On 2 October 1773, Boswell records this:

We were very social and merry in his room this forenoon. In the evening the company danced as usual. We performed, with much activity, a dance which, I suppose, the emigration from Sky[e] has occasioned. They call it ‘America’. Each of the couples, after the common involutions and evolutions, successively whirls round in a circle, till all are in motion; and the dance seems intended to shew how emigration catches, till a whole neighbourhood is set afloat.

-- http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/bosw...html#section48
Nothing really to do with kilts, but a very poignant story regarding immigration...

T.