I’ll be in Dumfries the morn gif the beast be to the fore, and the branks bide hale.
Gude be wi’ you, Willie! Amen!
R. B.
LXIV.
TO MR. JAMES SMITH,
at Miller and Smith’s Office, Linlithgow.
[Burns, it seems by this letter, had still a belief that he would be obliged to try his fortune in the West Indies: he soon saw how hollow all the hopes were, which had been formed by his friends of “pension, post or place,” in his native land.]
Mauchline, 11th June, 1787.
My ever dear Sir,