Letter from Alice Stopford Green to General Botha, 16 June 1916. Letters 1916-1923 Alice Stopford Green

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In this long letter Alice Stopford Green (1847-1929) appeals to General Botha (1862-1919), whose name, she says, has been constantly invoked in the context of clemency, to make a public intervention on behalf of Roger Casement (1864-1916). Stopford Green describes Roger Casement's distinguished career and compares Casement's treatment with more favourable treatment received by others accused of high treason.Alice Stopford Green was an Irish historian and nationalist. She collaborated with Roger Casement on Congo Reform and, after the Easter Rising in 1916 she tried for a time to save him from execution. General Louis Botha, was first Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa and supported Britain in the Great War and defeated the German occupation of South West Africa. This activity led to a rebellion among Afrikaners and, when the rebellion was crushed, Botha showed clemency to the rank and file, and to its leaders.Sir Roger Casement was a humanitarian and Irish Nationalist. Casement believed that an Irish insurrection would be crushed unless it received substantial assistance from Germany, and when it became clear that adequate help would not be forthcoming he travelled to Ireland by submarine. Casement landed and was arrested at Banna Strand, County Kerry on Good Friday 1916. He was tried in the Old Bailey for treason and subsequently executed by hanging at Pentonville Prison on 3 August 1916.

 Military Archives of Ireland Bureau of Military History Contemporary Documents, George Gavan Duffy Collection, BMH CD/45/2/23 https://letters1916.ie/item/46 English Alice Stopford Green 1916-06-16 36 Grosvenor Road, Westminster, London, England. Louis Botha Female Easter Rising Ireland 1916

