they were liberated by Her Majesty's Government, provided he should not in the mean time receive instructions revoking his authority in this respect. I am, &c., SAMUEL P. BROWN, United States Consular Clerk. [Inclosure 11 in No. 349.] Mr. Burke to the Governor of Dundalk Jail. DUBLIN CASTLE, April 24, 1882. SIR: I am directed by the lord lieutenant to inform you that his excellency has been pleased to order the release of Daniel McSweeney, a prisoner in your custody under the provisions of the protection of person and property (Ireland) act, 1881, upon his signing the following undertaking: "I hereby undertake, if released from prison, that I will leave Ireland forthwith and return to America." You will please inform the prisoner that if after signing this undertaking he does not leave Ireland in such a short time as is a reasonable interpretation of "forthwith," he will be rearrested. You will please hand to prisoner a copy of this letter. SIR: I have to acknowledge the reception of your two letters of yesterday with accompanying papers. You will understand, of course, that the money offer I instructed you to make was not intended as an inducement for the prisoner to leave Ireland, but simply as a provision for his expenses to America in case he should be released by the government here. I am, &c., [Inclosure 13 in No. 349.] J. R. LOWELL. Copy of telegram from Lowell, Minister, London, to Barrows, United States Consul, Dublin, dated April 27, 1882. You will of course understand that the offer mentioned in my letter of twenty-first is now absolutely withdrawn. [Inclosure 14 in No. 349.] Copy of telegram from Lowell, Minister, London, to Wood, United States Consul, Belfast, dated April 27, 1882. Your letter of twenty-sixth received. You will please understand that the offer is now withdrawn absolutely in all cases. [Inclosure 15 in No. 349.] Copy of telegram from Lowell, Minister, London, to Tinsly, Consular Agent, Limerick, dated April 26, 1882. Your letter of twenty-fifth received. You will understand, of course, that the offer is now absolutely withdrawn. No. 350.] No 4. Mr. Lowell to Mr. Frelinghuysen. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, London, May 4, 1882. (Received May 18.) SIR: The case of John R. McCormack, a prisoner in Clonmel jail, who asserts his American citizenship, and sends me a certificate of naturalization bearing the name of John McCormick, is one of those that will still embarrass me with the question of continuous domicile, even should he succeed in establishing his identity with the person named in the certified extract from the record of the justice's court of the district of Troy, New York, on which he bases his claim for my intervention in his behalf. The date of the certificate of naturalization is the 25th October, 1867. A letter from Mrs. McCormack informs me that her husband returned to Ireland in 1869, and has continuously resided there ever since (with the exception of a visit to the United States in 1873) as the publisher and editor of a local newspaper. The United States have from the first justly insisted on and have finally established the principle of the right of expatriation; but when a man has completed the process of expatriating himself and returns to the land of his birth, I should be glad to be instructed how far his residence there may be prolonged without extinction of the acquired and revival of the original allegiance; over how many years may the animus revertendi be reasonably considered elastic enough to stretch; and what kind or continuity of business pursuit may be supposed to establish the animus manendi. In treaties with the North German Confederation and with Würtemberg, the United States have agreed to consider two years as the reasonable limit beyond which a continuous residence in his native country by the naturalized citizen of another will be considered as establishing the animus manendi. Some of the decisions of the court seem to imply a much shorter period. In the cases of most, if not all, the so-called American suspects in Ireland, continuous residence has exceeded this term; in some it has greatly exceeded it; in the case of McCormack it has apparently extended to thirteen years. I cannot help thinking that the British Government would be justified in questioning the final perseverance (if I may borrow a theological term) of adopted citizenship under adverse circumstances like these. I have, &c., J. R. LOWELL. [Inclosure 1 in No. 350.] Mr. McCormack to Mr. Barrows. CLONMEL PRISON, Tipperary 23, 2, '82. DEAR SIR: I beg to bring under your notice that I am an American citizen suffering imprisonment under the English coercion act. I am guiltless of any crime punishable