That the people in the Highlands might have no excuse by pleading ignorance, the lord chief justice clerk wrote to the sheriffs depute of the Highland counties, ordering them to give notice at every parish church, that they must quit the plaid, philibeg, or little kilt on Christmas-day, as the act directs, otherwise they would be carried before the civil magistrate and punished for it accordingly. I must likewise desire you will let me know from time to time what obedience the people pay to this act, for they must and shall obey it, with the names of those magistrates who are industrious in putting the laws in execution, that I may take an opportunity of thanking them for performing their duty, and acquainting the Duke of Newcastle with it. You may acquaint the magistrates and justices of the peace in your neighbourhood with the contents of this letter, since it may be the means of inciting them the more readily to perform their duty. _P.S._—Let a copy of this letter be sent to the officers commanding the general detachments of your regiment respectively.[71] All manner of ingenious evasions were thought of and practised to defeat the law. “The tight breeches,” observes General Stewart, “were particularly obnoxious. Some who were fearful of offending, or wished to render obedience to the law, which had not specified on what part of the body the breeches were to be worn, satisfied themselves with having in their possession this article of legal and loyal dress, which, either as the signal of their submission, or more probably to suit their own convenience when on journeys, they often suspended over their shoulders upon their sticks; others, who were either more wary or less submissive, sewed up the centre of the kilt with a few stitches between the thighs, which gave it something of the form of the trowsers worn by Dutch skippers. At first these evasions of the Act were visited with considerable severity.”[72] It was most probably for conniving at some such breach of the law that a young grenadier of the 20th Foot narrowly escaped a tremendous punishment. The court-martial has judged the crime of Rigby, the grenadier, to be of so pernicious a nature that they have sentenced him to receive six hundred lashes. His youth and former good behaviour are the only considerations that could induce the lieutenant-colonel to pardon him: but if hereafter any sergeant or corporal is known to receive a bribe from a Highlander, or from any person whatever, found or known to transgress the laws, and does not seize the person or report such transgression, he, the non-commissioned officer guilty of so heinous a crime, will be instantly broke and severely punished: and if any private soldier ever takes money, or a reward of any kind, that may lead him to betray his trust, such soldier will be whipped without mercy.[73]