Another case of this nature, going far to justify the jokes indulged in by the English regarding the contemporary poverty of Scotland, occurs in the ensuing August, when the Council took up the case of James Wilkie of Portsburgh (a suburb of Edinburgh), complaining that the soldiers of three regiments lately quartered there, had gone away indebted to him for meat and drink to the extent of seventeen pounds Scots (£1, 8_s._ 4_d._). ‘Seeing the petitioner is very mean and poor, and not in a capacity to want that small sum, having nothing to live by but the trust of selling a tree of ale, his credit would be utterly broke for want thereof, unless the Council provide a remeed.’ The Council ordained that the commanders of the regiments should see the petitioner satisfied by their soldiers. In January 1691, the Council is found meditating on means for the satisfaction of James Hamilton, innkeeper, Leith, who had sent in accounts against officers of Colonel Cunningham’s regiment for board and lodging, amounting to such sums as eight pounds each. At the same time, it had to treat regarding shoemakers’ accounts owing by the same officers, to the amount of two and three pounds each. Even Ensign Houston’s hotel-bill for ‘thretteen shillings’ is gravely deliberated on. And all these little bills were duly recommended to the lords of their majesties’ treasury, in hopes they might be paid out of ‘the three months’ cess and hearth money.’[54] That such small bills, however, might infer a considerable amount of entertainment, would appear by no means unlikely, if we could believe a statement of Mr Burt, that General Mackay himself was accustomed, during his commandership in Scotland, [Sidenote: 1690.] to dine at public-houses, ‘where he was served with great variety, and paid only two shillings and sixpence Scots—that is, twopence half-penny—for his ordinary.’[55] The fact has been doubted; but I can state as certain, that George Watson, the founder of the hospital in Edinburgh, when a young man residing in Leith, about 1680, used to dine at a tavern for fourpence. Even in the middle of the eighteenth century, Mr Colquhoun Grant, writer to the Signet, and a friend who associated with him, dined every day in a tavern in the Lawnmarket, for ‘twa groats the piece,’ as they used to express it.