would be deprived of their accustomed supplies of cheap literature—­as I think, a very weak sort of defense.  If nothing better than this can be said, we may as well at once plead guilty to the charge of piracy, and commence a new and more honest course of action.  Evil may not be done that good may come of it, nor may we steal an author’s brains that our people may be cheaply taught.  To admit that the end justifies the means, would be to adopt the line of argument so often used by English speakers, in and out of Parliament, when they defend the poisoning of the Chinese people by means of opium introduced in defiance of their government, because it furnishes revenue to India; or that which teaches that Canada should be retained as a British colony, because of the facility it affords for violation of our laws; or that which would have us regard smugglers, in general, as the great reformers of the age.  We stand in need of no such morality as this.  We can afford to pay for what we want; but, even were it otherwise, our motto here, and everywhere, should be the old French one:  “Fais ce que doy, advienne que pourra”—­Act justly, and leave the result to Providence.  Before acting, however, we should determine on which side justice lies.  Unless I am greatly in error, it is not on the side of international copyright.  My reasons for this belief will now be given.

The facts or ideas contained in a book constitute its body.  The language in which they are conveyed to the reader constitute the clothing of the body.  For the first no copyright is allowed.  Humboldt spent many years of his life in collecting facts relative to the southern portion of this continent; yet so soon as he gave them to the light they ceased to be his, and became the common property of all mankind.  Captain Wilkes and his companions spent several years in exploring the Southern Ocean, and brought from there a vast amount of new facts, all of which became at once common property.  Sir John Franklin made numerous expeditions to the North, during which he collected many facts of high importance, for which he had no copyright.  So with Park, Burkhard, and others, who lost their lives in the exploration of Africa.  Captain McClure has just accomplished the Northwest Passage, yet has he no exclusive right to the publication of the fact.  So has it ever been.  For thousands of years men like these—­ working men, abroad and at home—­have been engaged in the collection of facts; and thus there has been accumulated a vast body of them, all of which have become common property, while even the names of most of the men by whom they were collected have passed away.  Next to these come the men who have been engaged in the arrangement of facts and in their comparison, with a view to deduce therefrom the laws by which the world is governed, and which constitute science.  Copernicus devoted his life to the study of numerous facts, by aid of which he was at length enabled to give to the world a knowledge of the great fact that