It’s Burns Season and many of will attend celebrations and listen intently to the Toast to the Immortal  Memory.   Speakers will praise Burns for words, wit and wisdom yet few will remark upon his remarkable connection to our nation.  For there is one poem, The Address of Beelzebub, that ties Burns to Canada, to our formation and history.

In the late 1700’s Scottish tenant farmers began emigration to British North America, particularly to the area now in southern Ontario.  This emigration so alarmed the landowners and one in particular, MacDonnell of Glengarry, along with several others banded together to petition the government in London to stop this outflow.  They had no wish to see their source of revenue leave them!

There was a storm of protest and included in this protest was the Burns’ poem, The Address of Beelzebub.  The poem takes the form of a letter from Beelzebub to MacDonnell.  It chides MacDonnell for being too easy on his tenants.  Burns calls upon him to sick thugs and dogs on his tenants.  He has MacDonnell to behave more like tyrants and despots of the past.  Burns also notes that once away from MacDonnell they just may start making up their own laws and running their own lives.  The poem ends with a note from Beelzebub telling MacDonnell not to worry, he’s saved a special seat for him at his right hand.

Despite the efforts of MacDonnell and his cohorts the tenant farmers were allowed to leave and they settled in an area of Ontario now encompassed by Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Counties.  The farmers prospered there and built and thriving economy.  In 1812 the children of these farmers formed the Glengarry Light Infantry that help stem the American advance into Canada.  Following the War of 1812 the regiment was disbanded but later their descendants  formed the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders.  They saw service in WWI and on June 6, 1944 were in the second wave to come ashore on D Day.  All this can be traced back to one poem by Burns.