But feeling no inclination for it, he left the school in 1832 and went to London where he found employment with a publishing firm.
He soon won success and Anglican ministers adopted him in their literary campaign of tracts and polemic publications.
Burns succeeded, in a comparatively brief time, in building up a reputation as publisher of Catholic literature.
His widow, who was also a convert, survived him twenty-two years, dying a member of the Ursuline community at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., January 1893.
His only son was ordained a priest, serving for a long time as chaplain at Nazareth House, Hammersmith, London.