Boyton , Kilmainham Jail, Dublin to Boyton, March 17, 1881

Mr. Lowell to Mr. Boyton.

Sir: I have received your telegram of the 8th and your letter of the 11th instant, and have given to them attentive consideration.

Laying aside for the present the question whether you have or have not committed acts to justify your arrest under the coercion bill, I beg leave to point out certain discrepancies in your statements in relation to your citizenship which require explanation before I can examine the point whether I ought to intervene in your behalf.

Mr. Hay, the Assistant Secretary of State, wrote to Mr. Barrows, the consul at Dublin, on the 2d of December last, that you appear on the records of that Department to have been born in the State of New York. I take it for granted that this entry must have been made pursuant to your own statement in the application for the passport which was issued to you on the 20th of November, 1866. You are described in this passport as being at that time twenty-two years of age, which must have been so entered agreeably to your own statement.

You now state to Mr. Barrows that you were born in Rathangan, Kildare County, in Ireland, in September, 1846. It appears, therefore, that you were not born in New York hut in Ireland, and that you were not twenty-two years old at the date of your passport, but only twenty years and two months.

It follows, therefore, that in order to make out your claim to American citizenship, you must prove one of two things: 1st. That you have taken out naturalization papers yourself, which, as I understand, you do not assert; or, 2d, that your father was regularly naturalized while you were yet a minor.

You say that he took out such papers at Pittsburgh in 1860. But this is impossible, because by your own showing he did not come to America until 1859, and he must have resided there five years afterwards to entitle himself to such letters, having also given two years’ previous notice of intention to become a citizen. Letters of naturalization could not, therefore, have been legally issued to him earlier than 1864, even if he had declared his intentions immediately upon his arrival.

Such a declaration of intentions by itself would not have given him or his minor children the privileges of citizenship.

Upon receiving satisfactory evidence, therefore, that your father lawfully and regularly became a naturalized citizen of the United States while you were yet a minor, I shall take pleasure in immediately examining into the circumstances of your arrest.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,