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The true story of the Scottish venture in colonizing on the Isthmus of Darien (also known as the Isthmus of Panama) at the close of the seventeenth century. The
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THE DISASTER OF DARIEN
Francis Russell Hart
PROCLAMATION OFFERING £500 REWARD FOR THE APPREHENSION OF THE AUTHOR AND PRINTER OF A BOOK CONSIDERED LIBELLOUS BY THE ENGLISH
The book was burned by the hangman
THE DISASTER OF DARIEN
The Story of the Scots Settlement and the
Causes of its Failure
1699-1701
BY
FRANCIS RUSSELL HART, F.R.G.S.
AUTHOR OF ‘ADMIRALS OF THE CARIBBEAN’
With Illustrations
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1929
Originally published in 1929.
Careat successibus, opto,
Quisquis ab eventu facta notanda putat.
OVID, HEROIDES, II.
NOTE
Much has been written of the Scottish venture in colonizing on the Isthmus of Darien at the close of the seventeenth century. The many contemporaneous accounts were devoted to the defence of the expedition or to attempts to fix the blame for its failure. The survivors of these small books, pamphlets, and broadsides have drifted almost wholly onto the shelves of a few large libraries and collectors. The more recent accounts by Bannister and by Barbour are concerned with the affairs of the Darien Company and its connection with William Paterson. Under the able editorship of J. H. Burton, the Bannatyne Club printed privately in 1849, under the title of Darien Papers, a valuable collection of letters and papers deposited in what was then the Advocates Library in Edinburgh, since become the National Library of Scotland. Quite recently the Scottish Historical Society, under the discriminating direction of Dr. G. P. Insh, has printed a selection of important manuscripts entitled Darien Shipping Papers. In the Journal of the same society, the publication of the results of painstaking research into certain phases of the venture by Miss Theodora Keith, Professor Hiram Bingham, and others has encouraged a wider study of the Darien undertaking and this has been furthered by the timely issue by The Hispanic Society of America of Mr. Cundall’s book containing matter previously unpublished.
To this wealth of material the author ventures to add a selection of letters and documents drawn from Spanish sources, largely but not wholly, found in the Archives of the Indies at Seville. An attempt has been made to outline the whole affair of the Darien venture, the reasons which led to the formation of the company, the conditions in Europe and the New World at the time, and the causes and results of its failure.
The author wishes to express his thanks to Dr. Worthington Chauncey Ford, LL.D., F. R. Hist. S., of the Massachusetts Historical Society; Mr. Frank Cundall, secretary of the Institute of Jamaica; Sr. don Cristóbal Bermúdez Plata, Jefe del Archivo General de Indias, Seville; Miss I. A. Wright, F. R. Hist. S., Seville; and Major I. H. Mackay Scobie, F. S. A. Scot., of Edinburgh, for valuable help.
THE DISASTER OF DARIEN
• •
•
CHAPTER I SCOTLAND AND THE NEW WORLD BEFORE 1690
The history of the inception of the settlement by the Scots on the Isthmus of Darien at the end of the seventeenth century and the facts concerning the colony furnish an interesting subject of study. The causes which led to the complete collapse of the undertaking and the return home of those who survived gave disputatious matter for a decade to Scotsmen, and added fuel to the existing quarrels with England.
It is not successful ventures alone which have left their mark and influence on the Americas. The Darien venture had an importance which warrants examination and analysis. Nor was the failure at Darien the only disaster of its kind; the misfortunes and failures of Spanish undertakings were numerous, although now forgotten. The wonder is that the Spanish adventurers had enthusiasm and courage enough to continue the struggle for conquest.
It is necessary to consider first the state of affairs in both Europe and in the New World towards the close of the seventeenth century. When the death of King Charles II in 1685 put James, Duke of York, nominally on the throne and the series of events began which shortly afterwards put William of Orange on the throne, the situation of England’s trade with both the East and West Indies was bound to attract the attention of the Scottish merchants, up to then hardly more than bystanders in the rush to the New World.
In addition to her Northern American colonies, England was in possession of Jamaica, Barbadoes, Antigua, Nevis, Montserrat, Bermuda, and a part of St. Kitts. France, in addition to New France (later to become Canada) and Louisiana, had the French Caribbees, including Guadaloupe, Martinique, and a settlement on St. Kitts; by the Treaty of Ryswick (1697) she came formally into possession of the Haytian end of Hispaniola. Spain had her firm grip on Cuba, Porto Rico, all of Central America, Panama, New Granada (now Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador), and presumptively all of South America south of these countries except Brazil, which belonged to the Portuguese. The Dutch were strongly established in Curaçoa, St. Eustatius, Aruba, Bonaire, and on the mainland at Surinam. The Danes had a trading foothold at St. Thomas. In general, the English colonies were more concerned with agriculture than with other pursuits; the Spanish and Portuguese had devoted less time to raising crops than to working the rich mines, included by selection rather than by chance, in their possessions. The Dutch and the Danes were not then nor later considered as of consequence as proprietors in the New World, but had importance as traders and were obtaining generous rewards. The French were engaged to some extent by the nature of their settlements in agriculture, mining, and trade.
