Mr. Evarts acknowledged the despatch with commendation for its lucid treatment of the subject, but Lowell soon found himself involved in something closer at hand than academic discussion. About three weeks after this despatch, he had occasion to write again of the state of affairs, and to note the final passage of the so-called coercion bill. At the close of this despatch his wrote: “The wild and whirling words of some Irishmen and others from America have done harm to something more than the cause of Irish peasantry, by becoming associated in the public mind with the country whose citizenship they put off or put on as may be most convenient. In connection with this, I beg leave to call your attention to an extraordinary passage in the letter of Mr. Parnell to the Irish National Land League, dated Paris, February 18, 1881, in which he makes a distinction between ‘the American people’ and ‘the Irish nation in America.’ This double nationality is likely to be of great practical inconvenience whenever the coercion bill becomes law. The same actor takes alternately the characters of a pair of twins who are never on the stage simultaneously.”[80]
In his capacity of critic, Lowell heartily condemned the measure taken by the British government. In a letter to the American consul in Cork, he wrote: “The ‘coercion act,’ so-called, is an exceptional and arbitrary measure. Its chief object is to enable the authorities to arrest persons whom they suspect of illegal conduct, without being obliged to produce any proof of their guilt. Its very substance and main purpose are to deprive suspected persons of the speedy trial they desire. This law is, of course, contrary to the spirit and foundation principles of both English and American jurisprudence; but it is the law of the land and it controls all parties domiciled in the proclaimed districts of Ireland, whether they are British subjects or not, and it is manifestly entirely futile to claim that naturalized citizens of the United States should be excepted from its operation.”[81]
But Lowell was not a mere looker-on in London, He was charged with the very delicate duty of discriminating between men who were American citizens and innocent of any infraction of British laws and men who used the cloak of naturalization, whether genuine or pretended, to cover illicit actions and designs. He had to uphold the real dignity of the American citizen, and at the same time to avoid entangling his country and Great Britain by an unwary protection of some one who had no title to protection. The cases which now began to succeed each other with confusing rapidity involved not only a mass of correspondence and the sifting of evidence, but the application constantly of personal judgment, and the exercise of much ingenuity in the reading of character. An illustration may be found in a despatch of Lowell to his government, dated 4 June, 1881. After an analysis of the political situation, he says:—
“I think that the necessity of a radical and prompt reform in the relations of landlord and tenant in Ireland is forcing conviction into the mind of even the Conservative Party, though the violence of language and the incitement to violence of action on the part of those who claim to be the true friends of Ireland are doing much to endanger the success of remedial measures.
“Among the most violent are often the Irishmen who have been naturalized in America, and then gone back to Ireland with the hope, and sometimes, I am justified in saying, with the deliberate intention, of disturbing the friendly relations between the United States and England. Such a one called upon me the other day. His name was——, naturalized in 1875 at Baltimore, and going over to Ireland immediately after on the plea that his health could not resist the American climate. He is now at least a remarkably robust and florid man. He told me that he was a draper in Charleville, County Cork, and hearing that a warrant was out for his arrest, he had come over to London to claim my protection. He had been acting as treasurer of the Land League in that place. He professed not to know on what grounds the warrant had been issued, but I satisfied myself in the course of our conversation that he knew perfectly well it was for seditious language and incitement to violence. He favored me with a good deal of this sort of rhetoric with a manner that implied no earnestness of conviction, and as if repeating something he had learned by rote. He several times repeated that the ‘best thing would be a war between England and the United States.’ After hearing this man’s talk, my belief was that he had purposely exposed himself to the chances of arrest in the hope of adding to the difficulties of the government. I asked him if he had considered the enormous interests at stake, quite apart from any moral consideration, and that England was our greatest customer for cattle, corn, and cotton? He merely repeated what he had said before as to the desirability of war. —— declared that he meant to return to America whenever his health would permit, but admitted that it would take at least five years to wind up his business, and I think his intention may fairly be questioned. As he declared himself ready to be quiet for the future if not arrested, I thought it prudent to mention his name unofficially to Lord Granville, and to suggest that the warrant should not be put in force unless further offence were given.
