"5. That such mutilation and alteration, with the retention of the authors' names, have been of late actually perpetrated by citizens of the United States: under which grievance, your petitioners have no redress. "6. That certain of your petitioners have recently made an effort in defence of their literary reputation and property, by declaring a respectable firm of English publishers in New York to be the sole authorized possessors and issuers of the works of the said petitioners; and by publishing in certain American newspapers, their authority to this effect. "7. That the object of the said petitioners has been defeated by the act of certain persons, citizens of the United States, who have unjustly published, for their own advantage, the works sought to be thus protected; under which grievance your petitioners have, at present, no redress. "8. That American authors are injured by the non-existence of the desired law. While American publishers can provide themselves with works for publication by unjust appropriation, instead of by equitable purchase, they are under no inducement to afford to American authors a fair remuneration for their labours: under which grievance American authors have no redress but in sending over their works to England to be published, an expedient which has become an established practice with some of whom their country has most reason to be proud. "9. That the American public is injured by the non-existence of the desired law. The American public suffers, not only from the discouragement afforded to native authors, as above stated, but from the uncertainty now existing as to whether the books presented to them as the works of British authors, are the actual and complete productions of the writers whose names they bear. "10. That your petitioners beg humbly to remind your Honours of the case of Walter Scott, as stated by an esteemed citizen of the United States, that while the works of this author, dear alike to your country and to ours, were read from Maine to Georgia, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, he received no remuneration from the American public for his labours; that an equitable remuneration might have saved his life, and would, at least, have relieved its closing years from the burden of debts and destructive toils. "11. That your petitioners, deeply impressed with the conviction that the only firm ground of friendship between nations, is a strict regard to simple justice, earnestly pray that your Honours, the representatives of the United States in Congress assembled, will speedily use, in behalf of the authors of Great Britain, your power 'of securing to the authors the exclusive right to their respective writings.'" {Sidenote: Henry Clay report, 1837} The British address was referred to a select committee, whose members were Clay, Webster, Buchanan, Preston and Ewing, which reported favorably a bill for international copyright. The report took high ground in favor of the rights of authors: