From some reason or other the offer was declined; perhaps, as Falconer’s biographer asserts, he was at this time (though absent for a while at Dover) living with his pretty little wife in an attic in Grub Street, toiling at his “Marine Dictionary,” and with no prospect of raising the money requisite for the partnership proposed; perhaps he had already accepted the pursership of the “Aurora” frigate. At all events, immediately after the publication of the third edition of his “Shipwreck,” which was to have contained some lines addressed to McMurray, which, in the hurry of departure were omitted, he sailed in the “Aurora” for India. The Cape was safely reached, but after leaving it the “Aurora” was never heard of again. Ship, crew, and passengers were all lost, and, through the untimely death of the author, the “Shipwreck” acquired a melancholy and almost prophetic interest, which speedily exhausted the third and many future editions. In the meantime John McMurray had commenced bookselling in earnest. It was at a time when, through Wilkes and Bute, national feeling seems to have run very high, and to be a Scotchman was hardly a recommendation to a beginner, and we find that, though McMurray headed all his trade bills with a ship, as a proud testimony to his naval antecedents, he found it convenient to drop the Scotch prefix of Mc. The following copy of a trade card issued at the time is the first record we have of this alteration of title. JOHN MURRAY (successor to Mr. SANDBY), Bookseller and Stationer, At No. 32, over-against St. Dunstan’s Church, in Fleet Street, London. Sells all new Books and Publications. Fitts up Public or Private Libraries in the neatest manner with Books of the choicest editions, the best Print, and the richest Bindings. Also, Executes East India or Foreign Commissions by an assortment of Books and Stationary suited to the Market or Purpose for which it is destined; all at the most reasonable rates. Murray found that Sandby’s connection at Fleet Street was a good one--Mr. William Sandby, indeed, could have been no ordinary bookseller, for his father was a prebendary of Gloucester, and his brother a master of Magdalen College, while he was accepted as partner in a wealthy banking firm--the trade were inclined to “back him up,” and he was able to extend his business considerably in India and Edinburgh, where he had many friends. The new edition of Lord Lyttelton’s “History” was brought out in stately quarto volumes, as befitted the rank of the author, and was completely issued in 1771-2, and, published “with a certain profit, without risque,” must have proved much more remunerative than the original “Henry II.” was to Sandby, who generously offered to pay for the author’s corrections, and who found to his cost that not a single line was left as originally printed.