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:--
“I may be permitted to add that I have had repeated assurances from the highest authority that there would be great reluctance in arresting a naturalized citizen of the United States were he known to be such. But it is seldom known, and those already arrested have acted in all respects as if they were Irishmen, sometimes engaged in trade, sometimes in farming, and sometimes filling positions in the local government. This I think is illustrated by a phrase in one of Mr. ----’s letters, to the effect that he never called himself an American. He endeavors, it is true, in a subsequent letter, to explain this away as meaning _American born_; but it is obviously absurd that a man living in his native village should need to make any such explanation. Naturalized Irishmen seem entirely to misconceive the process through which they have passed in assuming American citizenship, looking upon themselves as Irishmen who have acquired a right to American protection, rather than as Americans who have renounced a claim to Irish nationality.”
It is not surprising that the whole affair caused much fury of words both in Congress and out. An organization existed which was bent on making all the trouble it could for the British government, and there was still plenty of political capital in Irish wrongs. A great mass-meeting was held in New York at which Lowell was denounced severely, and from this time till his return from England every opportunity was taken by a certain class of men to sneer at him for what they were pleased to regard as his apostasy from American principles. He was defended, however, both in Congress and in the press. His course was well summed up in an editorial article, in which the writer says:--