As a result of his farming misfortunes, and the attempts
of his father-in-law to overthrow his irregular marriage with Jean, he
resolved to emigrate; and in order to raise money for the passage he
published (Kilmarnock, 1786) a volume of the poems which he had been
composing from time to time for some years. This volume was unexpectedly
successful, so that, instead of sailing for the West Indies, he went up
to Edinburgh, and during that winter he was the chief literary celebrity
of the season. An enlarged edition of his poems was published there in
1787, and the money derived from this enabled him to aid his brother in
Mossgiel, and to take and stock for himself the farm of Ellisland in
Dumfriesshire. His fame as poet had reconciled the Armours to the
connection, and having now regularly married Jean, he brought her to
Ellisland, and once more tried farming for three years. Continued
ill-success, however, led him, in 1791, to abandon Ellisland, and he moved
to Dumfries, where he had obtained a position in the Excise. But he was
now thoroughly discouraged; his work was mere drudgery; his tendency to
take his relaxation in debauchery increased the weakness of a
constitution early undermined; and he died at Dumfries in his
thirty-eighth year.
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