Amongst other claims on which the Council had to deliberate, was a very pitiable one from Mr David Muir, surgeon at Stirling. When General Mackay retreated to that town from ‘the ruffle at Killiecrankie,’[56] Muir had taken charge of the sick and wounded of the government troops, ‘there being none of their own chirurgeons present,’ He ‘did several times send to Edinburgh for droggs and other necessaries,’ and was ‘necessitat to buy a considerable quantity of claret wine for bathing and fomenting of their wounds.’ His professional efforts had been successful; but as yet—after the lapse of eighteen months—he had received no remuneration; neither had he been paid for the articles he had purchased for the men; at the same time, the salary due to him, of ten pounds a year as chirurgeon of the castle, was now more than two years in arrear. It was the greater hardship, as those who had furnished the drugs and other articles were pressing him for the debt, ‘for which he is like to be pursued.’ Moreover, he protested, as something necessary to support a claim of debt against the state, that ‘he has been always for advancing of his majesty’s interest, and well affected to their majesties’ government.’ The Council, in this case too, could only recommend the accounts to the lords of the treasury.[57] [Sidenote: 1691. MAR. 8.] Sinclair of Mey, and a friend of his named James Sinclair, writer in Edinburgh, were lodging in the house of John Brown, vintner, in the Kirkgate of Leith, when, at a late hour, the Master of Tarbat and Ensign Andrew Mowat came to join the party. The Master, who was eldest son of the Viscount Tarbat, a statesman of no mean note, was nearly related to Sinclair of Mey. There was no harm meant by any one that night in the hostelry of John Brown; but before midnight, the floor was reddened with slaughter.