His movements, if not the causes of them, can be followed easily enough. Between 1830 and his departure for America in 1837, he was successively at Sussex House, Hammersmith; at Langham, in Norfolk; then back in London; then in Brighton; then in sudden haste off to Brussels; and from thence to Lausanne. “Frank Mildmay; or, The Naval Officer,” appeared in 1829. Nine months later, when he was fixed on shore, came out the “King’s Own.” In 1830 he acquired a thousand acres of land in Norfolk, which remained in his possession till his death. He exchanged Sussex House for it, but how Sussex House was got we are not told. It cannot have been bought either out of prize money, or the proceeds of the two books he had published already, although his prices were remarkably good for a beginner. Four hundred pounds is the sum said to have been given by Colburn for “Frank Mildmay”--a good deal more than the most sanguine of novices would expect to receive from the most generous of publishers for a first book in these days. Certainly, in 1830, Marryat was working as a man works who has reasons for making all the money he can. He was contributing to the _Metropolitan Magazine_, and receiving his sixteen pounds a sheet--which, again, is good magazine pay. It did not take him long to acquire a shrewd idea how to deal with publishers, and a distinct understanding of the due privileges of an editor. His knowledge of these important matters is shown conclusively in a letter to Bentley, setting forth the terms on which he would be prepared to edit a new nautical magazine, a proposed imitation of, or rather rival to, the _United Service Journal_.
“My terms,” he says, with the confidence of a man who knew the market, and his own value in it, “would be as follows: The sole control of the work, for when I do my best I must be despotic or I shall not succeed; to be paid for all my writings at the price I received in the _Metropolitan_, sixteen guineas per sheet. The editorship I would then take at £400 per annum until the end of the first year, when, if the work succeeded, I should expect an addition of £100, and if it continued profitable, another £100, so as to raise the _final_ pay of the editor to £600 per annum. The stipulations may be talked over afterwards. To choose my sub-editor is indispensable. He must be a nautical man.” Marryat had learnt plainly how necessary it is to be captain of your own ship--and withal he quite understood how to launch the new kind of craft he was about to sail. “The first number must be most carefully got up, to insure success, and the papers ought now to be in preparation. You must, therefore, take but few days to decide, as I tell you honestly I have reason to expect the offer from another quarter, who are now talking the matter over, and I must be allowed to consider myself as unpledged to you after a short time.”