Henry George to P. S.—Insomuch as since I have been in Ireland mail matter of mine arriving from the United States has been detained in the Irish post-office, and, as I have been credibly informed, opened and burned, though all official information in relation thereto was refused me, and insomuch as it is the belief of many of the subjects of Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, that their letters are tampered with in Her Majesty’s post-offices, I take the precaution of sending this to the United States under cover, where it will be mailed to you, August 26, 1882

Mr. George to the President.

Sir: I desire respectfully to call your attention to annoyances and indignities to which citizens of the United States traveling in Ireland are exposed, and for that purpose to state my own experience:

I am a citizen of the United States, born in the State of Pennsylvania, and long a citizen of the State of California. I landed first in Ireland on the 25th of October, 1881, and have, in all parts of the dominions of the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland that I have since visited, conducted myself in a lawful manner.

On the 8th instant I started from the city of Dublin for the west of Ireland for the purpose of seeing the country and informing myself as to the condition of its people. Immediately upon my arrival in the town of Loughrea, in the county of Galway, at about six o’clock in the evening, I was seized by the royal Irish constabulary and carried to the police prison, where, in spite of my declaration that I was a citizen of the United States of reputable character, traveling through the country without criminal intent or unlawful purpose, I was held a close prisoner for about three hours, during which time my baggage and person were searched, and all my letters and papers minutely examined by a number of constables. Finally a magistrate, to wit, Resident Magistrate Byrne, was brought. The subinspector of constabulary declared to him that he had arrested me upon telegraphic information that I was a suspicious stranger, but my request to be informed of the source of the information and ground of suspicion was refused. The subinspector further stated that nothing suspicious had been found upon my person or in my effects. The magistrate upon this discharged me from custody.

I thereupon protested to the magistrate against the imprisonment and indignity to which I had been subjected as unprovoked, unnecessary, and unreasonable, declaring if any suspicion had been entertained of me I should have been given reasonable opportunity of clearing it up before being arrested, imprisoned, and searched.

On the following day I left Loughrea, and proceeded to Athenry, a town but a few miles distant in the same county, and within the district of the same police inspector and the jurisdiction of the same resident magistrate. I staid there for the night and, having during the next morning viewed the antiquities of the place, was about taking the train to proceed to the town of Galway, when I was stopped by a subinspector of constabulary and questioned as to my name, nationality, business, from whence I had come, whither I was going, &c. To all of these questions I gave true answers—said answers showing that I was an American citizen of reputable character, traveling upon lawful business. Nevertheless, I was not permitted to take the train, but was placed under arrest, carried to the police barracks, and my clothing and luggage again searched in the same manner as at Loughrea, notwithstanding the fact that my arrest, search, and discharge at Loughrea were well known to the constabulary at Athenry. And, although I demanded to be promptly taken before a magistrate, I was detained a close prisoner until the same magistrate before whom I had been taken at Loughrea had arrived at Athenry in the evening; and then I was not discharged until nearly midnight, and after a long and frivolous examination, having been restrained of my liberty for about ten hours and compelled, owing to the running of the trains, to lose nearly a day in my journey.

The wantonness of this second arrest and imprisonment will appear not merely from the fact that my arrest, search, and discharge at Loughrea were well known to the constabulary at Athenry, but from the reason for my arrest given to the magistrates by the subinspector, who deposed that he had arrested me because I had in the town of Athenry associated with suspicious persons, and who in proof of this brought forward ten constables who testified that they had seen me visiting the ruins of an old abbey in company with the Rev. Father McPhilpin, the Catholic curate of Athenry, and an English gentleman, Mr. James Leigh Joynes, of Eton College; and also that they had seen me entering three shops on the main street (where I had gone to make a small purchase), and which they averred were the shops of “suspects,”i. e., persons who had been imprisoned on suspicion of having committed a certain crime peculiar to this country, to wit: “Of having encouraged divers persons to incite other persons to intimidate certain persons from doing what they had a legal right to do.”

I would not, Mr. President, think of addressing you on this subject were my case an isolated one, as then it would merely show an abuse of power by certain individual officials. But, on the contrary, such cases are constantly occurring, and many American citizens have already, in various parts of this country, been subjected to similar and even to much worse indignities and hardships. And this evidently, not by accident, but because of being Americans; for while it is true that the masses of the people of these islands entertain towards us those feelings of friendship which it is to be hoped may always exist, it is at the same time notorious that by some of the local officials in certain parts of Ireland an American is regarded as peculiarly a subject for suspicion and annoyance.

I fully realize, Mr. President, that it is the duty of an American citizen in a foreign country to conform his conduct to the laws of that country, and that he cannot expect exemption from such police regulations as its government may deem necessary. But, at the same time, I submit to you that it is due to their own dignity that the United States should claim for their citizens traveling in countries with which they maintain relations of amity, exemption from wanton annoyances, unreasonable inquisitions, and imprisonment upon frivolous pretexts.

Yet, I regret to say that the belief prevails here that the United States take no interest in the treatment of their citizens in foreign parts. American citizens have been imprisoned here for long periods, without trial, and even without specific accusation, on the mere suspicion of just such officials as those of whom I have had experience, as before related, while the only action taken by the United States in the matter, so far as known and currently reported here, is that American consuls have visited these imprisoned citizens and attempted to bribe them by offers of money into acknowledgment of the justice of such arbitrary imprisonment, by agreeing to leave the country as a condition of release. The contemptible position in which the United States have thus been placed in the eyes of the people of this country may be well imagined, but is not a pleasant thing for an American citizen to portray.

Having discharged what I deem to be my duty in laying these facts before you, as Chief Executive of the nation, for such consideration as you may deem it your duty to give them,

I am, Mr. President, &c.,