Read it through once

In Macpherson's extract from King James's "Memoirs," it is confessed that the king ought not to have seen, if he was not disposed to pardon the culprit; but whether the observation is made by the exiled prince himself, or by him who gives the extract, is in this, as in many other passages of those "Memoirs," difficult to determine. Surely if the king had made this reflection before Monmouth's execution, it must have occurred to that monarch, that if he had inadvertently done that which he ought not to have done, without an intention to pardon, the only remedy was to correct that part of his conduct which was still in his power, and since he could not recall the interview, to grant the pardon.