citizen arrested under the Coercion
Act in Ireland during Mr. Blaine's tenure of office had been liberated
when Mr. Frelinghuysen took charge of the State Department, was that of
Mr. Joseph B. Walsh, arrested at Castlebar, in Mayo, March 8, 1881, and
discharged by order of the Lord-Lieutenant, October 21, 1881, not
because he was an American citizen, nor after any examination, but
expressly and solely on the ground of ill-health.

When Mr. Frelinghuysen became Secretary of State in December 1881 the
Congress of the United States was in session. So numerous were the
American "suspects" then lying in prison in Ireland, some of whom had
been so confined for many months, that the doors of Congress were soon
besieged by angry demands for an inquiry into the subject. A resolution
in this sense was adopted by the House of Representatives, and
forwarded, through the American Legation in London, to the British
Foreign Office. Memorials touching particular cases were laid before
both Houses of the American Congress. On the 10th of February 1882, Mr.
Bancroft Davis, the Assistant-Secretary of State, instructed the
American Minister at London to take action concerning one such case, and
to report upon it. The Minister not moving more rapidly than he had been
accustomed to do under Mr. Blaine, Mr. Davis grew impatient, and on the
2d of March 1882 (being the anniversary of the adoption of the Coercion
Act in England) the American Secretary of State cabled to the Minister
in London significantly enough, "Use all diligence in regard to the late
cases, especially of Hart and M'Sweeney, and report by cable."

Mr. Lowell replied the next day, giving the views in regard to Hart of
the American Vice-Consul, and of the British Inspector of Police at
Queenstown, and adding an expression of his own opinion that neither
Hart nor M'Sweeney was "more innocent than the majority of those under
arrest."

This was an unfortunate despatch. It roused the American Secretary of
State into responding instantly by cable in the following explicit and
emphatic terms: "Referring to the cases of O'Connor, Hart, M'Sweeney,
M'Enery, and D'Alton, American citizens imprisoned in Ireland, say to
Lord Granville that, without discussing whether the provisions of the
Force Act can be applied to American citizens, the President hopes that
the Lord-Lieutenant will be instructed to exercise the powers intrusted
to him by the first section to order early trials in thes