by law, and what I request is that, in pursuance of a resolution passed by the United States legislature, you use your office in securing for me that protection which I claim as a citizen of the United States, and that justice which, only through your government, I can obtain. If the government of this most unhappy country has a charge against me, all I ask is that I be brought to trial and given a chance of refut ing the charge before one of the legal tribunals of the country. If there be no charge against me other than, perhaps, that of fallacious suspicion, founded upon the whisper of an ambitious policeman, or grounded on the elastic information of a hireling informer, then I think it is no more than ordinary justice to demand my release or my trial. It is not necessary, however, that I should here enter into a discussion of the injustice which I am suffering at the hands of a rather strange government and the action, nay the duty, of that magnanimous government which you represent, and which I have sworn to maintain. For the present I think it sufficient to inform you of my position, and to request that you will see to it. I am, &c., [Inclosure 2 in No. 350.J Mr. Barrows to Mr. McCormack. JOHN R. McCORMACK. CONSULATE OF THE UNITED STATES, SIR: I am in receipt of yours of the 23d, and in reply beg to inform you that the fact of your being an American citizen confers upon you no immunity from arrest and imprisonment under the coercion act. The minister can interfere only: 1st. When such person being in Ireland in the prosecution of his lawful private business, and taking no part in political meetings or partisan disturbances, has been arrested by obvious mistake; or, 2d. When a distinction has been made to the disadvantage of the prisoner on the ground of his American nationality. The above are the decisions of Minister Lowell, under whose instructions I am acting. Should there be a peculiar hardship in your case, not affected by these decisions, please submit all the facts in the case, together with evidence of your American citizenship, and the matter shall have my prompt attention. I remain, &c., B. H. BARROWS, United States Consul. [Inclosure 3 in No. 350.] Mr. McCormack to Mr. Barrows. NAAS BASTILE, April 18, 1882. DEAR SIR: Herewith I forward you certificate of my American citizenship, and beg to request that you will lose no time in forwarding it to Mr. Lowell. I lost the origi nal document, and in consequence of your reply to me last February, I neglected sending for a duplicate until the 20th ultimo. I trust that Mr. Lowell will lose no time in representing my case, as I am now undergoing my fourth month's imprisonment without the slightest shadow of a charge against me. Of course my business as a journalist and newspaper proprietor is suffering severely through this most wanton outrage perpetrated on me by the British Government, and I think it would be nothing more than ordinary justice that Mr. Lowell should demand compensation for me, for the losses which I have sustained. I shall expect at least that my trial or unconditional release will be demanded forthwith. Surely four months should be time enough for the British authorities to trump up a charge against me if they could, but I defy them to do so. It might be necessary for me to explain the slight difference between the name under which I was arrested and that in my certificate of citizenship. The name under which I was arrested is John R. McCormack, the R being used by me from my mother, whose name is Ryan, in order to distinguish me from several John McCormacks in Tipperary, amongst them three first cousins of my own. Of course I am prepared to prove that I am the actual person mentioned in the inclosed duplicate. Your faithful fellow-citizen, JOHN R. MCCORMACK. [Inclosure 4 in No. 350.] Mr. Barrows to Mr. Lowell. CONSULATE OF THE UNITED STATES, SIR: I have the honor to transmit herewith copy of the naturalization papers of John R. McCormick, an American suspect, at present confined in Naas jail. Mr. McCormick wrote me from Clonmel jail, where he was then confined, on the 23d February last, stating his case, and I replied to him the next day. His letter to me and a copy of my reply are submitted herewith, together with Mr. McCormick's letter of April 18. I am, &c., B. H. BARROWS. [Inclosure 5 in No. 350.] Mr. Lowell to Mr. Barrows. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, SIR: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 19th instant, inclosing two letters from Mr. John R. McCormick, a suspect confined in Clonmel prison, to yourself, a copy of your letter to him, and his certificate of naturalization. Will you be kind enough to state to Mr. McCormick that I shall give proper attention to his case. I am, &c., No. 5. J. R. LOWELL. No. 351.] Mr. Lowell to Mr. Frelinghuysen. