Clare Journal, Mon 4 Apr 1864:
Emigration to America. At last, Government has moved a little way to prevent enlistment for the Federal army in Ireland under the name of emigration. The following letter was received by John Preston, Esq, Belfast, on Tuesday last:
“Foreign Office, March 28, 1864. Sir, - I am directed by Earl Russell to instruct you to discontinue henceforward to grant passports for the United States of America to any but persons of well-known respectability; or, in the case of the poorer classes, such as emigrants, upon a certificate of identity given by the police officer of the locality from which the emigrant is removing – such certificate to be delivered to you through the Head Police-office at the port of Belfast. I am, sir, your most obedient humble servant, G. Lenox Conyngham.”
A “certificate of identity” can readily be obtained by any peasant who assumes the character of an emigrant. The order, per se, will not check enlistment, but by forcing contact with the police may lead to the detection of the Federal agents who are busy throughout the country. A “certificate of identity” may also be made to serve as a protection for the genuine emigrant on the other side of the Atlantic. Armed with this, the emigrant ought to be enabled to invoke the protection of the British Consuls, and thus to compel the agents with whom he has made a compact to fulfil that contract to the letter. No passport, however, ought to be given to any emigrant who cannot produce a receipt in full for the cost of his passage from the captain of the ship or his agent. Thousands of the peasantry are now provided with a passage on their own promissory notes payable at sight in New York. On landing payment is demanded of them, and their only mode of escape from a debtor’s prison is enlistment.
Clare Journal, Thur 7 Jul 1864:
Emigration to America. The immigration into this port (says the New York correspondnt of the Times), principally from Ireland and Germany, increases daily. The arrival of as many as 5,000 emigrants per week is immense, and this was about the average during the Celtic exodus of the famine years in 1849 and 1850, when the panic stricken multitude fled from the land of their birth as if the soil was accursed and no safety were to be found for the soles of their feet until they had placed the Atlantic between them and their old associations. But this high average has not only been reached during the present summer, but has been doubled and even trebled. From the 1st of January to the 31st May, a period of 162 days, the total immigration was 68,078, or nearly 450 per day, of whom 41,283 were Irish, about 9,000 English, Scotch and Welsh, and the remainder Germans. During the week, which ended on Saturday last no less than 16,000, of whom fully 12,000 were Irish, landed at the Battery. More than half the number were women and children. Large numbers of both sexes passed through New York, without stopping even for a day, bound for the Far West, where labour is most in demand, while a very considerable proportion of the young and strong of the male sex fingered the bounty money of the Federal Government within six hours of their arrival. One vessel, the Benjamin Adams, of Liverpool, brought 680 passengers, of whom 109 marched from the landing-place to the recruiting office in a body and received the first instalment of the 100 sterling, or thereabouts, which the Federal Government, and the municipality offer to any sturdy proficient in the use of the shillelagh who will exchange that instrument for the musket. One of the passengers stated that there were Federal recruiting-officers on board, who commenced their labours among the passengers as soon as the ship left the Mersey. These men must have driven a very lucrative trade, for they not only received the 20 dols. “hand money” offered by the Government for each volunteer but levied a tax upon the recruit himself, varying in amount with the credulity, or what is here called the “squeezeability” of the individual. To pick up 2 dols., 180 cents, in one trip across the Atlantic is so pleasant as well as so rapid a mode of money-making, that as long as the Federal Government requires soldiers, and the Irish are willing to volunteer, it is not likely to be abandoned by the enterprising Yankees, who are sent by the Federal Government to Ireland to secure “labourers for the construction of railways,” which labourers, being free men every one of them, may – however much the British Government may object – change their minds; forego their spade, and don the uniform, even before they arrive in the land of their adoption.
Clare Journal, Thur 7 Jul 1864:
Federal Enlistments in Ireland (from the Dublin Gazette).
By the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Carlisle. Whereas in and by her Majesty’s Royal Proclamation, published in the London Gazette on the 14th day of May, 1861, her Majesty declared her Royal determination to maintain a strict and impartial neutrality in the contest between the Government of the United States of America and the States styling themselves the Confederate States of America, and her Majesty did thereby charge and command of all her loving subjects to observe a strict neutrality in and to during the hostilities between the said States, and abstain from violating or contravening either the laws or statutes of the realm in that behalf, or the law of nations in relation thereto, as they would answer to the contrary at their peril: And her Majesty did also thereby warn all her loving subjects, and all persons whatever entitled to her protection, that if any of them should presume contempt of that, her Royal proclamation, and of her high displeasure, to do any acts in derogation of their duty as subjects of a neutral sovereign in the said contest, or in violation or contravention of the law of nations in that behalf – as, for example, and more especially (amongst other things) by entering into the military service of either of the said contending parties as commissioned or non-commissioned officers or soldiers – all persons so offending would incur and be liable to the penalties and penal consequences by the statute of the fifty-ninth year of the reign of his late Majesty King George III., intitled “An Act to prevent the enlistment or engagement of his Majesty’s subjects to serve in foreign service, and the fitting out or equipping in his Majesty’s dominions vessels for warlike purposes, without his Majesty’s licence,” or by the law of nations on that behalf imposed or denounced. And whereas there is reason to believe that many of her Majesty’s subjects have been induced to go and embark from various parts of the United Kingdom to the United States of America by false and delusive promises of employment upon railway and other public works in the said United States, and of high and great remunerative wages for their labour in such employment; and have, after their arrival in the said United States, been further induced to enter into military service of said States, and to serve therein as soldiers against the said Confederate States of America, contrary to their own original intention, and in contempt of her Majesty’s said Royal proclamation. These are, therefore, to warn all such persons against the risk and danger which they may incur by accepting offers of employment as labourers in the said United States and the said Confederate States of America, contrary to their own original intention, and in contempt of her Majesty’s said Royal proclamation. And that all persons who may be entering, under the circumstances aforesaid, into the said military service, act in violation and contravention of their duty as subjects of her Majesty, and of the law of nations in relation thereto, and will incur, and be liable to, the several penalties and penal consequences by the said statute, or by the law of nations in that behalf imposed or denounced, and will also, by such misconduct, incur her Majesty’s high displeasure.
Dated at Dublin Castle, the 25th day of June, 1864. By his Excellency’s command. Thomas A. Larcom.
Sheila