For a man of his rank and education the possible choices open in 1786 were limited. He could continue as a farmer; he could attempt to support himself by writing, or he could seek a salaried position at home or in the colonies. Each alternative had its drawbacks. By the beginning of 1786 his reputation in the community was such that he could scarcely continue the partnership at Mossgiel, but he lacked the capital necessary for setting up independently elsewhere. The hope of any large financial returns from his poetry seemed too fantastic for consideration; he lacked the training for journalism or hackwork when Grub Street was crowded with penniless university men. There remained the chance of some salaried position. Yet even if he had been temperamentally fitted for a commercial job he was by this time too old. Merchants’ clerks began their apprenticeship as boys in their teens. Burns was twenty-seven. A post in the Excise Service might be feasible but was not easy to get. All government jobs went by favour, and despite the unpopularity of the service among the people at large the number of aspirants so far exceeded the available places that the endorsement of some influential person was almost essential. The same thing was true of India, where the East India Company’s monopoly gave patronage as large a part as it had in the government services. The United States, not yet united, were in economic chaos; Canada was undeveloped. There remained the West Indies, then at the height of a prosperity built on slave labour, where independent planters with Scottish connexions were numerous enough to make it possible for a Scotsman with the necessary introductions to secure some sort of work. The story of Burns’s struggle for livelihood is the story of his efforts in each of the four possibilities open to him.