[1] In 1880 the ship was stolen as part of a conspiracy in which it disappeared from its home in Scotland and mysteriously reappeared several months later in Australia under a new name.

Henderson presented himself as the leader and managed to convince the owners that he had substantial financial credentials, and that the cruise was for his wife who was unwell.

However, during the night with lights out, it passed back through the Straits, apparently unobserved—the ruse being that people would assume its disappearance meant the ship had been lost with all hands somewhere within the Mediterranean Sea.

While at sea in the Atlantic, Henderson told the crew and officers he was on a secret mission, that he was a colonel in the United States Cavalry, and that he needed to destroy all traces of his identity.

An observant wharf policeman on duty at Queenscliff, Constable James Davidson, who had recently arrived from Scotland, was at his post as the India steamed past.

At the time, he happened to be reading a copy of The Scotsman newspaper which included an article taken from the Glasgow Evening Citizen and which described the mysterious disappearance of the Ferret from the Clyde.

Under this singular heading the Glasgow Evening Citizen of Saturday prints a curious narrative, of which the following is a summary of the principal statements:"About the middle of October last a gentleman giving the name of Walker called on a leading firm of ship store merchants in Glasgow, represented that he was acting as broker for a gentleman of means who was going on a long yachting cruise, and desired to favour the firm with the contract for the provisioning of the vessel.

It was also given out, more by ambiguous allusion than by direct assertion, that the person for whom Mr. Walker appeared was named Smith, and a relative of the late First Lord of the Admiralty.

The vessel was then lying at Greenock undergoing an overhaul at the hands of Messrs. Steel and Co., to make her more suitable for the new work and waters in which she was to be engaged for the next six months.

Both vessel and engines were constructed by Messrs. J. and G. Thomson, of Glasgow, in 1871..."[3]Seeing that the India fit the description well, Davidson noticed certain unusual behaviours coming from the ship, and noted that it had broken a number of port regulations.

The three defendants fabricated a story that Watkins had led Peruvian arms smuggling racket, and that he told them to attempt to sell the ship.

[1][11][12] SS Ferret was employed for general cargo work in the Port Adelaide-Spencer Gulf trade and on the southern Australian coast for many years.

[15] It was wrecked on 14 November 1920 after running onto a beach during a storm at Reef Head near Cape Spencer on the south coast of Yorke Peninsula.

A stricken Norwegian barque, Ethel, had run onto the beach and the SS Ferret had been the first vessel to arrive to report and assist with the rescue of its crew and passengers.