“I have spoken at some length of his case, because I think it of some importance that the Department should be informed as to the kind of persons who may ask its intervention, and as to the doctrines they preach. Under ordinary circumstances they would be harmless, and are made mischievous only by the excited state of the country. My own judgment is that the ministry have gone to the extreme limit of public opinion in their concessions to Irish necessities; that they are perfectly honest in their desire to be generously just; and that the best friends of Ireland are not those who, however sincerely, throw obstacles in their way. The real cure, which I believe to be a larger measure of Home Rule, will be made easier by the better state of things which, in the opinion of those best competent to judge, is likely to result from the passage of the Land Bill.”
In the early stages of what proved to be a long and vexatious series of Irish-American cases, Lowell laid down a course of action which he seems to have adhered to consistently. The United States consul at Dublin had on his hands a case which was especially troublesome, because the claim of the arrested man to American protection rested on statements of citizenship which were contradictory, and created naturally a suspicion as to the validity of the claim. After cautioning the consul to make certain enquiries, he adds: “If the fact of his American citizenship should thus be ascertained to your satisfaction, I desire then that you should carefully examine into the grounds of his arrest, and if the precise facts justify the belief that no substantial charge of his complicity with treasonable or seditious objects can be made out, you will communicate this to the authorities in Ireland and request his discharge or to be informed why he is detained. You will please intimate, in respectful terms and without any warmth or suggestion of threats, that you are making these enquiries under my instructions, and are acting precisely as British consuls in the United States acted soon after the civil war, under the directions of the British minister at Washington, in cases of summary arrests of British subjects. It is my duty to protect, so far as I can, all citizens of the United States, whether native or naturalized, who are shown to be innocent of designs to subvert civil order, and I should not perhaps require in such cases evidence of innocence so full and conclusive as that which might be required in a court of law. At the same time I shall by no means try to screen any persons who are evidently guilty of offending against the criminal laws of Great Britain.”
Mr. Blaine, who had succeeded Mr. Evarts as Secretary of State, on being advised of Lowell’s action in this case, wrote that it received “the entire commendation of the Department as discreet and proper.” And a few weeks later, as the case became somewhat more involved, he wrote again: “The prudence you have shown in dealing with ——’s claim to citizenship is commendable, and the statements as to the law in his case, made in your letters to him, are in full accord with the interpretation of this Department.” Mr. Blaine then laid down instructions to meet certain hypothetical cases, and not long after had occasion to call Lowell’s attention to another apparent act of injustice in the arrest of a naturalized American citizen. The friends of the man in America had besieged Mr. Blaine in his behalf, and Mr. Blaine wrote an eloquent despatch to Lowell, in which he said: “If American citizens while within British jurisdiction offend against British laws, this government will not seek to shield them from the legal consequences of their acts, but it must insist upon the application to their cases of those common principles of criminal jurisprudence which in the United States secure to every man who offends against its laws, whether he be an American citizen or a foreign subject, those incidents to a criminal prosecution which afford the best safeguard to personal liberty and the strongest protection against oppression under the forms of law, which might otherwise be practised through excessive zeal.”
Lowell replied somewhat dryly: “It will give me great pleasure to communicate to Lord Granville the views you have so clearly and eloquently expressed as to the injustice of some of the features of the so-called ‘Protection act,’[82] and especially its retroactive character. But I would respectfully suggest whether any step would be gained toward the speedy trial or release of —— by an argument against the law itself under which he was apprehended. So long as Lord Granville expressly declines to make any distinction between British subjects and American citizens in the application of this law, a position which I presume may be justified by precedents in our own diplomatic history, I submit to your better judgment whether the only arguments I can use in favor of —— must not be founded upon some exceptional injustice in the way in which he has been treated. If this shall appear by the report of the consul to have been practised, I shall press for his trial or release with great earnestness. But if it shall be shown that he has experienced no more harshness than the majority of his fellow-prisoners have suffered, I do not feel by any means sure that your instructions would authorize me to make any special application on his behalf.” Lowell finally secured the release of the man by pointing out that his health was suffering by his imprisonment, and it is not unlikely that Lord Granville was glad of so good an excuse to remove one of the perplexities by which his government was embarrassed.
The whole unhappy business may be said to have been at its height when, in February, 1882, a resolution of the House of Representatives called upon the President for detailed information respecting the arrest of American citizens in Ireland. The State Department accordingly called on the American minister in London to furnish this information, and in his despatch dated 14 March, 1882, Lowell recounts all the cases which up to that time had come under his notice, with all the correspondence relating thereto. There were ten, and the number was increased by a few more before the business was settled. At the close of the despatch, enumerating the ten cases, Lowell says very pertinently:—