TO CAPTAIN ——.
[This excellent letter, obtained from Stewart of Dalguise, is copied from my kind friend Chambers’s collection of Scottish songs.]
Dumfries, 5th December, 1793.
Sir,
Heated as I was with wine yesternight, I was perhaps rather seemingly impertinent in my anxious wish to be honoured with your acquaintance. You will forgive it: it was the impulse of heart-felt respect. “He is the father of the Scottish county reform, and is a man who does honour to the business, at the same time that the business does honour to him,” said my worthy friend Glenriddel to somebody by me who was talking of your coming to this county with your corps. “Then,” I said, “I have a woman’s longing to take him by the hand, and say to him, ‘Sir, I honour you as a man to whom the interests of humanity are dear, and as a patriot to whom the rights of your country are sacred.’”
In times like these, Sir, when our commoners are barely able by the glimmer of their own twilight understandings to scrawl a frank, and when lords are what gentlemen would be ashamed to be, to whom shall a sinking country call for help? To the independent country gentleman. To him who has too deep a stake in his country not to be in earnest for her welfare; and who in the honest pride of a man can view with equal contempt the insolence of office and the allurements of corruption.
I mentioned to you a Scots ode or song I had lately composed, and which I think has some merit. Allow me to enclose it. When I fall in with you at the theatre, I shall be glad to have your opinion of it. Accept it, Sir, as a very humble but most sincere tribute of respect from a man, who, dear as he prizes poetic fame, yet holds dearer an independent mind.
I have the honour to be,
R. B.