Lot Essay
The infamous campaign to defeat Charles Edward Stuart was essentially a land-based one and culminated in the ruthless slaughter of the so-called Highland Army at Culloden in April 1746. England's Royal Navy had no obvious role in the affair and was, in any event, occupied elsewhere in the world as the War of the Austrian Succession [1740-48] was nearing its end. The possibility of French support for the Jacobite rebels remained a very real threat however, and thus a small squadron of warships was deployed in Scottish waters under the overall command of Rear-Admiral the Hon. Thomas Smith. The part played by the two bomb vessels Furnace and Terror whilst the fugitive Prince was hiding in the Western Isles in June 1746 is, for example, well-documented, but another much smaller ship was also playing its part in the drama on the other side of the country.
The victors at Culloden had established their camp near the southern end of Loch Ness at Fort Augustus; an enormous encampment for the Highlands, it accommodated eleven battalions of foot soldiers as well as a regiment of cavalry and thus required substantial quantities of not only food but also most other supplies.
"Whilst we stayed here", wrote the Surgeon to the Scots Fusiliers,
"we had near twenty thousand head of cattle brought in such as oxen, horses, sheep and goats taken from the rebels (whose houses we frequently plundered and burnt)....so that great numbers of our men grew rich by their shares in the spoil......., and few common soldiers were without horses".
Despite this plentiful supply of animals, the real materials of war such as weapons, ammunition and gunpowder, posed serious transportation problems for the army's commanders and their solution was to sail them down Loch Ness in their own armed vessel. The River Ness was navigable above Inverness and once the boat passed into the loch, delivery to Fort Augustus was both fast and relatively safe by comparison with any road journey. For ease of sailing and speed, the army chose a sloop for their needs and although the name is unrecorded, an image of it appears in painting of Lt. Col. and Mrs. John Grant of Glenmoriston in the private collection of the vendor
The Grants of Glenmoriston were amongst Bonnie Prince Charlie's most fervent supporters and their lands were within striking distance of Fort Augustus. The Grants, together with their neighbours the Camerons and the McDonnells, were able to muster a sizeable force of armed men with the result that, to an extent at least, Fort Augustus lay under a state of seige by the hostile local inhabitants, its only reliable contact with authority at Inverness being the faithful little sloop.
Little is known about the sloop's subsequent career although she appears to have continued to patrol Loch Ness long after the '45 had begun to recede into memory. Much later, perhaps around the end of the century, she was found to be no longer fit for service and was abandoned after being stripped of her salvageable gear. These three cannon, dating from 1720 and thus almost certainly used against any Jacobite threat during that crucial summer of 1746, passed into the ownership of the Grant family and thereafter stood in the grounds of Glenmoriston House overlooking Loch Ness.
We greatfully acknowledge the assistance of Michael Naxton for his help in the preparation of this catalogue entry.
The victors at Culloden had established their camp near the southern end of Loch Ness at Fort Augustus; an enormous encampment for the Highlands, it accommodated eleven battalions of foot soldiers as well as a regiment of cavalry and thus required substantial quantities of not only food but also most other supplies.
"Whilst we stayed here", wrote the Surgeon to the Scots Fusiliers,
"we had near twenty thousand head of cattle brought in such as oxen, horses, sheep and goats taken from the rebels (whose houses we frequently plundered and burnt)....so that great numbers of our men grew rich by their shares in the spoil......., and few common soldiers were without horses".
Despite this plentiful supply of animals, the real materials of war such as weapons, ammunition and gunpowder, posed serious transportation problems for the army's commanders and their solution was to sail them down Loch Ness in their own armed vessel. The River Ness was navigable above Inverness and once the boat passed into the loch, delivery to Fort Augustus was both fast and relatively safe by comparison with any road journey. For ease of sailing and speed, the army chose a sloop for their needs and although the name is unrecorded, an image of it appears in painting of Lt. Col. and Mrs. John Grant of Glenmoriston in the private collection of the vendor
The Grants of Glenmoriston were amongst Bonnie Prince Charlie's most fervent supporters and their lands were within striking distance of Fort Augustus. The Grants, together with their neighbours the Camerons and the McDonnells, were able to muster a sizeable force of armed men with the result that, to an extent at least, Fort Augustus lay under a state of seige by the hostile local inhabitants, its only reliable contact with authority at Inverness being the faithful little sloop.
Little is known about the sloop's subsequent career although she appears to have continued to patrol Loch Ness long after the '45 had begun to recede into memory. Much later, perhaps around the end of the century, she was found to be no longer fit for service and was abandoned after being stripped of her salvageable gear. These three cannon, dating from 1720 and thus almost certainly used against any Jacobite threat during that crucial summer of 1746, passed into the ownership of the Grant family and thereafter stood in the grounds of Glenmoriston House overlooking Loch Ness.
We greatfully acknowledge the assistance of Michael Naxton for his help in the preparation of this catalogue entry.