as if born in England:
and accordingly it hath been so adjudged in behalf of merchants[a].
But by several more modern statutes[b] these restrictions are still
farther taken off: so that all children, born out of the king's
ligeance, whose _fathers_ were natural-born subjects, are now
natural-born subjects themselves, to all intents and purposes, without
any exception; unless their said fathers were attainted, or banished
beyond sea, for high treason; or were then in the service of a prince
at enmity with Great Britain.

[Footnote y: Stat. 29 Car. II. c. 6.]

[Footnote z: 7 Rep. 18.]

[Footnote a: Cro. Car. 601. Mar. 91. Jenk. Cent. 3.]

[Footnote b: 7 Ann. c. 5. and 4 Geo. II. c. 21.]

THE children of aliens, born here in England, are, generally speaking,
natural-born subjects, and entitled to all the privileges of such. In
which the constitution of France differs from ours; for there, by
their _jus albinatus_, if a child be born of foreign parents, it is an
alien[c].

[Footnote c: Jenk. Cent. 3. cites _treasure francois_, 312.]

A DENIZEN is an alien born, but who has obtained _ex donatione regis_
letters patent to make him an English subject: a high and
incommunicable branch of the royal prerogative[d]. A denizen is in a
kind of middle state between an alien, and natural-born subject, and
partakes of both of them. He may take lands by purchase or devise,
which an alien may not; but cannot take by inheritance[e]: for his
parent, through whom he must claim, being an alien had no inheritable
blood, and therefore could convey none to the son. And, upon a like
defect of hereditary blood, the issue of a denizen, born _before_
denization, cannot inherit to him; but his issue born _after_, may[f].
A denizen is not excused[g] from paying the alien's duty, and some
other mercantile burthens. And no denizen can be of the privy council,
or either house of parliament, or have any office of trust, civil or
military, or be capable of any grant from the crown[h].

[Footnote d: 7 Rep. Calvin's case. 25.]

[Footnote e: 11 Rep. 67.]

[Footnote f: Co. Litt. 8. Vaugh. 285.]

[Footnote g: Stat. 22 Hen. VIII. c. 8.]

[Footnote h: Stat. 12 W. III. c. 2.]

NATURALIZATION cannot be performed but by act of parliament: for by
this an alien is put in exactly the same state as if he had been born
in the king's ligeance; except only that he is incapable, as well as a
denizen, of being a member of the privy council, or parliament,