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 Mrs J. R. Green to General BothaCOPY 36 Grosvenor Road, Westminster. 16th Jun, 1916. My dear General Botha I venture to call you by the title you bore on the day that I first saw you, when with General de Wet and General Delarey you came to my house on your first landing in England, to meet there Sir William Butler. It is in remembrance of that day and of your old experiences that I now feel emboldened to make my petition to you. I desire to plead for your sympathy in the matter of Sir Roger Casement, whose present situation is know to you. When this letter reaches you he will be undergoing his trial for high treason - and the verdict will probably be given against him. In the course of the last troubled six weeks your name has been constantly invoked here, and your example cited on the side of clemency. Public feeling has been greatly shocked by the harshness with which martial law has been imposed and used, and by the increasing list of deaths inflicted in the violence of conflict, with or without law. The wiser people heredo earn- estly desire to see the tale of executions cease, and the reign of a new spirit begin. I cannot doubt that no voice would be so powerful as yours in its effect on turning the public mind to clemency and generosity. Allow me to say a few words (1) as to Sir Roger Casement himself, and (2) as to the actual situation which has determined me to write to you. 1) Sir Roger Casement was for some twenty years in the service of the Foreign Office, in which he has carried through what is probably the greatest work of humanity done in our gener- ation - the bringing to light the destruction of the merci- less exploitation of the defenceless people of the Congo, and the carrying on of that work of deliverance in the Putumayo. I have personal knowledge of all the details of these conflicts since 1904 - Sir Roger's services were as devoted and self-sacri- ficing as they were brilliant, and were warmly recognized by Sir Edward Gray and Lord Lansdowne; his work undoubtedly won distinguished success for the Foreign Office in a most delicate and difficult matter of international policy. Unhappily twenty years of continuous and arduous work in tropical and salarious climates, without even a year of healthy conditions, wrecked the vigour even of Sir Roger's wonderful constitution, and he return- ed from South America grievously broken in strength. In the Putumayo expedition the hardships he had to face and the dangers he ran were even greater than in the Congo. The horrors he witnessed had their effect on a mind peculiarly sensitive and humane. He used to waken himself in the night shrieking, and was unable on his return to look at certain of the photographs he brought back without showing intense mental agitation and physical emotion. He was in fact so much exhausted that he often suddenly slept in the middle of dictating a sentence of his Report. The doctors declared that his return to his post at Rio must certainly lead to his death, and the Foreign Office had no other to offer him. Under these circumstances he was obliged to resign, and retire on a pension about 1912. I may mention that the Royal Commission appointed to report on the Civil Service drew attention to this case as one of peculiar hardship, and recommended that steps should be taken to make any recurrence of it impossible for any future consul of the Foreign Office. During his official life Sir Roger gave and absolutely loyal and devoted service. After his retirement he concerned himself with the cause of Ireland which he had always had at heart. The country was thrown into great unrest by the lawless action of Sir Edward Carson, the army Mutiny, and incitements to violence by English peers and Unionists. Sir Roger's effort was to disei- pling and steady the people, and by every means to draw north and south together in a sense of their common Irish nationality. In this effort for union of all Irishmen, he succeeded in getting the Irish Volunteers to accept the leadership of Mr. Redmond. In June 1914 he renounced his pension and went to America. The trial will give the history of his action since then. Rumours have been spread in an atmosphere of great ex- citement and hostility. To himself, having watched the increas- ing insults to Irish nationality in the last years, and the growing conviction of the ultimate defeat of Home Rule, he felt his first duty to be to his own country. In carrying out that duty he was alleged to be guilty of high treason against England, but the rumours of treachery, double-dealing, or base action towards the Government must all be discarded as false. He is in fact exactly in the position of the man most esteemed and honour- ed in England now - Professor Masaryk - once leader of the Bohemian party in the Vienna Parliament, now a refugee in England, under the ban of high treason at home. He is now raising Bohemian regiments for services against Austria, and is employed in diplomatic work by the British government, and given a post in the Imperial University. When the Lords and Commons sent representatives to Paris, led by Lord Bryce, for a public govern- ment banquet, the special feature of the celebration was the presence of four men of the Vienna and Berlin parliaments now under charge of high treason - but officially welcomed as honour- able patriots. 2) I ask you also to consider the present situation of Sir Roger. After his capture he was kept for three weeks in the Tower, behind barbed wire, in a damp, gloomy, and airless cell, with the window boarded up except for one pane for the sentry to look through. (Two sentries were stationed inside, and were changed every hour). No change of clothes was given him, and he was allowed to suffer much from vermin; and from cold, as his great coat had been taken away from him. He was allowed no visits and unfortunately prejudice overturned the honourable tradition of English justice that every prisoner should have full opportunity of a fair trial more especially if his life is in question. One solicitor, to whom he appealed, refused to see him or to advise him. A second solicitor offered his services, but for nine days the offer was neither answered by the authorities, nor communi- cated to the prisoner, who was thus left without help, and suffer- ing greatly. This effect upon his health of this Tower treatment made him unable for a time to give instructions or consider the case. Financial difficulties were pressing as he had no money for legal costs, and all access to friends in Ireland was stopped by martial law, and to America by the censor. Feeling in England ran so high that the firm of the solicitor required that the part- nership should be dissolved if he persisted in the defence, and it was consequently dissolved. Leading counsel refused to act in the case, and it was only on Sunday that a junior could be briefed for the police trial to open on Monday. The Attorney General, an adherent of Carson, and a political opponent, desired the utmost haste for the final trial, probably in view of the political situ- ation in Ireland. The utmost delay that could be got was till June 26th. The time is lamentably short in face of such diffi- culties. The most important witnesses and evidence for the defence are in Germany and America, and in Ireland, and in a state of war none of these are available, and he can bring no confirmation to his bare word. A counsel employed by him in America had just come over, ten days before the trial, and is not allowed to see him except in presence of the prison Governor, whose information can be used as evidence against the prisoner. He is confronted with every difficulty that can be conceived in stating his defence, more than I can here tell you, in addition to health greatly shattered. A further difficulty follows from the state of war. Sir Roger's friends are met with every obstacle with regard to a petition after the trial for a reprieve of execution. Owing to martial law we cannot with safety address any one at all in Ireland. We are cut off by the censor from any communication with America. In England the terror and excitement of the war are so great that I gravely doubt whether we shall be able to circulate a petition. There are a number of subtle influences with which I need not weary you. You will see however that whether in the matter of the usual legal justice, or in the matter of an appeal for clemency, all the dice are loaded in a very singular degree against the prisoner. I have therefore ventured to appeal to you if you could give your word at the critical moment on behalf of mercy. No influence would be so powerful with this people. I ask it partly for the sake of the clemency you have so nobly vindicated in a like situ- ation; yet more on the ground of the higher aquities of justice, now clouded here by prejudice and by alarm. Here is a man whose whole life has been a loyal battle for humanity and righteousness. He was the sole originator of the effort for the deliverance of the Congo natives. He began it, and he carried it through, and I can witness, at heavy cost to himself, and with the passion of an apostle of mercy. His effort brought credit and renown to England whom in this cause he devotedly served. Some day you will be called to advise on the fate of Ireland. Your task will be the easier if you come as the advocate among our people, as among your own, of the cause of humanity, and as the friend of all who, like Sir Roger Casement, have spent their lives in assuring the pro- tection of the weak. I feel you cannot forget your first day in England; Sir William Butler who never ceased to honour and defend your cause; and the dying friend to whom your name meant the victory of justice and nationality and fidelity, and whose great abilities, if he had lived, might have averted many of our present sorrows in Ireland. Much has happened since then, but I believe that in remembrance of that day you will forgive my writing to you, and that you will stand by the cause of large mercy, a great equity, and national freedom. I remain Yours most sincerely, (Signed) ALICE STOPFORD GREEN. 36 Grosvenor Road, Westminster, London, England. Letter from Alice Stopford Green to Herbert Henry Asquith, 17 May 1916.Letter from Alice Stopford Green to General Botha, 16 June 1916. Alice Stopford Green Letter from Alice Stopford Green to Herbert Henry Asquith, 17 May 1916.Letter from Alice Stopford Green to General Botha, 16 June 1916.Letter from Mary O'Nolan to Alice Stopford Green, 25 July 1916Letter from Michael Fogarty to Alice Stopford Green, 1916 July 26.Letter from Michael James Quin to Alice Stopford Green, 28 July 1916Letter from Maurice Moore to Alice Stopford Green, 27 July 1916Letter from M. J. O'Donnell to Alice Stopford Green, 28 July 1916Letter from Fr Michael O'Flanagan to Alice Stopford Green, 30 July 1916Letter from Joseph Delaney to Alice Stopford Green, 29 July 1916Letter from John J. O'Mahony to Alice Stopford Green, 29 August 1916Letter from Ella Young to Alice Stopford Green, 6 August 1916Letter from James O'Shea to Alice Stopford Green, 30 July 1916Letter from Ella Young to Alice Stopford Green, 9 August 1916Letter from Alice Stopford Green to John Quinn, 27 August 1916