It did not need the quarrels in Europe to arouse antagonisms in the Caribbean; the situation itself was fitted to breed jealousies, disputes, raids, and reprisals. The stakes, however, were high and no country seems to have lacked an ample supply of men adventurous with either their capital, or their lives, or both. The political situation in the Caribbean was intimately related to the political situation in Europe—not only in the changing relations between the chief colonizing countries but also in the individual prejudices of the reigning sovereigns. The call of William of Orange in 1688 to the throne of England, after the birth of a son to James, had a strong influence, at first favourable and subsequently adverse, to the aspirations of the Scots for their place under the tropical sun. The long war with France begun in 1689 was ended in 1697 by the Treaty of Ryswick. This treaty, although affecting little more than a truce, seemed to the English merchant the end of a long struggle and the beginning of a new political and commercial era. The fear that France and the Stuarts could make a Catholic country of England was ended. The war had left England with lessened business and with burdensome taxes. Any policy likely to bring on new quarrels was repugnant to the great merchant class, and William found it no easy task to press his own strong views as to the Spanish succession and yet keep the precarious peace unbroken. Trade conditions in a maritime nation are a measure of prosperity; during the long war exports had dropped about one-third and the losses at sea had been enormous.
In the five years following the Treaty of Ryswick exports had doubled. Even an ambitious King had to yield to the pressure of a parliament pledged to peace. The closing years of the century were favourable to the promotion of undertakings designed to increase trade. In England those who were not sharing in the rich returns from the trade of the great East India Company were anxious to find a way to secure some portion of the trade with the East in addition to a participation in the more open field in the West Indies. In Scotland no spark was needed to fire the enthusiasm for a Scottish venture into the trade with and colonization of the New World. Previous failures, or more fairly stated, previous lack of permanence and prosperity, had been due more to the relatively disadvantageous position of Scotland politically and commercially, and to the state of wars with other nations, than to any particular unfitness of the Scots.
As early as January, 1618, King James considered the expediency of sending to Virginia not only some of his unruly English subjects but also those turbulent Scots who made the border a broad zone of discomfort.[1] It was not these troublesome borderers, however, but a body of voluntary Scottish pioneers who joined the settlement in Newfoundland some time before the Pilgrims founded Plymouth Colony. The charter for the Newfoundland plantations had been granted in 1611 to the “Company of adventurers and planters of the cittie of London and Bristol for the colony or plantation in Newfoundland.” The Scots had joined the first formed settlement at Cupid’s Cove at the head of Harbour Grace, and through the capacity and resourcefulness of one of their number, Captain Mason, who became Governor, the influence of Scotsmen was strengthened in the colony. The return of Mason to England in 1621 increased the interest of Scotland in colonial schemes,[2] although lessening their influence in the Newfoundland settlements.
To the enthusiasm and plans of Sir William Alexander, the romantic and versatile poet and colonizer from Menstrie, Stirling, who had an acquaintance with Mason,[3] is due the attempt to found a New Scotland. In regard to this undertaking Sir William says that he “is much encouraged hereunto by Sir Ferdinando Gorge and some others of the undertakers for New England, I shew them that my countriemen would never adventure in such an Enterprise, unlesse it were as there was a New France, a New Spaine, and a New England, that they might likewise have a New Scotland, and that for that effect they might have bounds with a correspondencie in proportion (as others had) with the Countrey whereof it should beare the name, which they might hold of their owne Crowne, and where they might bee governed by their owne Lawes.”[4]
By direction of King James a charter was granted at Edinburgh in September, 1621, for the proposed colony of New Scotland, described in the Latin charter as Nova Scotia, and covering a territory which for this purpose was surrendered by the Council of New England; it included what is now Nova Scotia and New Brunswick with the land extending down to the St. Lawrence. Over this great new province Sir William Alexander was given almost complete power.[5]
The peaceful translation to the New World of the spirit of Scotland with its curious mixture of feudalism and independence was not, however, to be so easy as Sir William hoped. As has been indicated, the chief contestants for dominant position in the colonization of the Americas were Spain, France, and England. Spain claimed the continent. She endeavoured to make this technical claim to a long stretch of the Atlantic seaboard more certain by settlements on the Florida coast, whilst Cartier and others were strengthening the claims of France to the St. Lawrence. The two outposts of Britain were the settlement at Jamestown in the south and Nova Scotia in the north, which had now assumed the responsibilities of a northern bulwark previously carried by the Plymouth Colony and in lesser degree by the Newfoundland settlements. France was not prepared to recognize the claim of England that the discoveries of Cabot gave that country title to the northern shores and the country behind; on the contrary, France claimed as its own the very territory assigned to Nova Scotia, by virtue of their original settlements there in 1604-1605. France had in fact given the territory the name of Acadie and appointed a governor in 1603.[6]
For a successful colonization of this great tract lying between the settlements of New England and Newfoundland the situation in England and Scotland was propitious; but success did not come quickly. The first two expeditions fared badly and the Scots Privy Council considered the expediency of having associated in the conduct of affairs of the venture some Englishmen experienced in such undertakings. In 1627 war broke out between England and France. The struggles for supremacy as between the settlements affected by this open state of war were severe and prolonged. The conditions did not make the territory of Nova Scotia a happy place for the Scottish venture in colonization. When peace came in 1631 the chief settlement of the Scots colony at Port Royal became an important item in certain reciprocal exchanges and in July of that year it was as part of the agreement abandoned and turned over to the French.
