During these years in London Boyd was a frequent contributor to the Public Advertiser and other journals, and was in close intimacy with the circle of Burke and Reynolds.
In 1774 he began to work harder at the law, and also attended the commons' debates, which he wrote down from memory with extraordinary accuracy.
[1] Another visit to Ireland took place in 1776, on the occasion of an election for Antrim, the candidate for which he supported by a series of able letters under the signature of "A Freeholder".
Financial pressures eventually forced him to seek paid employment, and in 1781 he accepted the appointment of secretary to Lord Macartney, when that officer was nominated governor of Madras.
Not long after his arrival at Madras he conducted a mission from the governor to the king of Kandy in Ceylon, requiring that potentate's assistance against the Dutch.
His claims to a place in the history of English literature rest very much on the assumption — maintained by John Almon and by George Chalmers — that he was the author of the Letters of Junius.