The whole diplomatic correspondence on this subject which went on between the two Governments while Mr.Blaine was Secretary of State, from the 4th of March 1881 to the 20th of December 1881, was of a sort to lull the British Government into the belief that "suspects" might be freely and safely arrested and locked up all over Ireland, with no more question of their nationality than of any evidence to establish their guilt or their innocence.

During the whole of that time the State Department at Washington seems to have substantially remained content with the declaration of Earl Granville, in a letter sent to the American Legation on the 8th of July 1881, four months after the Coercion Act went into effect, that "no distinction could be made in the circumstances between foreigners and British subjects, and that in the case of British subjects the only information given was that contained in the warrant." No fault can be found with the British Government for standing by this declaration so long as it thus seemed to command the assent of the Government of the United States.
But when Mr.Frelinghuysen was called into the State Department by President Arthur in December 1881, to overhaul the condition into which our foreign relations had been brought by his predecessor, he found that in no single instance had Mr.Blaine succeeded in inducing the British Government, either to release any American citizen arrested under a general warrant without specific charges of criminal conduct, and on "suspicion" in Ireland, or to order the examination of any such citizen.
The one case in which an American citizen arrested under the Coercion Act in Ireland during Mr.Blaine's tenure of office had been liberated when Mr.Frelinghuysen took charge of the State Department, was that of Mr.Joseph B.Walsh, arrested at Castlebar, in Mayo, March 8, 1881, and discharged by order of the Lord-Lieutenant, October 21, 1881, not because he was an American citizen, nor after any examination, but expressly and solely on the ground of ill-health.
When Mr.Frelinghuysen became Secretary of State in December 1881 the Congress of the United States was in session.

So numerous were the American "suspects" then lying in prison in Ireland, some of whom had been so confined for many months, that the doors of Congress were soon besieged by angry demands for an inquiry into the subject.

A resolution in this sense was adopted by the House of Representatives, and forwarded, through the American Legation in London, to the British Foreign Office.

Memorials touching particular cases were laid before both Houses of the American Congress.