Sir William, now Earl of Stirling, continued his connection with the American Colonies as a councillor of the New England Company; but from that time no exclusively Scottish company played any important part in the northern settlements. A settlement of Scots at Cape Breton, founded by Lord Ochiltree and fitted out by the Anglo-Scottish Company in 1629, had been of short life, as it had been the subject of immediate attack by the French.
During the fifty years following 1631 the desire for a part in the colonization of the New World had little opportunity for effective expression; but between 1680 and 1685 a small Quaker-Scottish settlement was established in East New Jersey and a Scottish-Presbyterian one at Stuart’s Town in South Carolina. Migration to these colonies was induced not solely by the natural inclination of many of the emigrants but also by orders from Cromwell, who thus disposed of many of his prisoners.[7] During the Commonwealth about two thousand Scotsmen were forced to join the English settlements in North America, Bermuda, Barbadoes, and Jamaica.[8] Even after the Restoration it was found not inconvenient by the Scots Privy Council to banish annoying Presbyterians to the Colonies.[9]
Although in large measure both of these settlements were too intimately associated with already existing colonies to be considered as exclusively Scottish ventures, it is interesting to note that the Scots were again an outpost of the English occupation of the Atlantic coast. The South Carolina settlements and that at Port Royal were open to and received the attack of the Spaniards from St. Augustine, who destroyed the settlement in September, 1686.
The state of mind of a people is largely the result of prosperity or distress. To place in proper perspective the efforts of the Scots to secure at the end of the seventeenth century an important place in the trade of the world, it is necessary to bear in mind the industrial, financial, and social condition of Scotland during the last half of the seventeenth century.
Although the greater part of the fighting took place in England during the civil wars, Scotland was invaded by the English army in 1650 and the people suffered severely. Cromwell’s invasion and the Dunbar campaign laid waste the southern part of the country and all trade was interrupted. Nicoll in his Diary[10] wrote: “So, to end this yeir of God 1650, this Kingdome was for the moist pairte spoyled and overrun with the enymie, evin from Berwik to the town of Air, their being Inglische garisounes in all quarteris of these boundis; and land murning, languisching and fading, and left desolat.” In 1651 the same writer says: “. . . this pure land wes brocht to oppin confusioun and schame, the Inglische airmy ramping throw the kingdome without oppositioun destroying our cornes, and raising money quhairevir they went for maintenance of thair airmy and garisoune . . .”
All commerce between the two countries was prohibited by Act of Parliament[11] from the time of the invasion until 1654. Scottish ships with their cargoes were seized and treated as prizes.
General Monk estimated that, by reason of the destruction by the invaders and the laying waste of the country by each side to deprive the other of sustenance, the people were two hundred thousand pounds poorer than before. England had suffered grievously for a long period and was the powerful member of a forced partnership; it was not unnatural that she should attempt to relieve her own tax burden by throwing so far as possible on Scotland the weight of supporting the army of occupation. Scotland, at her best, in these days was comparatively poor, and so definite was the evidence as to her poverty that the English Government found itself compelled to make various reductions in the assessment.[12] The burden of taxes and extreme poverty continued through the Protectorate, and Robert Baillie, a Presbyterian clergyman writing in 1656,[13] describes how “deep poverty keeps all ranks exceedingly under.”
Lack of capital made it impossible to start new industries, and in 1661 efforts were made to attract money from outside to assist in their development. Acts were passed by the Scottish Parliament granting special privileges,[14] and in 1681 restrictions were placed on the exportation of raw materials, especially wool and yarn. Some impetus was given to the manufacture of cloth by protection against importation, with the result that cloth made in Scotland cost so much more than that made in England that in 1685 smuggling had become common.[15]
For many years prior to the Commonwealth, Scotland had enjoyed practically free trade with England and the Colonies. By the enforcement of an effectual union, Cromwell legally recognized this freedom of trade; the Restoration, returning, as it did, to Scotland her coveted nationality, strictly enforced the Navigation Act of 1660, which forbade the transportation of goods from His Majesty’s possessions in Asia, Africa, or America except in ships belonging to England, Ireland, Wales, Berwick-upon-Tweed, or the Plantations, of which the master and three quarters of the crew were to be English. No goods from English possessions could enter England except in English or colonial ships, and no foreign goods, except in English ships or ships of the country from which the goods came.[16] As this limited the trade of Scottish shipping to commerce with Scotland itself, retaliation was to be expected. An Act of Parliament of Scotland was passed in June, 1661, forbidding the import of goods into Scotland except in Scottish ships or in those of the country whence the goods came, until such time as the restrictions of the English Act were revoked.[17]
Improvement of conditions was very slow. Industrial conditions were unstable and the Scottish Government wavered in its policy of protection. Difficulties in securing capital continued and under James II there was suspicion in Scotland of the policy of his ministry. The Revolution gave a great impetus to Scottish industry and a large number of manufacturing companies were organized from 1690 to 1695. This was also a period of extensive industrial development in England, and capital, attracted by the generous privileges granted to companies organized in Scotland, with the advantage of skilled Huguenot workmen, flowed over the border into Scotland. For four or five years the impoverished country tasted the beginnings of what appeared to be a coming prosperity; but the promotion of manufacturing in England had been overdone and in 1696 the boom on both sides of the border collapsed. Money, however, had been in circulation amongst a people to whom its sight was unfamiliar. The savings, small and widely distributed, of a thrifty people were awaiting the call of the genius who should point out the road to affluence for the individual, and to greatness for the country.
