Jeffrey's decision seems to have settled the matter. Messrs. Longman agreed to accept £1,000 for their claim of property in the title and future publication of the Edinburgh Review. The injunction was removed, and the London publication of the Review was forthwith transferred to John Murray, 32, Fleet Street, under whose auspices No. 22 accordingly appeared.
Thus far all had gone on smoothly. But a little cloud, at first no bigger than a man's hand, made its appearance, and it grew and grew until it threw a dark shadow over the friendship of Constable and Murray, and eventually led to their complete separation. This was the system of persistent drawing of accommodation bills, renewals of bills, and promissory notes. Constable began to draw heavily upon Murray in April 1807, and the promissory notes went on accumulating until they constituted a mighty mass of paper money. Murray's banker cautioned him against the practice. But repeated expostulation was of no use against the impetuous needs of Constable & Co. Only two months after the transfer of the publication of the Review to Mr. Murray, we find him writing to "Dear Constable" as follows:
John Murray to Mr. Archd. Constable.
October 1, 1807.
"I should not have allowed myself time to write to you to-day, were not the occasion very urgent. Your people have so often of late omitted to give you timely notice of the day when my acceptances fell due, that I have suffered an inconvenience too great for me to have expressed to you, had it not occurred so often that it is impossible for me to undergo the anxiety which it occasions. A bill of yours for £200 was due yesterday, and I have been obliged to supply the means for paying it, without any notice for preparation…. I beg of you to insist upon this being regulated, as I am sure you must desire it to be, so that I may receive the cash for your bills two days at least before they are due."
Mr. Murray then gives a list of debts of his own (including some of Constable's) amounting to £1,073, which he has to pay in the following week. From a cash account made out by Mr. Murray on October 3, it appears that the bill transactions with Constable had become enormous; they amounted to not less than £10,000.
The correspondence continued in the same strain, and it soon became evident that this state of things could not be allowed to continue. Reconciliations took place from time to time, but interruptions again occurred, mostly arising from the same source—a perpetual flood of bills and promissory notes, from one side and the other—until Murray found it necessary to put an end to it peremptorily. Towards the end of 1808 Messrs. Constable established at No. 10 Ludgate Street a London house for the sale of the Edinburgh Review, and the other works in which they were concerned, under the title of Constable, Hunter, Park & Hunter. This, doubtless, tended to widen the breach between Constable and Murray, though it left the latter free to enter into arrangements for establishing a Review of his own, an object which he had already contemplated.
There were many books in which the two houses had a joint interest, and, therefore, their relations could not be altogether discontinued. "Marmion" was coming out in successive editions; but the correspondence between the publishers grew cooler and cooler, and Constable had constant need to delay payments and renew bills.
Mr. Murray had also considerable bill transactions with Ballantyne & Co. of Edinburgh. James and John Ballantyne had been schoolfellows of Walter Scott at Kelso, and the acquaintance there formed was afterwards renewed. James Ballantyne established the Kelso Mail in 1796, but at the recommendation of Scott, for whom he had printed a collection of ballads, he removed to Edinburgh in 1802. There he printed the "Border Minstrelsy," for Scott, who assisted him with money. Ballantyne was in frequent and intimate correspondence with Murray from the year 1806, and had printed for him Hogg's "Ettrick Shepherd," and other works.
It was at this time that Scott committed the great error of his life. His professional income was about £1,000 a year, and with the profits of his works he might have built Abbotsford and lived in comfort and luxury. But in 1805 he sacrificed everything by entering into partnership with James Ballantyne, and embarking in his printing concern almost the whole of the capital which he possessed. He was bound to the firm for twenty years, and during that time he produced his greatest works. It is true that but for the difficulties in which he was latterly immersed, we might never have known the noble courage with which he met and rose superior to misfortune.