Letter from Robert Burns to his brother William Burns,10 February 1790

My Dear William,
I would have written your sooner
but I have mislaid Mr Murdoch's letter and cannot
for my life lay my hand on it, so I cannot write
him for want of a Direction. If I find it after
wards I will write him & enclose it to you in Lon
don. - Now that you are setting out for that place,
put on manly resolve, & determine to persevere; &
in that case you will less or more be sure of success. -
One or two things allow me to particularize to you
London swarms with worthless wretches who prey on
their fellow-creatures thoughtlessness or inexperience
Be cautious in forming connections with comrades
and companions. - You can be pretty good company
to yourself, & you cannot be too sure of letting
anybody know you further than to know you as

a sadler. - Another caution; I give you great credit
for you sobriety with respect to that universal vice, Bad
Women. - It is an impulse the hardest to be re-
strained, but if once a man accustoms himself to
gratifications of that impulse, it is then nearly or
altogether impossible to restrain it. - Whoring is
a most ruinous expensive species of dissipation;
is spending a poor fellow's money with which he ought
clothe & support himself nothing? Whoring has
ninety nine chances in a hundred to bring on a
man the most nauseous & excruciating diseases to
which Human nature is liable; are disease & an impaired
constitution trifling considerations? All this is independent
of the criminality of it. -
I have gotten the Excise Division in the middle of
which I live. - Poor little Frank is this morning
at the height in the small-pox. - I got him inoculated,
& I hope he is in a good way. -
Write me before you leave Newcastle, & as soon
as you reach London. - In a word, if ever

you be, as perhaps you may be, in a strait for
a little ready cash, you know my direction.- I
shall not see ^you beat, while you fight like a Man -
Farewell! God bless you!
Rob.t Burns Ellisland
10th Feb 1790