tice done by
his entertainers to their guest in ascribing such advocacy to
selfishness,--and of the graver wrong done by them to their own highest
interests, nay, even to their commonest and most vulgar interests, in
continuing to reject those claims, I will add nothing now to what all
those years ago I labored very hard to lay before many readers. It will
be enough if I here print, from the authors' letters I sent out to him
by the next following mail, in compliance with his wish, this which
follows from a very dear friend of his and mine. I fortunately had it
transcribed before I posted it to him; Mr. Carlyle having in some haste
written from "Templand, 26 March, 1842," and taken no copy.

"We learn by the newspapers that you everywhere in America stir up the
question of international copyright, and thereby awaken huge dissonance
where all else were triumphant unison for you. I am asked my opinion of
the matter, and requested to write it down in words.

"Several years ago, if memory err not, I was one of many English writers
who, under the auspices of Miss Martineau, did already sign a petition
to congress praying for an international copyright between the two
Nations,--which properly are not two Nations, but one; _indivisible_ by
parliament, congress, or any kind of human law or diplomacy, being
already _united_ by Heaven's Act of Parliament, and the everlasting law
of Nature and Fact. To that opinion I still adhere, and am like to
continue adhering.

"In discussion of the matter before any congress or parliament, manifold
considerations and argumentations will necessarily arise; which to me
are not interesting, nor essential for helping me to a decision. They
respect the time and manner in which the thing should be; not at all
whether the thing should be or not. In an ancient book, reverenced I
should hope on both sides of the Ocean, it was thousands of years ago
written down in the most decisive and explicit manner, 'Thou _shalt not_
steal.' That thou belongest to a different 'Nation,' and canst steal
without being certainly hanged for it, gives thee no permission to
steal! Thou shalt _not_ in anywise steal at all! So it is written down,
for Nations and for Men, in the Law-Book of the Maker of this Universe.
Nay, poor Jeremy Bentham and others step in here, and will demonstrate
that it is actually our true convenience and expediency not to steal;
which I for my share, on the great scale and on the small, and in a