implies no consent of the government, that our own citizens should expatriate themselves.

"Therefore, it is my opinion, that these facts which the prisoner offers to prove in his defence, are totally irrevelant; they can have no operation in law, and the jury ought not to be embarrassed or troubled with them; but by the constitution of the court the evidence must go to the jury."

The cause and the evidence were accordingly committed to the jury, who returned a verdict finding the prisoner guilty.

The court sentenced him to pay a fine of 1000 dollars, and to suffer four months imprisonment.

Isaac Williams was also indicted before the same court, for having on the 22d of September, 1799, in a hostile manner, with a privateer commissioned by the French Republic, attacked and captured a British ship and crew on the high seas. Williams's defence on the first indictment being of no avail, and having no other defence but this, he pleaded guilty.

The court sentenced him to pay a fine of 1000 dollars, and to suffer a further imprisonment of four months.

This decision called loudly for the examination not only of individual citizens, but of each State Legislature, and of Congress itself. The opinion of Judge Elsworth, respecting the validity of the common law, was both dangerous and absurd. The grounds upon which he denied an American citizen the right of expatriation, were equally un

founded. The merits, therefore, of these questions were immediately taken up and fully discussed by several writers of the first legal abilities. Two letters in particular appeared in the Examiner, under the signature of Aristogeton, which treated this subject to its very foundation; and exposed completely the fallacy of the arguments adduced by the Chief Justice.

"What are the naturalization laws of the United States ?" exclaims this writer. "They are laws authorizing the subjects and citizens of foreign nations to become citizens of this country; and they point out the particular mode in which they may become citizens....that these laws do admit that the members of other communities have a right to throw off their allegiance to their own country, is evident from the language. He (the Alien) shall at the time of his application to be admitted, declare on oath or affirmation, that he will support the constitution of the United States; and that he doth absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to every foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty whatever; and particularly to name the prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, whereof he was before a citizen or subject.

"The Alien, who visits our country for the purpose of becoming a citizen, either had a right to throw off his allegiance to his former sovereign without obtaining the consent of that sovereign, or he has not such right. If he has such right it

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must be a natural one, because no code of municipal laws in Europe grants the right; nay some of them expressly take it away. If it is a natural right, it belongs equally to all mankind; the citizens of America, therefore, are equally entitled to it with the rest of mankind. But of natural rights, men cannot be fairly and properly deprived. No Congress, therefore, can properly deprive an American citizen of this right. Great God ! what must have been the feelings of Judge Elsworth when he was depriving Williams of this natural right? But I will suppress the emotions which beat in my bosom, upon the recollection of this hideous sentence, and I will proceed to examine cooly and dispassionately the question. If the Alien had not a right to throw off his allegiance to his own country, then Congress, by making the law, have deprived foreign governments of one of their most essential rights, and have been moreover guilty of a crime which approaches very nearly to that of man-stealing. Yes! if an individual has not a right to throw off the allegiance of his country, if his sovereign's consent is necessary, and if our laws do not require that that consent should be given, we have certainly violated the rights of all the sovereigns in the world. We have decoyed and spirited away from their own homes the members of all the sovereignties of Europe; we have decoyed them by the most extensive promises; by the promise that they shall after a short time become the citizens of a free Republic; that they shall enjoy here all the boun

ties of nature, and possess in security all the products of their labor. This promise has been unaccompanied with any requisition of their sovereigns consent, and if we had not a right to make such an unqualified promise, we have (I aver again) been guilty of man-stealing....And as the punishment of man-stealing is death, so, when nations are guilty of it, a just foundation is laid for war. Now, whatever right an individual may have to think that the people and the Congress of the United States have violated the rights of other sovereigns, certainly a Judge can have no right to make such declaration from the Bench of Justice. Such is the dilemma in which Judge Elsworth has placed himself....He must either admit that, according to the principles of our naturalization laws, our citizens have a right to expatriate themselves, or that the legislature of the United States, that body whose laws (when they are constituted) he is bound to expound and enforce, have been guilty of the most horrible of all crimes, and have given a sufficient cause of war to all the nations in the world." ;

On Thursday. the 21st. of November, at NewYork, David Frothingham was indicted for a libel against Alexander Hamilton, Esq. Major-General in the service of the United States.

The publication which gave rise to the indictment was copied into the Argus of the 6th instant, from the Constitutional Telegraph, and is as follows:

"Extract of a letter from Philadelphia, September 20.

"An effort was recently made to suppress the Aurora, and Alexander Hamilton was at the bottom of it. Mrs. Bache was offered 6000 dollars down, in the presence of several persons, in part payment, the valuation to be left to two impartial persons, and the remainder paid immediately on her giving up the paper; but she pointedly refused it, and declared she would not dishonor her husband's memory, nor her children's future fame, by such baseness; when she parted with the paper it should be to Republicans only.

"I am proud to hear of your honorable State's republicanism....The change in men's minds here is truly astonishing."

The business was opened by Mr. Hoffman, as Attorney-General. The bench consisted of Judge Radcliff, Richard Harrison, Recorder, and the Mayor of the city. No evidences were sworn on either side, except Mr. C. Colden, AssistantAttorney, and General Hamilton himself.

Mr. Colden stated, that at the instance of a letter from Major-General Hamilton, he had called at the office of the Argus, and was introduced to Mr. Frothingham, as conductor of the business; that after some conversation, Mr. Frothingham said, he expected that he was liable for any publications which appeared in the Argus, but repeatedly observed, that he saw no criminality in the present instance as it respected him; the plea in dispute having been copied from another paper: Mr.