The company which undertook the Darien venture was not in its earlier stages designed for that purpose. Actually it was the outgrowth of trade aspirations originally English, rather than Scottish. An attempt had been made as early as 1618, under authority from James I, to establish a joint stock company to trade on the African coast; immediate profits were not shown and the undertaking was given up. A similar exclusive charter covering the same territory was granted by Charles I to a company of London merchants in 1631, but the associates made no headway. In 1662 a third company was incorporated with similar privileges and the added right to supply negroes to the English colonies in the West Indies. This company, because of the inclusion amongst its shareholders of persons of high rank as well as merchants, reached further than its predecessors in actual accomplishment.
In 1672 this company surrendered its charter and the Royal African Company was formed, which took over to some extent the business of its predecessor. Until the revolution of 1688 altered conditions, this company did a fairly lively business. Under William and Mary trading became less exclusive in character, and special privileges largely disappeared except in the East Indian trade. The profits of the trade with the East Indies were an incentive to English as well as to Scottish merchants to find similar opportunities elsewhere. The East India Company had been formed at the end of the sixteenth century to compete with the Dutch in the rich trade with the Indies. The Royal Charter from Queen Elizabeth[18] (31st December, 1600) gave to the company sole trading rights beyond the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Magellan. Its original capital was £72,000, subscribed by one hundred and twenty-five shareholders. At the beginning, the profits on single voyages usually equalled one hundred per centum and an accounting to the shareholders was made at the end of each voyage; after 1612 the company became a joint stock undertaking and broadened its operations. Quarrels and friction with the Dutch continued through many years and nearly a century passed before a real monopoly was established. During the reign of Charles II, from a simple trading company the undertaking grew into a great chartered company with right to acquire territory, coin money, make war and peace, and exercise civil and criminal jurisdiction. By the last decade of the seventeenth century the company’s importance and power were so great that its history became the history of British India. The company’s monopoly, occasionally questioned by some interloper, was confirmed in 1683 by Judge Jeffreys, who sustained the royal prerogative on which the rights of the company rested. Attempts to enter the trade continued, however, and by 1691 an actual association of traders had been formed, determined to break into the profitable trade. Pressure was brought by these merchants on the House of Commons, which declared in 1694 that “all the subjects of England have equal rights to trade to the East Indies, unless prohibited by act of parliament.” The East India Company dealt skillfully with the new situation; by Act of Parliament a new East India Company was formed in which the old company had an important place; the consideration given was help in a loan of £2,000,000 to the state. The two companies were, however, sufficiently distinct to encourage rivalry and in 1702 they were amalgamated with the consent of the Crown.[19] With peace, enlarged opportunities and increasing prosperity at home, and a new King, apparently desirous to encourage the trade and colonization by Scotland as well as by England, the stage was well set in the last decade of the seventeenth century to give the adventurous of the northern country an opportunity to gain both associates and backers.
Overall, Analytical Index to the Remembrancia (City of London Archives) 1579-1664, London, 1878, p. 361.
Letter of King James to Scots Privy Council, 5th Aug. 1621, Rogers Memorials of the Earl of Stirling, Edinburgh, 1877, i, p. 60.
C. W. Tuttle, Memoir of Captain John Mason, Prince Society, Boston, 1887, p. 14.
Sir William Alexander, Encouragement to Colonies, London, 1624, p. 32, reprinted by The Bannatyne Club, Edinburgh, 1867.
The Earl of Stirling’s Register of Royal Letters, Edinburgh, 1885, pp. xv and xvi.
G. P. Insh, Scottish Colonial Schemes, 1620-1686, Glasgow, 1922, p. 54.
C. E. Banks, Proceedings, Massachusetts Historical Society, lxi, 1927.
Theodora Keith (Scottish Historical Review, vi, p. 32).
W. H. Carslaw, Exiles of the Covenant, Paisley, 1908, p. 13.
Scottish Historical Review, v, p. 275.
Henry Scobell, A Collection of Acts and Ordinances (1640-1656), Second Part, London, 1657-58, pp. 124, 143, 294.
C. H. Firth, Scotland and the Protectorate, p. xxx.
Theodora Keith (Scottish Historical Review, v, p. 277).
Baillie’s Letters and Journals, iii, p. 375 (in Scottish Historical Review, v, p. 279).
Acts of the Parliament of Scotland (1661), vii, No. 275, p. 255; No. 280, p. 261; (1681) viii, No. 78, p. 348.
W. R. Scott (Scottish Historical Review, i, pp. 178, 407; ii, pp. 53, 287, 406).
Theodora Keith, Scottish Trade with the Plantations before 1707 (Scottish Historical Review, vi, p. 33).
Acts of Parliament of Scotland, vii, No. 27, p. 257; “Act for encourageing of Shiping and Navigation.”
Purchas his Pilgrimes, Glasgow, 1905, ii, p. 366.
William Griggs, Relics of the Honourable East India Company, London, 1909.
