To Mr. James Smith

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.