Note 489 — NEIL MACEACHAIN’S NARRATIVE OF THE WANDERINGS OF PRINCE CHARLES IN THE HEBRIDES

Captain John Ferguson was the fourth son of George Ferguson, one of six brothers, members of a family long resident at Inverurie. The eldest was the celebrated or notorious ‘Ferguson the Plotter’ of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries; other brothers founded the families of Pitfour and Kinmundy. George lived and died at Old Meldrum near Inverurie, so it may be supposed that his son, John, was born there. Nothing is known of his early career, but in 1746 John Ferguson was in command of H.M.S. Furness, (which is always spelt Furnace in the Scottish journals and narratives of the time), and was employed in hunting fugitive Jacobites. He was the ‘black captain’ of the ’45, one of the most active and ruthless of the Government officers. His cruelties are a constant theme in Jacobite annals (see the Lyon from the index). Captain O’Neille, who was one of his prisoners, states that Ferguson used him with the barbarity of a pirate, stripped him, and ordered him to be put into a rack and whipped by his hangman because he would not confess where he thought the Prince was. (L. in M., i. 374.) Ferguson was promoted in the same year, by the express interference and recommendation of the Duke of Cumberland, to be captain of the Nightingale, a new frigate just launched. He died in 1767. (Records of Clan Ferguson, p. 280.) Ferguson’s greatest exploit was the capture of Lord Lovat, which was effected with skill. Lovat had taken refuge in an island on Loch Morar, a fresh-water lake, and had removed all the boats on the loch to the island. Ferguson landed a party, who saw the fugitives, whom they could not reach, and by whom they were greeted with cries of derision. He then sent a boat ashore from his ship, carried it over a mile or so of rugged country, and launched it on Loch Morar. Lovat’s party rowed rapidly up the loch, and got on shore, but after three days’ concealment, the old lord, unable from infirmities to continue the struggle, determined to give himself up, sent word to his pursuers and surrendered to Captain Dugald Campbell of Achacrossan of the Argyll Militia.