View on the Solway, Mouth of the Nith, Criffel in the distance

A steel plate engraving from a painting by Clarkson Stanfield, showing the extent of the port of Dumfries.   By the end of 1791 Robert Burns' career in the Excise became established, he quit Ellisland Farm, selling off his farming stock by public roup, or auction, and moved with his family to a tenement flat in Bank Street, Dumfries.    Below was the office of Burns' Excise superior and friend, John Syme. In February 1792 he was promoted to the Dumfries Port Division with an increase in salary to £70 a year. At that time the port of Dumfries extended over the entire estuary of the River Nith from Carsethorn at the foot of Criffel on the West bank to the busy port of Glencaple on the East bank and included all shipping coming up river to the town of Dumfries itself.   In February 1792 Burns was one of a party of excise officers and Dragoons who seized the brig, "Rosamund" for smuggling. The crew fired on the boarding party with grape shot as they waded chest deep in the strong tide towards the vessel, but eventually escaped, leaving the ship and its cargo to be confiscated.