Until 1808 Raeburn's career had been one unbroken success, but in that year, following upon the failure of his son, financial disaster overtook him. The firm of "Henry Raeburn and Company, merchants, Shore, Leith," consisted of Henry Raeburn, Junior, and James Philip Inglis, who had married Anne Leslie, the artist's step-daughter, but neither the _Edinburgh Gazette_ nor the local Directory states the nature of their business. In the proceedings in connection with Raeburn's own bankruptcy, however, he is described as "portrait-painter and underwriter." What underwriter exactly means is uncertain, but it may be that the son was a marine-insurance broker, that Raeburn himself took marine-insurance risks. In any case his ruin seemed complete. Not only did he lose all his savings but he had even to sell the York Place studio, of which he was afterwards only tenant. He failed, paid a composition, and, two years later, proposed settling in London. By those of his biographers who have noticed it at all, this failure and the contemplated removal south have been very closely associated. But a more careful examination of the whole circumstances makes such an assumption rather doubtful. Alexander Cunningham, in a letter written on 16th February 1808, tells a correspondent--"I had a walk of three hours on Sunday with my worthy friend, Raeburn. He had realised nearly £17,000, which is all gone. He has offered a small composition, which he is in hopes will be accepted. He quits this to try his fate in London, which I trust in God will be successful. While I write this I feel the tear start." So far the connection is evident enough. But although the artist received his discharge in June of the same year,[2] it was not until two years later that he took active steps towards carrying out his idea.[3] The time was highly propitious. Hoppner had just died (23rd January 1810), and Wilkie records in his journal (March 2nd) that he had heard that that artist's house was to be taken for Raeburn. Lawrence was now without a rival in the metropolis, and Raeburn's talent was of a kind which would soon have commanded attention there. The opening was obvious, but Raeburn's reception by the gentlemen of the Royal Academy, when he visited London in May, was not very cordial, and fortunately for Scotland, if not for himself, he was persuaded to remain in Edinburgh. From then onward the fates were kind. To quote his own words, written in 1822, "my business, though it may fall off, cannot admit of enlargement."