Morning journal and courier., 1884-10-21
MIR. McSWEENEY,


 Daniel McSweeney has come from Ireland to help the Democrats by relating the story of his wrongs and charging Mr. Blaine with refusing or neglecting to assert and defend his rights as an American citizen.
 The facts of MT. McSweeneys case are clear He was a naturalized citizen, who had ac- quired some property in California, and re- turned to his old home in Ireland with the purpose, as he told his friends, of spend ing the rest of his life there. He settled down upon 8 little estate which he owned and conducted himself in all respects like the people about him as 8 subject of the British crown. He voted in the local elections and accepted a local office. While he held this office he joined some society of agitators and became some what conspicuous among them, taking 8 prominent part in demonstrations which were deemed by the authorities seditious He was arrested on the second day of June, 1881. Six days later the United States vice consul at Belfast, having received from MT. Me Sweeney an appeal for protection, wrote to the United States minister in Lon don, giving him an outline of the facts, and MT. Lowell, on the 10th of the same month answered the consu1's letter, directing him to investigate the case, make prompt report, and demand the prisoners release if it should appear that he had been arrested without due cause. On the same day MT. Lowell wrote to Earl Granville, the British minister of foreign affairs, informing him that McSweeney was an American citizen and protested his innocence. The correspondence was continued at great length, the case being complicated by McSweeney's action in accepting office in Ireland MT. Lowell evidently doubted
 whether his citizenship of the United States was available to him as protection in these circumstances, but Mr. Blaine insisted upon it, as did his successor in office, Mir. Freling- huysen, and it was finally conceded after long delay. Mir. Blaine's position in this l and in all like cases was clearly stated by 1 him in letter of instructions to MT. Lowell,
 dated on the very dsy of McSweeney's arrest, as follows:
 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 se- ! cure to every man who offends against it's laws, whether he be an American citizen or a foreign subject, those incidents to criminal prosecution which afford the best safeguard to personal liberty and the strongest protec- | ton against oppression under the forms of l law, which might otherwise be practised through excessive zeal
 That an accused person shall immediately
 upon arrest be informed of the specific crime l or ofense upon which he is held, and that | he shall be afforded an opportunity for 8 1 speedy trial before an impartial court and l jury, are essentials to every criminal prose l cution, necessary alike to the protection of | innocence and the ascertainment of guilt. 1 You will lose no time in making the neces. | sary inquiries in the cause of MT. Walsh's ar rest and detention, in which it is probable \ MT. Barrows, the consul at Dublin, may 1 be able to aid you, and if you | shall find that the circumstances of the case l in the light of this and previous instructions I are such as to call for interference on the | part of this government, you will make such l temperate but earnest representations as in | your judgment will conduce to his speedy l trial, or, in case there is no specific charge against him, his prompt release from I imprisonment
 1 It is desired that you will report the result ! of your proceedings to the department with as little delay as convenient.
 I am, etc.,
 | JAMES G. BLAINE.