Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

466 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
John Gait to W. Blackwood.
London, 26«A July 1829.
I am of course much gratified to find ' My Landlady ' likely
to please. I shall have regularly four to five chapters to send
monthly. The other part of the Canada article will be ready
by the 8th.
I told you that I expected soon to have a great deal of leisure,
and I am likely to have it with a vengeance. Among other
specimens of the usage I have had to endure from the Canada
Company was noting my bills for non-acceptance, thereby
implying a doubt of my integrity. fT^his I find has had the
effect of seriously injuring me in Canada; for although all the
bills as they fell due were ordered to be paid, and are now all
paid by the Company, the evil to me still operates. This, with
the impression that I was on the eve of returning immediately
to Canada, brought every person who had any claim, direct,
contingent, or indirect, upon me, so that\^I have been advised to
take refuge in the Bench till some arrangement can be made.
I do not wish this, however, to be known ; but the mischief it
does, to say nothing of the humiliation, is indescribable.
But what I have now to state concerns you a little. Mr
Hallett had paid the premium of an insurance on my life,
and not anticipating I should be put to such straits on the
Company's account when I left Canada, I trusted to getting
money here to pay the premiums and interest on what I owe
Mr H. ; but being disappointed, and being pressed for a payment,
I was obliged to go to Colburn to see what he would
give me on account of a novel, and as he agreed to advance
me £300, 1 closed at once with him. I beg to assure you I
was actuated only by the necessities of my unexpected situation,
and I hope you will see it in that light. Cl could not wait
until the proceeds of any property I ordered to be sold in
Canada were remitted, and I was nearly persuaded by what
you said that it would not have suited you to have entered
into such an agreement with meT^ This affair I therefore trust
you will consider as a business transaction, and not affecting
our friendship.
Gait's life was, like that of so many literary men