This is Galloway, pour yourself a dram and let me tell you one of it’s tales.

The Solway Firth is a long, winding and sometimes treacherous piece of coastline, that runs from the Esk on the border with England to the Mull of Galloway with it’s views of Ireland.  For many years, because of the caves, coves and proximity to the English, Irish and Manx coasts, Smuggling was perhaps the most prosperous trade on the Solway – with everything from Gin and Whisky to Coal and Salt being smuggled in from the coast to vanish up into the mist shrouded Galloway Hills. 

The men who fought that illicit trade faced a thankless task – nearly everyone, even the Ministers of the local Kirks, were involved in the trade in some way or other.  Ordinary folk would watch the coasts for smuggling ships, they would help guard and unload those ships and they would help make those smuggled goods disappear before the Excisemen managed to make an appearance.

It’s January now, of course,  the month where here in Scotland we celebrate the life of possibly the most famous Exciseman of all, Robert Burns.

Now, it was late in Robert’s life when he joined the Excise, but he was a rising star from the start, and swiftly promoted.  It was work he enjoyed, travelling the countryside, meeting folk and having the occasional adventure to satisfy his romantic soul, and it was work that let him pay the bills while he wrote.

One day, a large smuggler’s brig by the name of The Rosamund got into trouble in the Solway.  One of Robert’s colleagues, Walter Crawford,  attempted to seize it where it was stranded, but it was far too well armed for him and his small crew, so he called back to Dumfries for reinforcements, then went on to Ecclefechan for more.  That’s a fair number of miles to cover on horseback, so it took some time.

Robert found himself waiting for Walter and the reinforcements for some hours, while being stationed where he and his men could keep an eye on the stricken smuggling ship, and he was not famous for his patience.  He paced, growled and prowled. He whined and complained.  He drove his colleagues a wee bit mad.  Fed up of Robert’s mood after some hours of waiting, one of them declared that ‘The Deil is awa with the Exciseman’ since Walter was yet to return from Ecclefechan.

Robert was stopped in his tracks by that phrase, and quickly scribbled it down for later. Then Walter and his reinforcements arrived, and the frustration of the wait was quickly forgotten. 

The men assembled on the beach, and Robert led one of the groups of men up to board the ship, his muskets at the ready and his sword on his hip. 

But in the time it had taken for the reinforcements to arrive, the crew had slipped away to the English coast on lifeboats, with the majority of the smuggled goods too. All was not lost though, for the ship was still armed and fitted, and it was duly seized by the excise.

At the time, the Excisemen involved in the capture of goods were permitted to take a cut of what was seized.  The Rosamund had two small cannons as part of it’s armaments, and Robert decided he would have these.  Why, you may ask? 

To send them to the Revolutionary war taking place in France, of course.  A perfectly reasonable thing for a civil servant of the British Government to do, naturally.  Except, of course, it wasn’t, and the guns were seized at Dover before they ever got to France. 

There’s no record that Robert got into any bother over them. Scottish Writer Sir Walter Scott did extensive research into their fate and found nothing. Perhaps if he had lived and worked for the Excise longer, something might have become of it, but his untimely death intervened in that.

And what of that phrase hastily scribbled while he awaited the laggard Excisemen? Well, this is a little of what happened to that….

The deil cam fiddlin' thro' the town,

And danc'd awa wi' th' Exciseman;

And ilka wife cries, Auld Mahoun,

I wish you luck o' the prize, man.

The deil's awa the deil's awa,

The deil's awa wi' the Exciseman,

He's danc'd awa he's danc'd awa

He's danc'd awa wi' the Exciseman.

So, this January the 25^th, raise your dram to the Exciseman and his immortal memory (and make sure you’ve paid the tax on that too!)