To note some of Burns’s words and deeds during 1791 and 1792, and realize that for every reckless phrase that reached paper there were doubtless a score uttered over the punchbowl, is to marvel at the poet’s escape. His phrase about the House of Hanover, already quoted, was written in the privacy of Robert Riddell’s library, but it is hard to believe that he did not say equally sharp things in more public places. His most intimate friends in Dumfries were avowed sympathizers with the Revolution. Dr. James Maxwell had witnessed the execution of the king, cherished the handkerchief he had dipped in the royal blood, and was well enough known to the authorities to have his revolutionary connexions violently denounced by Burke on the floor of the House of Commons. John Lewars was tainted with ‘D-m-cratic heresy’; Syme, after enrolling, like Burns, in the Dumfries Volunteers, became heartily disgusted with the whole wretched business; Maria Riddell was a parlour revolutionist who on her visits to London associated ‘with a very pleasant set of Sans-culottes’. Throughout 1792 Burns had let slip few opportunities of proclaiming his own sympathies. In the spring he bought the _Rosamond’s_ carronades and dispatched them as a present to the French Convention; in the autumn, when Maria Riddell asked him to suggest a programme for a benefit night in Dumfries theatre, he chose from the repertory of the local company Mrs. Centlivre’s _The Wonder: A Woman Keeps a Secret_ because it contained some platitudinous lines about British liberty which could be given political significance by well-timed applause. Either on this occasion or another the crowd carried the matter further than Burns had anticipated. When ‘God Save the King’ was called for, a group in the pit which included some of Burns’s friends shouted for ‘Ça Ira’ instead. The ensuing clamour came to the verge of a free-for-all fight. In his defence Burns avowed that he never opened his lips ‘to hiss, or huzza, that, or any other Political tune whatever’ because he looked on himself ‘as far too obscure a man to have any weight in quelling a Riot; at the same time as a character of higher respectability, than to yell in the howlings of a rabble.’ In other words, by sitting still and not applauding the national anthem he made himself just as conspicuous as if he had joined in the call for ‘Ça Ira’. He was anything but the obscure individual he claimed to be, and it was apparently his public conduct on this occasion that led to his being reported to his superiors as a disaffected person.