The English government, taking advice from a committee of authors and publishers, in which the interest of the publishers was dominant, declined the offer of the American form of treaty, insisting on the protection of publishers' rights, and the negotiations fell through, with great increase of the outcry in the English press.

Being in communication with Mr.William H.Appleton, the head of the American committee, and in possession of the facts of the case as regarded the courtesy right, I wrote to the English papers, putting the American view of the matter, and the facts, dwelling on the hitherto unknown point that the depredations on the authors' interests were committed by the English publisher, who sold to the American the wares the latter was accused of stealing, whereas the fact was that he bought and paid equally for the right of publication, while the English publisher continued to reprint American books without the least regard for analogous transatlantic rights.
The consequences to me were variously disastrous.

In the first place I was deluged with applications from authors of still unestablished transatlantic reputation to secure for them offers from "Scribner's" for the advance sheets of their books.

In the second I was treated to a torrent of abuse as "the friend of piracy" ("Daily News" leading article), and for some days not a single London paper would print a word of reply or explanation from me.

The "Echo" was the first to do me the justice of printing a defense, and it was followed by the "Times," which printed my letter and one from Mr.Appleton; but of the authors who, having a transatlantic reputation, had profited by the "courtesy right," only Mr.Trollope came forward to sustain me with the statement that he had received more from the Harpers--his American publishers--than from his English publishers.