In some cases the provision was added that if in the opinion of the Executive Council the terms of this undertaking should be broken, the sentence of banishment which was held in suspense would come into force, and the men were required to sign this addendum to the above undertaking.  The resolution of the Executive Council, which deals with the mitigation of the sentences, states that the imprisonment portions of the sentences are remitted; that the fines (L2,000 in all cases) must be paid at once; and that the banishment shall remain in abeyance subject to the faithful observance of the above undertaking; but that should any action be taken by any of the prisoners constituting in the opinion of the Executive Council a breach of the above undertaking, the sentence of banishment shall come into force.

There is no definition of the phrase ‘meddle in politics,’ nor is there any indication of what in the opinion of the Executive Council constitutes politics.  There is of course on record the President’s own statement in public that he would not permit any discussion on the dynamite and railway questions because they are matters of ’high politics’; and if haply the Executive should also hold this view, it is difficult to see how any of the prisoners will be able to follow their ordinary business and attend to those commercial affairs in which they are concerned without committing some breach of this ridiculous provision.

No answer was received to the many representations made on behalf of the four leaders, except that the Government were busy with the matter.  Upon the release of the other prisoners it was suggested to them by friends outside that it would be a proper and politic course to proceed in a body to the Presidency and thank the President for the action he had taken in their respect, and at the same time to beg of him to extend a similar clemency to the four leaders who were still left in gaol.  Most of the men were dead against taking any such action.  They held very strongly to the opinion that they had been arrested by treachery, condemned by arrangement, and played with as counters in an unscrupulous manner.  They recognized no obligation towards the President.  They could see no magnanimity in a policy which had secured their arrest under the circumstances described which inveigled them into pleading guilty to a nominal offence, and which imposed upon them a sentence such as that passed.  They considered the enormous fine which they were then called upon to pay to say nothing of the imprisonment which they had already suffered wholly disproportionate to the offence, and their natural impulse was to avoid the man who was directly responsible for it all, or at least not to meet him under circumstances so unequal, when they would be sure to be insulted, and would be obliged to suffer the insult in silence.