Читать книгу The Life of Sir Walter Scott: A Biography - S. Fowler Wright - Страница 35

CHAPTER XXXI.

The first edition of the Lay had consisted of 750 quarto copies, elaborately printed. The bulk of this quantity went to Longmans, in London, and was sold immediately. The publication in Scotland was entrusted to Constable, who had a similar experience. The basis of the agreement with Scott was that the profits of this edition should be shared equally, the copyright remaining his property. Ultimately he received £169 as his share of the proceeds of these 750 volumes.

But the reception of the book showed Mr. Longman that he had found a poem which could be largely—no one could do more than guess how largely—sold. Again, he hurried to Edinburgh. He proposed to bring out a larger and less expensive edition in octavo size. He offered Scott £500 for the outright sale of the copyright, which was accepted, and was one of the worst bargains Scott ever made. A subsequent present of £100 to buy a horse to replace one that went lame when publisher and author were riding together, did little to adjust the balance of advantage, for the sales of this book, during Scott’s own lifetime, approached 50,000 copies. But, indirectly, the Lay was the source of some further profit in which Scott participated, for the printing orders were to be placed with the Ballantyne Press.

Up to this time, Scott had had no proprietary interest in Ballantyne’s printing business, though it was on his own persuasion that it had been brought to Edinburgh, and he had assisted that migration with a substantial loan. Since then, he had been able to place so much work in its way that the growth of its prosperity could be attributed directly to his own patronage. On the other hand, Ballantyne had done his part well. The event has justified Scott’s encouragement of the migration, both by orders which had been secured, and the manner in which they had been discharged.

Now Ballantyne approached Scott with a statement of his financial position. He was embarrassed by his own success. He was not in a position to execute the amount of orders he was receiving, both for the Lay, and from other directions, unless further capital were available. Scott had a large sum of money awaiting investment. His heart was in the Ballantyne business, and he had the responsibility of those who give advice which is taken. Friends who looked to him for help under any circumstances were not sent empty away. He agreed to invest about a third of the money which Captain Robert had left him. There is no reason to suppose that he did this with reluctance. But he declined to go further as a mere creditor. He required a partnership, to which Ballantyne agreed very willingly. A deed was signed, under which the profit was to be divided into three parts. One was to be paid to James Ballantyne in recompence of his work as manager, the others were to be drawn by the two partners equally. Scott, it will be noticed, had no responsibilities of management at this time. He was to be a sleeping partner. The division of profits may be considered equitable if Ballantyne’s capital were substantially equal to that of Scott, or generous if it were less. Lockhart failed to find that any Balance Sheet was drawn up as a foundation for this partnership, and suggests that it was arranged so loosely that there was no such document, which has been assumed as a fact by some later writers. The negative evidence that no such document could be found thirty years later is not convincing, and the improbability that it was not drawn, if the nature of the agreement required it, is extreme, as any accountant will recognise. What basis, in the absence of such a document, could there be for the calculations of future profits, which were certainly made? But the financial circumstances of this partnership, even from its inception, have been the subject of acute controversy, and must be treated in a separate chapter.

It was subsequently suggested that Scott’s action, as a practising barrister, in entering a commercial partnership, was a breech of etiquette, if not of honour, and that this explained an alleged secrecy in which the arrangement was shrouded. It is a suggestion which will not endure examination either in fact or theory. There was, at this period, no law of limited liability. Capital could not be invested in shares or debentures by those who sought to use it in commercial channels, nor could commercial firms obtain it by means of such issues. Scott’s legal training had taught him that arrangements for sleeping partnerships, such as this, were the routine business of any attorney’s office at that period, and the suggestion that barristers were debarred from such investments requires to be supported by some affirmative evidence, which is wholly lacking. It is said that “only” William Erskine, among his friends, was taken into his confidence at that time, a method of stating an admitted fact which appears to place it in the opposite scale to that to which it belongs. Even if it be literally true, surely the fact that Scott informed a friend who would have been fully aware of the nature of what he was doing, and who was himself a lawyer, should absolve him from the suspicion that he was aware of impropriety. But, in fact and in spite of, or perhaps because of, the endless number of his friends, Scott was not randomly confidential with them about his personal affairs. Even with the pen, he had a habitual reticence, which was only partially abandoned at a later period of life. There is no more than a casual significance in the fact that the attempt at autobiography which he made three years later, and which covered his youthful years with a detailed fluency, broke off abruptly at the time when Williamina Stuart must have come upon the scene, and he could not have continued a frank and sufficient narrative without disclosing matters which he was too sensitive to discuss.

Lockhart attempts a subtler point when he suggests that the fact that Scott’s partnership was not generally known was unfair to publishers who might be influenced by his proposals as to books which they should produce, without knowing that, if they placed the printing with Ballantyne & Co., it would be financially advantageous to himself. The argument will not endure examination, and the more explicitly it be stated, the more dubious it becomes. It could be argued with at least equal force that he would have been better able to influence business toward the Border Press if it were known that he had a financial interest in it. He might have expressly stipulated that the printing should go to his own firm in cases where he was editing the proposed volumes, which he could hardly do without implication that he was financially interested. At the most, the inditement amounts to an argument that Scott was in a position to act unfairly to others, had he been of a disposition to do so. It is not only disputable in its premises, it is unsupported by any evidence that such breaches of equity occurred, and confronted by an immense improbability, Scott’s character being what it was, that he could have allowed it to happen.

But was the partnership so close and unguessed a secret in commercial circles? There was not, at this time, the publicity of shareholders’ registers, there was no system for the registration of partnership names, such as the freer atmosphere of those days would not easily have endured. But, in the absence of the limited liability Acts of later years, such partnerships were extremely common. The closeness of Scott’s interest in the Border Press, and his associations with it, could not easily have been concealed from those publishers who were doing regular business with it, and there is no evidence that there was any attempt to conceal them. Had they asked themselves, as they most probably did, if they were not explicitly told, whether Scott had any partnership stake in the printing business, nine out of ten might have made the correct guess, and all must have known that it was a very probable thing.

Beyond that, there were the type-makers, the cloth and paper merchants, and others from whom, as the business developed, large credits were obtained. There were the banks which gave ever-increasing overdrafts, and discounted customers’ bills, by which, in that period of fevered war-finance, the publishing business was almost entirely carried on. Did they never ask for the names of the partners with whom they dealt? Were they never told? The contrary supposition is without proof, and is entirely improbable.

It does not follow that there may not have been many of Scott’s literary and social friends, and more of his acquaintances, who remained ignorant of the details of his investments, and, in particular, of his financial interest in the Ballantyne Press. Any large commercial failure in those days might lead to anxious speculation as to whom it would ruin, and often resulted in the disclosure of unexpected names.

In the investigation of these matters, Lockhart had the enormous advantages of being closer to the period with which he dealt, having access to more documents than are now available, and having been in personal contact with many of the people concerned. He showed industry in searching among the facts, and some skill in presenting such as he thought most appropriate for exhibition. He had the disadvantages that he was without commercial training, or commercial sympathies. He was biased in Scott’s favour as his son-in-law and biographer, and as one who had received much help and affection from him: he was biased against him by personal limitations and prejudices. Frequently, he makes apology where only explanation is needed. He accuses by excusation....