The truth was that he was already wavering. The enthusiastic reception of his poems, the interest which influential gentlemen began to take in his welfare, were changing his opinion of himself and his prospects in Scotland. Moreover, the Armours were calming down; friends had promised to help him should Jean’s father renew the effort to execute his warrant. Nevertheless he did not immediately abandon the Jamaica plan. Though the _Bell_ in her turn sailed without him, he still watched the shipping news as he collected his subscriptions and set his affairs in order. Jean’s twins, born on September 3rd, increased the need for settled livelihood, but increased also his reluctance to leave Scotland. Most of his letters of the autumn of 1786 have perished. As late as October he was still talking of emigration, though he had again postponed it after actually packing his trunk and starting for Greenock at the end of September. He still feared, he told Robert Aiken, that ‘the consequences of his follies’ might banish him; in other words, Betty Paton was threatening to sue him. The Armour affair had already been compromised by dividing the responsibility for the care of the twins between the two families. When the extant correspondence resumes a month later, Jamaica had been discarded. By November 1st the poet had decided to try his luck in Edinburgh. For this reversal the Kilmarnock volume was directly responsible. When Burns had begun in April to solicit subscriptions for a volume of his poems he had had no idea of making it a commercial success. The book was intended as a memento of himself--a souvenir for his friends and a final and unanswerable fling at his enemies. He probably hoped for no more material return than would cover the expenses of publication. Its success therefore was all the more intoxicating. Six hundred and twelve copies were printed, of which about half were subscribed for in advance, thanks mainly to Robert Aiken. When the book came out at the beginning of August it furnished the first literary sensation Ayrshire had ever known. The subscribers’ copies were passed from reader to reader, creating such a demand that the entire edition was sold within three months. When Mrs. Dunlop ordered six copies in mid-November only five were left. At the end of July Burns had been a fugitive with a warrant out against him, to escape which he was shifting from one friend’s house to another. Two weeks later he was a celebrity. His journeys through the country as he collected his subscriptions became a sort of royal progress. The fact that he was making a profit out of the book meant far less to him than the applause of all sorts and conditions of men. People of influence assured him that something could be done for him at home, though they were vague as to precisely what. After the printer’s bills were paid the volume showed a profit of more than £50, though forfeited deposits