CHAPTER II THE ORGANIZATION OF THE DARIEN COMPANY
A wish or inclination common or widespread in a community invariably finds expression in an individual. The occasion breeds the leader. The dormant desire of the Scots for an expansion of their trade horizon would have offered a fertile field for an unscrupulous promoter; but the man whose enthusiasm and capacity crystallized unformed wishes into an ambitious undertaking was of quite a contrary type.
William Paterson, the son of a Skimmyre farmer, was born in the parish of Tinwald, Dumfriesshire, about 1658.[20] Little is known of his early life; but that either in the local parish schools or in some other wise he was given a thorough elementary education is to be inferred from his later accomplishments rather than from any more positive evidence. It appears certain that Scotland saw little of him after his earliest years. In fact, but for the certain knowledge that he was for a time in the West Indies, not much is known of him until his return to England in his early twenties.
WILLIAM PATERSON
(British Museum, Ad. MS. 10,403)
In the West Indies he acquired not only knowledge of trade conditions and some business experience, but also enough fortune to gain the ear and attention of people of influence on his return home. Whether he actually made the acquaintance of Dampier and of Wafer in Jamaica, as is generally stated, is of little consequence. It is known that he was acquainted with Wafer later in England and that the latter helped to interest others in the West Indian venture.[21] He became intimately acquainted with the settlements, trade, and problems of the West Indies and the adjoining mainland as they were then viewed, though he may not have seen personally more than the English possessions. It is credibly asserted that Paterson contributed to a work written by Sir Dalby Thomas and published in 1690, and designed to stimulate increased interest in the importance of the West Indies to English trade.[22] There is evidence to show that he was a careful student of the existing political and trade conditions and that he looked forward to future developments not only in the Caribbean but beyond its limits into the Pacific, or, as it was then called, the great Southern Sea. Some slight evidence of his activities as a merchant are indicated by the application in October, 1688, of four merchants, of whom Paterson was one, to the Elector of Brandenburg for privileges for a new company to trade with America, but this particular undertaking appears to have fallen through.
On his return to England Paterson had, for one so young, a position of extraordinary influence. He had formed business friendships not only with his own countrymen but amongst merchants of the highest rank in London. Especially was he drawn to that powerful group, which he joined, and which was attempting to resist the monopoly of the East India Company. At this time[23] (1691) there was much discussion on the means of maintaining a uniform standard of the coin of the realm. Into this discussion, with his clear analytic mind and native talent for argument, Paterson entered with zest and an enlightened determination to accomplish a real purpose. It was not, however, until the years 1694 and 1695 that his hopes were realized and the actual founding of the Bank of England took place. It is perhaps as the accredited founder of that notable institution that Paterson is best known and will deservedly have a more enduring fame, than as the promoter of the great effort of his life, the unfortunate colony of Darien.
Paterson clearly possessed intellectual power and was, for the period, of unusual tolerance. Daniel Defoe[24] said that Paterson, living in the period of “a great crisis of our political history—a time when our commercial character was struggling out of feudal corruption, and when it was assuming its just equality with legitimate property in the soil, was one of the boldest advocates of free trade, without undervaluing fair territorial claims.”
Paterson outspokenly advocated universal education. He emphatically denounced inconvertible paper money. Neither these, nor his views as to religious liberality, were popular at the time. He had himself experienced the persecution of the Presbyterians under the Stuarts; the intolerance of the Puritans in New England was well known; the expulsion of the Huguenots from France had exiled thousands. Mixed with the dreams of the great merchant were those of the liberal-minded tolerant thinker who longed for a new country where his spiritual as well as his material aspirations might come true.
In June, 1693, the Parliament of Scotland passed a general act permitting the formation of joint-stock companies to trade with countries not at war with the British Crown, and allowing such companies to combine colonizing with their commercial operations. This act gave Paterson the opportunity he no doubt had impatiently waited. There is reason to believe that Paterson had much to do with the drafting of the act of the Scottish Parliament of 1695 establishing “The Company for trading from Scotland to Africa and the Indies.”[25]
That act, which later came to be called the “Darien Act,” did not name Darien specifically, nor is there reason to believe that any public agreement or understanding existed as to exactly where the contemplated activities of the company should be turned, whatever may have been in the minds of Paterson and his particular friends. The act of 1693 itself specified “any country not at war with us—to the East and West Indies, the Straits and Mediterranean, Africa and the northern parts,” and the act constituting the company names somewhat vaguely Africa and the Indies. Although subsequently known as “The Darien Company,” it was in its first years generally referred to as “The African Company.” The Act received the approval of the King in the manner usual at the time, that is, through His Majesty’s Commissioner for Scotland, then Lord Tweeddale, who is supposed to have been influenced in his decision by the desire to divert the mind of the nation from the unfortunate Glencoe massacre;[26] but William, then on the continent, was far from pleased with the action taken in his absence. Large powers were conferred on the company, and by a somewhat extraordinary omission, no limit was placed on the amount of capital which might be raised. For thirty-one years the company was to enjoy a monopoly of the trade of Scotland with Asia, Africa, and America and for twenty-one years all goods imported into Scotland, except foreign sugar and tobacco, were to be free of duty; for ten years the company was granted the right to equip and navigate ships in warlike or other manner, whether such ships were owned or hired by the company; the company’s members and servants were free from impressment and arrest, and its officers and members freed from all taxes for twenty-one years; the capital stock of members was made free from attachment except as to profits; the company was authorized to take possession of uninhabited territories in any part of Asia, Africa, or America, or in any other place, provided it was not possessed by any European sovereign, and there permitted to establish colonies, impose taxes, erect fortifications, wage war, and to conclude treaties of peace and commerce.[27]
