The first number of the Quarterly Review was finally ready for publication at the end of February 1809. Murray hoped to have it appear at the same time in London and Edinburgh, but it was a forlorn hope. On 28 February, Ballantyne received printed sheets for Scott and himself. That same day, Murray sent 200 copies to his Edinburgh partners by coach, far fewer than the 650 he had promised. With unspecified problems in the printer's shop continuing to delay the production of Ballantyne's quota, Murray reluctantly decided to proceed with his London sale ahead of the journal's appearance in Scotland.

Printed by Charles Roworth of Bell-yard, Temple Bar, the number, eventually a run of 3,000, was published in London on Tuesday 1 March 1809; it was not sold in Scotland until 6 March, and then only in limited numbers. (By some unidentified agency, Constable and Jeffrey obtained a copy on 3 March.) The journal was expensive, 5 shillings, the equivalent of about £10 in today's values. Scott was ecstatic when he saw his advance copy. ‘I have just one second to say’, John Ballantyne reported to Murray, ‘that I supped with Mr Scott last night. He is transported with the Review. “Capital – most capital!” burst from him again and again.’ In Scotland, the journal sold rapidly. Only two hours after he opened his shop, John Ballantyne had cleared away all but twenty-eight of the 200 copies he had on hand. By 8 March, he had sold his whole supply and he had orders for fifty more.

James Ballantyne thought well of most of the articles in the number, but – Scott's initial enthusiasm aside – his was a sycophantic and minority view. The other co-founders considered the issue serviceable at best and all were dissatisfied with how ploddingly it had come together under Gifford's putative supervision. Bedford reflected an opinion generally held, that Ellis's important article on Spain beat Brougham's ‘Don Pedro Cevallos’ on points but that its prose was uninspiring. ‘Against such attacks as that’, he told Southey, ‘the Edinburghers need not put on mail’.