Hoppin , Esq., United States Legation, Victoria street, Westminster , Chargé d’Affaires ad interim to Hoppin, October 26, 1883

Mr. Guy to Mr. Hoppin.

Sir: I have had the honor to receive your favor of the 24th instant, and in reply I beg to say that I regret you did not consult Mr. O’Donnell’s solicitor before you had the interview with him, as well because one situated as he is should not be approached except in the presence or by leave of his legal adviser, as for the reason that you would have thus obtained more satisfactory information than you appear to have elicited from the prisoner. Harassed as he has been by detectives, and not knowing whom to trust, it is not surprising that he refused to communicate to an unaccredited stranger the real facts of his naturalization.

The details you solicit from me can be got only from America, and I shall obtain and communicate them at the earliest possible moment. Meanwhile you and your Government may rest assured that Mr. O’Donnell is an American citizen.

I have to add that lam informed by Mr. O’Donnell, that, yielding to continued pressure on him by the jail authorities (and at a time, when, concealing from him that his family and friends had engaged legal advocacy for him, they led him to believe he was without any other resource), he assented to an application of some sort being made to your embassy.

As my client is unable to read or write, and thus unable to check any thing purporting to have been written in his name, and the more especially as something purporting to be a reply from your embassy was read to, but not given to him, I beg now, as his solicitor, to request that you will favor me with a copy of any correspondence which has taken i>lace on this subject.

I am, &c.,