“Mr. Lowell, who has been denounced by Mr. Randall for his ‘sickening sycophancy to English influence,’ has treated the matter not as an English, Irish, or American question, but purely as a point of international law. He has had no sympathy with the coercion legislation, and has even taken pains to characterize it as exceptional and arbitrary.... That law [the ‘protection’ law] legalized the arrest of the suspects in districts where the writ of _habeas corpus_ had been suspended, and where the natives were not allowed the privilege of a jury trial. To have demanded their unconditional release, when no discrimination had been made between them and the natives, would have been an open affront to a friendly power. What Mr. Lowell did was to follow the best precedents of criminal jurisdiction in international cases, several of which had been established during the American civil war, when British subjects were arbitrarily arrested and denied the privilege of trial. At the same time, he has conducted the negotiations with the Foreign Office with so much tact and decision that we are inclined to expect a speedy clearance of the Irish jails from suspects whose citizenship in the United States is authenticated.” And the next day the same journal said: “Mr. Lowell’s negotiations for the release of the Irish-American suspects have been crowned with partial success. Before the mass-meeting at Cooper Institute disgraced itself by heaping reproaches upon him, the Department of State had received official information that all but three of these prisoners had been set at liberty in response to the request of the United States minister.... Mr. Frelinghuysen[83] reports that the negotiations have been carried on between the two governments for some time ‘in a spirit of entire friendship.’ This result had been promoted by the cordial relations existing between Lord Granville and Mr. Lowell. The fact that our government has been represented in these negotiations by one of our foremost men of letters has been a most fortunate circumstance. Mr. Lowell had won the respect and admiration of the best men in English public life, and when he came to plead for these suspects his personal character and popularity were of direct service to them.... Mr. Mr. Lowell made, as our cable despatches have stated, every effort consistent with diplomatic usage, and at the same time performed a most delicate duty with such consummate tact as to remove all sources of irritation.”[84]