He was hardly more successful in his next literary attempt, ' The Earthquake,' 8 vols. 12mo, 1820, a serious novel, marked by that clumsy and gloomy strength of feeling which pervaded his dramas.
But he now hit upon the ground in which lay his strength, the deliuca tion of familiar Scottish life, in his own admirable vein of quaint, shrewd, homely, observant humour. In 1820 and 1821 his Ayrshire Legatees' appeared in successive numbers of 'Blackwood's Magazine ;' and the work was immediately published separately. Its popularity encouraged him to a series of sketches similar in character. The next of these was The Annals of the Parish,' 1821; which however had been written several years before. Then came the `Provost,' `The Steamboat,' and 'Sir Andrew Wyllie' (3 vole.), all in 1822; 'The Gathering of the West,' in 1823 ; and then in a somewhat different style, 'The Entail,' 3 vols. 1823; and two historical novels, Ringhau Gilhaize ' and 'The Spae-wife,' The reputation which Mr. Galt had acquired for activity in business, and for acquaintance with the principles and practice of commerce, now opened up for him the most brilliant prospects of his life.
Certain inhabitants of Canada gave him a commission as their agent, to prosecute their claims on the home government for losses which they had suffered during the occupation of the province by the forces of the United States. The uegociations arising out of this affair issued iu the adoption by the government of a proposal made by Mr. Galt, to sell crown lands in Upper Canada, for the purpose of defraying the claims of his constituents. The Canada Company, incor porated in 1826, undertook to purchase those lands and to colonise them. Before the company obtained its charter, Mr. Galt had gone out as one of the government commissioners for valuing the lands, and had returned to England in the summer of 1S25. Iu the autumn of 1826, when the sales had taken place, he was sent out by the Company, being at first employed in making inquiries for them and in arranging their system of management ; but afterwards as the superinteudent of their operations. Under his direction were founded the earliest of the settlements which have since risen into importance : Guelph was entirely a place of his making ; and the village of Galt received its name from him. His conduct however, although distinguished by great intelligence, energy, and enterprise, appears to have been deficient not only in commercial caution, but in deference both to the pro vincial government and to his employers at home, and he himself maintained that the colonial authorities were prejudiced against him as a democrat, by misrepresentations of the tenor of his books of travels. The governor, Sir Peregrine Maitland, sent home complaints against him; alarm was excited about the Company's affairs; and the directors superseded him. He returned to England in the spring of
1829, after a residence of about two years and a half. Soon after wards, being pressed by some of his creditors, he took the benefit of the Insolvent Debtors' Act.
After this unfortunate catastrophe, Mr. Galt, now fifty years old, did not again mako any sustained attempt at obtaining mercantile occupation. The embarrassment of his affairs forced him upon authorship for the subsistence of himself and his family, and although he was not able to produce any work comparable to the few which had gained for him his literary celebrity, the circumstances in which his exertions were made were such as to render his active industry at once meritorious and touching. Ilia earliest works iu this period were his novels of ' Lawrie Todd' and `Southenuan,' and the caustic Life of Lord By run, 1830. While writing the last of these he undertook the editorship of the Courier' newspaper, which however be very speedily resigned. His health now broke up rapidly. He had already had a alight shock of paralysis ; a second occurred soou after his withdrawal from the newspaper. But his literary exertions were never relaxed, unless for a short time, when ho attempted the formation of a ucw American Land Company.
About midsummer 1832 paralysis recurred with increased violence ; and from that time he was a confirmed invalid. He retired to Scot land, where repeated attacks of palsy made his body an utter wreck, but with surprisingly little effect on his courage or on the vigour of his intellect. His memory failed much, but his invention was active to the last. He continued to dictate his compositions long after he had lost the use of every limb. Volume after volume, so composed, and committed to the press, as he himself said, "to wrench life from famine," ought to receive, not the unfavourable judgment merited by unavoidable defects, but the compassionate forbearance duo to the manly fortitnde of the ill-fated author. Among these fruits of decay, there were, besides several novels and tales, and contributions to periodicals, two works which give, in a very incomplete and disjointed state, much information about his life and writings : ' The Auto biography of John Galt,' 2 vole. 8vo, 1833; and The Literary Life and Anse...Mania of John Galt,' 3 vole. 12mo, 1834.
Mr. Galt died at Greenock on the 11th of April 1839, whcu he bad almost completed his sixtieth year, and a few days after he had suffered his fourteenth stroke of palsy. The list of his writings, as given by himself (perhaps incompletely, and omitting many papers furnished to periodicals), is very large. His novels alone are twenty four in number, making about fifty volumes ; his dramas are hardly less numerous ; his biographical and miscellaneous works are even more so.