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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Defoe, on his first arrival in Edinburgh in 1706 to serve his master Harley in the Union cause, selected Mrs. Agnes Campbell Anderson as his main Scottish printer. His choice of Mrs. Anderson should occasion no surprise; for in 1706 she had the largest printing establishment in the city; she was “printer to the good toun and college of the samen,” and she still held the Royal prerogative granted to her deceased husband Andrew Anderson in 1671. So far as I have been able to determine, Mrs. Anderson was Defoe's sole Scottish printer up to 1710 when he began to place some of his work with John Moncur. As is now fairly well known, Defoe's Review was printed in Edinburgh (1709–10) by Mrs. Anderson and off and on, say, to 1713 she probably printed an occasional pamphlet for him. It is certain that as late as 1712 she printed Defoe's A Seasonable Warning against the Insinuations of Papists and Jacobites. Being a Letter from a Gentleman at the Court of Hanover. In addition to the Edinburgh edition of the Review, James Chalmers credited Mrs. Anderson with the printing of ten of Defoe's writings published between 1706 and 1710. Of this number all save one, have been accredited to Defoe by several Defoe scholars including Dr. Henry Clinton Hutchins, the latest and one of the most reliable of Defoe bibliographers.
1 W. J. Couper, Mrs. Anderson and the Royal Prerogative in Printing (The Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow, 1918), p. 23.
2 Chalmers Collections on Scottish Printing, Edin. Univ. Lib., Laing Mss., ii, 452. These Collections compiled by George Chalmers, with the assistance of his nephew, James Chalmers, for a projected work on the History of Printing in Scotland comprise two sets of manuscripts, one in the handwriting of Chalmers himself and the other in that of his nephew. Since the two sets are not in every instance identical—cf. William Beattie, A Handlist of Works from the Press of John Wreittoun at Edinburgh, 1642—C. 1639, Edinburgh Bibliographical Society Transactions, Vol. ii, Pt. 2, Session 1939–40 [Edinburgh, 1941, p. 997]—hereafter in this paper I use the designation Chalmers I for the Collections of George Chalmers and Chalmers II for those of James Chalmers.
3 Chalmers I, ii, 452.
4 Introduction, Defoe's Review, ed. A. W. Secord (New York: Facsimile Text Society, 1938), i, xlii–xliii.
5 Memorial for Mr. Watson Printer, 1713, Watson's Preface to the History of Printing 1713, ed. W. J. Couper (Edinburgh, 1913), p. 76.
6 Chalmers II, Nat. Lib. Scot. Adv. Ms. 17. I. 16.
7 James Chalmers (ibid.) lists the work as follows: New Fashioned Advice about Choosing a New Parliament. Being taken out of Daniel Defoe's Reviews published at London. Edinburgh. Printed by the Heirs and Successors of Andrew Anderson, 1708. 4°, pp. 8. George Chalmers did not include this pamphlet in his bibliography of Defoe's works appended to his revised Life of Daniel Defoe (London, 1790). The fact that he did not include it even in his list of doubtfulascriptions suggests that in 1790 either he knew of the work and was convinced that it was not Defoe's or he had no opportunity (or insufficient opportunity) to examine it. Since the entry appears in Chalmers II, one may wonder whether George Chalmers had knowledge of it before his death in 1825 and if so was he satisfied that it was Defoe's work. Of course it may well be that both of the knew the pamphlet only by title. In the autumn of 1938 there was no copy of it in the National Library of Scotland, and thus far I have failed to locate it elsewhere.
8 The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature (London, 1940), ii, 499–500.
9 Introduction, Defoe's Review, op. cit., p. xxii.
10 Ibid., p. xliii.
11 Ibid., p. xxxix.
12 Chalmers I, op. cit.
13 Couper, op. cit., p. 25.
14 Defoe talked with Harley on Edinburgh affairs on the evening of October 10, 1710; see Portland Mss., iv (London, 1897), 612.
