Note 204 — Chapter XLIX
Reading edition
A good deal might have been excused in a document issued under such circumstances, but the word “exterminate” was not a happy one, and was frequently seized on afterwards by opponents of Sir Harry in England. How little it represented the writer’s real feeling is shown by a sentence in a letter to his wife of 24th May, 1851: “I hope yet to see all the ringleaders hung, while I would willingly forgive the poor wretches who have been led astray by the wickedness of others.”