se of what Ricardo had
supposed them to be. Such being the case, it might be that, upon a full
examination of the subject, we should find that, in admitting the claim of
foreign authors, we should be doing injustice and not justice. The English
press has, it is true, for many years been engaged in teaching us that we
were little better than thieves or pirates; but that press has been so
uniformly and unsparingly abusive of us, whenever we have failed to grant
all that it has claimed, that its views are entitled to little weight. At
home, many of our authors have taken the same side of the question; and
the only answer that has ever, to my knowledge, been made, has been, that
if we admitted the claims of foreign authors, the prices of books would be
raised, and the people would be deprived of their accustomed supplies of
cheap literature--as I think, a very weak sort of defense. If nothing
better than this can be said, we may as well at once plead guilty to the
charge of piracy, and commence a new and more honest course of action.
Evil may not be done that good may come of it, nor may we steal an
author's brains that our people may be cheaply taught. To admit that the
end justifies the means, would be to adopt the line of argument so often
used by English speakers, in and out of Parliament, when they defend the
poisoning of the Chinese people by means of opium introduced in defiance
of their government, because it furnishes revenue to India; or that which
teaches that Canada should be retained as a British colony, because of the
facility it affords for violation of our laws; or that which would have us
regard smugglers, in general, as the great reformers of the age. We stand
in need of no such morality as this. We can afford to pay for what we
want; but, even were it otherwise, our motto here, and everywhere, should
be the old French one: "_Fais ce que doy, advienne que pourra_"--Act
justly, and leave the result to Providence. Before acting, however, we
should determine on which side justice lies. Unless I am greatly in error,
it is not on the side of international copyright. My reasons for this
belief will now be given.

The facts or ideas contained in a book constitute its body. The language
in which they are conveyed to the reader constitute the clothing of the
body. For the first no copyright is allowed. Humboldt spent many years of
his life in collecting facts relative to the southern portion of this
continent; yet s