No. 122.
Mr. Seward
to Mr. Pierrepont.
Department
of State,
Washington, June 1,
1877.
No. 161.]
Sir: Referring to instruction No. 18, of the 8th
August, 1876, and to your reply numbered 35, in reference to the case of
Edward O’M Condon,
[Page 261]
imprisoned
under sentence of a British court, I now inclose for your information a copy
of a letter addressed to the President by Condon’s brother, Thomas J.
Condon, asking that further efforts may be made for the prisoner’s
release.
I have accordingly to request that you will again invite the attention of the
British Government to the case, and state that the Government of the United
States, in view of another year of Condon’s imprisonment having elapsed, and
of the fact that no new disturbances have occurred, hopes that it may be
deemed proper by Her Majesty’s Government to extend the clemency asked.
I am, &c.,
[Inclosure.]
Mr. Condon to the
President.
Cincinnati, May 20,
1877.
Respected Sir: Deaf to all warnings however
ominous, spurning alike the arguments of the people of Ireland and the
petitions and requests of the President, the Senators, and Congressmen
of America, the Government of England still retains in one of her
bastiles Edward O’Meagher Condon, the only American citizen held in a
foreign prison because of his political opinions.
I would not now broach the subject to your excellency but that I remember
the interest you had taken in his sad fate some years ago. You then
signed the petition for his release which the Hon. Benjamin Eggleston
introduced in the House of Representatives; you also gave my late father
several letters of recommendation to prominent and eminent men in
Washington requesting them to use their influence to secure if possible
my brother’s release.
* * * * * * *
My brother, to-day, standing as he does between the free and the dead
with many appearances tending to support the belief that he shall be
numbered with the latter, first pleads that the government for whose
preservation he fought and bled should aid and assist him now in the
hour of his adversity.
You, honored sir, will, I hope, be the means of obtaining his release and
returning him once more to the bosom of a widowed mother, who lives only
in the fond hope of seeing him again ere the film of death close her
eyes forever to mortal vision.
Guard his life as an American citizen and God will bless and man approve
of your efforts in his behalf. Anxiously awaiting a reply,
I remain, your humble servant,
THOMAS J. CONDON,
116
Cutter
Street
