Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward
Sir: I incline to the opinion that this government would be glad to relieve itself of the burden of most of the remaining persons taken in the Jacmel. Already they have liberated three on condition that they would leave the kingdom. Unluckily they were wholly destitute of funds to defray their passage. Under these circumstances the consul at Dublin wrote to me to know whether he should advance the means on the part of the government. Having no instructions to justify me in undertaking the experiment, I nevertheless concluded to authorize the expenditure on my own responsibility in case the government should decline to assume the expense. This materially reduces the number of citizens of the United States remaining in prison awaiting trial.
A person calling himself Robert Mackay is now on trial at Cork for the murder of a policeman. He has made no application, so far as I know, to the consul at that place, nor to me, for protection as a citizen of the United States. I suspect there may be some desire for concealment which has prompted this course, as he is affirmed by some of his friends to be a native American. I received a letter from one of these persons in Cork urging that the expense of his defense should be assumed by me for the United States. The offense charged being that of murder, the case did not seem to me one in which interference with the ordinary course of law was justifiable on my part, even if I had authority, and he were proved to be a citizen, native or adopted. The truth is that the course taken in the cases at Dublin has led to a belief that any man arrested for crime is entitled to be defended by the government. The urgency comes now not so much from the parties themselves as from their Irish friends here, who are obliged to tax themselves heavily if they fail to throw the burden on the United States. It is perfectly natural that they should seek this mode of relief.
I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.