On 15 June 1725, Russian warships and transport vessels anchored off of the Isle of Lewis while en-route to Spain. Rumours quickly spread that they were there to land arms and men to support a Jacobite rising, and it was feared that this was part of a larger Russian invasion designed to depose the Hanoverian George I and put the Jacobite pretender, James Francis Edward Stuart, on the British throne.
Major-General George Wade, Commander-in-Chief in Scotland, was dealing with the malt tax riots in Glasgow when he received information about the Russian ships from Brigadier Henry Grove who was encamped in the Highlands with two battalions of infantry. Grove reported that three Russian Men of War and a number of transports had appeared on the north west coast between Lewis and the mainland and that they had anchored off of Stornoway.1 It was also reported that the ships were carrying naval stores, cannon and small arms.
Shortly afterwards another report from Major Wansbrough at Bernera Barracks arrived which stated that they were “thought to be rebel ships, carrying men and provisions from Cadiz”.2 Enclosed with the report was a letter from Murdoch Macleod of Glenelg who wrote “the people of Lewis are quaking for fear of foreign invasion, being wearied of rebellion”.3
Wade sent a report on the Russian ships to the Duke of Newcastle, Secretary of State for the Northern Department, who wrote back instructing Wade to keep watch on the ships.4 The Russian’s had long since sailed by the time Wade’s instructions arrived, however there were still concerns that they may have landed arms for the Jacobite clans.
Three weeks later Newcastle informed Wade that the government had reports from Sweden of Russian ships supplying arms to the Jacobites, and ordered him to inquire into anything the Russians might have landed on Lewis.5 Wade did not believe that the ships posed any serious threat and reported that “I have never heard that they landed either arms or amunition, during their continuance on that coast; tho’ I have sent several times to procure information in that particular.”6
The arrival of the Russian warships came during a period of heightened tensions between Britain and Russia, over Russia’s expansion in the Baltic and the Russian threat towards Hanover. There was an active Jacobite lobby inside Russia and the late Czar, Peter the Great, had been embroiled in various Jacobite intrigues. The Walpole Ministry in London now feared that the new Czarina, Catherine, was planning a joint venture with Spain to depose George I.
With reports of suspicious Russian naval activity in the Baltic Sea, coupled with intelligence reports coming from Sweden and St Petersburg, Viscount Townshend, Secretary of State for the Southern Department, was convinced that a Russian invasion of Britain was looming. The Royal Navy was ordered to increase its patrols along the British coast and a fleet was readied to sail into the Baltic. Townshend wanted the navy to seize the next Russian ships to leave the Baltic, however, the Prime Minister Robert Walpole did not want to give the Russians any excuse to go to war.
Townshend wanted to know for certain if the Russians had landed arms in the western isles and instructed Newcastle to send orders to General Wade “that the strictest search be made in the highlands, and in the island of Lewis for the arms that the Muscovite ships are supposed to have left there.”7 Wade was also to be pressed on speeding up the work being carried out at Fort Augustus and the barracks at Inverness to ensure they were “in a good posture of defence”.8
Wade, who was now busy with the disarming of the Highland clans, was still unconvinced that there was any serious threat brewing in the Highlands. He reported to Newcastle on the difficulty of searching Lewis for arms which might have been landed stating “that tract of islands are above a hundred miles in length, and so remote from the main land that a voyage to Norway would be less dangerous and performed in a much shorter time”. Wade recommended that the waters of the western isles should be patrolled by warships to stop communication between the Jacobites abroad and those in the Highlands.9
There was another alarm in November when it was reported that the Russian ships had sailed from Cadiz and were on their way back towards the Scottish coast. Newcastle authorised Wade to seize the vessels should they arrive at a Scottish port, however the ships never made another appearence.
Two years later Captain John Deane, a British naval officer, interviewed a sailor who was onboard one of the Russian ships. The sailor, an Englishman named James Young, told Deane that the ships had anchored off of Lewis to fix a leak that had sprung on one of the vessels. Young stated that no arms were landed on the island and that they had spent ten days there before sailing on to Santander where they wintered before returning to Reval the following spring.
Notes:
- General Wade’s report quoted in: Edmund Burt, Letters from a Gentleman in the North of Scotland to his Friend in London, volume 2, fifth edition, (London 1818), p 299. ↩︎
- SP 54/15/33B: Major Wansbrough to General Wade, 25 June 1725. ↩︎
- Ibid. ↩︎
- SP 54/15/37B: Duke of Newcastle to General Wade, 6 July 1725. ↩︎
- SP 54/15/51: Duke of Newcastle to General Wade, 27 July 1725. ↩︎
- General Wade’s report quoted in: Burt, Letters from a Gentleman, p 299. ↩︎
- William Coxe, Memoirs of the life and administration of Sir Robert Walpole, volume 2 (London 1798), p 483 ↩︎
- Ibid. ↩︎
- SP 54/16/74: General Wade reporting on the difficulty of searching Lewis for arms, 13 November 1725. ↩︎
Cite this article: Ritchie, N. S. (11 April 2025). Russia and the Jacobite scare of 1725. Jacobite Wars. https://www.jacobitewars.com/articles/russia-jacobite-scare-of-1725/
