Miss Lynch to Mr. King
General: I should need an apology for the liberty I take in addressing you without having the honor of your acquaintance, and still more so for the obligation I wish to impose on you, if I did not consider your public and private character for benevolence, and the kindness and consideration which you have always shown the Irish adopted citizens of Milwaukee, and your generous and liberal treatment of them when editor and proprietor of the leading political paper of that city; this must needs be my apology.
My brother, R. B. Lynch, is now suffering a cruel imprisonment in the provincial penitentiary of Canada, for an alleged participation with a Fenian expedition in that province, in the summer of 1866; though he was only there in the capacity of a correspondent of a Louisville paper. My brother has had the honor and pleasure of your personal friendship and acquaintance for over 20 years; that he is a resident of Milwaukee; and he is quite sanguine that, from your great influence with the government at Washington, and particularly with the Secretary of State, you could obtain his freedom through this influence. His relatives and friends, and the Irish citizens of Milwaukee, would be under an everlasting obligation, if you would interfere in his behalf. He is now 18 months imprisoned, subject to all the indignities of a common felon. If he violated the laws of that province, those laws have been fully vindicated, and clemency might now be extended to the unfortunate prisoner. From the high position you hold in the government, and from the kind, friendly feeling you always had for my poor unfortunate brother, I beseech you to use your influence in obtaining his pardon. He was the principal support of my widowed sister, her children, and myself. His imprisonment is a sad affliction to us all. My sister and myself are now old, and have to work hard. My brother served in the Union army for three years, and for his kindness and attention to the sick and wounded Wisconsin soldiers at Louisville, where he was on detached duty, he was recommended to Governor Solomon, by the leading men in Milwaukee, for promotion, and his course favorably noticed by the press of that State. I would, therefore, earnestly beg of you, by the kind feelings you have shown our countrymen, which is most gratefully cherished by them to this day, and the high esteem in which you are held by them, to do something for my unfortunate, wretched brother, and restore him to his sorrowing family, who will be forever grateful to you, and offer up their fervent prayers for your long life and happiness and prosperity of yourself and family.
I have the honor to be your obedient servant,
Hon. Rufus King.
P. S.—Affidavits are on file in the State Department proving my brother having no complicity with the Fenian expedition.