INTRODUCTION.

IT seems to be admitted on all hands that the law of England respecting nationality, with reference to the circumstances under which the status of a subject arises, or may be acquired, or, on the other hand, may be put off, together with the law relating to the disabilities of aliens, requires to be considered with a view to its alteration and amendment. The conflict between the law of England and that of so many of the leading nations of the world as to the origin of nationality, and the inconvenience to which such conflict may give rise, as well as the inconsistency of our rule as to the immutability of allegiance, at a time when emigration from this country to America is annually taking place on so large a scale, are now so sensibly felt, that an alteration of the law has become inevitable. The observations of one of the ablest public writers of the present day in the columns of the Times, the recent Report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives of the United States on the rights of American citizens in foreign states, and the discussion of the subject by the press, having had the effect of directing public attention to the subject, a Royal Commission was appointed in May, 1868, to inquire and report on the laws of naturalization and allegiance. The Commissioners appointed under that Commission have

B