page_title: James Smith (draper)
section_title: Association with Robert Burns
hierarchical_section_title: James Smith (draper) / Association with Robert Burns
caption_attribution_description: English: Isaac Cruickshank's Jolly Beggars. Poems, Letters, etc., etc. Ascribed to Robert Burn
context_page_description: James Smith of Mauchline was one of Robert Burns's closest friends and confidants. He was born in 1765, son of a Mauchline merchant, Ayrshire, Scotland. In 1775, when he was only ten years, old his father, Robert Smith, a prosperous local merchant, was killed in a riding accident, falling from his horse whilst returning from Ayr. His mother, Jean Smith, remarried James Lamie.
context_section_description: Smith was introduced to Robert Burns by John Richmond and together with William Hunter, a tanner, the four became close friends, 'ram-stam boys' "Unco pack an' thick thegither" and formed the notorious 'Court of Equity' at the Whitefoord Arms, as poetically described in Burns's "Libel Summons". James Smith was the Procurator Fiscal; Burns was the Perpetual President;  William Hunter the Messenger at Arms and Richmond the Clerk of the Court. The 'court' met to debate and discuss the scandals in the village and the punishments that each crime merited. Burns received a mock-summons to stand before the court, the Libel Summons". This 1786 poem is also known as the Court of Equity or The Fornicators Court, however manuscript evidence suggests that 'Libel Summons' was Robert Burns's chosen title.   
  Smith, Richmond and Burns are thought to have been in Poosie Nancie's Inn at Mauchline when the scenes of enthusiastic revelry amongst a group who were beggars by day inspired the poet to write his cantata Love and Liberty or The Jolly Beggars.    
  Smith was a subscriber to enlist subscribers for 41 copies of the 'Kilmarnock Edition'. 
  Richmond contributed to the so-called Train Manuscript which recorded how Burns's friends had informed him of Mary Campbell's infidelity with James Montgomerie of Coilsfield House, brother to the Earl of Eglinton.
  The details are that in December 1817 John Richmond was interviewed by William Grierson and related that James Montgomerie and Mary Campbell met frequently in the 'Elbow Inn', a small Mauchline ale house. On one occasion John Richmond, Smith and some other friends of Burns took him to the 'Elbow' knowing that James and Mary were there together. They waited and eventually Mary exited from a private room and was playfully heckled, followed some time later by Montgomerie. Burns blushed and muttered damn it and suffered much good natured banter. It made no difference however and a few days later Richmond stated that he returned to her like the dog to its vomit. Unsurprisingly these details of Mary Campbell's behaviour was very unpopular once exposed.  A nephew of Richmond is on record as having said that his uncle was an inveterate liar.   
  In Burns's "Libel Summons" he refers to Smith "Next merchant Smith, our worthy Fiscal, To cow each pertinacious rascal; In this, as every other state. His merit is conspicuous great".
caption: The Jolly Beggars by Isaac Cruikshank
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