| Consulate of the United States
of America, Dublin
February 20th. 1866 |
The Right Hon. the Attorney General
Castle
Dublin. |
| Sir, |
| I take leave to draw your attention to the fact, of which you are,
no doubt, already aware, that a large number of Citizens of the United
States have recently been arrested and thrown into prison, without
sworn informations against them or the slightest allegation of their
guilt as I am informed. Many alleged cases of great hardship and unjustifiable
harshness have been brought before me in the execution of the law
by which the Habeas Corpus Act has been so suddenly suspended, and
acted on without even an intimation that American Citizens would be
made liable thereto, indiscriminately, and by which they might have
been afforded the opportunity of leaving a country in which their
liberties would be endangered even tho' they had transgressed no law
that would justify their imprisonment. And altho' there may be grounds
of suspicion of complicity with treasonable objects against some of
those who have been thus deprived of their liberty yet, in all likelihood,
many of them have not been guilty of any designs to subvert the civil
order established in this Realm, and therefore justly complain of
the treatment they have experienced from the authorities of this kingdom. |
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