The capital must be subscribed by the 1st August, 1696, and at least half must be set aside for Scotsmen living within the Kingdom, to be transferable only to other similarly qualified Scotsmen. It was provided, however, that if there should be some unsubscribed remainder of the Scottish moiety, non-resident Scotsmen and foreigners could be permitted to take it up. No person could hold an interest of less than £100 nor more than £3000 in the company. A capital of £360,000 of which £180,000 was to be for Scotland, was at first proposed[28] by Paterson and his London associates, subsequently increased to £600,000, one half of which as provided was reserved for Scottish subscribers and the remaining £300,000 to be placed by Paterson in London. Paterson in letters[29] from London to the Lord Provost in Edinburgh written in July, 1696, makes the following interesting comments:
“and as for Reasons we ought to give none, but that it is a Fund for the Affrican and Indian Company; For if we are not able to raise the Fund by our Reputation, we shall hardly do it by our Reasons. The Gentlemen here are extremely satisfyed that they are joyned with so excellent Persons, and doubt not, by their advice and assistance, to begin and carry on this undertaking to the honour and profit of themselves and the Nation. In a post or two the Gentlemen intend to be more full in expressing what they judge necessary to be dispatched before the meeting of the Corporation, as also of the way of making it in the most satisfactory manner. They think this Company can not be managed by Correspondence alone like some sort of Trades, but most by Councel and conversation; and therefore intreats that this Society may be reckon’d one intire body, and not of several interferring parts and interests . . . the Settlement of the Constitution of this Company being designed for Posterity, there needs the greater Caution in their first setting out; wherefore it will be needfull that as great a Number as possible of the Gentn named in the Act should meet, and sedately and maturely deliberate and settle the Constitutions of the Company, before any other steps be taken, and that cannot sute with the Gentlemen here before the beginning of November or thereabouts; and its needfull the first Meeting should be in London, because without the advice and assistance of some Gentlemen here it will not be possible to lay the foundation as it ought, either as to Councel or money; And they thinke also that we ought to keep private and close for some months that no occasion may be given for the Parliamt of England directly or indirectly to take notice of it in the ensueing Session, which might be of ill consequence, and especially since a great many considerable persons are already allarum’d at it. Besides all this, the Parliamt of Scotland have given the Kingdom of Scotland till the first of August come Twelve month to come in for half the Stock, which ought to induce us to make what private Preparations we can, but not to think of appearing in publick till within three or four months of that time; For if we should lay Bookes open in Scotland for six or eight months or a year together, we should become ridiculous at home and abroad, and for that we have many Instances here in England, where, when the Parliament gives a long day for money, that Fund has hardly ever success; and where the dayes are short, they seldom ever fail. The Bank of England had but six weekes time from the opening of the Bookes, and was finished in nine dayes; and in all Subscriptions here it’s alwayes limited to a short day; For if a thing goe not on with the first heat, the raising of a Fund seldom or never succeeds, the Multitude being comonly ledd more by example than Reason. Besides, if we take care to publish our Subscriptions, and the Termes of it, sufficiently through the Kingdom for three or four months, none will have reason to complain, and every man will have time enough to enter, unless it be full sooner. . . . They hope, all things considered, that this, as it’s designed, is one of the most beneficial and best-grounded pieces of Trade at this day in Christendom, and we must engage some of the best heads and purses for Trade in Europe therein, or we can never do it as it ought to be. We ought not to think that ever we can bring an Indian business to bear from Scotland by only apeing the English and Dutch. But we may be sure, should we only settle some little Colony or Plantation, and send some Ships, They would looke upon them as Interlopers, and all agree to discourage and crush us to pieces; But it must be from some extreame defects in their management of Trade, and in some discovery’s and advantages, that we have more than they, that must give opportunity to our Rise. Wherefore whatever is considerable ought to be reserved till the execution, for, should we disclose our Designs before, they would no more be ours but their’s and other People’s. . . . But to conclude. There are remarkable occurrences at this time, and many Disadvantages our Neighbours ly under, and improvements seemes to incline to Scotland, to give them a faculty and inclination to gain some advantages for themselves and Posterity, all which seem to be Harbingers of, and to portend glorious Success. Above all, it’s needfull for Us to make no distinction of Partys in this great and noble Undertaking, but that of whatever Nation or Religion a man be (if one of us) he ought to be looked upon to be of the same Interest and Inclination. For we must not act apart in any thing, but in a firm and united body, and distinct from all other Interests whatsoever. . . . If a Coppy of the Act as it past the Seal, as also some Coppies printed, be not dispatched before this comes to hand, we desire you to send them with all convenient speed, because now they begin to be much wanted here among our Friends. . . . We are much surprized to see some of the printed Acts of Parliament in the hands of some who are no very well-wishers to Us, before we who are concerned can have them; And we now see that we have not hitherto had a perfect Coppy thereof. We pray therefore that for the future, we may by every Post have what may but seem to concern us, worth any notice. . . . Our business here hath taken more aire than we expected so soon; and what was a reason for us before to delay our business for some time, proves now an argument for us to hasten it, because it is now as publick as it can well be; and our Politicians here seem inclined rather to endeavour that England should follow our example as much as may be in encourageing Forreign Trade, than to thinke of discourageing us, who if blest with prudent manadgement have designed one of the least involved and freest fundations of Commerce that hath been anywhere proposed. And since the People here are already as much awaken’d as they are like to be, it becomes us to strike whilst the Iron is hott, and hasten our pace which now will be of advantage to our Proposal, should it meet with opposition or not; wherefore, it’s needfull that the persons to be deputed from you may be dispatcht with all expedition that as-soon as may be we may have a Majority of the Corporation here in order to proceed upon business.
