Launching a new political-literary journal was a tactical component in each of Scott's and Murray's independently conceived if remarkably compatible business and personal strategies. Over the coming months the two men's conflicting perceptions of who originated the plan conditioned their relationship with Gifford and with each other. Because Murray placed the Ashiestiel conference in a continuum that stretched back to September 1807 and beyond, he regarded himself as the prime mover of events. Scott considered the Ashiestiel meeting as a commencement, his post-Ashiestiel activities as first steps, and therefore himself as the primum mobile.

Scott knew that Murray's design in coming north was to obtain his business and he understood that the publisher was using the Quarterly Review project as his calling card, yet he saw himself as having been given a commission not by Murray but by high politicos who looked to him for decisive action. In the following weeks he conducted himself accordingly, mostly without reference to the publisher. Murray, on the other hand, saw himself as a benign Svengali cleverly manipulating Scott; consequently, he became alarmed when the journal's principals acted without regard to his opinions or interests. Though Murray was sensible enough not to mention most of them, he had a long list of duties he expected Scott to fulfil: that he would take the editorship, contribute articles, suggest a marketing strategy, recruit contributors from among his scribbling friends, secure Scottish political sponsorship, inspire confidence that the game was worth the risk, sever his relationship with Constable, strike a crippling blow to the Edinburgh by withdrawing his subscription, and act as the journal's head of state. For a season, Scott eventually undertook all of these tasks, even the first, as he essentially co-edited the journal's inaugural number. While Murray was therefore happy to use Scott and was willing to be used by him in turn, he wished not to be taken for granted by his co-projectors.

As Murray's Ashiestiel visit drew to a close, the conspirators agreed that a practical step toward establishing the Quarterly would be for Scott to travel to London. There he would meet the journal's political patrons, Canning in particular, and ‘urge some very formidable plan into activity’.