The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To HENRY CLAY,1 12 MARCH 1842

MS Charles Dickens Museum
Address: The Honorable Henry Clay

Washington.
Twelfth March 1842.

My Dear Sir.

    A gentleman in New York named Saunders, who, I believe, prepared the accompanying petitions,2 begged me to forward them to you; and to ask you to present one to the Senate,3 and entrust the other to some members of congress for Presentation in the House of Representatives.4

    When I had the pleasure of speaking with you yesterday, I quite forgot to mention this matter. I need scarcely say that I have a strong interest in the prayer of the Petitions, and that I think the Petitioners have done but tardy Justice to themselves, in signing them.

    I am Dear Sir

        With cordial regard

            Faithfully Yours

            CHARLES DICKENS

The Honorable | Henry Clay

• 1. Henry Clay (1777–1852; American National Biography), Senator from Kentucky, Whig leader and the strongest advocate of international copyright in the United States Congress. Bitter opponent of Andrew Jackson; Secretary of State under John Quincy Adams 1824–8; three times unsuccessful candidate for the Presidency (1824, 1832, 1844); since 1840 leader of the Whig Administration. A strong nationalist and Unionist, and founder of the "American system" of protective tariffs, he resigned from the Senate on 31 Mar 1842 on John Tyler's vetoing his chief resolutions. Famous for his Compromise Bills of 1833 (in the Nullification crisis) and 1850 (in an attempt to prevent civil war). His remarkable powers of oratory excited both the strongest support and enmity. When CD met Clay on 10 March, he described him as “one of the most agreeable and fascinating men I ever saw. He is tall and slim, with long, limp, gray hair—a good head—refined features—a bright eye—a good voice—and a manner more frank and captivating than I ever saw in any man, at all advanced in life. I was perfectly charmed with him” (Pilgrim Letters 3, p. 117).
• 2. Bookseller Frederick Saunders (1807–1902), who had first travelled to the United States from England in 1837, to lobby for American copyright for the London publishers Saunders and Ottley, handed CD the petition, which was signed by Washington Irving, along with a host of prominent American writers, editors, and scholars. It read as follows: “Your memorialists respectfully request that the attention of Congress may be directed to the subject of an international copy-right law. By the recent legislation of the English parliament, the privilege of copy-right is extended only to the citizens of those nations, by which the benefit is reciprocated; so that it is by courtesy alone, and by no legal surety, that American writers can at present derive any advantage from the sale of their works in Great Britain. Your petitioners regard the license of the existing system in this country as fatally subversive of the interests of our youthful literature, and as unjust and ungenerous towards foreign authors. Can it be reasonably expected that our publishers will pay an adequate price for native works, when they can obtain their supply of new books (a supply often far beyond the demand) from English authors for nothing? Your petitioners are at a loss to perceive why literary property is not just as much entitled to protection as the productions of manual handicraft or labour. The toil of the author is as exhausting to the physical energies as the toil of the mechanic, and yet the foreign mechanic can transfer the products of his industry to his agent in this country and reap the benefit of their sale, while the foreign author may see his works pirated and mutilated, and sold for the advantage of another, and be unable to obtain redress. Your petitioners sincerely believe that the proposed change in the copy-right system would not be prejudicial to the interests of any craft or profession in the United States; and even if it were so, they think that the dignity and paramount interests of the country would still imperiously demand that an international copy-right law should be adopted” (Lawrence H. Houtchens, "Charles Dickens and International Copyright”, American Literature 13.1 [1941]: 20–21). CD wrote to John Forster on 27 Feb: “I have in my portmanteau a petition for an international copyright law, signed by all the best American writers with Washington Irving at their head. They have requested me to hand it to Clay for presentation, and to back it with any remarks I may think proper to offer” (Pilgrim Letters 3, p. 92). CD was probably the author of the petition (Houtchens, p. 20).
• 3. Clay presented the petition to the Senate on 30 March; it was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary for a report. On 11 May Senator William C. Preston of South Carolina was told that this was ready, but that Clay had asked that it be retained for additional information. The Committee was opposed to an international copyright bill, and no report was submitted. This was the last mention of the petition in the Senate (Houtchens, p. 21).
• 4. Edward Stanley of  North Carolina, presented the petition to the House of Representatives on 14 March; it did not find favour there either.