In a letter written from London on November 20, 1852, the American writer William Cullen Bryant describes the Custom-house search for counterband books in the possession of incoming passangers. The search, he says, was based on lists of books provided by booksellers claiming to hold copyrights. Every title appearing on this list that had been printed in America was seized. He says:

Among my fellow-passengers who left New York in the steamer Artic, was Captian Lynch, the enterprising and successful explorer of the Dead Sea. He made, as you know, an official report of his expedition to the government, which has been printed by order of Congress. Besides this, he prepared a personal narrative of this expedition, a very interesting work, which was published at Philadelphia by Lea & Blanchard. Bently, the London publisher, imported into England a number of copies of the work in sheets, procuring them to be bound; and to secure himself from competition, took out a copyright for the work, and sent the title to the Liverpool Custom-house, that any other copies introduced from America might be seized and stopped.

When Captain Lynch's baggage was under-going examination, he asked the officer what disposition would be made of a copy of his narrative printed in America, if it was found among its effects. "Most certainly," answered the officer, "it would be my duty to retain it. Not a single work patented in this country can be introduced from abroad, and I should be obliged to seize it, even in the hands of its authors."