Having troubled you so often, and I fear seriously, on the subject of my lawsuit with Bohn, it is with peculiar satisfaction that I now write to tell you that it is at an end. Mr. Bohn has offered me terms which are satisfactory to me and not humiliating to him. He has destroyed for me all value in your works, and I make over to him the copyrights. I regret to part with them, but it seemed to me the only way to get out of the squabble, which was becoming very serious, my law expenses alone having run up to £850. One good, at least, has been elicited out of this contest—it has settled the right of foreigners to hold copyright in this country; for I am assured by my counsel, Sir Fitzroy Kelly, one of the soundest heads at our bar, that the recent decision of our judges on that head is not likely to be reversed by the House of Lords, or any other tribunal. Sir Fitzroy Kelly has studied the subject minutely, and made an admirable speech in the Queen’s Bench, on my side. I hope, therefore, that the ‘Life of Washington,’ and other works to come from your pen, may yet bring advantage to their author from this country; but priority of publication in England is an indispensable condition, and must in all cases be guaranteed and carefully attested at the time of appearance. No one can desire more than I do an international copyright arrangement with the Americans. In my desire, I am not surpassed by Mr. Bohn, nor Sir E. L. Bulwer; but I differ from them in the strong conviction which I feel, that it is not by pirating the American books that the object is to be attained.
