THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. Walter Scott

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СКАЧАТЬ must admit that James, pending this arrangement, was not the partner, but literally the paid servant of his benefactor, and that while “ the total responsibility of the debts and expenditure of the business” lay on Scott, Scott had the perfect right to make any use he pleased of its profits and credit. They must admit, that after the arrangement had continued for five years, James examined the state of the concern, and petitioned Scott to replace him as a partner; that so far from finding any reason to complain of what Scott had done with the business while it was solely his, without one word of complaint as to this large amount of floating bills so boldly averred in the Pamphlet to have been drawn for Scott’s personal accommodation, James, in praying for readmission, acknowledged that down to the close of that period (June 1821) he had grossly neglected the most important parts of the business whereof he had had charge as Scott’s stipendiary servant; — acknowledged, that notwithstanding his salary as manager of the printing-office, another salary of £200 a year as editor of a newspaper, and the large sums he derived from novel-copyrights given to him ex mera gratia, — he had so misconducted his own private affairs, that having begun his stewardship as debtor to Scott for £3000, he, when he wished the stewardship to terminate, owed Scott much more than £3000; but that, acknowledging all this, he made at the same time such solemn promises of amendment for the future, that Scott consented to do as he prayed; only stipulating, that until the whole affairs of the printing business should be reduced to perfect order, debts discharged, its stock and disposable funds increased, each partner should limit himself to drawing £500 per annum for his personal use. They must admit that James made all these acknowledgments and promises; that Scott accepted them graciously; and that the moment before the final copartnership was signed, James Ballantyne was Sir Walter Scott’s debtor, entirely at his mercy; that down to that moment, by James’s own clear confession, Scott, as connected with this printing establishment, had been sinned against, not sinning.

      ‘The contract prepared and written by Mr. Hogarth was signed on the 1st of April 1822. It bears express reference to the “missive letter dated the 15th and 22nd of June last,” by which the parties had “concluded an agreement for the settlement of the accounts and transactions subsisting between them, and also for the terms of the said new copartnery, and agreed to execute a regular deed in implement of said agreement”; and “therefore and for the reasons more particularly specified in the said missive letters, which are here specially referred to, and held as repeated, they have agreed, and hereby agree, to the following articles.” Then follow the articles of agreement, embodying the substance of the missive. Scott is to draw the whole profits of the business prior to Whitsunday 1822, in respect of the responsibility he had undertaken. Ballantyne acknowledges a personal debt of £1800 as at Whitsunday 1821, which was to be paid out of the funds specified in the missives, no interest being due until after Whitsunday 1822. Sir Walter having advanced £2575 for buildings in the Canongate, new types, etc., James is to grant a bond for the half of that sum. It further appears by the only cashbook exhibited to me, that James, notwithstanding his frugal mode of living, had quietly drawn £1629 more than his allowance between 1816 and 1822, but of this, as it is stated, as a balance of cash, due by James at Whitsunday 1822, Scott could not have been aware when with his own hand he wrote the missive letter. Sir Walter, I have said, was to be liable for all the debts contracted between 1816 and 1822, but to have the exclusive right of property in all the current funds, to enable him to pay off these debts, and as the deed bears, “to indemnify him for his advances on account of the copartnery” — i.e. from 1816 to 1822. Finally, James becomes bound to keep regular and distinct books, which are to be balanced annually. Now, on looking at the import of this legal instrument, as well as the missive which it corroborated, and the prior communications between the parties, whom would an unbiassed reader suppose to have been the partner most benefited by this concern in time past, — whom to be the person most likely to have trespassed upon its credit, and embarrassed its resources?’

      How did Mr. James Ballantyne perform his part of this contract? From January 1822 to May 1826, when the affairs were wound up, he was entitled to have drawn in all about £1750. He drew in all £7581, 15s. 5d. Of whose money? Assuredly not his own.

