Daily National Intelligencer

WASHINGTON:

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15.

EMIGRATION.—The present year has introduced to our shores the most numerous body of emigrants, it is believed, that has ever visited it in one year, principally from Ireland and Germany. The causes which have so extensively operated to induce emigration, are too obvious to require search. They present themselves to our senses in every breeze from Europe, and are joyfully recognized at every glance we cast around us at home. The contrast forces itself alike on the minds of foreigners and of our countrymen. The rage, as it is called in Europe, for emigration, is such as to excite the jealousy of those powers whose population is drained by it; which is manifested in various ways. The two paragraphs which follow, shew the arts made use of to turn the current of popular opinion respecting the advantages this country holds forth to foreigners: and we all recollect, in the manifesto of the Allied powers respecting Lucien Bonaparte, the official demonstration of their desire to stop the tide which makes for our shores.

That those who emigrate to America with erroneous opinions, should have occasion to change them, is not surprising; nor is it to be doubted that the circumstance frequently occurs. The sanguine mind is doomed to perpetual disappointment; and there is nothing in the circumstance of leaving their homes and altars for another clime, that is calculated to divest the misanthrope of habitual discontent, or the hypochondriac of his ever-boding fancies. The Emigrant who dreams of gathering unsown the fruits of the earth, of reposing, without labor, in groves of orange and myrtle, awakes to a disappointment ludicrous rather than pitiable, on discovering his error. This country is like all other countries. Man is doomed to labor for subsistence, and can no more live without the one than without the other. Equally mistaken is he who views our country as the Elysian field, where, when he leaps on shore, every man is to embrace him as a brother, or hail him as a friend. He forgets, in the ardor of his soul, that man must be known before he is loved, and proved before he is taken to our bosom. When, therefore, the emigrant takes no time for reflection, and, disdaining the acquisition of knowledge necessary to enable him to acquire our advantages, retraces his path, it is quite natural that he should make his impressions public, and that these should be eagerly propagated by those who view with jealousy any acquisition to our general stock of industry and means, and particularly of mechanical skill. It is thus we account for the frequency of such publications in the foreign papers, without attributing much to fabrication, or much to malicious intent.

We fear there is too much foundation for the caution of Dr. Butte to his German countrymen; and that there are men who are base enough to entrap their fellow beings, by whole cargoes, from the continent, for the purpose of taking advantage of their ignorance to sell them for indented servants. Accursed be all such Judases, who cast a stigma on our nature, and almost make us lament that we are men! It is some satisfaction to know, that they are not Americans. Nothing, however, could more strongly prove the lamentable ignorance of that people, than their liability to such impositions. To such people, almost any change would be a benefit; and there are thousands of them who come to this country as indented servants, Irish as well as German, who not only have enjoyed the comforts and blessings of our country, but have richly partaken of its honors and its wealth.

As we have no fears of the emigration to this country becoming excessive, so we believe and hope that it will not be checked by the representations of those who have returned to Europe and misrepresented our country, because they had formed irrational ideas of its advantages.
because they were too idle to labor, or that a regulated liberty was not that sort of freedom they desired to partake of.

FROM THE LONDON COURIER, JULY 8.

EMIGRATION TO AMERICA. In answer to the flattering accounts held out to those who feel the alteration in the times, and think they shall improve their situation by moving to a distant country, we submit the following letter, received by a most respectable merchant of Birmingham: any comment upon its contents from us would be superfluous:--

"BOSTON, JUNE 2.

"Dear Sir—I am sorry to hear of the distress you have in England; but I do assure you, though I know the people in your country will not believe it, that almost every kind of provision has been a third part dearer in all the seaport towns in America than in London, except flour, and that has been fifteen dollars the barrel the greatest part of last winter, and baker's bread one fourth dearer than in London. Provisions were never known to be so dear as they have been the last season. We have scarcely had any good beef, and bad as it has been, the average price was ten pence per lb. sterling; and mutton half a dollar, or two shillings and three pence, which, when I was in Birmingham, was only six pence per lb. But in this country they never complain, for fear the world should not think they are happier than in any other. Many mechanics have lately come over from England, and numbers of them are in a wretched state, as they cannot get employment. I think your government ought to put a stop to emigration, or take some means to inform the people of the true state of this country, which at this time, is more overstocked with manufacturers than Great Britain.

"I am, dear sir, yours, &c."

FRANKFORT, JUNE 25.

Dr. Butte has lately communicated intelligence to his German countrymen who have an inclination to emigrate to America. The writer observes, that Europe is the true abode of civilized nations, and there is no other part of the world where the advantages of social life can be found in the same degree. He warns his countrymen against being misled by the tricks of kidnappers, (in German, soul-sellers) who promise them a Paradise in the New World, while they are already preparing a hell for them, in the ship which is to convey them. With respect to the colonies which are projected, he mentions the sad fate of those which were formed in 1798 by French company. Five hundred persons went over to found a colony at Gallipolis on the Ohio, in the United States; they purchased land at five francs per acre. Credible travellers as Volney, Michaux, Duvallou, who visited this place afterwards, represent it as plunged in extreme misery. Mr. Duvallou visited in 1802 the foreign colonies established on the Banks of the Mississippi, in West Florida. To the objections which he mentions, he adds one circumstance which, if true, ought to remove entirely the desire of emigrating to North America, namely, that in proportion as the land in that part of the world is settled, the dreadful malady of the yellow fever spreads its ravages."—Dutch Paper July 6.