On June 28, 1831, Mr. R. M. Harrison, United States consul at Kingston, Jamaica, reported that there was a local law compelling shipmasters who left that port to carry away paupers, for which they received $10 each as remuneration. If they refused to take them, they were fined $300. As various states had laws forbidding the landing of paupers, it was customary for shipmasters to sign the paupers as seamen. The pauper had the privilege of choosing his own vessel, and most of them went to the United States. Mr. Van Buren called the attention of Lord Palmerston, the British Foreign Secretary, to the affair, and requested a discontinuance of the practice. Lord Palmerston replied that the law was to expire December 31, and the governor of Jamaica had been instructed to withhold his assent to any similar law.[[65]]
Mr. Albert Davy, United States consul at Kingston-upon-Hull, Leeds, England, reported that while no reliable lists were kept at customhouses, distinguishing paupers from others, it was generally known that paupers emigrated, and several shipmasters admitted that passage was paid by parish overseers. If a pauper was an exceptionally hard case, he could demand considerable sums of money in addition to his passage, refusing to go unless they were paid.[[66]] Mr. F. List on March 8, 1837, reported from Leipsic that not only paupers, but criminals, were transported from the interior to seaports, to be embarked for the United States. A certain Mr. de Stein contracts with the governments to transport paupers for $75 per head, and several of the governments have accepted his proposition. There is a plan to empty the jails and workhouses in this way. It is a common practice in Germany to get rid of paupers and vicious characters by collecting money to send them to the United States.[[67]]
That it was customary to transport criminals as well as paupers is verified by the fact that during 1837 two lots of convicts arrived in Baltimore: one a party of fourteen convicts on a ship from Bremen, who had been embarked in irons, which had not been stricken off until near the fort; the other a shipload of 200 to 250 Hessian convicts, whose manacles and fetters remained upon their hands and feet until within the day of their arrival.[[68]]
A memorial of the corporation of the city of New York, January 25, 1847, states that within the last year the ships Sardinia and Atlas from Liverpool arrived in New York, one with 294 and the other with 314 steerage passengers, all paupers, sent by the parish of Grosszimmern, Hesse Darmstadt, to which they belonged and by which their expenses were paid. Two hundred and thirty-four of these immigrants, 117 from each ship, eventually found their way into the New York almshouse.[[69]]
On January 19, 1839, Niles’ Register reported a crowd of paupers which had arrived in New York from England. Their passage had been paid by the overseers of the poor at Edinburgh, and the majority of them were still wearing the uniform of the poorhouse. This naturally aroused objections, and the consignees of the vessel finally agreed to take them back to Europe, and to repay the city all expense that it had incurred on their account. The United States consul at Basle, Switzerland, reported in 1846 that it was the practice in that country for congregations or town authorities to send paupers to America.[[70]]
Instances of this sort might be multiplied, but these will suffice to prove that the practice of transporting paupers was a common one during the period we are considering. Just when it was finally stopped it is impossible to say.[[71]] It certainly played a large part in creating the feeling of hostility to immigrants which manifested itself strongly during the decade of the thirties.
That the situation was partially, at least, comprehended also in England is evidenced by a burlesque poem entitled “Immiscible Immigration,” written in that country, which commences with the following words:
“The tide of emigration still flows fast;
Millions of souls remove their bodies corporate—
Columbia’s shores will be o’erstocked at last,