15 Memorial for Mr. Watson Printer, 1713, op. cit., pp. 75–76.
16 Ibid., p. 73.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid., p. 75.
19 A Brief Reply to the Letter from Edinburgh relating to the case of Mrs. Anderson, her Majesty's Printer in Scotland. (There is a copy in the National Library of Scotland.) James Chalmers adds this note to his entry: “No name of place or printer and no date but it was obviously printed at Mrs. Anderson's press in 1711” (Chalmers II, op. cit.). It is quite clear from the title and the contents of the above pamphlet that Mrs. Anderson was not replying to Watson's Memorial (1713) but to an earlier pamphlet, now presumably inaccessible, dealing with much the same matter which Watson later included in the Memorial. The title of Watson's earlier pamphlet as recorded by James Chalmers (Chalmers II, op. cit.), is as follows: A Letter from a Gentleman of Edinburgh to his Friend in London to defend the Proceedings of Mr. Freebairn and his Confederates in their Insults and Abuses of Mrs. Anderson. In a note appended to the entry of this pamphlet, James Chalmers states: “The pamphlet was distributed at London while Freebairn was soliciting the above grant to expose the conduct of Mrs. Anderson and to silence the opposition” (Chalmers II, op. cit.). The pamphlet must have been published in September or October, 1711, since Watson in the Memorial (p. 73), specifically states that Freebairn was in London in October, 1711.
20 Watson's Preface to the History of Printing, 1713, ed. W. J. Couper (Edinburgh, 1913), p. 49.
21 Chalmers II, op. cit.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid.
24 Ibid.
25 The Edinburgh Courant, No. 1, March 23, 1710.
26 A Reproof to Mr. Clark and a Brief Vindication of Mr. De Foe. Edinburgh. Printed and sold by John Moncur at the Foot of the Bull's Close foreagainst the Tron. Anno. 1710.
27 George Chalmers adds this note: “This professes to have been written by a friend of Defoe, but was probably written by himself” (Chalmers I, op. cit.). In a forthcoming note I discuss the question of authorship.
28 James Sutherland, Defoe (Philadelphia and New York, 1938), p. 183.
29 Henry R. Plommer, A Dictionary of Printers and Booksellers Who Were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1688 to 1725 (Oxford, 1922), p. 209.
30 The name of John Moncur appears as printer on the issues beginning with No. 17, Jan. 31, 1710, and extending through to No. 59, May 13, 1710; beginning with the issue. No. 60, May 15, 1710, the name of James Reid, Jr., replaces that of John Moncur. W. J. Couper has the following note: “Moncur occasionally worked with the Reids. He produced several of the Edinburgh newspapers of the time” (Watson's Preface, op. cit., note 38, p. 69).
31 W. J. Couper, The Edinburgh Periodical Press (Stirling, 1908), i, 241.
32, 33 W. J. Couper (ibid.) has pointed out that “sometimes when matter exceeded space at disposal a postscript of a single folio page was issued.” Though I have failed to locate a copy of either of these Postscripts, I offer the following reasons as a basis for the belief that they were probably written by Defoe: (1) The Scots Postman was frequently compelled to use the services of outside journalists (The Scots Postman, or New Edinburgh Gazette, Tuesday, December 27, 1709); (2) these Postscripts written from London and dispatched to Scotland shortly after the occurrence of the events which they presumably describe point to the working habits of an exerienced journalist; (3) Defoe was in London during the exciting phases of the Sacheverell incident and had full knowledge of the events connected with it as well as their larger implications; (4) of all the journalists on the scene, Defoe, because of his interest in and knowledge of the affair and because of his established contacts with the Scots Postman, was the one most likely to have written the Postscripts.
34 W. J. Couper, The Edinburgh Periodical Press, op. cit., p. 240.
35 Ibid., p. 241.
36 The Newcastle Gazette: or Northern Courant, Being an Impartial Account of Remarkable Transactions Foreign and Domestic. Fom Saturday December 23 to Monday December 25, 1710. According to Richard Welford (see below) the above mentioned issue now in the possession of the National Library of Scotland is the only extant copy.
37 Richard Welford, Early Newcastle Typography (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1907), p. 17.
38 Miscellaneous Letters of the Eighteenth Century, Nat. Lib. Scot., Adv. Ms. 19. 1. 39.
39 The reference is almost certainly to Alexander Cunningham. See my note, “Defoe and the Edinburgh Society for the Reformation of Manners,” RES, xvi (July, 1940), 306–312.
40 The British Vision: or Isaac Bickerstaff. Sen. Being Twelve Prophecies for the Year 1711 (1711).
41 Adam Brown, elected Lord Provost of Edinburgh on September 30, 1710. See Defoe's Letter to Harley, Portland Mss., op. cit.; and my note cited in n. 39.