Daniel Sweeney to Charles R. Lowell, October 13, 1881

Mr. Sweeney to Mr. Lowell.

Sir: Your letter of 30th September, inclosing my certificate of citizenship and copy of warrant of my arrest, was duly received.

If you have not treated my appeal with contempt, permit me to believe that your efforts for my release from prison are, in my opinion, unsatisfactory, and your reasons for non-intervention in my behalf still more so. From your correspondence with Lord Granville it would appear that you did appeal to the courtesy of the British Government, but that the government refused to be courteous. In answer to your note of June 10 the noble lord refused to give you any information. You stated that an American citizen was in prison in Ireland, who denied having committed any crime, and you requested to be informed of the charges against him. To this his lordship answered that he could make no distinction between the liability of foreigners and British subjects respecting unlawful acts committed within the limits of British jurisdiction. Mark, the noble lord affects to believe that I had committed unlawful acts. Here your efforts ceased as far as I was concerned.

Certainly, sir, this was not a very strong effort on your part to plead the cause of a fellow-citizen who was deprived of his liberty. You were in possession of the facts in my case, and in my opinion you should renew your appeal to the courtesy of the British Government. You were aware that an American citizen was in prison and that he should be presumed to be innocent until proved guilty. You should, also reply to his lordship respecting the liability of foreigners committing unlawful acts, that I had committed no unlawful act, and that I defied the British Government to prove that I had. It would appear that you made another appeal to the courtesy of the British Government to obtain information respecting the particulars of the charge against Mr. Walsh, who, I presume, is also an American citizen, but you were equally unsuccessful.

The noble lord, in his reply of July 8, declined to give you any information whatever beyond that contained in the warrant of his arrest. So much for appeals to the courtesy of the British Government.

Under ordinary circumstances an accredited minister of a great and free country should not have been discouraged at these uncourteous replies, but rather have been stimulated to renewed exertions on behalf of his fellow-countryman who was held in chains by a foreign power.

Surely, sir, if you believed that Americans had any rights which England was bound to respect, you could have used stronger arguments than mild appeals to courtesy. You appealed to the courtesy of the British Government for the particulars of the charges against American citizens who were in prison and condemned without trial, and the noble lord replied in effect, and said, “We have Americans in prison in Ireland; we refuse to give you any information respecting the charges against them; we refuse to give them trial by judge or jury; some of our spies suspected them, and we promply sentenced them to eighteen months’ imprisonment.”

One would naturally expect that a gentleman intrusted with the important mission of United States minister at the English court should at least make a dignified reply to what some gentlemen occupying a similar position might consider an insult. But on the contrary, sir, you seem to have given up the fight, which, in my opinion, could not have been a very determined one, and you sent me a message to my prison cell, where I have been confined for over four months, and where I have to pass eighteen hours each day in a space 6 by 12, and you tell me that you have abandoned me to my fate; that you would not intervene any further in my behalf. It will not be clear to the public that you did intervene very far.

In the concluding paragraph of your courteous letter you say: “Under these circumstances, and in the absence of any information showing that your case was different from the great majority of others arrested under the coercion act, I did not thikn it proper to intervene any further.”

Here, sir, we have your reasons for non-intervention; one the circumstance of the refusal of the British Government to give you any information respecting the charge. Now, that of itself would be hardly considered a good reason, but looking at it from my point of view from a British dungeon, the question in my mind is whether I am not still justified in believing that you have treated my appeal “with contempt.” Your other reason is the absence of information showing that my case is different from the great majority of others arrested under the coercion act. It is undoubtedly true, sir, that my case does not differ from that of the great majority of others arrested under the coercion act in Ireland. The great majority of the gentlemen in prison are as guiltless as I am; they are gentlemen incapable of committing crime; they are not in prison for crime, but for their political opinions. But, sir, you must remember that they are Irishmen, and that they have no government to appeal to for protection. My case is not exceptional. But with equal justice you say to an American who should happen to be captured by some savage chief of the Cannibal Islands, and sentenced to be eaten, “Oh, sir, your case is not exceptional; there are others to be devoured as well as you. I do not think it proper to intervene.”

British subjects took part in public meetings and political discussions in the United States during the slave troubles. Had the American Government cast them into prison and sentenced them to a term of imprisonment without trial and refused to give the British minister at Washington any information respecting the charge against them, what would the British minister do “under these circumstances?” Fold his arms, take the matter good-naturedly, send a message to the British subjects in prison that he “did not think it proper to intervene,” or demand his passport?

Yours, respectfully,