the sensibilities of his family. It seemed best to try a
new life in a new land, so he promised a Mr. Douglas to go to Jamaica
and become a bookkeeper on his estate there. But where should he get
the money to pay his passage? There were the poems lying in his
table-drawer--might they not be published and money be raised by the
sale? His friends encouraged him to publish them, and what is more to
the point, they subscribed in advance for a number of the copies. John
Wilson of Kilmarnock was to do the printing. During May, June, and
July of 1786 the printer was doing his work. At the end of July the
volume appeared, and soon the fame of the Ayrshire Plowman was
established. Let us hear Burns himself give his account of the
venture:

"I gave up my part of the farm to my brother, and made what little
preparation was in my power for Jamaica. But, before leaving my native
country forever, I resolved to publish my poems. I weighed my
productions as impartially as was in my power; I thought they had
merit; and it was a delicious idea that I should be called a clever
fellow, even though it should never reach my ears--a poor
negro-driver, or perhaps a victim to that inhospitable clime, and gone
to the world of spirits! I can truly say that _pauvre inconnu_ as I
then was, I had pretty nearly as high an idea of my works as I have at
this moment, when the public has decided in their favor....

"I threw off about six hundred copies, of which I got subscriptions
for about three hundred and fifty. My vanity was highly gratified by
the reception I met with from the public; and besides, I pocketed, all
expenses deducted, nearly twenty pounds. This sum came very
seasonably, as I was thinking of indenting myself, for want of money,
to procure a passage. As soon as I was master of nine guineas, the
price of wafting me to the torrid zone, I took a steerage passage in
the first ship that was to sail from the Clyde, for

'Hungry ruin had me in the wind.'

"I had been for some days skulking from covert to covert, under all
the terrors of a jail, as some ill-advised people had uncoupled the
merciless pack of the law at my heels. I had taken the last farewell
of my friends; my chest was on the way to Greenock; I had composed the
last song I should ever measure in Caledonia, '_The gloomy night is
gathering fast_,' when a letter from Dr. Blackwood to a friend of mine
overthrew all my schemes, by opening up new prospects to my poetic
ambiti