© University of Edinburgh and the Arts & Humanities Research Council
Millar, aged only twenty when he wrote this letter, displays some of the assurance which enabled him soon after to take over his apprentice master’s London shop. He not only communicates the latest news about a political crisis, but reveals his own active role in the events.
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R: Sr
Y James McEuen (also M’Euen), burgess of Edinburgh and Glasgow, bookseller from c.1714 to 1732, and friend of the minister and historian Robert Wodrow. McEuen took on (“bound”) Millar as an apprentice for a one-time “binding” fee of £40 in 1720. McEuen founded the first successful Scottish newspaper of the period, the thrice-weekly Isaac Watts (1674–1728), John Clarke (1687–1734), Sir John Maxwell of Nether Pollok (1648–1732), the greatest landowner in Renfrewshire, where Millar’s father Robert and Wodrow were ministers in the Church of Scotland. He was a judge (or Lord of Session) with a residence in Edinburgh, and oversaw both Wodrow’s appointment as minister at Eastwood in 1703 and Robert Millar’s appointment at Paisley in 1709. As Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow (1691–1717), Maxwell’s tenure overlapped with Wodrow’s and Millar’s studies there. John Strype (1643–1737), like Wodrow, was a nonconformist clergyman and historian. Wodrow was ordering Strype’s This was The This was rs of ye 14th Curt r Mac. Euent, Edinburgh Evening Courant, which he edited and sold from 1718 to 1732; he was also the first Scottish bookseller to establish a satellite shop in London, on its famous Strand, in the City. Millar would take over McEuen’s London shop and sign (depicting the face of George Buchanan, sixteenth-century Scottish historian) by 1726.r desire has left e trinity 2d partSermons on Various Subjects (London: John Clark, 1721). Like Wodrow, Watts was a nonconformist minister who was persecuted for his views, which he developed in a number of publications that remained in print throughout the eighteenth century.t ye Religion of NatureAn Examination of the Notion of Moral Good and Evil, advanced in a late book, entitled, The religion of Nature delineated. (London: A. Bettesworth, 1725). This volume advocates a “rational” theory of the trinity for which Wodrow’s friend, John Simson, was disciplined for teaching at the University of Glasgow. Annals of the Reformation and Establishment of Religion, and other various Occurrences in the Church of England during the first Twelve Years of Queen Elizabeth’s Happy Reign (London: Thomas Edlin, 1709). A second and expanded edition was printed in 1725.m not at present but I shall Comission ym this night, as also yt The Monthly Catalogue, or, General register of books … printed or reprinted either at London or the two universities, printed by London bookseller John Wilford (fl. 1706–47) from March 1723 to December 1729. c you mention in yrs & when they come to hand shall let you know — As to sending you a list of new books it wou’d be endless and besides seeing yt you get ye Monthly Catalogue was by far the most exhaustive of the available lists of newly published books.e new ones inserted in ym, however I have wt ye above two books sent you c we are selling nowe same method yt we did when you was in at ye Assembly)A Catalogue of valuable and curious books which will be sold By Mr James McEuen bookseller 11 May 1725. The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland was held in Edinburgh from 6 to 19 May. Wodrow’s regular letters to his wife, which report on the business of the Assembly, survive in the National Library of Scotland.t I’ll send you ym as Cheap as possible, and besides I could engage ye prices you’l like yr self.
Upon y The Edinburgh Town Council comprised men drawn from two groups, magistrates and baillies (tradesmen); as a group, they were described informally as the “town magistrates”. i.e., about. The riots of 25–26 June and associated events, following the imposition of the malt tax on 24 June. This was printed in the McEuen had been printer, editor, and principal bookseller of George Drummond (1687–1766), merchant, former Commissioner of Excise, and a member of the Edinburgh Town Council since 1718. After his election to the top post of Lord Provost on 5 October, Drummond will become one of the most important urban administrators in British history. The Town Council held legal authority to license all printing within its jurisdiction; when McEuen received permission to print his The port of Leith, nearly 2 miles from Edinburgh, which was not within the jurisdiction of the Town Council. The father of John Wilson, one of Millar’s fellow apprentices under McEuen, was a printer in Leith. i.e., said among themselves. i.e., that these “gentlemen” had been bribed to perform these tasks, and suggesting that since Millar was short of pay, he would be persuaded to accept Drummond’s orders, too.e Magistrats of re Caledonian MercuryThe Caledonian Mercury, like its competitor The Edinburgh Evening Courant, was published thrice weekly from 1720. It was less prestigious than the Courant, largely because it was sold by a politically-motivated bookseller and because its editors did not include recent news from elsewhere in Britain and Europe. t Affair at r McEuenhe had ye inclosedCaledonian Mercury 819 (29 June 1725): 5396. e Magistrats of The Edinburgh Evening Courant since 1718. c he was going to do, but ye Magistrats here, hearing of it, send to him Edinburgh Evening Courant, he had agreed “to answer the Magistrats and Councill for the time being for what he shall print and publish, and before publication to give ane coppie of his Print to the Magistrats.” tout his knowledge I undertook to print it by itself as I did ye inclosed, after publishing ym on ye Streets here, they m and took ym from ye ladies, however notwtstanding I published ym at e Coffee houses here, publickly and they did not stop ym, but in ye interim several Gentlemen came to me and told yt they heard, yt I was to be put in Prison &:c:, so I desired ym if they pleased to aquant e Magistrats yt I had good vouchers for what I had done & thought it hard yt both Parties could not be heard, and told some of ymselvest 5£ ane hour was good pay & being scarce of money would be e same,t day to this no body has troubled me, but indeed I believe they wou’d done it if they could —
Which wt dutyfull respects to r selfrs Woodrow
D: Sr
Yr Oblidged & Humble Servt
The Reverend
r Robt Woodrow
Minr of ye Gospel at
July 15 1725