"The committee conclude by asking leave to introduce the bill which accompanies this report."
Let it not, however, be supposed that Mr Clay was unreported by the American press; on the contrary, a large portion of it espoused the cause of the English author in the most liberal manner, indeed the boon itself, if granted, would in reality be of more advantage to America than to us; as many of them argued. The New York Daily Express observes, "But another great evil resulting from the present law is, that most of the writers of our own country are utterly precluded from advancing our native literature, since they can derive no emolument or compensation for their labours; and it is idle to urge that the devotees of literature, any more than the ingenious artisan or mechanic, can be indifferent to the ultimate advantages which should result alike to both from the diligent use and studious application of their mental energies. We patronise and read the works of foreign writers, but it is at the expense of our own, the books of the English author being procured free of all cost, supersede those which would otherwise be produced by our own countrymen,--thus the foreigner is wronged, while the same wrong acts again as a tariff upon our American author and all this manifest injury is perpetuated without its being qualified by the most remote advantage to any of the parties concerned."
The Boston Atlas responded to this observation in almost the same language.
"This systematic, legalised depredation on English authors, is perfectly ruinous to all native literature. What writer can devote himself to a literary work, which he must offer on its completion, in competition with a work of the same description, perhaps, furnishing _printed copy_ to the compositors, and to be had for the expense of a single London copy. What publisher would give its worth for a novel, in manuscript, supposing it to be equal to Bulwer's best, when he would get a novel of Bulwer himself, for a few shillings--with an English reputation at the back of it? This is the great reason that we have so few works illustrative of our own history--whether of fact or fiction. Our booksellers are supplied for nothing."