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat |
