SIR ROBERT S1BBALD. 
21 
brother, Dr George Sibbald, a physician, to 
recommend that this child should be suckled to 
an advanced age, which was accordingly done 
“ till he was two years and two months old, and 
could run up and down the street and speak,” and 
proved of great advantage, as he not only 
escaped the threatened malady, but “passed all the 
diseases commonly incident to children without 
any manifest hazard.” 
He was subjected, however, to other perils 
consequent upon the political disturbances of the 
times ; he was kept at a cousin's hquse at Lin- 
lithgow at the time of the plague in 1645, till 
the infection reached that town, when his parents 
removed to the Kipps. “ As I went there with 
my nurse, we met a troop of Montrose’s men, 
who passed us without doing us any harm.” A 
few years later, a far greater danger awaited him. 
His parents had removed to Dundee, where 
they were residing at the time General Monk 
stormed the town. His father received a blow 
from a carbine, their house was plundered, and 
they lost all their furniture, plate, jewels, and 
money, and a younger sister and himself were 
exposed to imminent risk. She had incautiously 
exposed herself above a wooden building that 
had been erected across the street for the defence 
of the town, and her brother ran after her to 
bring her back. It speaks volumes as to the 
