To the Right Hon. Gathorne-Hardy,

Her Majesty's Secretary of State:

To the Right Hon. Gathorne-Hardy,

At a special meeting of the General Council of the IWA held at the office 16, Cable
Street, East, W., on Wednesday evening the following memorial was adopted:

The memorial of the undersigned, representing workingmen's associations
in all parts of Europe, showeth:

That the execution of the Irish prisoners condemned to death at
Manchester will greatly impair the moral influence of England upon the
European continent. The execution of the four prisoners resting upon the
same evidence and the same verdict which, by the free pardon of Maguire,
have been officially declared, the one false, the other erroneous, will
bear the stamp not of a judicial act, but of political revenge. But even
if the verdict of the Manchester jury and the evidence it rests upon had
not been tainted by the British Government itself, the latter would now
have to choose between the bloody-handed practices of old Europe and the
magnanimous humanity of the young Transatlantic Republic.

The commutation of the sentence for which we pray will be an act not
only of justice, but of political wisdom.

JOHN WESTON, Chairman

EUGENE DUPONT, secretary for France

HERMANN JUNG, secretary for Switzerland

ANTON ZABICKI, secretary for Poland

ALEXANDRE BESSON, secretary for Belgium

ROBERT SHAW, secretary for America,

KARL MARX, secretary for Germany

PAUL LAFARGUE, secretary for Spain

DERKINDEREN, secretary for Holland

J. GEORGE ECCARIUS, general secretary