¶1] Thou messenger going across the moor, speak yonder with William Burke; tell him of the plight that I am in, without any prospect of help.
¶2] Tell him moreover, in secret, that there is no shelter for me on land or on sea; that no one before was ever afflicted with half of my injustice or one third of my wrong.
¶3] I have been paying my share for two years or three, and after that all the liabilities of others are levied from me.
¶4] When I saw the liabilities of the others being all wrested from me, I went to the courthouse to see if I could obtain right or justice.
¶5] In going to the court I myself spent—to my sorrow, and that is not all, in ridding myself of that trouble— whatever little I possessed.
¶6] I fetch with me a good warrant, and return full of spirits; I thought that I was safe after my visit to the great court.
¶7] I display my own patent to the [...](?), when the had read my letters, I got even less consideration (?).
¶8] My captain, each of the two to whom I go again lamenting, swears by the glove of Christ that it is not his part to hinder them.
¶9] The sheriff that was in charge of us, this is what my precious fellow says to me; you trust to the creditors, it is not the solider that will lack anything.
¶10] It did not satisfy any of them to take one gage alone from me; in payment of the fines of the rest I had to render two or three gages into the hand of each man.
¶11] I spent a long time going from place to place in search of the gage; not only is my gage taken from me, but I redeem it twice or thrice.
¶12] When I would redeem it from the first man that held it he from whom it was redeemed in the beginning{?) would hand it on to the next.
¶13] I go promptly in pursuit of the gage, whether it be carried far or near; I never returned home till I had spent six times the price.
¶14] Then as for the President, to whom I would go to relate my case; with tears on my cheeks I used to make complaints to him, sternly and bitterly.
¶15] He says gruffly, that not by his will would a gage be taken from me; that, however, I can give payment for it eventually.
¶16] It is not for my goods I am most grieved, but that when I lost my fortune none remained to support me, for I was left destitute in the end.
¶17] The horseboy, the cowherd, the quern-girl, the comb-woman—they all went from me at once, along with a solider; a wretched deed.
¶18] This is what my own cowherd, of all those that deserted me, says, showing me(?) the fire: What keeps you from drawing up?'.
¶19] I have been, there is no reason for hiding it, under dire oppression these three years; in hope for the coming of William Burke I did not make much of it.
¶20] God's curse on those dealers in lies that do not verify their stories; everyone whispers to me that William Burke is here.
¶21] Thou messenger going to meet him, pay no heed to fun or sport; speak with my own companion, and see if he has yet come.
¶22] Lion's whelp of Loch Con, salmon of the Shannon's bright streams, hound of the inlet of Assaroe, much do I expect from his coming.