[Las Vegas Ron]

I'm not sure what your point is regarding using a british encyclopedia, unless it is to focus on the word "native".

Yes, that was my focus.

Since we as a Country speak English it is only common sense we would use the definitions of the time to discern what the Founders meant.

I was responding to CodeToads remark that Vatell's translation of native, vs citizen.

[xzins]

Vatelle used the French. Even "native" would be a translation. If I recall a precise translation of Vatelle correctly, it was "the natural are the indigenous." I think that is correct. Forgive my memory, if I'm not remembering correctly the passage in question.

Here is an interesting piece from Jefferson writing about the commonwealth (Virginia, I assume) in 1779:

and all infants wheresoever born, whose father, if living, or otherwise, whose mother was, a citizen at the time of their birth, or who migrate hither, their father, if living, or otherwise their mother becoming a citizen, or who migrate hither without father or mother, shall be deemed citizens of this commonwealth,

Interesting look at Jefferson's thinking on the subject about a decade before the Constitution.