"Allow me first to show my own method of proceeding before comparing it with yours. Between the British Government and myself there has never, as far as I am aware, been any talk of a pension, reward, or order. I have served the British Government truly and loyally as long as I possibly could. I resigned as soon as I found it no longer possible. As it also became impossible for me to enjoy the pension legally due to me I have also renounced it voluntarily, as I had previously given up the position which entitled me to it and as I now give up all orders and distinctions that have at different times been awarded me by His Majesty's Government.
"I came last October from America to Europe to see that my Fatherland Ireland should suffer as little as possible from the results of this luckless war, however it may end.
"My point of view I have sufficiently clearly published in an open letter from New York dated September 17th,[13] and which I sent to Ireland for distribution amongst my countrymen. I have the honour to enclose a printed copy of this letter. It gives exactly my views which I still hold to and the duties which an Irishman owes his Fatherland during this crisis.
"Shortly after having written this letter, I left for Europe.
"The possibility of my being able to assist Ireland to escape some of the horrors of war was in my opinion worth the loss of outward honour and my pension, as well as the committing the act of high treason in the technical meaning of the word. I had naturally reckoned on taking all personal risk and any punishment which the law could possibly threaten my actions with. I had, however, not considered that I should be sought after with means in excess of the law in spite of my action being without the moral limits. In other words, I reckoned with English Justice and legal punishment and the sacrifice of name, position, and income, and willingly agreed to pay this price, but had not reckoned with the present Government. I was ready to face a legal tribunal but I was not prepared against being shadowed, kidnapped by force, my servant being bribed, and that I, in short, might be struck down; I was, in fact, not prepared for the precautions your representative took upon hearing that I was stopping in this country.
"The criminal attack which M. de C. Findlay, the British Ambassador, planned on the 30th in the British Embassy, together with a Norwegian subject named Adler Christensen, included all this and more. The plan included not only an illegal attack upon my person for the execution of which the British Ambassador promised my servant £5,000 sterling, but also included an infringement of international law and common justice, and the Norwegian was guaranteed by the English Ambassador in Norway that he should go free of punishment.
"I landed from America on October 29th. A few hours after my landing a Secret Agent of the British Ambassador approached the man I had taken into my service and whom I fully trusted, and conducted him in a private motor-car to the English Embassy, where the first attempt was made to induce him to commit an act of treachery against me.
"Your agent at the Embassy pretended not to know me and said he only wanted to identify me and get to know my plans.
"As this attempt did not succeed, Adler Christensen the next day, October 30th, was accosted by a new agent and requested to go to the Embassy, where he would hear of something to his advantage. The next meeting was conducted by the Ambassador himself. Mr. Findlay went straight to the point. His assumed or real ignorance of my identity, as shown the day before, he now abandoned. Findlay acknowledged that he knew me but declared that he did not know where I was going, what I was going to do, and what my intentions were. It was enough for him that I was an Irish Nationalist. He confessed that the British Government had no proof that I had done, or intended to do, anything wrong which could give him right, either moral or legal, to interfere with my freedom. All the same, he was determined to do so. He therefore boldly and without further consideration used illegal means and gave my servant to understand that if I 'disappeared' it would be a very good thing for whoever managed it. He specially emphasised that nothing should happen to the perpetrator, as my presence in Christiania was known to the British Government, and that that Government would protect and be responsible for those who effected my 'disappearance.' He suggested clearly the means that could be used, intimating to Adler Christensen that the man who 'knocked him on the head' would not need to do any more work for the rest of his life, saying, 'I presume that you would have no objection to taking it easy for the rest of your days?' My faithful servant hid the indignation he felt at this proposal and continued the conversation so as to become more fully acquainted with details of the assault being planned on my person. He remarked not only that I had been good to him, but that 'I absolutely relied on him.'
"Upon this absolute confidence Mr. Findlay built his whole plot against my freedom, Norway's common justice, and the well-being of this young man, whom he tried to bribe with a large amount to commit a cowardly crime upon his well-doer. If I could be seized or disappear, no one would know it, and no question could be raised, as no one outside the British Government knew of my presence in Norway, and there was no authority from whom I could get help as the one authority would protect the accused and care for his future. Thus, according to my information, spoke Mr. Findlay, the British Minister, to the young man who was tempted into the Embassy for this purpose. That this young man was faithful to me and to the law of his land is a triumph of Norwegian straightforwardness over the vile manner in which the richest and mightiest Government in the world tried to tempt him to treachery against both.