TO MR. ALEXANDER FINDLATER,
SUPERVISOR OF EXCISE, DUMFRIES.
[The person to whom this letter is addressed, is the same who lately denied that Burns was harshly used by the Board of Excise: but those, and they are many, who believe what the poet wrote to Erskine, of Mar, cannot agree with Mr. Findlater.]
Sir,
Enclosed are the two schemes. I would not have troubled you with the collector’s one, but for suspicion lest it be not right. Mr. Erskine promised me to make it right, if you will have the goodness to show him how. As I have no copy of the scheme for myself, and the alterations being very considerable from what it was formerly, I hope that I shall have access to this scheme I send you, when I come to face up my new books. So much for schemes.—And that no scheme to betray a friend, or mislead a stranger; to seduce a young girl, or rob a hen-roost; to subvert liberty, or bribe an exciseman; to disturb the general assembly, or annoy a gossipping; to overthrow the credit of orthodoxy, or the authority of old songs; to oppose your wishes, or frustrate my hopes—may prosper—is the sincere wish and prayer of
R. B.