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Chapter VI.

Two years before Alan's return from America, the Highland Society of London was instituted for "Promoting objects of advantage to the Highlands generally; and good fellowship with social union, among such of its natives as inhabited the more southern part of the island." To the foregoing summary were also added several specific objects, such as the restoration of the Highland dress; the preservation of the music; and cultivation of the Celtic language, &c., &c. An institution for the support of these objects would have particular attraction for Alan; and now that he was not otherwise specially employed, he could give some attention to their promotion. The members of the society were composed of almost all the men of rank and position belonging to, or connected with, Scotland. In the list Alan appears to have been elected at a meeting on 21st January 1782, and with the names of other gentlemen on the same occasion that of John Home (Author of Douglas) is included.

The Act of Parliament which enacted the suppression of the Highland dress was in force in Scotland during Alan's childhood, and up to the time of his departure from it, after the encounter with Morsheirlich, so that he had never worn the garb of his ancestors until he had joined his regiment in America. Its use was still (1782) prohibited in the old country. Alan and many of his friends became the most active members for promoting the objects of the society. Having found that one of these was the restoration of the Highland dress, they formed a committee to co-operate with a member of the Legislature to have that obnoxious Act obliterated from the Statute Book. Of that committee the following were the Executive, and being the authors of the extirpation of this national stigma, they are entitled to be remembered, by Highlanders especially, with admiration and everlasting gratitude. They were—Hon. General Fraser of Lovat (President); Lord Chief Baron Macdonald; Lord Adam Gordon; Earl of Seaforth; Colonel Macpherson of Cluny; Captain Alan Cameron (Erracht); and John Mackenzie (Temple), Honorary Secretary.

Fortunately for the committee, the Marquis of Graham, one of the members of the society, had a seat in the House of Commons, and to this nobleman they entrusted a Bill for the repeal of the Act passed in 1747, commonly known as the Unclothing Act. The noble Marquis took charge of the bill, which he introduced to the House in May 1782, with so much earnestness that it passed through the various stages in both Houses of Parliament with unusual rapidity. Indeed, within a few months after this date, the legal restriction placed on the dress of a people for the past thirty-five years, was obliterated for ever. "The thanks of the Society were given to his Lordship for his exertions in procuring a law so acceptable to all Highlanders."[C] Addresses in prose and poetry were presented to the Marquis from all the Highland parishes, while at the same time the contemporary Gaelic bards were profuse with patriotic songs of praise, notably among them, that by Duncan M'Intyre (Donnachadh Ban) commencing—