Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the Second Session of the Thirty-ninth Congress, Part I

Mr. Seward to Sir F. Bruce

Department of State, Washington, October 22, 1866.

My Dear Sir Frederick: I commend to your attention the enclosed copy of a petition on behalf of Patrick O’Neill, a minor, who is alleged to be detained at Toronto on suspicion of being implicated in the late Fenian demonstration.

In view of the circumstances set forth in the petition, I trust that, through your kind offices, the young man may be released and permitted to return to his relatives.

I remain, my dear Sir Frederick, very faithfully yours,

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

The Hon. Sir Frederick W. A. Bruce, &c., &c., &c.

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To his Excellency Andrew Johnson, President of the United States:

The undersigned, citizens of Cincinnati, would most respectfully represent to your Excellency that on or about Sunday, June 3, 1866. a minor named Patrick O’Neill, aged seventeen years, was captured in the vicinity of Fort Erie, Canada.

That said O’Neill is now held as prisoner in Toronto on suspicion of being engaged in the late Fenian movement against the peace of the Canadian people and the authority of the British government.

Your petitioners would further represent that the parents of said prisoner are respectable, law-abiding citizens; they are aged, infirm, and in destitute circumstances; that said prisoner, being their oldest child, was their principal support, and the absence of his labor for the past four months has caused undue hardships to said parents.

For these, and many other reasons, the undersigned do fervently pray that your Excellency may, through your high prerogative, intercede with the Canadian authorities for the immediate release of said Patrick O’Neill.

In consideration of his youth your petitioners are convinced that, as the ends of justice have been satisfied by his long imprisonment, the dictates of humanity, prompted by sympathy for his aged and suffering parents, his age, and consequent ignorance of the magnitude of the crime he is charged with, justify the hope that your Excellency may be enabled to present the matter to the Canadian authorities, with the request that a spirit of mercy and forgiveness be extended in the present case. To the end that the prisoner may be restored to his liberty and return to his home, convinced of his former error, is ever the prayer of—

A. HICKENLOOPER,

GEO. W. NEFF,

LEN. A. HARRIS,

BASSETT LANGDON,

J. P. SAUNDERS,

J. J. QUINN,

M. P. GADDIS,

R. B. CARPENTER,

JOS. E. EGLY,

PETER J. SULLIVAN,

THEO. COOK.