CHANGING ALLEGIANCE.

England acknowledges herself overburdened with population of the poorer
classes. Every instance of the emigration of persons of those classes is
regarded by her as a benefit. England, therefore, encourages emigration;
means are notoriously supplied to emigrants, to assist their conveyance,
from public funds; and the New World, and most especially these United
States, receive the many thousands of her subjects thus ejected from the
bosom of their native land by the necessities of their condition. They
come away from poverty and distress in over-crowded cities, to seek
employment, comfort, and new homes, in a country of free institutions,
possessed by a kindred race, speaking their own language, and having
laws and usages in many respects like those to which they have been
accustomed; and a country which, upon the whole, is found to possess
more attractions for persons of their character and condition, than any
other on the face of the globe. It is stated that, in the quarter of the
year ending with June last, more than twenty-six thousand emigrants left
the single port of Liverpool for the United States, being four or five
times as many as left the same port within the same period, for the
British Colonies and all other parts of the world. Of these crowds
of emigrants, many arrive in our cities in circumstances of great
destitution, and the charities of the country, both public and private,
are severely taxed to relieve their immediate wants. In time they mingle
with the new community in which they find themselves, and seek means of
living. Some find employment in the cities, others go to the frontiers,
to cultivate lands reclaimed from the forest; and a greater or less
number of the residue, becoming in time naturalized citizens, enter into
the merchant service under the flag of their adopted country.

Now, my Lord, if war should break out between England and a European
power, can any thing be more unjust, any thing more irreconcilable to
the general sentiments of mankind, than that England should seek out
these persons, thus encouraged by her, and compelled by their own
condition, to leave their native homes, tear them away from their
new employments, their new political relations, and their domestic
connections, and force them to undergo the dangers and hardships of
military service for a country which, has thus ceased to be their own
country? Certainly, certainly, my Lord, there can be but one