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voicing an opinion, widely accepted, that the empire was about to disappear from among the nations. I may quite appropriately quote what John Richard Green, in his History of the English People, wrote on the subject :—“ At the close of the war there was less thought of what she (England) had retained than of what she had lost. She was parted from her American Colonies, and at the moment such a parting seemed to be the knell of her greatness. In wealth, in population, the American Colonies far surpassed all that remained of her empire, and the American Colonies were irrecoverably gone. It is no wonder that in the first shock of such a loss England looked on herself as on the verge of ruin, or that the Bourbon Courts believed her position as a worldpower to be practically at an end. How utterly groundless such a conception was the coming years were to show. energies of England were, in fact, spurred to new efforts by the crisis in her fortunes. The industrial development which followed the war gave her a material supremacy such as she had never known before, and the rapid growth of wealth which this industry brought with it raised her again into a mother of nations, as her settlers built up in the waters of the Pacific, colonies as great as those which she had lost on the coast of America."

The

Burns made the American War the subject of a ballad to be sung, by anyone who chose to make it a matter of music, to the tune of "Killiecrankie." It is by no means a happy effort, and can only be understood by a constant reference to footnotes, unless one is familiar with the details of the struggle, and with the people, civil and military, who were responsible for conducting it. There is no need to quote

more than the opening verse—

Then up they gat the maskin-pat,
And in the sea did jaw, man;
And did nae less, in full Congress,
Than quite refuse our law, man.'

This, it wil be admitted, is not the best kind of narrative poetry.

In the address which the Poet composed when, in a dreaming fancy, he was transported to the birthday levee of King George the Third on 4th June, 1786, we find two allusions to the consequences of the war, which had been brought to a close four years earlier. In the first the loss of the Colonies is indicated thus

"Your Royal nest, beneath your wing,
Is e'en right reft and clouted,

And now the third part o' the string
And less will gang about it
Than did ae day

and in the second the payment of the bill is thus referred to—

that is, till she has hardly a sixpence left.

The war which Britain waged with France and Spain at the time of the revolt of the American Colonies, and also previous struggles with these Continental countries, provided Burns with material for one of his spirited songs in the "Jolly Beggars." Among the motley group which the Foet met in Poosie Nancie's was a hero of many fights, who, though dismembered in a way that made further active service on his part extremely improbable, still robed himself in the habiliments of a soldier

The song with which he entertained the other gangrels touched on some of the engagements in which he had taken

part in the French and Spanish wars. He was initiated into the serious business of his trade under General Wolfe at the siege of Quebec; later he fought with Lord Albemarle when he stormed and took the Castle of El Moro in the conquest of Cuba, and he ended his military career in the famous defence of Gibraltar, which lasted from 1779 to 1782. The Spanish, taking advantage of Britain being at war with the American Colonies and with France, attempted to regain possession of the for ress, which was held by General Elliot, a Scotsman belonging to Roxburghshire, who had the command of only 5000 men. After various desperate attacks had failed, the French joined the Spanish, and preparations were made for a grand assault, these including floating batteries, so that the siege could be conducted from the sea. With red-hot balls and incendiary shells Elliot destroyed the batteries, and in all the other directions the charges of the united forces of France and Spain were repelled. Captain Curtis was one of the officers who rendered signal service on that memorable occasion. With these explanations let me

quote the song—

"I am a son of Mars,

Who have been in many wars,
And show my cuts and scars
Wherever I come-

This here was for a wench,
And that other in a trench,
When welcoming the French

At the sound of the drum.

My 'prenticeship I past
Where my leader breath'd his last,
When the bloody die was cast
On the heights of Abram ;
And I served out my trade

When the gallant game was played,
And the Moro low was laid

At the sound of the drum.

I lastly was with Curtis,
Among the floating batt'ries,
And there I left for witness

An arm and a limb;

Yet let my country need me,
With Elliot to head me,
I'd clatter on my stumps

At the sound of a drum.

And now though I must beg
With a wooden arm and leg,
And many a tatter'd rag

Hanging over my bum,
I'm as happy with my wallet,
My bottle and my callet,
As when I used in scarlet
To follow a drum.

What though with hoary locks
I must stand the winter shocks,
Beneath the woods and rocks
Oftentimes for a home,
When the tother bag I sell,
And the tother bottle tell,
I could meet a troop of hell
At the sound of a drum."

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Another matter concerning the war with France and Spain must be noted. About the time that Burns, according to his own confession contained in the lines already quoted, was thinking of becoming a soldier Admiral Rodney, by restoring to Britain the command of the sea, did more than any other man to save the empire from threatened ruin. The situation is tersely summed up by John Richard Green, from whose pages another quotation may be made. On the 16th of January, 1780," says Green, "Admiral Rodney, the greatest of English seamen save Nelson and Blake, encountered the Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent, and only four of its vessels escaped to Cadiz. At the opening of 1782 the triumphs of the French Admiral De Grasse called him to the West Indies, and on the 12th of April a manoeuvre, which he (Rodney) was the first to introduce, broke his opponent's lines, and drove the French fleet shattered from the Atlantic. With Rodney's last victory the struggle of the Bourbons was really over, for no means remained of attacking their enemy save at Gibraltar, and here a last attack of the joint force gathered against it was repulsed by the heroism of Elliot."

This naval triumph was too important to be readily forgotten, and for many years-perhaps till it was eclipsed by the greater achievement of Nelson at Trafalgar the anniversary of the fight was suitably observed. Burns was present at one of those celebrations, and he has left us some record of it in the following lines, which bear the title, "On the Anniversary of Rodney's Victory

"Instead of a song, boys, I'll give you a toast:

Here's the mem'ry of those on the twelfth that we lost!-
We lost, did I say? No, by Heaven, that we found!
For their fame it shall live while the world goes round.
The next in succession I'll give you-The King!
Whoe'er would betray him, on high may he swing!
And here's the grand fabric, our free Constitution,
As built on the base of the great Revolution!'
And longer with politics not to be cramm'd,
Be anarchy curs'd, and be tyranny damn'd!
And who would to Liberty e'er prove disloyal,
May his son be a hangman, and he his first trial!

In striking contrast to this patriot sentiment is the quatrain penned on a " Thanksgiving for a National Victory.' Burns gives no indication of the particular event to which he referred; but it is supposed that the occasion was the defeat of the French by Lord Howe off the coast of Brest on the first of June, 1794. The lines run—

"Ye hypocrites! are these your pranks ?
To murder men, and give God thanks ?
Desist for shame! Proceed no further;
God won't accept your thanks for murder !

If the surmise that the allusion is to Howe's victory is correct, the sentiments of the Poet may be explained by the fact that at the beginning of the second war with France, which broke out in 1793, his sympathies lay with the French people. He believed-and his opinion was not an isolated one- -that the real object of Great Britain was to crush those principles of liberty which were spreading throughout the country, and which were so dear to the Poet and to those who, thinking like him, but with more freedom to act, had banded themselves into societies to which they gave the name