Mr. Colman replied in a pleasant letter, thanking Mr. Murray for his liberal offer.  The copyright, however, had been sold to the proprietor of the theatre, and Mr. Murray was disappointed in this, his first independent venture in business.

The times were very bad.  Money was difficult to be had on any terms, and Mr. Murray had a hard task to call in the money due to Murray & Highley, as well as to collect the sums due to himself.

Mr. Joseph Hume, not yet the scrupulous financier which he grew to be, among others, was not very prompt in settling his accounts; and Mr. Murray wrote to him, on July 11, 1804: 

“On the other side is a list of books (amount L92 8s. 6d.), containing all those for which you did me the favour to write:  and I trust that they will reach you safely....  If in future you could so arrange that my account should be paid by some house in town within six months after the goods are shipped, I shall be perfectly satisfied, and shall execute your orders with much more despatch and pleasure.  I mention this, not from any apprehension of not being paid, but because my circumstances will not permit me to give so large an extent of credit.  It affords me great pleasure to hear of your advancement; and I trust that your health will enable you to enjoy all the success to which your talents entitle you.”

He was, for the same reason, under the necessity of declining to publish several new works offered to him, especially those dealing with medical and poetical subjects.

Mr. Archibald Constable of Edinburgh, and Messrs. Bell & Bradfute, Mr. Murray’s agents in Edinburgh, were also communicated with as to the settlement of their accounts with Murray & Highley.  “I expected,” he said, “to have been able to pay my respects to you both this summer [1803], but my military duties, and the serious aspect of the times, oblige me to remain at home.”  It was the time of a patriotic volunteer movement, and Mr. Murray was enrolled as an ensign in the 3rd Regiment of Royal London Volunteers.

It cannot now be ascertained what was the origin of the acquaintance between the D’Israeli and Murray families, but it was of old standing.  The first John Murray published the first volumes of Isaac D’Israeli’s “Curiosities of Literature” (1791), and though no correspondence between them has been preserved, we find frequent mention of the founder of the house in Isaac D’Israeli’s letters to John Murray the Second.  His experiences are held up for his son’s guidance, as for example, when Isaac, urging the young publisher to support some petition to the East India Company, writes, “It was a ground your father trod, and I suppose that connection cannot do you any harm”; or again, when dissuading him from undertaking some work submitted to him, “You can mention to Mr. Harley the fate of Professor Musaeus’ ‘Popular Tales,’ which never sold, and how much your father was disappointed.”  On another occasion we find D’Israeli, in 1809, inviting his publisher to pay a visit to a yet older generation, “to my father, who will be very glad to see you at Margate.”