CCCXXVII.
TO THE HON. PROVOST, BAILIES, AND
TOWN COUNCIL OF DUMFRIES.
[The Provost and Bailies complied at once with the modest request of the poet: both Jackson and Staig, who were heads of the town by turns, were men of taste and feeling.]
Gentlemen,
The literary taste and liberal spirit of your good town has so ably filled the various departments of your schools, as to make it a very great object for a parent to have his children educated in them. Still, to me, a stranger, with my large family, and very stinted income, to give my young ones that education I wish, at the high fees which a stranger pays, will bear hard upon me.
Some years ago your good town did me the honour of making me an honorary burgess.—Will you allow me to request that this mark of distinction may extend so far, as to put me on a footing of a real freeman of the town, in the schools?
If you are so very kind as to grant my request, it will certainly be a constant incentive to me to strain every nerve where I can officially serve you; and will, if possible, increase that grateful respect with which I have the honour to be,
Gentlemen,
Your devoted humble servant,