arliament, and for that purpose a considerable part of
the copy was put into the printer's hands in September, and all the
remaining copy, which contains the part to which Mr. Pitt's speech
is similar, was given to him full six weeks before the meeting of
Parliament, and he was informed of the time at which it was to appear.
He had composed nearly the whole about a fortnight before the time of
Parliament meeting, and had given me a proof of the next sheet. It was
then in sufficient forwardness to be out at the time proposed, as two
other sheets were ready for striking off. I had before told him, that
if he thought he should be straitened for time, I could get part of
the work done at another press, which he desired me not to do. In this
manner the work stood on the Tuesday fortnight preceding the meeting of
Parliament, when all at once, without any previous intimation, though I
had been with him the evening before, he sent me, by one of his
workmen, all the remaining copy, declining to go on with the work on any
consideration.

To account for this extraordinary conduct I was totally at a loss, as
he stopped at the part where the arguments on systems and principles of
government closed, and where the plan for the reduction of taxes, the
education of children, and the support of the poor and the aged begins;
and still more especially, as he had, at the time of his beginning to
print, and before he had seen the whole copy, offered a thousand pounds
for the copy-right, together with the future copy-right of the former
part of the Rights of Man. I told the person who brought me this offer
that I should not accept it, and wished it not to be renewed, giving him
as my reason, that though I believed the printer to be an honest man, I
would never put it in the power of any printer or publisher to suppress
or alter a work of mine, by making him master of the copy, or give to
him the right of selling it to any minister, or to any other person,
or to treat as a mere matter of traffic, that which I intended should
operate as a principle.

His refusal to complete the work (which he could not purchase) obliged
me to seek for another printer, and this of consequence would throw
the publication back till after the meeting of Parliament, otherways it
would have appeared that Mr. Pitt had only taken up a part of the plan
which I had more fully stated.

Whether that gentleman, or any other, had seen the work, or any part of
it, is more