R. B.
CXCIV.—To MR. PETER MILLER, JUN., OF DALSWINION.
DUMFRIES, Nov. 1794.
Dear Sir,—Your offer is indeed truly generous, and sincerely do I thank you for it; but in my present situation, I find that I dare not accept it. You well know my political sentiments; and were I an insular individual, unconnected with a wife and a family of children, with the most fervid enthusiasm I would have volunteered my services; I then could and would have despised all consequences that might have ensued.
My prospect in the Excise is something; at least, it is— encumbered as I am with the welfare, the very existence, of near half-a-score of helpless individuals—what I dare not sport with.
In the meantime, they are most welcome to my Ode; only, let them insert it as a thing they have met with by accident and unknown to me. Nay, if Mr. Perry, whose honour, after your character of him, I cannot doubt, if he will give me an address and channel by which anything will come safe from those spies with which he may be certain that his correspondence is beset, I will now and then send him any bagatelle that I may write. In the present hurry of Europe, nothing but news and politics will be regarded; but against the days of peace, which Heaven send soon, my little assistance may perhaps fill up an idle column of a newspaper. I have long had it in my head to try my hand in the way of little prose essays, which I propose sending into the world through the medium of some newspaper; and should these be worth his while, to these Mr. Perry shall be welcome; and all my reward shall be, his treating me with his paper, which, by-the-by, to anybody who has the least relish for wit, is a high treat indeed.
With the most grateful esteem, I am ever, Dear Sir,
R. B.
[a/][131] He had offered Burns a post on the staff of The Morning Chronicle, of which newspaper Mr. Perry was proprietor.