was not "compatible with a continuance of friendly relations between the two Governments."

As far as the Irish Government is concerned, it would not appear conducive to any good end further to protract this discussion, heartily agreeing, as the Lords Justices do, with Mr. Bancroft, that the judgment, the interests, and the well-considered policy of the two countries, as well as their ratified Treaties, guaranty the maintenance of their friendly relations; and, in conclusion, Mr. Bancroft may be informed that the Irish Government, in the exercise of the extraordinary power confided to them by Parliament, have been guided by a spirit of moderation, both as respects British subjects and foreigners, who have sought to disturb the tranquillity of the United Kingdom; and as it appeared that the release of Messrs. Bergen and Ryan would not now be dangerous to the public peace, it had been deterinined to take measures for their liberation even before the receipt of Mr. Bancroft's note, in Dublin, where it had been transmitted for the observations of their Excellencies.

G. C. Lewis, Esq.

I have, &c.

WM. M. SOMERVILLE.

No. 2.-Mr. Bancroft to Mr. Buchanan.

(Extract.) London, January 12, 1849. I HAVE received your despatch of 18th December, directing me to enter a protest against the orders of the Police Department in Ireland, of August last. It would be somewhat late to do it now. The orders have long since been inoperative, and the laws under which they were issued are already a dead letter, and will expire in a few weeks. But happily, knowing well what the President's views must be, I protested at the time; protested continuously, protested formally, in a note to Lord Palmerston of 10th of November, of which I fear the full significance has escaped the President's attention (for otherwise I trust he must have directed an unqualified approval of it), and repeated my protests in every one of many interviews with different branches of the Government till the arrests ceased. Apologies were offered for the arrest of those against whom no grounds of suspicion existed; and the release. from prison was effected, even of those of our citizens, whether native or adopted, against whom it was pretended suspicions existed.

After turning over many books, both of American and English jurists, and ancient and recent writers on public law, and considering the bearing of many British statutes, and particularly investigating the usages of the continental Powers, I took the ground

of the clear and absolute right of any native of the United Kingdom, in the present age and under existing laws, to change his allegiance. This I showed from the usage of the Greek and Roman Republics, which are the fountains of our law; from the abolition of all feudal servitudes; from the example of France; from the published declaration of united Germany; from a succession of British statutes, authorizing naturalization in the colonies; from the very nature of emigration, as authorized by British laws, and as fostered and encouraged, as I know, by the public voice of this country, and specially by members of the present British Government. These and many more considerations have been urged in conversation, and I inferred from them that no difference should be made in this Kingdom, any more than in America, between native and naturalized American citizens. In this line of argument I persevered till Mr. Ryan was released. Had he not been liberated, they would have been presented fully in a note. On his liberation, I thought the discussion, so far as the Irish Government is concerned, might, on our part, cease or be suspended, till some case should arise requiring a renewal of it. None such is likely to arise, but should it prove otherwise, the President will find me as ready as I have ever been to vindicate firmly the rights of our adopted and of our native citizens.

I trust the course I have pursued will meet the unqualified approbation of the President. Should he think that a further protest is necessary, since nothing is now doing under the orders, the protest will be as seasonable a month hence as now. J. Buchanan, Esq.

GEORGE BANCROFT.

No. 3.-Mr. Bancroft to Mr. Buchanan.

(Extract.) London, January 26, 1849. AFTER maturely considering your despatch of the 18th of December, perceiving that you, in one paragraph, speak not only of protesting, but of "remonstrating," against any distinction between native and naturalized citizens of The United States; observing also that you make your despatch my "general" guide, and are good enough to leave the form and language of the protest to my own discretion, I have believed that it was intended to give me full power to frame the paper to be addressed to the British Government, according to what might remain in question at the time of presenting it. Instead, therefore, of entering a protest, as such, against orders which are now obsolete, I have written rather a remonstrance or declaration of representation on the principles involved in those orders, and have embodied in it the substance of your despatch, in a general form. I am very anxious to know

if this paper, of which I inclose a copy, meets the approval of the President.

J. Buchanan, Esq.

GEORGE BANCROFT.

(Inclosure.)-Mr. Bancroft to Lord Palmerston.

London, January 26, 1849.

THE Undersigned, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of The United States of America, has been specially directed by the President of The United States to make to Her Majesty's Government, through Viscount Palmerston, Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, a representation growing out of the orders recently issued in Ireland affecting the personal liberty and rights of American citizens. Not only were the unfortunate objects of Government suspicion deprived even of the small protection against unjust imprisonment which a previous ex parte accusation, under oath or affirmation, would have afforded; not only was the duty of exercising a calm discretion in the execution of the law dispensed with by commanding in advance the arrest of "all persons coming from America;" not only was an invidious and arbitrary distinction made between citizens of The United States and citizens or subjects of other nations (all of which, if persisted in, must have formed the subject of a most earnest protest); but throughout the period of the disturbances, in an Order of the 18th of August last, and on other occasions, Her Majesty's Government have made a distinction between native and naturalized American citizens. The faith and honour of The United States are pledged alike for the protection of both.

