BY March 1817, or six
months after his settlement with his creditors, Miller discovered that
it was impossible for him to carry out the bargain he had made with
them. The trade depression had extended and become even more serious.
Subscriptions were being raised in almost every town in Scotland to cope
with the distress. Dunbar, like Edinburgh itself, had started relief
works within the burgh. The people upon whom misfortune had thus fallen
were, as Miller urged in a letter to his creditors, “ those very classes
upon whom I principally depended as purchasers.” To continue his forced
sales would be to court additional disaster, and he accordingly asked
that the intervals between his instalments should be extended from six
to nine months. The proposal was at once agreed to without hesitation.
During the remainder of the year Miller persevered amid increasing
difficulties. His auctioneers continued to send him depressing reports
on their work, and the canvassing business remained a land of promise
only. By the shipwreck of a Kirkwall packet he lost a parcel of books,
and for a time was threatened with serious damage through having
Cruden’s “Concordance,” which he was selling in conjunction with Gracie,
removed from the list of books his canvassers could dispose of. Certain
London booksellers had obtained an injunction against Gracie, and for a
few weeks it looked as if the sale of the book would have to be
abandoned, greatly to Miller’s hurt. The injunction, however, “was
afterwards taken off, by what means I shall not say, further than I
would have had some ‘compunctious visitings’ before I could have adopted
them.” The only bright spot in Miller’s dreary experience was the loyal
aid he received from his two sons, William and James. They travelled the
country in his interests, accepting a small weekly wage, for as James
wrote, “I think 25s. a week as much as can reasonably be expected,
circumstances considered, as no mechanic should have 30s. a week unless
for travelling expenses.”
A crisis was again reached in Miller’s affairs at the beginning of 1818.
In February he became convinced that it was impossible to implement the
promises he had made, and he accordingly issued a statement to his
creditors. He declared that he had done his best. He had had sales in
every corner of the land where success appeared possible, and in
prosecuting these “ all the available members of my family have in one
shape or other been occasionally employed in the business, and two of
them are at this moment traversing the country as clerk to the sales.”
So great had been his exertions that his health had been impaired, and
he stated that to continue the struggle longer in face of the protracted
depression was impossible. He ended by suggesting that they should be
satisfied with 14s. in the pound.
One or two creditors had become somewhat irritated by what appeared to
them to be Miller’s somewhat frequent “ proposals,” but in the end all
were content 'to accept his offer. However much the majority may have
sympathized with the debtor in his troubles, no other course seemed open
to them. To have stripped him of his stock and sold him out would not
have served them better. In the depressed state of the book market the
stock could have been disposed of only at a price that would have made
the return much less than was offered by the plan he proposed.
Once more set free from his immediate embarrassments, Miller began work
again with a will. He withdrew none of his agencies, and endeavoured to
inspire all he employed with new zeal. “I must have had no sinecure of
it,” he said, “to wind up so many regulators and keep such a number of
wheels in unceasing motion.” “ Indeed,” he says in another place, “ no
general could have been more incessantly busied with his plans in the
midst of his campaigns than I was with my routes, until the maps of the
Scottish counties had become so familiar to my eye that, as I have
expressed myself, I could almost chalk them out from memory.”
Most of his hopes were centred in the north, and for a very short time
it did seem as if the trade there was to aid him in retrieving his
position. The country round Inverness as well as the long stretch that
lay to the north of it was practically virgin soil for books of all
sorts, and especially for those likely to be carried by canvassers.
Agents were continuously at work in Sutherland, Caithness, and the
Orkneys. But the hope proved delusive. His chief agent in Inverness
never seemed able to make good the promises he had held out of extensive
profits from the north. The people of Caithness were quite willing to
take books but were equally unwilling to pay for them. To add to the
difficulties of the position, a London canvassing agency—the “Bungay ”
opened operations within the district, and to the astonishment of all
Gracie of Berwick also joined in the rivalry. Miller was furious at this
latter development. In an angry letter he accused Gracie of
treacherously taking advantage of the disclosure of his plans which he
had made at his last settlement with his creditors. He had then
indicated the splendid field he had expected Inverness to become, and
Gracie had evidently made use of the information thus acquired to
further his own interests. A personal interview was arranged between the
rival traders, and Gracie succeeded in escaping from the awkward
position by declaring that the business had been entered upon without
his knowledge, and through the perversity of an agent. Miller allowed
himself to have his own thoughts on the explanation.
