Mr. Evarts acknowledged the despatch with commendation for its lucid treatment of the subject, but Lowell soon found himself involved in something closer at hand than academic discussion. About three weeks after this despatch, he had occasion to write again of the state of affairs, and to note the final passage of the so-called coercion bill. At the close of this despatch his wrote: “The wild and whirling words of some Irishmen and others from America have done harm to something more than the cause of Irish peasantry, by becoming associated in the public mind with the country whose citizenship they put off or put on as may be most convenient. In connection with this, I beg leave to call your attention to an extraordinary passage in the letter of Mr. Parnell to the Irish National Land League, dated Paris, February 18, 1881, in which he makes a distinction between ‘the American people’ and ‘the Irish nation in America.’ This double nationality is likely to be of great practical inconvenience whenever the coercion bill becomes law. The same actor takes alternately the characters of a pair of twins who are never on the stage simultaneously.”[80] In his capacity of critic, Lowell heartily condemned the measure taken by the British government. In a letter to the American consul in Cork, he wrote: “The ‘coercion act,’ so-called, is an exceptional and arbitrary measure. Its chief object is to enable the authorities to arrest persons whom they suspect of illegal conduct, without being obliged to produce any proof of their guilt. Its very substance and main purpose are to deprive suspected persons of the speedy trial they desire. This law is, of course, contrary to the spirit and foundation principles of both English and American jurisprudence; but it is the law of the land and it controls all parties domiciled in the proclaimed districts of Ireland, whether they are British subjects or not, and it is manifestly entirely futile to claim that naturalized citizens of the United States should be excepted from its operation.”[81] But Lowell was not a mere looker-on in London, He was charged with the very delicate duty of discriminating between men who were American citizens and innocent of any infraction of British laws and men who used the cloak of naturalization, whether genuine or pretended, to cover illicit actions and designs. He had to uphold the real dignity of the American citizen, and at the same time to avoid entangling his country and Great Britain by an unwary protection of some one who had no title to protection. The cases which now began to succeed each other with confusing rapidity involved not only a mass of correspondence and the sifting of evidence, but the application constantly of personal judgment, and the exercise of much ingenuity in the reading of character. An illustration may be found in a despatch of Lowell to his government, dated 4 June, 1881. After an analysis of the political situation, he says:--