His father's circumstances were humble, but as a boy of promise he was placed at the Elgin grammar school, where he made such good use of his opportunities that when sent to Aberdeen he took at Marischal College the highest bursary of the year in which he competed.
On leaving Aberdeen Alves was successively master of a Banffshire parish school and tutor in the family of a gentleman who offered him a living in the Church of Scotland.
But he preferred the head-mastership, with a lower stipend, of the Banff grammar school, which he held from 1773 until 1779, when, on the failure of his suit to a young lady of beauty and fortune, he migrated to Edinburgh.
In 1780 appeared his ‘Ode to Britannia ... on occasion of our late successes’, in which the gallantry of Scottish officers during the campaign in the Carolinas against the revolted American colonists was sung with patriotic enthusiasm.
Lord Gardenstone, a literary Scottish judge, seems to have superintended its issue from the press, and he contributed to it several critical observations.