Still looking at my Scroggie relations and I can say that George Scroggie was never a miller and it is most unlikely he went to sea.

From his teenage years c.1840 to his early 30's he was a farm labourer. He became a book deliverer in the late 1850s possibly as a result of his foray into writing.

In the 1860s he moved to England as a Wesleyan missionary and seems to have stayed there until at least 1901.

It was his son George (born 1848) who become a miller, a job he stayed at till 1899 when a sack of meal dropped on his head and killed him. Then HIS son george (born 1871) took over as miller.