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. On the 10th of February 1882, Mr. Bancroft Davis, the Assistant-Secretary of State, instructed the American Minister at London to take action concerning one such case, and to report upon it. The Minister not moving more rapidly than he had been accustomed to do under Mr. Blaine, Mr. Davis grew impatient, and on the 2d of March 1882 (being the anniversary of the adoption of the Coercion Act in England) the American Secretary of State cabled to the Minister in London significantly enough, "Use all diligence in regard to the late cases, especially of Hart and M'Sweeney, and report by cable." Mr. Lowell replied the next day, giving the views in regard to Hart of the American Vice-Consul, and of the British Inspector of Police at Queenstown, and adding an expression of his own opinion that neither Hart nor M'Sweeney was "more innocent than the majority of those under arrest." This was an unfortunate despatch. It roused the American Secretary of State into responding instantly by cable in the following explicit and emphatic terms: "Referring to the cases of O'Connor, Hart, M'Sweeney, M'Enery, and D'Alton, American citizens imprisoned in Ireland, say to Lord Granville that, without discussing whether the provisions of the Force Act can be applied to American citizens, the President hopes that the Lord-Lieutenant will be instructed to exercise the powers intrusted to him by the first section to order early trials in these and all other cases in which Americans may be arrested." There was no mistaking the tone of this despatch. It was instantly transmitted to the British Foreign Secretary, who replied the same day that "the matter would receive the immediate attention of Her Majesty's Government."