[image error] On 30 April 1746 two ships, the Mars and the Bellona, dropped anchor at Loch nan Uamh, Arisaig, in the Scottish Highlands. From the hold they unloaded seven casks of gold coins, once intended to fund Bonnie Prince Charlie's attempt to regain the English and Scottish thrones. Now, two weeks after the prince's comprehensive defeat at Culloden, the money was to be used instead to spirit the remaining Jacobites (and the prince himself) out of the country.

Things got off to a bad start when one of ...