“It is impossible,” writes General Stewart of Garth, “to read this latter Act without considering it rather as an ignorant wantonness of power than the proceeding of a wise and a beneficent Legislature. To be compelled to wear a new dress has always been found painful. So the Highlanders found; and it certainly was not consistent with the boasted freedom of our country to inflict on a whole people the severest punishment short of death for wearing a particular dress. Had the whole race been decimated, more violent grief, indignation, and shame could not have been excited among them than by being deprived of this long-inherited costume. This was an encroachment on the feelings of a people whose ancient and manly garb had been worn from a period remote beyond all history or even tradition.”[70] The spirit in which the Act was carried out may be gathered from the following extract from the _General Orders to the Army in Scotland in 1748_:— By the act passed last session of Parliament, the time for the general abolishing the Highland dress is enlarged to the 1st day of August 1749. But that the wearing and use of such parts thereof as are called the plaid, philibeg, or little kilt, is absolutely prohibited and abolished from and after the 25th day of this instant December, and as to these particulars the law takes place from that day. His grace the Duke of Newcastle has therefore signified to me his majesty’s commands, that the same be punctually observed throughout the Highlands, and that I should give orders to all the troops quartered in those parts to be particularly attentive to this service, and to take all due care that the act be punctually executed and observed, and the offenders brought to punishment according to law. In obedience to these his majesty’s commands, you are to seize all such persons as shall be found offending herein, by wearing the plaid, philibeg, or little kilt, and carry them before a civil magistrate, in the same dress, that he may be convinced with his own eyes of their having offended, in order to their being punished for the same according to law; in the performance of which, let no insult or abuse be offered to the person or persons of those who shall be so taken up and carried before the civil power, who are solely authorised to inflict the punishment as the act directs; but in case the magistrate before whom such offenders are carried shall refuse or neglect putting the law in execution, in that case let me know immediately the name of such magistrate, with the reason of his not doing it, that I may acquaint the Duke of Newcastle with it, who will no doubt send immediately orders to the lord advocate of this country to prosecute him to the utmost for his contempt of the said act, by not putting it in execution.