The Inverness agency having thus disappointed expectations, Miller
determined to rid himself of it. His agent had just married a “ lady of
fortune,” and for a time held out hopes of acquiring the business on his
own account. To arrange the matter Miller journeyed to the northern
capital in July, taking his son George with him to put in charge of the
agency in case negotiations failed. His plans broke down on all sides.
The agent could not be prevailed upon to take over the stock. George had
one of his fits of perversity, and Miller was forced to place another
man in charge with instructions to make the best of the situation.
Miller’s last hope was gone. Calamity was added to calamity. A three
months’ illness laid him aside from duty. His wife, on whom devolved the
management of the shop, also fell ill, and his son William, “the
sheet-anchor of the auctioneering department,” had to return home to
take her place. Some of his agents proved less faithful than he had
expected. By a shipwreck he lost a quantity of books which were on their
way to Aberdeen to be sold. A friend on whom he had greatly leaned for
help intimated that he himself was in difficulties. To add to these
troubles, the state of the country continued deplorable, and the winter,
when most of his business should have been done, was slipping past while
he himself was incapacitated.
There could be only one end to such a situation. Miller was again forced
to call, his creditors together. The meeting took place at the Royal
Exchange Coffee House, Edinburgh, on April 14, 1819. The statement of
his affairs showed a trade considerably reduced from what it had been
three years before. His debts amounted to £6,100, while his nominal
assets came on his own estimate to £6,253. The booksellers present,
however, knew that in the depressed condition of the market the prices
Miller anticipated for his stock could not be realized, and at last a
composition of 8s. in the pound, payable at 6, 12, and 21 months, was
accepted. The debtor was evidently much pleased with the result, for he
wrote that “the matter may be said to have been adjusted fully up to my
most ardent wishes and to the utmost extent of my most sanguine
expectations.”
However disappointing his failure had been the composition he had now
effected with his creditors cleared his feet. “By being allowed more
time to dispose of my stock I was better enabled to husband my resources
by selecting the best auctioneers and the best times for auctions.” The
year 1820, accordingly, opened for him with a certain amount of
brightness. While pushing his sales by the issue of catalogues both to
the trade and to the public, he determined to curtail his canvassing
business, which for some time had been confined to the north. The amount
of actual loss incurred in this department was very great, for there
were being constantly thrown on his hands incomplete copies of books
which customers found themselves no longer able to accept. He
accordingly withdrew his agent from Orkney and Caithness, leaving what
business remained there to be finished on his behalf by local
booksellers in Wick and Kirkwall. At the same time he gave orders that
the agency in Inverness should be wound up as speedily as possible, a
matter, however, which it took some months to accomplish. So successful
were his whole endeavours that he was able to discharge his liabilities
under the last settlement at the appointed date, and he was accordingly
set free from the pressure of business anxiety.
During the next eight years Miller’s life flowed in more serene
channels. Only one more venture did he make along unknown paths. He
attempted to establish a connection in America, but the scheme speedily
fell through, one remittance only being received from his agent there.
He had private bereavement to meet, but he had sufficient leisure and
ease of mind to be able to settle down and do some serious literary work
on his own account. The object he had in view in these extra labours was
undoubtedly not so much to achieve literary fame—though he afterwards
thought that his exertions had given him a certain position as a popular
author—as to relieve the strain of his financial difficulties. He had
the satisfaction of knowing that his writings did in part have the
effect he desired.
With the consent of the authoress he gathered together and edited the
articles Mrs. Grant of Duthil had contributed to the Cheap Magazine
under the title of the “History of an Irish Family,” and in 1822 issued
them in a volume under the same name. In his “Latter Struggles” he
distinctly names Mrs. Grant as the writer, but he chose a remarkable way
of announcing her authorship in the book itself. Her name appears, not
on the title-page, but as a footnote to a preface which deals mainly
with Miller’s own works. He, however, quotes the following interesting
paragraph from the preface of her “Popular Models”: “I shall not even
insinuate that to the ‘History of the Irish Family,’ which appeared in
the Cheap Magazine for 1814, I owe permission to inscribe my feeble
efforts to His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent ”—a somewhat remarkable
dedication when the character of that same prince is remembered.
