Walter Scott - The Complete Poems of Sir Walter Scott

‘It is needless for me to dwell on my deep regret at the discreditable incident which has taken place… . I was not aware of the terrible consequences arising from one acting partner’s using the copartnery signature for his personal purposes. I assure you, Sir, I should very nearly as soon forge your own signature as use one which implicated your credit and property for what belonged to me personally.”

And then he goes on in a tone of great humility, endeavouring to excuse himself thus: —

‘I respectfully beg leave to call to your recollection a very long and not very pleasant correspondence two years ago, on the subject of the debts due to my brother Alexander, and I may now shortly restate, that the money advanced by him went into the funds of the business, and at periods when it was imperiously wanted. No doubt it went in my name, to help up my share of stock equal to yours; but I honestly confess to you, that this consideration never went into my calculation, and that when I agreed that the name of James B. and Co. should be given to the bills for that money, I had no other idea than that it was an easy mode of procuring money, at a very serious crisis, when money was greatly wanted; nor did I see that I should refuse it because the lender was my brother. His cash was as good as another’s. Personally, I never received a sixpence of it.’

Personally he never received a sixpence of it! Oh, certainly not. That is to say, Mr. James Ballantyne paid the money to the partnership banking account towards his share of the joint capital, and immediately set about drawing private cheques as fast as he could draw for three times the sum.

In 1821 Mr. John Ballantyne died, and Mr. James Ballantyne, petitioning Scott that a termination might be put to his stewardship, and that he might be admitted to a new share in the business, he becomes, under a deed bearing date on the 1st of April 1822 (the missive letter, in Scott’s handwriting, laying down the heads of which, is given by Mr. Lockhart at length), once more a partner in the business. The circumstances under which his stewardship had been undertaken — and this request for a new partnership was conceded by Scott — are thus stated by Mr. Lockhart; and the statement is, in every respect in which we have been able to examine it, borne out by facts: —

‘For the preparation of the formal contract of 1822, Sir Walter selected Mrs. James Ballantyne’s brother. We have seen that this Mr. George Hogarth, a man of business, a Writer to the Signet, a gentleman whose ability and intelligence no one can dispute, was privy to all the transactions between Scott and James, whereupon the matrimonial negotiation proceeded to its close; — and that Mr. Hogarth approved of, and Mr. Ballantyne expressed deep gratitude for, the arrangements then dictated by Sir Walter Scott. Must not these Trustees themselves, when confronted with the evidence now given, admit that these arrangements were most liberal and generous? Scott, “the business being in difficulties,” takes the whole of these difficulties upon himself. He assumes, for a prospective series of five or six years, the whole responsibility of its debts and its expenditure, including a liberal salary to James as manager. In order to provide him with the means of paying a personal debt of £3000 due to himself — and wholly distinct from copartnery debts — Scott agrees to secure for him a certain part of the proceeds of every novel that shall be written during the continuance of this arrangement. With the publishing of these novels James was to have no trouble — there was no risk about them — the gain on each was clear and certain, — and of every sum thus produced by the exertion of Scott’s genius and industry, James Ballantyne was to have a sixth, as a mere bonus to help him in paying oft* his debt of £3000, upon which debt, moreover, no interest was to be charged. In what respect did this differ from drawing the pen, every five or six months, through a very considerable portion of the debt? Scott was undertaking neither more nor less than to take the money out of his own pocket, and pay it regularly into James’s, who had no more risk or trouble in the publication of those immortal works than any printer in Westminster. The Pamphleteers 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?’