“My wife and her sister are now well and quiet—I and my brothers-in-law are harassed beyond imagination about the money affairs of Sir W. Scott. The newspaper paragraphs here, though well meant, have done us in the meantime at least a world of mischief. They have inflamed the hopes of the creditors, and, I fear, taken away all chance of their acceding to the proposals we tendered for a general settlement of the affair. And all, or almost all, this difficulty comes of the officiousness of friends here who could not wait one week till some of the family could be communicated with.
“The Quarterly Review has been sadly neglected, and I must work hard at it now. Do let me have your strenuous quill at my need.—Ever yours,
