No More Learning

I shall only trouble you with a few particulars relative to the
wretched state of this country. Our markets are exceedingly high;
oatmeal 17d. and 18d. per peck, and not to be gotten even at that
price. We have indeed been pretty well supplied with quantities of
white peas from England and elsewhere, but that resource is likely to
fail us, and what will become of us then, particularly the very
poorest sort, Heaven only knows. This country, till of late, was
flourishing incredibly in the manufacture of silk, lawn, and
carpet-weaving; and we are still carrying on a good deal in that way,
but much reduced from what it was. We had also a fine trade in the
shoe way, but now entirely ruined, and hundreds driven to a starving
condition on account of it. Farming is also at a very low ebb with us.
Our lands, generally speaking, are mountainous and barren; and our
landholders, full of ideas of farming gathered from the English and
the Lothians, and other rich soils in Scotland, make no allowance for
the odds of the quality of land, and consequently stretch us much
beyond what in the event we will be found able to pay. We are also
much at a loss for want of proper methods in our improvements of
farming. Necessity compels us to leave our old schemes, and few of us
have opportunities of being well informed in new ones. In short, my
dear Sir, since the unfortunate beginning of this American war, and
its as unfortunate conclusion, this country has been, and still is,
decaying very fast. Even in higher life, a couple of our Ayrshire
noblemen, and the major part of our knights and squires, are all
insolvent. A miserable job of a Douglas, Heron, and Co. 's bank, which
no doubt you heard of, has undone numbers of them; and imitating
English and French, and other foreign luxuries and fopperies, has
ruined as many more.
There is a great trade of smuggling carried on
along our coasts, which, however destructive to the interests of the
kingdom at large, certainly enriches this corner of it, but too often
at the expense of our morals. However, it enables individuals to make,
at least for a time, a splendid appearance; but Fortune, as is usual
with her when she is uncommonly lavish of her favours, is generally
even with them at the last; and happy were it for numbers of them if
she would leave them no worse than when she found them.

My mother sends you a small present of a cheese, 'tis but a very
little one, as our last year's stock is sold off; but if you could fix
on any correspondent in Edinburgh or Glasgow, we would send you a
proper one in the season. Mrs. Black promises to take the cheese under
her care so far, and then to send it to you by the Stirling carrier.

I shall conclude this long letter with assuring you that I shall be
very happy to hear from you, or any of our friends in your country,
when opportunity serves.

My father sends you, probably for the last time in this world, his
warmest wishes for your welfare and happiness; and my mother and the
rest of the family desire to enclose their kind compliments to you,
Mrs. Burness, and the rest of your family, along with those of,

Dear Sir,

Your affectionate Cousin,

R. B.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 143: This gentleman (the son of an elder brother of my
father's), when he was very young, lost his father, and having
discovered in his father's repositories some of my father's letters, he
requested that the correspondence might be renewed. My father continued
till the last year of his life to correspond with his nephew, and it was
afterwards kept up by my brother. Extracts from some of my brother's
letters to his cousin are introduced, for the purpose of exhibiting the
poet before he had attracted the notice of the public, and in his
domestic family relations afterwards. --GILBERT BURNS. ]

* * * * *




IV.


TO MISS E.

[The name of the lady to whom this and the three succeeding letters
were addressed, seems to have been known to Dr.