Alexander Findlater

Association with Robert Burns

On 23 December 1791 Findlater wrote to William Corbet, saying that Buirns was "an active, faithful and zealous officer ... capable of achieving a more arduous task than any difficulty that the theory or practice of our business can exhibit."

Findlater spoke to William Corbet, Supervisor General of Excise, on Burns's behalf about his wish to join the Port Division which came with an extra £20 in salary. He was granted the move however Mrs Dunlop was probably the major influencer.

On 11 June 1792 Findlater spent the whole with Burns visiting a brewery, victuallers, chandlers, wine and spirit merchants, etc. He commented that "Mr Burns had but lately taken charge of this Division, and from that cause, and his inexperience in the Brewery Branch of business, has fallen into these errors but promises, and I will bestow, due attention in future, which indeed he is rarely deficient in.

Findlater was Burns's immediate superior in the Excise and became his friend, defending Burns against the claims of disloyalty and ineffiency that were levelled against him in December 1792.

On 22 December 1794, Findlater having taken ill, Burns became Acting Supervisor in his place for several months until late April 1795. He revealed his frustration in a letter to Patrick Heron, saying "The business is incessant drudgery, and would be nearly a complete bar to every species of literary pursuit."

A prominent accusation was that Burns was a hopeless drunkard, however Findlater pointed out that the Excise dismissed or demoted officers with such problems, they certainly did not promote them as in Burns's acting post as supervisor.

He joined the Royal Dumfries Volunteers shortly after Burns and John Syme, as did John Lewars. Findlater was a member of the Management Committee that recommended soliciting funds for the uniforms from the public. Burns and twenty-three others petitioned the committee against such a humiliating actions.

Burns added Findlater and John Lewars names to the subscription list for weekly issue of The Bee magazine, produced by Dr. James Anderson

In 1815 he wrote a significant letter to Alexander Peterkin regarding the 1815 edition of James Currie's The Complete Poetical Works of Robert Burns: With Explanatory and Glossarial Notes; And a Life of the Author giving a vindication of Burns's conduct and character over the time that he was his supervisor in Dumfries. He commented that "I believe I saw more of him than any other individual had occasion after he became an Excise officer’ and on another occasion, ‘few people, I believe, were more frequently in his house, particularly after he came to reside in Dumfries, and in the latter days of his life.'"

After Burns's death Findlater became a great advocate for his friend, defending him also against falsehoods spread by other biographers such as Robert Heron and Allan Cunningham.

Findlater was one of those who occasionally sat for a time at Burns side in his final days.

James Currie made no recorded attempt to contact Findlater for an eye witness account of the poet and his life and times in Dumfries.

He wrote that "My connection with Robert Burns commenced immediately after his admission to the Excise, and continued to the hour of his death. In all that time the superintendence of his behaviour as an officer of the Revenue, was a branch of my especial province, and it may be supposed I would not be an inattentive observer of the general conduct of a man and a poet so celebrated by his countrymen."

Findlater concluded that "to attempt the refutation of the various other calumnies with which his memory has been assailed, some of which are so absurd as hardly to merit any attention, does not fall in my way, though I hope they will be suitably taken notice of."

Correspondence

Burns first wrote to Findlater on 28 October 1789 from Ellisland Farm, some time before he himself moved to Dumfries:

Burns sent Findlater a gift of new laid eggs from Ellisland Farm with an accompanying note "Mrs Burns, like a true good wife, looking on my taste as a Standard, & knowing that she cannot give me anything --"eateable" more agreeable than a new-laid egg, she begs your acceptance of a few. They are all of them couch, not thirty hours out".

The "Smuggler" in question is often said to be none other than the brewer William Lorimer, the father of Burns's friend and correspondent Jean "Chloris" Lorimer of Kemys Hall Farm, however Mackay identifies the smuggler with a William Lorimer of Cairnmill.

Burns had included a note "I send you some rhymes I have just finished which tickle my fancy a little."

In a letter to Robert Graham of Fintry on 7 January 1794 Burns lays out some of his ideas for improving the Excise in his areas but adds "Mr. Findlater, my Supervisor, who is not only one of the first, if not the very first, of Excisemen in your Service, but is also one of the worthiest felloes in the universe; he, I know, would be hurt at it; & as he is one of my most intimate friends, you can easily figure how it would place me, to have my plan known to be mine.

In May 1794 to Peter Hill, Bookseller in Edinburgh, Burns comments on Findlater "Allow me to introduce Mr. Findlater to you, our Supervisor of Excise; & a gentleman of great information & the first worth. I lie & have long lain under great obligation to him ..."

Burns wrote a personal and suggestive letter to Findlater concerning Jean "Chloris" Whelpdale nee Lorimer:

Dr James Adams MD knew Burns's "Chloris" as a child and he also knew Mrs. Findlater, both of whom had numerous Burns manuscripts which they used to give to Adams’s father, their doctor, instead of payment for medical services. Mrs. Findlater’s had so many manuscripts that Adams recalled how he and her son as children "frequently used the unwritten sides of the sheets for our artistic aspirations in delineating houses, beasts, and boats."