I would detest myself as a wretch, if I thought I were capable, in a very long life, of forgetting the honest, warm, and tender delicacy with which he enters into my interests.

"[6] Either Ballantine or Robert Aiken are likely to have spoken to Dr. Patrick Douglas of Garallan on the poets behalf, as he had property in Jamaica, supervised by his brother Charles, regarding Burns aspirations to take ship and to work on the island.

"[12] 'A Winter Night' was another poem that Burns sent Ballantine with a request that he hoped for an opinion, saying "Inclosed you have my first attempt in that irregular kind of measure in which many of our finest Odes are wrote.

How far I have succeeded, I don't know ..." [13] By 28 November 1786 Burns said that he would be in Ayr and that "I hear of no returns from Edinburgh to Mr Aiken respecting my second edition business, so I am thinking to set out beginning of next week for the city myself.

If my first poetic patron, Mr Aiken, is in town, I want to get his advice, both in my procedure and some little criticism affairs, much; if business will permit you to honour me with a few minutes when I come down on Friday.

I am the more at ease about this, as it is not the anxiously served-up address of the Poet wishing to conciliate a liberal Patron, but the honest sincerity of heart-felt Gratitude."

[18] Writing to Ballantine on 13 December 1786 Burns stated that "I have been introduced to a good many of the noblesse, but my avowed Patrons and Patronesses are the Duchess of Gordon, the Countess of Glencairn, with my lord and lady Betty, the Dean of Faculty, Sir John Whitefoord.

"[9][19] In the same letter Burns wrote that "Dugald Stewart and some of my learned friends put me in the periodical paper called 'The Lounger', a copy of which I here inclose you.

"[23] Burns also stated the "Some life-rented, embittering Recollections whisper me that I will be happier elsewhere than in my old neighbourhood, but Mr. Miller is no Judge of land and though I dare say he means to favour me, yet he may give me, in his opinion, an advantageous bargain that may ruin me.

"[26] He also commented that "I am oblidged, against my own wish, to print subscribers' names; so if any of my Ayr friends have subscription bills, they must be sent in to Creech directly.

[28] In March 1791 Burns wrote that "While here I sit, sad & solitary, by the side of a fire in a little country inn, & drying my wet clothes, in pops a poor fellow of a sodger & tells me is going to Ayr --- By Heaven's!

On 16 October 1791 Burns wrote his last known letter to Ballantine from the Globe Inn at Dumfries, enclosing his latest work, probably "Tam o' Shanter.