buted several poems, and a prose essay,
entitled "The Solitary Philosopher." Finding no encouragement to settle
in the metropolis, he once more returned to his father's house in the
west. He now formed the acquaintance of Robert Burns, who testified his
esteem for him both as a man and a poet. In 1792, he published
anonymously his popular ballad of "Watty and Meg," which he had the
satisfaction to find regarded as worthy of the Ayrshire Bard.

The star of the poet was now promising to be in the ascendant, but an
untoward event ensued. In the ardent enthusiasm of his temperament, he
was induced to espouse in verse the cause of the Paisley hand-loom
operatives in a dispute with their employers, and to satirise in strong
invective a person of irreproachable reputation. For this offence he was
prosecuted before the sheriff, who sentenced him to be imprisoned for a
few days, and publicly to burn his own poem in the front of the jail.
This satire is entitled "The Shark; or, Long Mills detected." Like many
other independents, he mistook anarchy in France for the dawn of liberty
in Europe; and his sentiments becoming known, he was so vigilantly
watched by the authorities, that he found it was no longer expedient for
him to reside in Scotland. He resolved to emigrate to America; and,
contriving by four months' extra labour, and living on a shilling
weekly, to earn his passage-money, he sailed from Portpatrick to
Belfast, and from thence to Newcastle, in the State of Delaware, where
he arrived on the 14th July 1794. During the voyage he had slept on
deck, and when he landed, his finances consisted only of a few
shillings; yet, with a cheerful heart, he walked to Philadelphia, a
distance of thirty-three miles, with only his fowling-piece on his
shoulder. He shot a red-headed woodpecker by the way,--an omen of his
future pursuits, for hitherto he had devoted no attention to the study
of ornithology.

He was first employed by a copperplate-printer in Philadelphia, but
quitted this occupation for the loom, at which he worked about a year in
Philadelphia, and at Shepherdstown, in Virginia. In 1795, he traversed a
large portion of the State of New Jersey as a pedlar, keeping a
journal,--a practice which he had followed during his wandering life in
Scotland. He now adopted the profession of a schoolmaster, and was
successively employed in this vocation at Frankford, in Pennsylvania, at
Milestown, and at Bloomfield, in New Jersey. In pr