Note 14 — Chapter XVI · THE CASEMENT AFFAIR
Reading edition
The following extract from the Daily Telegraph lifts the veil as to the English position to October 7th, 1914. Sir F. E. Smith, K.C. (Attorney-General) was appearing for the Crown at the trial of Sir Roger Casement in opening the case for the prosecution, on June 26th, 1916, before the Lord Chief Justice of England and other judges, the charge being one of High Treason without the Realm contrary to the Treason Act, 1851, and the account goes on:
"After stating that prisoner was born in County Dublin in 1864, the Attorney-General proceeded to recite the various offices he had filled as Consul at Rio de Janeiro, Lorenzo Marques, West Africa, the Gaboon, Congo Free State, Santos and Para. During the South African War he was employed on special service at Cape Town, and when hostilities ended he did not refuse the Queen's South African Medal, although that was a war of which many Irishmen profoundly disapproved. They might perhaps therefore assume that at the age of thirty-six the crimes and delinquencies of this Empire had not engaged prisoner's attention or affected his intelligence. On June 20th, 1911 he was made a knight, and the same year he received the Coronation Medal. In August, 1913, he retired on a pension. That pension had been honourably earned, and it would have been neither necessary nor proper to refer to it were it not for the sinister and wicked activities of prisoner which ensued. Government pensions were paid quarterly, and on each occasion must be formally claimed by a statutory declaration setting forth the services for which the pension was awarded and the amount claimed. Prisoner made five such declarations, the first on October 2nd, 1913, and the last on October 7th, 1914.
"When notification was sent to prisoner by Sir Edward Grey of the intention to bestow a knighthood upon him, this enemy of England, this friend of Germany, this extreme and irreconcilable patriot, replied in the following terms:
"'Dear Sir Edward Grey.—I find it very hard to choose words in which to make acknowledgment of the honour done me by the King. I am much moved by this proof of confidence and appreciation of my service in Putumayo conveyed to me by your letter, wherein you tell me the King has been graciously pleased, upon your recommendation, to confer upon me the honour of knighthood. I am indeed grateful to you for this signal assurance of your personal esteem and support. I am very deeply sensible of the honour done me by His Majesty, and would beg that my humble duty might be presented to His Majesty, when you might do me the honour to convey to him my deep appreciation of the honour he has been graciously pleased to confer upon me.'
"What happened to affect and corrupt prisoner's mind he did not know."
Sir F. E. Smith then went on to describe Sir Roger Casement's visits to the internment camps in Germany, etc., which was after October, 1914.