Note 18 — Chapter VI

As all the world knows, Scott stood indebted in 1826, on the Ballantyne-Constable crash, for no less a sum than £120,000, and a further £10,000 raised on Abbotsford with the view of averting the disaster. He determined to give every man his own. 'If my life is spared, nobody shall lose a penny by me,' he said, 'and this right hand shall work it all off.' Between 1826 and 1832 the debt was diminished by £66,000, an average of £11,000 a year. Against the remaining £54,000, a sum of £22,000 was received for his life insurance, and a generous advance from Cadell enabled his executors to settle in full with the Ballantyne creditors. By 1847 the loan was reduced to one-half, and the mortgage on the lands to £8,500. On May 11, 1847, Lockhart writes to Croker: 'I have finally settled all our Sir Walter's affairs. There remained debt secured on the lands, £8,500; to Cadell, £16,000; and sundries, £1,000. I have taken the £1,000 on myself, and Cadell obliterates the £24,500 on condition of getting the whole remaining copyright of Scott's works, and also of the Life.' At the time of the failure Scott surrendered his Collection at Abbotsford to his creditors; but so pleased were they with his fair and honourable response to their claims that they requested him to accept the furniture, plate, paintings, library, and museum, as a mark of sympathy and appreciation of his conduct. He valued his Collection at £10,000, and left it in his will to his eldest son, burdened to the extent of £5,000, for division among his younger children. In order to effect this, the second Sir Walter would have been obliged to disperse the Collection but for a subscription raised among a number of Scott's admirers to purchase the Abbotsford Collection and hold it in trust for the public and the family. This trust is vested in the Dean and Council of the Faculty of Advocates, who are empowered to leave the Collection in the charge and keeping of Scott's representatives at Abbotsford, or, should occasion arise, to remove it to some other building. The copyrights purchased by Cadell in 1847 were sold in 1851 by private bargain for £27,000 to Messrs. Adam and Charles Black, the publishers of the present volume. Messrs. Black's editions of Scott's works may, therefore, be trusted to contain the exact text as left in the 'Magnum Opus,' the MSS. of which are still in their possession.