The advertisement of January 25, 1792, reads: “Hanover Square Rooms. — Tomorrow, January the 26th, will be performed COMALA, a musical piece; consisting of Recitative, Airs, Duets, and Choruses, the entire composition of Miss Harriet Wainewright. The words taken from a dramatic Poem of Ossian. Leader of the Band, Mr. Cramer. Principal Vocal Performers: Mr. Page, Mr. Bartleman, Mrs. Barthelemon, Miss Hagley, and Miss Corri. The doors to be opened a quarter before eight. Performance to begin a quarter before nine. Tickets half-a-guinea; to be had at Messrs. Ransom, Moreland, and Hammersley's, Bankers, Pall Mall, and also, for convenience, at Longman and Broderip's, No. 26, Cheapside, and No. 13, Haymarket. No person can be admitted without a ticket. Books of the Performance at the Rooms on the evening.”

Thus was described an event of some importance in the musical life of London, a dramatic work for the stage based on Ossian, by a woman, publicly performed some twenty-four years after Francois-Hippolyte Barthelemon's desultory attempt with his Oithona of 1768. Although the composer's autobiography does not reveal a motive for choosing this particular poem, it appears to have appealed to her as the tragic tale of a noble huntress. It relates how Comala, daughter of Sarno ruler of Inistore (the Orkney islands), falls in love with Fingal, chieftain of Morven, and follows him disguised as a youth when Fingal marches to resist the army of the invading Caracul. Having spurned Hydallan, Fingal's warrior lieutenant who is enamored of her, Comala throws herself from a rock when Hydallan falsely tells her Fingal has fallen in battle. Fingal, however, returning victorious, laments her passing with his bards.

The title page of the score published by William Napier in 1803 reads: “Comàla/ A Dramatic Poem/from/Ossian/As performed at the/Hanover Square Rooms/Set to Music by/Miss Harriet Wainewright/Dedicated with Permission to the/Most Noble Marquis Wellesley./London/Printed for the Author by William Napier,/Musician in ordinary to his Majesty/Lisle Street, Leicester Square.” The dedication page is dated “Calcutta, August, 1803,” and signed “Harriet Stewart” (Wainewright's married name). Beneath the formal dedication there follows the usual fulsome address to a patron.