No. 325.
Mr. Lowell
to Mr. Blaine.
London, June 4, 1881. (Received June 16.)
Sir: I have the honor to acquaint you that, immediately on receiving your telegram relating to the case of Mr. Walsh, I went over to the foreign office and had an interview with Lord Granville. I told him the purport of the dispatch, and said that he would of course understand the solicitude felt by the Government of the United States in view of the application to American citizens of unusual methods of procedure, and that the President would expect for such citizens arrested under the terms of the protection act either a speedy trial or a prompt discharge. I had informed Lord Granville that written instructions were on the way. He replied that as it was not easy for him to understand on what grounds of international law my government would base its claim that American citizens should be treated better than British subjects, when both had exposed themselves to the operation of an act of Parliament, he should prefer not to give me any more definite answer until I was more fully instructed from home. Lord Granville was to leave town at half past four, and as there was barely ten minutes left for him to reach the station, there was no time for longer discussion.
[Page 534]Mr. Walsh, as I learn from the letter of Mr. Barrows, our consul at Dublin, is a liquor dealer at Castlebar, County Mayo, was a poor-law guardian and town commissioner there, and seems to have acted in all respects as if he were a British subject until his arrest.
It is very doubtful if the authorities knew anything of his claim to American citizenship. I have reason to know that naturalized Americans, trusting in their supposed immunity as such, have used language in public of extreme violence. I do not know whether Mr. Walsh had done so. I was naturally guided in the language I used in my interview with Lord Granville by the terms of your previous telegram, relating to Dalton, received on the 26th of May. Without definite instructions, I did not think it prudent to enter a formal protest against Mr. Walsh’s arrest. I may add that I have as yet received no proof of Dalton’s citizenship.
I have &c.,