463 ([return])
[ Burnet, i. 634.]
464 ([return])
[ Calamy's Memoirs; Commons' Journals, December 26,1690; Sunderland to Jeffreys, September 14, 1685; Privy Council Book, February 26, 1685-6.]
465 ([return])
[ Lansdowne MS. 1152; Harl. MS. 6845; London Gazette, July 20, 1685.]
466 ([return])
[ Many writers have asserted, without the slightest foundation, that a pardon was granted to Ferguson by James. Some have been so absurd as to cite this imaginary pardon, which, if it were real would prove only that Ferguson was a court spy, in proof of the magnanimity and benignity of the prince who beheaded Alice Lisle and burned Elizabeth Gaunt. Ferguson was not only not specially pardoned, but was excluded by name from the general pardon published in the following spring. (London Gazette, March 15, 1685-6.) If, as the public suspected and as seems probable, indulgence was shown to him; it was indulgence of which James was, not without reason, ashamed, and which was, as far as possible, kept secret. The reports which were current in London at the time are mentioned in the Observator, Aug. 1,1685.—— Sir John Reresby, who ought to have been well informed, positively affirms that Ferguson was taken three days after the battle of Sedgemoor. But Sir John was certainly wrong as to the date, and may therefore have been wrong as to the whole story. From the London Gazette, and from Goodenough's confession (Lansdowne MS. 1152), it is clear that, a fortnight after the battle, Ferguson had not been caught, and was supposed to be still lurking in England.]
467 ([return])
[ Granger's Biographical History.]