How did the French Revolution threaten Robert Burns’s excise job?

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Engraved portrait of Robert Burns, shown from the waist up wearing a dark jacket and cravat, facing slightly to the left. — Robert Burns Robert Burns, engraving from *A Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen*, 1870.

The French Revolution posed a significant threat to Robert Burns’s position in the excise service due to his vocal enthusiasm for the revolutionary cause. During this period of political volatility, Burns made several "indiscreet outbursts" in support of the revolution, which drew official scrutiny and nearly cost him his job as an exciseman.1

Ultimately, Burns was able to retain his position through two primary factors: his established reputation as a diligent and effective exciseman, and a "politic but humiliating recantation" of his radical views.1