Miller had himself been his own chief contributor to the Cheap Magazine
and the Monthly Monitor. Some of his articles had attracted the
attention of men whose opinion was of some value, and he determined to
put into more permanent form what had won their approbation. One series
he published in 1821 and named “The Affecting History of Tom Bragwell.”
The purpose of the book was to prevent juvenile crime, and this he
sought to do by setting forth the dreadful end of a young convict, and
by insisting that all young people should be taught to read good books.
The means might be inadequate to the end in view, but Miller had no
doubt that his plan would be efficacious if it received a fair trial.
The writing is occasionally sensational, but the book is manifestly
sincere, and Miller had the satisfaction of thinking that it had not
only commended itself to religious teachers but that it had done
something towards effecting the purpose for which it was written. “Since
the appearance of ‘Tom Bragwell,’” he says, “we have had fewer
delinquents of this description on our criminal records” though he
modestly adds, “I take no particular merit in this; it may be perfectly
accidental so far as my writings are concerned. But I mention facts as I
find them, to whatsoever cause or combination of causes these facts may
be imputed.”
A curious circumstance is connected with the publication of this book.
While Miller was preparing the revised matter before sending it to the
press, he was annoyed “ by the publication in London under a fictitious
name of the very work with a very slight alteration.” He entered into a
correspondence with the publisher, which he describes as “unpleasant,”
but he soon became satisfied that the latter also had been victimized.
He had actually bought the book as a manuscript from some designing
rogue!
The other book he published five years later in 1826. The draft of the
work had been committed to paper as long ago as 1791. He tells that on
January 25th of that year he “began to write the Book of Nature laid
Open, or the Wisdom and Goodness of God in the Works of Creation
Unfolded ”such was the original title“ and by the end of May following I
had written or rather scrolled 627 pages 4to on this grand and sublime
subject.” Miller has no doubt about the precocity that he thus
exhibited. “It will no doubt excite some surprise,” he writes further,
“to be informed that the original of a work that has got so many and so
powerful recommendations emanated from the pen of, I may say, a
self-taught youth in philosophical matters when he had just completed
his twentieth year, and under circumstances that obliged him to sit up
in the morning in the bed, making a desk of a folio volume of
Stackhouse’s ‘History of the Bible’ in order to complete his morning
task of twelve pages, and sometimes to continue till rather a late hour
at night in order that he might make out his evening oblation of eight
pages more.”
Under the original title the book ran through the second volume of the
Cheap Magazine in 1814. In volume form it showed considerable additions
and rearrangement of matter, and appeared under the name of “Popular
Philosophy.” Although not drawn exactly on the lines of such books as
Paley’s “Natural Theology,” published in 1802, Miller’s book followed
that well-known treatise afar off. It was a survey of all creation, with
the object of deducing the existence of a Creator, and of finding some
evidence of His wisdom and majesty. The book shows a wide range of
reading, and if it does not prove its author to be an original observer,
it at least indicates that he could put what he read in an attractive
and popular form. It was dedicated to Dr. James Davidson, professor of
Civil and Natural History in Aberdeen, to whose interest in it its
republication was due, and who designated it a “very excellent and
instructive treatise.”
The preparation of “Popular Philosophy” for the press proved a pleasant
task to Miller ; he declared that the time he spent in getting it ready
was “perhaps the most happy as well as the best employed period of my
life.” After its issue he had to complain that its sub-title, “The Book
of Nature,” had been appropriated for a series of lectures on the same
topic by a London writer, and that advertisements of this book followed
his own in the Scottish newspapers. Inquiry convinced Miller that the
device was merely one of those literary coincidences that occasionally
vex the souls of authors. Miller also points out another coincidence.
The original draft had been written during a period of great trade
depression, and the work itself made its reappearance in a year notable
for calamities in the book world. While it was passing through the press
the great house of Constable collapsed. The want of money had a damaging
effect on the sale of the book, but it had a cordial reception from the
press. One compliment its publication brought him. The famous Church
leader, Dr. Thomas Chalmers, called on him, and Miller tells how, on
leaving him, “although I could give him no hope of being able to visit
it [the coast] with the encumbrance of a gig, he took along with him
that part of my work which described the Geological Alphabet and the
other curiosities along the coast of the Cove shore, etc.” |