But friendships with men and women, though they helped him momentarily to escape his blue devils, could not obscure the problem of his own and his family’s future. He still lacked an aim. Conscious of more than average powers in himself, he had no purpose to which to direct them. Moreover, the years at Lochlie were bringing him for the first time to a realization of the workings of the larger economic laws. The American War was ruining the West of Scotland. Half its market for manufactured goods was closed; its exports to the West Indies were being raided by American privateers. Just before the war an over-expanded bank had failed, dragging down with it half the gentlemen in Ayrshire and leaving a trail of wreckage which was not wholly obliterated for a couple of decades. Even the wartime demand for farm produce was no help when multitudes of jobless artisans could not pay the high prices which at best would scarcely have yielded a fair return on the over-capitalized land. M’Lure, the landlord of Lochlie, was heavily mortgaged to the defunct bank. Hard pressed for cash, he tried to extort from his tenants more than was his due. William Burnes resisted, and became involved in litigation which followed him to the grave. In similar circumstances at Mount Oliphant Burns had seen merely a personal situation in which a villainous factor was demanding more rent than the family could pay. Now he began to realize that a man may be frugal and diligent in his business, and yet be destroyed by forces which he did not start and was powerless to control. As early as 1780 Burns had experimented at growing flax of his own on a few acres of land subleased from his father; later he won a prize for his seed. His success led him in 1781 to go to Irvine to learn the trade of flax-dressing. Some consequences of that venture belong in the next chapter; educationally the results, like those of so many youthful experiences, were mainly negative. His distaste for the work, and its ill effect on his health, left him more aimless than before. He concluded that he was unfit for the world of business, and where he had formerly yearned for some chance of advancement he now decided that he was destined to be only a looker-on at life. All that restrained him from complete shiftlessness was his sense of responsibility for his family.