The manuscripts Menu Home Exhibition eLearning Modules About the site Manuscript indexes David Hume, letter to Andrew Millar, 12th April 1755 Document Information About the manuscript title: David Hume, letter to Andrew Millar, 12th April 1755 author: Hume, David background: This letter sheds light on some of the business dealings surrounding the publishing of Hume’s The History of England (1754–62). It also reveals Hume’s interest in correcting and improving his works. permissions: Kind permission for this digital reproduction of manuscript holdings has been provided by National Library of Scotland. reference: NLS MS 23151, 60 About the TEI XML © University of Edinburgh and the Arts & Humanities Research Council license: CC BY-SA millar project id: 021 XML source: 021.xml × Overview & scans | Show page breaks page: 1 Dear Sir I am entirely of your Opinion: Your Offer to Baillie Hamilton[1] is very reasonable, & ought to have been receiv’d with Thankfulness, not Peevishness.[2] He is a very honest Man, & far from being interested:[3] But he is passionate & even wrong headed to a great Degree. He has made it sufficiently appear in his Conduct of this whole Affair.[4] I think the London Booksellers have had a sufficient Triumph over him; when [a] Book, which was much expected & was calculated to be popular, has had so small a Sale [on] his hands. To make the Triumph more compleat, I wish you wou’d take what remains into your hands, & dispose of it in a few Months. I beg of you to think again seriously of that Matter. If you will return to your former Offer, I will engage to make it effectual or if the Baillie refuses to comply, I wou’d rather make out the Difference from my own Pocket: So much do I desire to have the Affair under my ^your^ Management.[5] You need have no Correspondence with him. Write to me, & I shall manage the Matter.[6] The second Volume ^of my History^ I can easily find a way of conveying to you, when finishd & corrected, & fairly copy’d.[7] Perhaps I may be in London myself about that time.[8] I have always said to all my Acquaintaince that if the first Volume bore a little of a Tory Aspect, the second wou’d probably be as grateful to the opposite Party. The two first Princes of the House of Stuart were certainly more excusable than the two second. page: 2The Constitution was in their time very ambiguous & undetermin’d, & their Parliaments were, in many respects, refractory & obstinate: But Charles the 2d knew, that he had succeeded to a very limited Monarchy: His [illeg.] long Parliament was indulgent to him, & even consisted almost entirely of Royalists; yet he coud not be quiet, nor contented with a legal Authority. I need not mention the Oppressions ^in Scotland^ nor the absurd Conduct of K. James the 2d. These are obvious and glaring Points. Upon the whole, I wish the two Volumes had been publishd together. Neither one Party nor the other, woud, in that Case, have [illeg.] had the least Pretext of reproaching me with Partiality.[9] I shall give no farther Umbrage to the Godly: Tho’ I am far from thinking, that my Liberties on that head have been the real Cause of checking the Sale of the first Volume: They might afford a Pretext for decrying it to who those who were resolv’d on other Accounts to lay hold of Pretexts. Pray tell Dr Birch,[10] if you have Occasion to see him, that his Story of the Warrant for Lord Loudon’s Execution,[11] tho’ at first I thought it highly improbable, appears to me at present a great deal more likely.[12] I find the same Story in Scotstarvat’s Staggering State, which was publishd here a few Months ago.[13] The same Story, coming from different Canals,[14] without any dependance on each other, bears a strong Air of Probability. I have spoke to Duke Hamilton,[15] who says, that I shall be very welcome to peruse all his Papers. page: 3I shall take the first Opportunity of going to the bottom of that Affair; & if I find any Confirmation of the Suspicion, will be sure to inform Dr Birch. I own it is the strongest Instance of any which History affords of K. Charles’s arbitrary Principles. I have [illeg.] made a Trial ^on Plutarch^ & find that I take Pleasure in it, but cannot yet form so just a Notion of the time & pains, which it will require, as to tell you what Sum of Money I wou’d think an Equivalent.[16] But I shall be sure to inform you as soon. ^as I come to a Resolution^ The Notes requisite will not be numerous; not so many as in the former Edition. I think so bulky a Book ought to be swelld as little as possible; & nothing added but what is absolutely requisite. The little Trial I have made me convinces me that the Undertaking will require [illeg.] time. My manner of composing is slow; & I have great Difficulty to satisfy myself. I am Dear Sir Your most obedient Servant David Hume Edinr 12 of April. 1755 page: 4 David Hume 12 April 1755 abt Standing to my 1st offer & several other things answd 19th Translation of Plutarch Footnote 1 Gavin Hamilton (1704–67), a leading Edinburgh bookseller during the second half of the century. Like his fellow bookseller Alexander Kincaid (who succeeded to James McEuen’s Edinburgh shop in 1732), Hamilton was a town magistrate (1732–45), holding the office of fourth baillie in 1735 and 1744. He was entitled to retain this title as an honorific. × Footnote 2 Hamilton initially refused Millar’s offer to purchase 900 copies of The History of England that he had been unable to sell during a visit to London (November 1754–April 1755). Hamilton told Hume that Millar had offered him 7 shillings per copy; they settled at 9 shillings. Hamilton had previously paid £320 in printing costs and £400 in copy-money to Hume; if he sold 1,100 copies at 14 shillings and accepted the sale of 900 at 9 shillings, then he realised a profit of £455. Hume commented later that “it was a strange infatuation in the Baillie” to refuse Millar’s offer; he wrote to Strahan that Millar “never woud have offrd seven [shillings per copy]”. See note 4 below; G. Hamilton to W. Strahan, 29 January 1754, Letters of David Hume to William Strahan, ed. G. Birkbeck Hill (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1888) 3; Hume to Strahan, Letters of David Hume, ed. J. Y. T. Greig (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1932) vol. 1, 235.