Two Scottish Soldiers, and a Jacobite Laird and his Forbears.
By James Ferguson. (D. Wyllie and Son, Aberdeen.)—This hand- some book contains biographical sketches of three Scotsmen, all of Aberdeenshire, flourishing in three of the most important and interesting epochs of British history during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and presenting well-defined types of the perferridum ingenium Scotorum. Apart from the personal interest attaching to the individuals whose stories are given, the sketches possess a certain value in the side-lights east by them upon the history of the troublous times to which they relate. The first of the "two Scottish soldiers" was James Ferguson, a younger son of an Aberdeenshire gentleman, and brother of the famous "plotter." He began his service in the Scots Brigade in Holland in 1677, was with Mackay at Killiecrankie and in the Low Countries, where, as Lieutenant-Colonel, and subsequently Colonel, of the distinguished regiment known to Corporal Trim as " Angus's"—afterwards (and still) as the " Cameronians "—he also served in the campaigns of William III. and Marlborough, having command of a brigade at Blenheim. The subject of the second sketch was Patrick Ferguson, born in 1744, who distinguished himself on the Loyalist side in the American War of Independence, and died bravely while defending himself against a superior force of the rebels at King's Mountain, South Carolina, in 1780. He invented, and in 1776 patented, the first breech-loading rifle. This was capable of being loaded and fired some half-dozen times a minute, without the necessity, as with the muzzle-loader, of the marksman's exposing himself while loading ; and its advantages were so fully recognised by the authorities of the day, that on Ferguson's volunteering for service in America, he was entrusted with the command of a small corps armed with the new weapon. It is a curious illustration of the way in which military (and other) matters were mismanaged a century ago, that although the excellence of the arm was proved and acknowledged, its use was discontinued after a short time, owing to the petty jealousy of a superior. It is still more curious that no real attempt was ever made to apply to military rifles the breech-loading prin- ciple thus made known, until our own day. The concluding paper is chiefly a sympathetic sketch of William Forbes of Blaekton, a Jacobite member of a Whig clan, who fought and suffered in the '15, but was unable to do more in the '45 than give his best wishes and prayers for the success of his Prince. The book contains several interesting and well-executed illustrations, including diagrams of the Ferguson breech-loader.
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