gment,
we herein declare our real opinion, and pronounce this condemnation,
with a conscience so pure and Christian that we think we can answer for
it at the terrible, just, and impartial judgment of the Great God.

"To conclude, we submit this sentence which we now give, and the
condemnation which we make, to the sovereign power and will, and to the
merciful review of his Czarian majesty, our most merciful monarch."

This document was signed in the most solemn manner by all the members
of the council, nearly one hundred in number. Among the signatures are
the names of a great number of ministers of state, counselors,
senators, governors, generals, and other personages of high civil and
military rank. The document, when thus formally authenticated, was
sent, with much solemn and imposing ceremony, to the Czar.

The Czar, after an interval of great suspense and solicitude, during
which he seems to have endured much mental suffering, confirmed the
judgment of the council, and a day was appointed on which Alexis was to
be arraigned, in order that sentence of death, in accordance with it,
might be solemnly pronounced upon him.

The day appointed was the 6th of July, nearly a fortnight after the
judgment of the court was rendered to the Czar. The length of this
delay indicates a severe struggle in the mind of the Czar between his
pride and honor as a sovereign, feelings which prompted him to act in
the most determined and rigorous manner in punishing a rebel against
his government, and what still remained of his parental affection for
his son. He knew well that after what had passed there could never be
any true and genuine reconciliation, and that, as long as his son
lived, his name would be the watchword of opposition and rebellion, and
his very existence would act as a potent and perpetual stimulus to the
treasonable designs which the foes of civilization and progress were
always disposed to form. He finally, therefore, determined that the
sentence of death should at least be pronounced. What his intention
was in respect to the actual execution of it can never be known.

When the appointed day arrived a grand session of the council was
convened, and Alexis was brought out from the fortress where he was
imprisoned, and arraigned before it for the last time. He was attended
by a strong guard. On being placed at the bar of the tribunal, he was
called upon to repeat the confessions which he had made, and then th