Jeffrey’s decision seems to have settled the matter.  Messrs. Longman agreed to accept L1,000 for their claim of property in the title and future publication of the Edinburgh Review.  The injunction was removed, and the London publication of the Review was forthwith transferred to John Murray, 32, Fleet Street, under whose auspices No. 22 accordingly appeared.

Thus far all had gone on smoothly.  But a little cloud, at first no bigger than a man’s hand, made its appearance, and it grew and grew until it threw a dark shadow over the friendship of Constable and Murray, and eventually led to their complete separation.  This was the system of persistent drawing of accommodation bills, renewals of bills, and promissory notes.  Constable began to draw heavily upon Murray in April 1807, and the promissory notes went on accumulating until they constituted a mighty mass of paper money.  Murray’s banker cautioned him against the practice.  But repeated expostulation was of no use against the impetuous needs of Constable & Co.  Only two months after the transfer of the publication of the Review to Mr. Murray, we find him writing to “Dear Constable” as follows: 

John Murray to Mr. Archd.  Constable.

October 1, 1807.

“I should not have allowed myself time to write to you to-day, were not the occasion very urgent.  Your people have so often of late omitted to give you timely notice of the day when my acceptances fell due, that I have suffered an inconvenience too great for me to have expressed to you, had it not occurred so often that it is impossible for me to undergo the anxiety which it occasions.  A bill of yours for L200 was due yesterday, and I have been obliged to supply the means for paying it, without any notice for preparation....  I beg of you to insist upon this being regulated, as I am sure you must desire it to be, so that I may receive the cash for your bills two days at least before they are due.”

Mr. Murray then gives a list of debts of his own (including some of Constable’s) amounting to L1,073, which he has to pay in the following week.  From a cash account made out by Mr. Murray on October 3, it appears that the bill transactions with Constable had become enormous; they amounted to not less than L10,000.

The correspondence continued in the same strain, and it soon became evident that this state of things could not be allowed to continue.  Reconciliations took place from time to time, but interruptions again occurred, mostly arising from the same source—­a perpetual flood of bills and promissory notes, from one side and the other—­until Murray found it necessary to put an end to it peremptorily.  Towards the end of 1808 Messrs. Constable established at No. 10 Ludgate Street a London house for the sale of the Edinburgh Review, and the other works in which they were concerned, under the title of Constable, Hunter, Park & Hunter.  This, doubtless, tended to widen the breach between Constable and Murray, though it left the latter free to enter into arrangements for establishing a Review of his own, an object which he had already contemplated.