Page:Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration of the state of New York.djvu/56

42 following session, it was called up by Thomas Newton, of Virginia, who explained the necessity of its passage. It was read a third time, and passed the House. After receiving amendments from both the Senate and House, it was finally passed and approved March 2, 1819.

This act fixed the space allotted to the emigrants to five tons, Custom House measurement, for every two passengers, and in case of contravention punished the captain with a fine of $150 for each passenger. It declared the ship to be forfeited to the United States, if the number of passengers carried exceeded the said proportion of two to every five tons. It further specified the amount of water and provisions to be taken on board by emigrant vessels, and exacted a fine of three dollars for every day that any passenger was put on short allowance. Finally, it required the collectors of customs to report quarterly to the Secretary of State the number of passengers arriving in their collection districts, by sea, from foreign countries; also the sex, age, and occupation of such passengers, and the country in which they were born. Annual reports embracing that information have, in conformity with this act, been made to Congress by the Secretary of State ever since. Although, in some parts, incorrect and meagre, they form the only reliable statistical basis of the history of emigration during the period from 1819 to 1847.

In all other respects, our sources of information are rather imperfect and superficial. The emigrant is not a subject, but an object—not an active, but a passive, force in this international movement. We would probably never have heard of his history, and of his sufferings, except in legendary tales and indistinct family traditions, had not the rapacity of agents and ship-owners compelled the several governments to interfere in his behalf, and to protect him against the grossest imposition. Even as it is, emigrants are considered as an aggregate of human beings only, with no characteristic distinction except that of nationalities. They appear simply as a numerical quantity; they seem to have no individual existence, and the student of contemporary history does not take the trouble to study their individual motives, misfortunes, and aspirations. He contemplates the emigration of large bodies only from the stand-point of wholesale changes in the