DEAR UNCLE,--This, I hope, will find you and your conjugal yoke-fellow in your good old way. I am impatient to know if the Ailsa[78] fowling be commenced for this season yet, as I want three or four stones of feathers, and I hope you will bespeak them for me. It would be a vain attempt for me to enumerate the various transactions I have been engaged in since I saw you last; but this know--I engaged in a smuggling trade, and no poor man ever experienced better returns, two for one: but as freight and delivery have turned out so dear, I am thinking of taking out a license and beginning in fair trade. I have taken a farm, on the borders of the Nith, and in imitation of the old patriarchs, get men-servants and maid-servants, and flocks and herds, and beget sons and daughters.--Your obedient nephew, ROBERT BURNS. [Footnote 78: A well-known rock in the Firth of Clyde, frequented by innumerable sea-fowl.] * * * * XCI.--To MR. JAMES JOHNSON, ENGRAVER, EDINBURGH. MAUCHLINE, 25_th May_ 1788. MY DEAR SIR,--I am really uneasy about that money which Mr. Creech owes me per note in your hand, and I want it much at present, as I am engaging in business pretty deeply both for myself and my brother. A hundred guineas can be but a trifling affair to him, and'tis a matter of most serious importance to me.[79] To-morrow I begin my operations as a farmer, and so God speed the plough! I am so enamoured of a certain girl.... To be serious, I found I had a long and much-loved fellow-creature's happiness or misery in my hands; and though pride and seeming justice were murderous king's advocates on the one side, yet humanity, generosity, and forgiveness were such powerful, such irresistible counsel on the other, that a jury of all endearments and new attachments brought in a unanimous verdict of _not guilty_. And the panel, be it known unto all whom it concerns, is installed and instated into all the rights, privileges, etc., that belong to the name, title, and designation of wife. [Footnote 79: Creech paid the amount five days after the date of this letter.] * * * * XCII.--To MR. ROBERT AINSLIE. MAUCHLINE, _May_ 26_th_, 1788. MY DEAR FRIEND,--I am two kind letters in your debt; but I have been from home, and horridly busy, buying and preparing for my farming business, over and above the plague of my Excise instructions, which this week will finish.