or people to steal from the
rich, and get with it, all that which they want. It should be better you
would print no moral books, and leave these citizens to follow the simple,
and just dictates of Nature, never failing to teach us good morals, than
to place them in the situation of buying moral books, with like immoral
principles. To go to church, or to read a moral book, it is not enough; we
must act accordingly. If a father finds in the library of his son one
single book, the edition of which was the ruin of its publisher, or its
author, his son could not have the feeling of a gentlemen at the time he
bought it, for the less of its value. Are they not all the books in his
son's library, printed with the purpose of making him a gentleman? And
what kind of stuff are the tears dropping on the book of a sensible
writer, if the reader leaves the writer, or the publisher of it, dying in
want? Were they not, all the sciences, and arts, aiming to form us better,
I would never place my sight on one single page. We should not imitate
certain booksellers who, by dint of selling so much morals, they have even
sold the little one they had, before they entered into like business. The
moral man does not permit one single citizen to suffer, if he can prevent
it, nor would he take the advantage to the least detriment of another, be
he rich or poor. 'The law of my country sustains me, who am wrong,' should
say the honest man; 'but, I find that my opponent is right. So, in spite
of this bad law, I will never take such a cowardly advantage.' What is it
to me, my neighbor's belief in Christ, if with a bad law, such a christian
takes from me the means of my living, or he does not permit me to live
with my mind's labor?

The errata of present hurried editions, issued now a days, not being
revised by the british authors, are so many, that the proprietors of their
own works feel more displeased of losing thus, their reputation as
writers, than that of finding themselves deprived of the due contribution,
we ought justly pay them. Nay, were it to our shame, let us tell the
truth. Many american citizens were ruined by not having been able to sell
their own editions, when another publisher, after having printed the same
work, sold it at a loss, by which the edition of the formers could not
find any market.

Where writers, publishers, and booksellers do not sustain each other, one
of the three may have a direct, immediate interest in doing so, dur