Sir Adam Fergusson, 3rd Baronet

Sir Adam Fergusson, 3rd Baronet of Kilkerran, FRSE LLD (7 May 1733 – 25 September 1813) was a Scottish advocate, politician and slave-owner. He was described as able but humourless. Together with contemporaries such as Robert Dundas he was part of what was called the Scotch Ministry in parliament in the late 18th century. He was joint owner, with his brothers and members of the Hunter-Blair family, of plantations in Tobago and Jamaica and of several hundred enslaved African people. ^[1]

Dr Samuel Johnson described him as "a vile Whig" however his friend James Boswell was less condemning, saying "few people were but mixed character, like a candle: half wax, half tallow- but Sir Adam Fergusson was all wax, with a pure taper, whom you may light and set upon any lady’s table". Robert Burns who knew Fergusson through his Ayr connections, called him "the oath-detesting, chaste, Kilkerran".^[2] Boswell described him as "his excellent friend".