"Potter was arrested on fresh pursuit, on the charge of picking a pocket in Broadway, and the report of the testimony showed that he was one of 4 or 5 who must have committed the felony. One witness was very positive that Potter took the pocket book, but another witness testified that he arrested Potter, that he kept his eye upon him from the time he started to run, and that, upon search, no pocket book, or money, was found upon him. Yet that he was principal or accessory, there is no doubt. "A letter from James M. Smith Jr., Attorney for Potter on his trial, says Potter always avowed that he did not pick the pocket, and expresses the belief that, though guilty, he was the dupe of others. "A letter from the Keeper of the Prison says 'Potter has conducted _very_ well, since he has been an inmate of this prison, and he appears to show deep contrition for his "_crime_" and degradation; but he is a man of peculiar temperament, which renders it extremely difficult to judge, with any degree of certainty, the true state of his feelings.' "This is a brief sketch of the paper case presented. Mr. Godfrey assumed to speak of Potter from personal knowledge, and said he came to this country from England, some year and a half ago, a young man, with a wife and two or three children, and with $15,000 in cash; that he fell into the company of some English blacklegs in New York, who induced him to gamble, drink, and carouse with them, until they stripped him of his money, and vitiated his habits, and rendered him desperate from want, when they commenced to initiate him into the art and mysteries of picking pockets; that in his first attempt he was caught and convicted, while the real rogues and the booty escaped; that his friends in England had been kept in ignorance of his course and his fate; that they were wealthy and respectable; that friends in New York had sent his wife and children to them, instructing her not to tell of his condition; and that they were satisfied his disgrace and punishment had prepared him, if pardoned and sent to them, to pursue a different and an honest and respectable course, and they only asked a pardon conditioned that he should leave the country, never to return to it. "Confiding in these representations of Mr. Godfrey, I granted the pardon with such a condition, and I now suppose Potter sailed for England either on the 15th or 20th of April. "Since I have seen the strictures in the newspapers upon this case, I have been very fearful that I was imposed upon by Mr. Godfrey, and especially as he has not come forward either to justify, or excuse, my act. I did act principally upon his representations, under Mr. Edmond's endorsement of him, and I should, at the least, have required him to put those statements upon paper, and made them upon his oath. I did neither.