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TO MR. ROBERT AINSLIE
_A gauger_
Ellisland, 1 _Nov_. 1789.
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I had written you long ere now, could I have guessed where to find
you, for I am sure you have more good sense than to waste the precious
days of vacation time in the dirt of business and Edinburgh. Wherever
you are, God bless you, and lead you not into temptation, but deliver
you from evil!
I do not know if I have informed you that I am now appointed to an
excise division, in the middle of which my house and farm lie. In this
I was extremely lucky. Without ever having been an expectant, as they
call their journeymen excisemen, I was directly planted down to all
intents and purposes an officer of excise; there to flourish and bring
forth fruits--worthy of repentance.
I know not how the word exciseman, or still more opprobrious, gauger,
will sound in your ears. I too have seen the day when my auditory
nerves would have felt very delicately on this subject; but a wife
and children are things which have a wonderful power in blunting these
kind of sensations. Fifty pounds a year for life, and a provision for
widows and orphans, you will allow is no bad settlement for a _poet_.
For the ignominy of the profession, I have the encouragement which
I once heard a recruiting sergeant give to a numerous, if not a
respectable audience, in the streets of Kilmarnock.--'Gentlemen,
for your further and better encouragement, I can assure you that
our regiment is the most blackguard corps under the crown, and
consequently with us an honest fellow has the surest chance for
preferment.
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