      For Mr. Lockhart’s explanation of the Vidimus, and of the refuter’s construction and distortion of certain important items which go a long way towards accounting for the great increase in the accommodation bills, and show how improperly, and with what an appearance of wilful error, certain receipts and charges have been fixed upon Scott, which might with as much justice have been fixed upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or the Bank of Scotland, we must refer our readers to the pamphlet itself, and merely state these general results: That in 1823, the accommodations of James Ballantyne and Co. amounted to £36,000; that there is no shadow or scrap of evidence to show that any of these accommodation bills had been issued for Scott’s private purposes; that it is made a matter of charge in the Refutation pamphlet that in 1826 they had increased to £46,000; that we now find that of this additional £10,000 Mr. James Ballantyne himself pocketed (calculating interest) more than £8000, and that all the expenses of stamps and renewals have to be charged against the remaining £2000; finally, that Scott, who is asserted to have ruined these Ballantynes by his ambition to become a landed proprietor, invested in all, up to June 1821, £29,083 in the purchase of land, having received since 1811 an official income of £1600 per annum, and gained, as an author, £80,000. Let any plain, unprejudiced man, who has learnt that two and two make four, and who has moved in the world in the ordinary pursuits of life, put these facts together, read this correspondence with acknowledgments of error and misconduct on the part of the Messrs. Ballantyne repeated from day to day and urged from year to year — let him examine these transactions, and find that in every one which is capable of explanation now the parties are in their graves, the extravagance, thoughtlessness, recklessness, and wrong have been upon the part of these pigmies, and the truest magnanimity and forbearance on the side of the giant who upheld them, and under the shadow of whose protection they gradually came to lose sight of their own stature, and to imagine themselves as great as he — let any man divest himself of that lurking desire to carp and cavil over the actions of men who have raised themselves high above their fellows, which unhappily seems inherent in human nature, and bring to this subject but the calmest and most plodding consideration of facts and probabilities — and say whether it is possible to arrive at any conclusion but that Messrs. Ballantyne and the Messrs. Ballantyne’s descendants owe a deep and lasting debt of gratitude to Sir Walter Scott as the originator of all the name, fame, and fortune they may possess, or to which they can ever aspire — and that this attempt to blacken the memory of the dead benefactor of their house would be an act of the basest and most despicable ingratitude, were it not one of the most puling and drivelling folly.

      That Mr. James Ballantyne did not know at what time Abbotsford had ceased to stand ‘between him and ruin,’ — that he did not know, and well know, that Sir Walter Scott had made the settlement of it which he did upon his son’s marriage, is next to impossible. All Edinburgh rung with it for days; the topic was canvassed in every bookseller’s shop and discussed at every street corner; gossips carried it from door to door; advocates discoursed upon it in loquacious groups in the outer house; and the very boys at the High School bandied it from mouth to mouth. To Professor Wilson, Mr. Sheriff Cay, Mr. Peter Robertson, all the known men and women of Edinburgh, and all the unknown men and women also, it was notorious as the existence of Arthur’s Seat or Holyrood. Is it to be believed that Mr. James Ballantyne alone, shut up in his printing-office in solitary admiration of his old critiques on Mrs. Siddons or his improvements in Scott’s romances, was in ignorance of the fact while it resounded through the city from end to end, or that he could have remained so for the space of nine long months? The insinuations put forth by the trustees and son of the late Mr. James Ballantyne respecting his marriage, and his throwing his wife’s portion into the partnership fund at Scott’s command, are no less monstrous. How stands this fact? Why, that but for Scott’s kindness and goodness he never could have contracted it. — ‘ I fear I am in debt for more than all I possess — to a lenient creditor, no doubt; but still the debt exists.’ — ‘I am, dejure et de facto, wholly dependent on you.’ — ’All, and more than all, belonging ostensibly to me, is, I presume, yours.’

      ‘God be praised that, after all your cruel vexations, СКАЧАТЬ