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, London, May 6, 1882. (Received May 18.) SIR: I have the honor to inclose herewith two copies of the correspondence respecting the imprisonment of the so-called American suspects, which has been printed and laid before Parliament. I also inclose copies of letters from Messrs. O'Mahoney, Slattery, Brophy, Lynam, and Gannon, and letters from myself to Messrs. O'Mahoney and Lynam. My notes to the British Government in relation to the cases of American suspects, copies of which have not already been transmitted to the Department of State, will appear in the printed correspondence herewith forwarded. I have, &c., J. R. LOWELL. [Inclosure 1 in No. 351.] UNITED STATES. No. 2 (1882). Correspondence respecting the imprisonment in Ireland, under the “protection of person and property (Ireland) act, 1881," of naturalized citizens of the United States. (Presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty. 1882.) No. 1. Mr. Lowell to Earl Granville. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, London, June 8, 1881. (Received June 9.) My LORD: Referring to the interview which your lordship was kind enough to grant -2 H. Ex. 155 pt. 3 me on the 3d instant, in relation to the case of Joseph B. Walsh, arrested under the coercion act at Castlebar, County Mayo, on the 8th March last, I have now the honor to request that you would at your convenience furnish me, in order to my better understanding of the facts of the case, with a copy of the warrant under which he was arrested, and with such particulars as to the offense with which he is charged as may be within your knowledge, Mr. Walsh having furnished me with evidence satisfying me that he is a naturalized citizen of the United States, though I have no reason to think that Her Majesty's Government were aware of the fact when the warrant was issued. As your lordship will observe by the dates, Mr. Walsh has already suffered a three months' imprisonment, to the manifest detriment of his affairs; and the President, while anxious not to embarrass in any way the action of a friendly government in dealing with a very difficult and delicate question of domestic policy, cannot but also feel solicitous not to ignore any just claim of American citizens to his intervention in their behalf. My LORD: I have to-day received a letter from Mr. William Simms, the vice-consul of the United States at Belfast, informing me of the arrest of Mr. Daniel Sweeney, or McSweeney, an American citizen, and inclosing papers in the case. The papers include a copy of the warrant of arrest, a letter from Mr. Sweeney to myself, and his certificate of citizenship. It appears that he was arrested on the 2d instant, and lodged in Dundalk jail. In his letter to me Mr. Sweeney denies that he has ever said anything which could be construed into an incitement to riot, and asserts that, on the contrary, he has advised against the commission of crime and the violation of law. I should be glad to be informed of the particulars of the charge against Mr. Sweeney. I may repeat what I said in my note of the 8th instant with regard to the case of Mr. Walsh, that my government, though anxious not to ignore the just claim of American citizens to protection, has no desire to embarrass the action of a friendly government in dealing with a difficult and delicate domestic question. Mr. Lowell informed me on the 3d instant that he had received instructions from his government by telegraph to make representations to me on the subject of a naturalized American citizen who had been arrested in Ireland on the 8th of March last, to ask what was the crime for which he had been arrested, and to press for his being brought to trial. Mr. Lowell added that he had been promised that fuller instructions on the subject should be sent him by mail. I answered that such representations took me much by surprise, considering the circumstances of the case and the understanding which existed between the two countries on this point of international law; but I added that, as he expected fuller instructions, it would be better to await their arrival before discussing the question. I now transmit for your information a copy of a letter which I have received from Mr. Lowell, in which he requests to be furnished with certain particulars connected with the arrest, under the act for the better protection of person and property in Ireland of the 2d March, 1881, at Castlebar, county Mayo, on the 8th March last, of Joseph B. Walsh, who is stated to be a naturalized citizen of the United States.* * No. 1. |