---
title: "To Mr. James Smith"
author: "Robert Burns"
recipient: "Mr. James Smith"
letter_number: 64
roman: "LXIV"
date: "11 June 1787"
place: "Mauchline"
source: "Project Gutenberg #18500 — The Complete Works of Robert Burns (ed. Allan Cunningham)"
editor: "Allan Cunningham"
source_url: "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/18500/pg18500.txt"
canonical_url: "https://robert-burns.com/letters/064-to-james-smith/"
---

# To Mr. James Smith

## Editor's note
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.

— Allan Cunningham

## Letter
MY EVER DEAR SIR,

I date this from Mauchline, where I arrived on Friday even last. I slept at John Dow's, and called for my daughter. Mr. Hamilton and your family; your mother, sister, and brother; my quondam Eliza, &c., all well. If anything had been wanting to disgust me completely at Armour's family, their mean, servile compliance would have done it.

Give me a spirit like my favourite hero, Milton's Satan:

Hail, horrors! hail, Infernal world! and thou proufoundest hell, Receive thy new possessor! he who brings A mind not be chang'd by _place_ or _time_!

I cannot settle to my mind.—Farming, the only thing of which I know anything, and heaven above knows but little do I understand of that, I cannot, dare not risk on farms as they are. If I do not fix I will go for Jamaica. Should I stay in an unsettled state at home, I would only dissipate my little fortune, and ruin what I intend shall compensate my little ones, for the stigma I have brought on their names.

I shall write you more at large soon; as this letter costs you no postage, if it be worth reading you cannot complain of your pennyworth.

I am ever, my dear Sir,

Yours,

R. B.

P.S. The cloot has unfortunately broke, but I have provided a fine buffalo-horn, on which I am going to affix the same cipher which you will remember was on the lid of the cloot.

---

Source: [Project Gutenberg #18500 — The Complete Works of Robert Burns (ed. Allan Cunningham)](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/18500/pg18500.txt), edited by Allan Cunningham  
Canonical HTML: https://robert-burns.com/letters/064-to-james-smith/