The Highland Fair of Criff happening when I was at Stirling, I had the Curiosity to go see it. There were at least Thirty Thousand Cattle sold there, most of them to English Drovers; who paid down above Thirty Thousand Guineas in ready Money to the Highlanders; a Sum they had never seen before, and proves one good Effect of the Union. The Highland Gentlemen were mighty civil, dress’d in their slash’d short Wastcoats, a Trousing, (which is, Breeches and Stockings of one Piece of strip’d Stuff) with a Plaid for a Cloak, and a blue Bonnet. They have a Ponyard Knife and Fork in one Sheath, hanging at one side of their Belt, their Pistol at the other, and their Snuff-Mill before; with a great broad Sword by their side. Their Attendance [attendants] were very numerous, all in belted Plaids, girt like Womens Petticoats down to the Knee; their Thighs and Half of the Leg all bare. They had also each their broad Sword and Ponyard, and spake all Irish, an unintelligible Language to the English.[58] It appears from the regulations issued to the retainers of the Clan Grant anent the wearing of a uniform tartan that distinctive patterns were in use, at least for military purposes, or on occasions of great gatherings, early in the eighteenth century. That widespread attention was at that period bestowed upon particular arrangements of tartan appears from a letter quoted by Sir Walter Scott, dated from the Manse of Comrie, 2nd July 1717:— I give your lady hearty thanks for the highland plaid. Its good cloath but it does not answer the sett I sent some time agoe with M^cArthur. This implies, at the least, in a district on the southern border of the Highlands, adhesion to particular patterns, just as in Martin’s account of the Western Islands, already quoted, the existence of district setts is proved by the use of the words “able, at the first view of a man’s plad, to guess the place of his residence.” Alexander Nisbet, the great herald, referring to the supporters of Macpherson of Cluny, writes:— The family has been in use to have their arms supported with two Highland men with steel helmets on their heads and cut out short doublets azure, thighs bare, their shirts tied between them, and round targets on their arms, being the dress wherein those of this clan were wont to fight in many battles for the crown being always loyal.[59] That the dress thus described by Nisbet was intended by him to represent what we know to be the usual dress of the Highlanders at that period, viz., the belted plaid, is proved by another allusion of his to the Cluny arms in a portion of his work not yet published, and preserved in the Lyon Office, in which, treating generally of supporters, he writes:— M^cPherson of Clunie two highlandmen in their belted plaids with targets.[60]