“. . . This day all the persons here named in the Act mett, and have agreed for the future to meet every Thursday, our affaire having now taken so much aire, that each succeeding day may reasonably produce new matter worth our notice. Wherefore We recommend to your Lop’s care that our correspondence may be so concerted as to have an account of any matterial occurrences with you every Wednesday at least: and for the reasons mentioned in my last, all the Gentlemen here do seriously press it, that three at least of your number may come hither with all reasonable expedition to make us a majority, that no time be lost; and care shall be taken for reimbursing all their necessary charges: So hoping that your next will give us an account of the Act’s being pass’d the Seals . . . we find ourselves dayly more and more obliged by the Constitution of affairs to press the coming of those persons who shall be deputed from you, the Reasons still increasing for us to gett our business here dispatched before the approaching Sessions of Parliamt: Wherefore we intreat you to hasten their Departure as a matter of the greatest moment, that we may have a Majority together to proceed upon business. We would not press it so much, if the Reasons did not require it, and we doubt not but the Gentlemen in Scotland will be as diligent herein as the matter requires. . . . We wonder that some of you should still seem to be of opinion that this matter may be transacted by Correspondence, when it’s plain by the Act that things must be transacted by the Majority of persons present, and that it’s morally impossible it can be done otherwise either in the needful Dispatch or the nature of the thing. We wonder that any of you should still expect Reasons for our not coming to Scotland, after we have said so much of it in our former Letters, and that it’s impossible to lay the fundation any where but here. We have already press’d you to hasten by our former Letters more than modesty would admitt, and we must now tell you that if you neglect coming up but a few dayes after this comes to hand, it will endanger the loss of the whole matter; and for the Reasons, it’s neither fitt nor safe for us to write; we therefore desire that the persons appointed would come, if possible by post, that they may be here by the first of November at furthest.”
The delays mentioned in these letters were disastrous to the success of the English subscription. There was sound philosophy in the reasonings and warnings of Paterson and it is interesting to note that the intelligent and successful banking house of to-day is guided by a similar knowledge of both the weaknesses and wisdom of those who have money to invest.
In his letter to the Lord Provost of the 3d September, Paterson wrote: “It’s also absolutely necessary that you would with all expedition gett the Act of Parliament past the Seals lett the charge be less or more of the several Coppies to be signed by my Lord Register,” and to his letter appended the following postscript: “It is not fitt for us to write the Reasons for passing the Seal and therefore it ought not be delayed a day longer.” He undoubtedly had in mind the importance to have it done before the English Parliament met. The cat was out of the bag; the able merchants interested in the East India Company were alarmed too early as to the dangerously wide scope of the privileges of the new company, and were prompt to seek the aid of a complaisant English Parliament.
The Commissioners of the Customs expressed to the Treasury their apprehension that the diversion of the trade of the Colonies from English ports would be disastrous to the revenues,[30] and a committee of both houses waited upon the King to protest against the Scottish Act. Tweeddale was dismissed, but the Act stood. As a counter-stroke, however, the English Parliament enacted a law prohibiting any but natural-born subjects of England from holding official posts in the Colonies.[A]
At a meeting on the 11th November, 1695, the East India Company adopted a resolution “That if any Adventurer in the present Generall Joynt Stocke Shall Subscribe to, or be concerned in the Stocke of the Scotch East India Company, or with any Interloper He shall be accounted acting contrary to his Oath, and to the Interest of this Company.”[31] The East India Company was concerned in preventing injurious competition in the trade to the East Indies and feared the development in the West Indies of sources of the commodities then brought only from the Eastern Tropics.
The London subscription books opened on the 13th November, 1695, and closed on the 22d. The whole English allotment of £300,000 was subscribed and £75,000 paid down by the subscribers. The active opposition of Parliament, however, and the fear of legal and business reprisals frightened the subscribers, nearly all of whom withdrew their subscriptions.
Charges and counter-charges reflecting upon the intentions and methods of both those opposing and those supporting the company were rife in London. The nature of these is indicated in a somewhat scurrilous and lively broadside purporting to be a letter written by an “Impartial Hand,” dated at the Admiralty Coffee-House at Charing Cross the 14th December, 1695, and entitled “Caveto Cavetote.” This contains some nineteen or twenty paragraphs each beginning “Some say,” of which the most interesting are, perhaps, the following:
“Some say that whether so or not, There is now a very good Understanding between them, whatever Copy they may show of their Countenance; For that there are Scotchmen Proprietors (sub umbra) in the Scotch Company, who are at the same time Committee-men in the English East-India Company: and Englishmen Proprietors in the English East-India Company, who are also Committee-men or Directors in the Scotch Company.