On this subject the Undersigned has been instructed to employ, in the most solemn and earnest manner, the strongest terms of remonstrance. There can be no stronger language than that of reason, justice, and humanity; and if this language is employed on the present occasion, will it not secure the respectful attention and assent of Her Majesty's constitutional advisers ?

The sufferings of Europe, from an excess of population, combined with other causes, have led to an annual emigration from Europe to The United States of about one quarter of a million souls; and this emigration appears to be increasing. Of this vast number, the islands composing the United Kingdom alone furnish at least 150,000 persons. In the past quarter of a century a million of the natives of these islands may have gone to America; in the next 7 years another million of them may be added to her population. The condition of these people, when received into America, is certainly a question of the gravest magnitude-fit to be dispassionately considered, and definitively setted.

If Her Majesty desires to retain in her dominions all her natural

born subjects, America will make no complaint. If, with the consent of Her Majesty, this expatriation takes place, America, which receives them, should certainly be recognized as having the right so to regulate their condition as may most conduce to the well being of the emigrants, and the safety of the commonwealth.

It is certain that misery, or the fear of misery, want of employment, or the apprehension of want, despair, and hope, are among the causes which crowd the principal British havens with multitudes of emigrants. To America they are especially attracted by the opportunity of becoming freeholders. "You would be surprised," writes an unprejudiced friend of the undersigned from New York, "to know a fact which has been brought particularly to my notice as a conveyancing lawyer-the mania of the Irish for the possession of the soil. In all the suburbs of this city, Brooklyn, Williamsburg, and elsewhere, great numbers of cheap lots are held by Irish labourers. When one of them has saved up a hundred dollars or so, he buys a lot, pays part of the price down, gives his mortgage for the rest, and never ceases till he has paid it off. They are the most punctual of debtors."

That the emigrants are not unmindful to send relief to their kindred who remain in the Queen's allegiance, appears from a fact which came to light during the discussion of the late international post office arrangements. The number of drafts from The United States on one single British house, for sums varying from 17. to 157., was for one year 8,2331. And this house was but one of many in one of the many rich and populous towns of this kingdom.

If Great Britain is relieved of the charges of burdensome people, if good is returned to its subjects from the steady influence of those affections which are not extinguished by the voyage across the Atlantic, then Her Majesty's Government, instead of making of this emigration a cause of discord between the two countries, doubly owes America good will.

Have these emigrants a natural right to expatriate themselves? The Roman law is the fountain of modern jurisprudence. Ne quis invitus civitate mutetur : neve in civitate maneat invitus. Haec sunt enim fundamenta firmissima nostrae libertatis, sui quemque juris et retinendi et dimittendi esse dominum. This right of every reasonable being to seek a new country, Cicero, the great Roman advocate, describes as the very foundation of liberty. Truth is the same in all places and in all ages. It is not one thing in the presence of a Roman prætor, and another in the Court of Queen's Bench. It is not one thing on the banks of the Thames, and another on those of the Main, the Spree, the Tiber, or the Hudson. In enumerating the undoubted rights of all Germans, the first German Parliament at Frankfort, speaking for the German people and Princes, insists

on the right of expatriation as a natural right. Nor did the hour of revolution first engender this doctrine. Prussia had before avowed it, and acted upon it. The sovereign of Prussia, willing to promote the happiness of all who are born in his dominions, recognizes their right to emigrate and choose for themselves a country. Even if military service is due, he freely remits the military service, and bids the emigrant God speed on his way to a new world and an adopted land. With France, The United States have no difference on this subject. France, like The United States, values its citizenship too much to insist that it shall be retained by a native after he has transferred his allegiance. One of her eloquent sons, now a fellow-citizen of the Undersigned, was recently elected to the Senate of The United States. France does not hold that senator to be a French citizen. She recognizes his renunciation of his first allegiance, and takes pride and satisfaction at his commanding respect in his new home. One of the predecessors of the Undersigned at this Court was a naturalized American citizen.

Great Britain, Great Britain alone, claims as her subjects those of her children who, finding no place spread for them at the too full table of their native land, seek hospitality, home, and a country under another sky.

But the Undersigned begs leave to assert that naturalized American citizens are not subjects of Great Britain. Whatever difference of opinion may exist in America on the desirableness of so vast an influx of men born and educated under other institutions, the Government and people of America have but one conviction as to the duty of giving full protection to those whom they receive as citizens. The naturalized citizens themselves, in the face of heaven and their adopted country, repudiate all other allegiance. When this country claims them as subjects it makes them rebels.

Nor does the acquisition of American citizenship give the means of plotting the overthrow of any part of the British Government with impunity. The American Government never interferes in the internal affairs of other countries; not from a want of sympathy with the nations, but from the full trust in that overruling Providence which leaves no country free from the guiding power of the intelligence of the age. By the principle of the revolution of 1688, which sanctioned the right of resistance, a British subject may consider what acts of Government will justify resistance. The foreigner who becomes an American citizen has divested himself of all responsibility for political events in the land of his nativity. American citizenship is a hostage of neutrality in foreign affairs.

Yet Great Britain would consider all her expatriated sons to be "subjects" still. But allegiance in this continuing sense is servitude. Are the people of this island still in a state of imperfect [1862-63. LIII.] 2 T