× Footnote 3 interested, i.e., seeking private advantage at another’s expense.× Footnote 4 This is “the Conspiracy of the Booksellers” to which Hume refers in a letter to William Strahan (3 May 1755) and in My Own Life (1776). In late January 1754, Hamilton agreed to pay Hume £400 for the right to sell 2,000 copies of the first volume of what would become known as The History of England (under the title The History of Great Britain, Volume 1, containing the Reigns of James I and Charles I). The quartos were printed in September 1755, and sold well in Edinburgh. By mid-November Hamilton had leased a shop in London, intending to sell the volumes at 14 shillings each, with 75 larger copies at a guinea. He also distributed them to prominent London booksellers, including Millar, at a trade price of 10 shillings. According to the first published account of what happened (Caledonian Mercury, 26 May 1777), none of the London booksellers agreed to sell the book. Hamilton turned to “his friend” Millar, who deviously accepted 50 copies but lent out five rather than sell the stock. Millar was said to have told customers, “it is incomplete, neither volume is coming out soon. You are welcome to the use of this in the mean time.” He told Hume that “in a twelvemonth he sold only forty-five copies of it”. Hume never learned what had occurred, but knew that Hamilton eventually sold his remaining 900 copies to Millar at 9 shillings each. See D. Hume, My Own Life, ed. I. G. Brown (Edinburgh: Royal Society of Edinburgh, 2014) 90–1; E. C. Mossner and H. Ransom, “Hume and the ‘Conspiracy of the Booksellers’: The Publication and Early Fortunes of the History of England”, University of Texas Studies in English 29 (1950) 162–82; Hume and the Enlightenment, ed. W. B. Todd (Edinburgh: U of Edinburgh P, 1974) 196–7. × Footnote 5 Hume refused an offer from Hamilton of £800 for the second volume; Millar settled with Hume at £750. See note 7.× Footnote 6 Although Hume rejected Hamilton’s offer for the second volume, he gave Hamilton the opportunity to sell 10 copies of the highly profitable large-format edition, sent by Millar for sale in Edinburgh; Hamilton refused to collect them (Hume to Millar, 20 May 1757).× Footnote 7 All further editions of The History of England appeared on Millar’s imprint. This second volume was sold from 2 March 1757; Strahan had printed 1,750 in octavo, with 75 “imperial quartos” on “Superfine Royal”, at a cost of £89.4.3; he paid Millar £750 copy-money. Millar advertised the octavos at 13 shillings, and the “Superfine” copies at £2.2.0, and paid Hume £750 copy-money, which means he realized at least £554.80 in profit (Hume to Millar, 27 May 1756). See E. C. Mossner, The Life of David Hume (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1980) 314.× Footnote 8 Hume anticipated proofs from Strahan in early October 1756. He did not visit London before the book’s publication the following year. See Hume to Strahan, 23 September 1756; Greig, Letters, vol. 1, 233–4.× Footnote 9 See J. Fieser, Early Responses to David Hume (Bristol: Thoemmes P, 2002) vol. 7. × Footnote 10 Thomas Birch (1705–66), Fellow of the Royal Society, historian and editor, with whom Millar collaborated on a number of lucrative and large-scale publications, including The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle (5 vols in folio, 1744) and A Complete Collection of the Historical, Political, and Miscellaneous Works of John Milton (2 vols in folio, 1738; 2 vols in quarto, 1753). Millar also published Birch’s Inquiry into the Share, which King Charles I. had in the Transactions of the Earl of Glamorgan, to which Hume refers. × Footnote 11 See note 13.× Footnote 12 Hume revised the History vol. 1 for its second edition (1759), in response to Birch’s Inquiry (see note 13). These revisions sharpened Hume’s disagreement with Birch’s view that Charles I was involved in a plot to enter a formal alliance with Irish Catholics. See F. Van Holtoon, “Hume and the 1763 Edition of His History of England: His Frame of Mind as a Revisionist”, Hume Studies 23 (April 1997) 141.× Footnote 13 The Staggering State of the Scots Statesmen . . . from 1550 to 1650, a collection of biographical notes on Scottish officials during the civil wars, by Sir John Scot of Scotstarvit (1585–1670). The manuscript was edited by the Edinburgh historian Walter Goodall (c.1706–c.1766) and published in 1754. Birch seized on this reference in The Staggering State, which claimed that the Covenanter Lord Loudoun (1598–1662) won a reprieve from execution by applying to the Duke of Hamilton, one of Charles I’s favourites. He did so in order to defend himself against the Jacobite historian Thomas Carte (c.1686–1754), who had attacked him the previous year for publishing the Inquiry into the Share, which King Charles I. had in the Transactions of the Earl of Glamorgan, which argued for the arbitrariness of the king’s rule. With Millar, Birch published a short anonymous pamphlet summarizing his position with reference to Scotstarvit; this was followed by a second edition of the Inquiry.× Footnote 14 Canals, i.e., channels.× Footnote 15 James Hamilton, 6th Duke of Hamilton (1724–58). See The Complete Peerage, ed. G. E. Cokayne, (London: St Catherine P, 1926) vol. 6, 282.× Footnote 16 Equivalent, i.e., payment. There is no evidence that either Hume or Millar proceeded with an edition of Plutarch.× AHRC Millar Project