Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

60 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
The following letters respecting this bargain which
passed between James Ballantyne and Mr Blackwood
disclose all the different steps of the transaction very
clearly :
—
J. BaUantyne to W. Blackwood.
30«A April 1816.
I enclose you a formal offer, with this positive assurance that
I cannot vary from it in one single particular ; so that if you
wish, as I believe most firmly you do, that the bargain should
be completed, I will sign the offer to-day before dinner. But I
again repeat, that whatever may be my wishes I cannot vary
from the terms of the offer in any one respect. By the by, I
should say that bills for the author's profits will be accepted at
twelve months if you insist on it ; but I advise you not to insist
upon it. The compromise I have put in of six and twelve
months would be extremely well taken by the author. And he
knows he could get them from other quarters.
A subsequent letter hesitates even in respect of this
compromise, repeating the warning that there were
other ways of obtaining all that the author desired.
" If the bargain appears in the least hard to Mr B.,
there are others ready to accept for these profits at
six months, the instant the first volume goes to press.
He is only to accept at six and twelve months from
the period that the whole four volumes come from
the press." These lesser stipulations, however, seem
at last to have been accepted, and, what was perhaps
most important to the intermediate agent at least,
the six hundred pounds' worth of John Ballantyne's
unsaleable stock was unwillingly selected, and the
money paid in bills at six months, according to the
ordinary custom.
In this as in the other conditions of the bargain,