History

10 Oct 1878

Sir Garnet Wolseley was busy trying to organise his administration

Sir Garnet Wolseley was busy trying to organise his administration:

Held our first Executive Council in the Konak at 11.am Little Cookson was very wretched to look at, as he is not well he presented a very melancholy exterior…In the evening I rode to Government House to arrange with the CRE as to the position of the soldier’s huts which am now bringing up to erect there until my own house is finished. Mr Cesnola has written to say that he is appealing for protection to the American Consul in Beirut on the subject of his arrest. At the Council today the case of a man condemned to be hanged for a cruel murder came before us. Cookson said it was so long since the crime had been committed – last January – and that, although he had been recently sentenced, he had been practically tried long time ago. That it was a question for me to consider whether he should not be reprieved according to what he said was English custom. I was determined that he should be hanged as I am most anxious to show people here that a man condemned to be hanged will be so under our rule and not be allowed to escape as they did under Turkish rule.