“Some say, that a Prohibition now for the English to be concerned with the Scotch on this Occasion, would be the same as when the Steed is stollen to shut the Stable Door; because Quod factum est infectum fieri nequit; and that where there is no previous Law, there can be no Transgression.”
The English Parliament acted promptly. On the 3d December, 1695, the House of Lords resolved[32] to consider the Act establishing the Scots Company and shortly thereafter memorials from the East India Company and from private merchants were presented.[33] From Loo the King wrote: “I have been ill-served in Scotland; but I hope some Remedies may be found, to prevent the inconveniences which may arise from this Act.”[34]
The actual immediate action of the Government was little more than to send orders to the various governors in America and the West Indies strictly to enforce the navigation laws; but the strong boxes of the London merchant and investor were tightly closed against Paterson and he realized that it would be a waste of time to remain there. A Committee of the House of Commons[35] on 20th December, 1695 recommended the enactment of a law putting penalties on any subject of England who took stock in or service in the Scottish Company or built ships for its service. If the original design of a company in which experienced English merchants would have had a substantial stake had been carried out, the Scots Company might have made a less lamentable failure; though actual success would not have been more likely had the Darien settlement been an important part of the project.
Whilst there is good reason to believe that Paterson had ever present in his mind the expectation to concentrate the company’s trading on the West Indies, it is equally certain that many of his English supporters[B] had in mind an attack upon the East India business.
James Chiesly, one of the London merchants concerned in efforts to get into the East India trade, had conferred with Paterson in May as to the possibility of establishing a company in Scotland to trade with the East Indies and that such expectations were held by his English associates are confirmed by Paterson’s testimony before the English Parliamentary Committee in December, 1695.[36] From whatever point of view the project was considered neither money nor other support could be had in London. Paterson, always resourceful, turned quickly to Hamburg; but there encountered the opposition of Sir Paul Rycaut, the English Resident,[37] and other English officials, so that certain promised support to raise £200,000 was withdrawn. The Dutch East India Company was able to frustrate an attempt to procure subscriptions in Amsterdam.[38]
Paterson with a few of his friends now went to Scotland where the hostility shown in England had increased rather than lessened enthusiasm for the project. The pride of the Scots was at stake. The financial plan was redrafted with a total capital of £400,000, two thirds of the original amount, but £100,000 more than had been allotted previously to Scotland.
The subscription lists opened in Edinburgh on the 26th February, 1696, but could not be closed with the celerity suggested by Paterson to the Lord Provost at an earlier date. Yet neither subscriptions nor enthusiasm were lacking. The methods of London did not apply to Scotland, where investors and capital were not concentrated to the same extent in one chief town. On the first day the sum of £50,400 was subscribed and the list filled up steadily. The desire to support the company was widespread; no part of Scotland escaped the fever. A special book in Glasgow received subscriptions of more than £56,000. An inspection of the subscription books shows that in other places lists were prepared and an attorney or deputy authorized to proceed to Edinburgh and enter subscriptions covering the local contingent.[C]
By the end of the fifth week about £300,000 had been subscribed; this grew slowly to the sum of £375,000 and the full amount of £400,000 was finally reached by leaving the books open until the last day fixed by the Act (1st August, 1696). Perhaps no other great popular subscription for a purpose not connected with the support of government in time of war has ever called out such a high percentage of national loyalty. Macaulay says that £400,000 probably bore as great a ratio to the wealth of Scotland in 1696 as £40,000,000 would at the time he wrote in 1848.[39]
The relative purchasing power and importance of money at different periods are not easy to determine. It is not enough to compare the relative amounts of certain staple commodities to be had at different dates with a stated weight of gold. Money, as such, is rarely needed by a family or clan which raises its own food and clothing. In communities where (or at those periods when) wants are rigorously restricted to necessities, money values cannot be measured by the same standard used in a highly organized sophisticated society, not given to barter and with artificial wants. Civilization progressively converts luxuries into necessities, diluting beyond recognition the relative value of really needed things.
There can be no approximately accurate estimate of what £400,000 in Scotland at the end of the seventeenth century would mean to-day. Public and private expenditures, expressed in materials and performance, were meagre in comparison with to-day. Standards of comfort were harshly low. Of actual money small amounts were seen. Banks and banking were still in swaddling clothes. That such an enormous sum was raised is so startling as to justify examination of the state of the soil which permitted the chance seed escaped from the London merchants to take root in Scotland. Seed does not germinate in a barren soil and circumstances had made of Scotland a fertile field. The plan was born of the desire of London merchants to compete with the great East India Company. The psychological outweighs the material interest.
The Darien adventure is an amazing and yet a natural product of that curious blend of cold, thrifty common-sense and poetic idealism found in Scotsmen. No historian, however, can describe as dramatically the extent of the enthusiasm amongst all classes capable to subscribe as is shown by the subscription books themselves.
The shareholders numbered about fourteen hundred, ranging from eight of £3000 each, the maximum allowed from one subscriber, to about six hundred and forty of £100 each, the smallest amount permitted. The average subscription was for approximately £285. All walks in life were well represented as well as all parts of Scotland. Scottish peers were down for substantial sums, amongst them the Duchess of Hamilton, the Duke of Queensberry, and Lord Belhaven signed the list for £3000 each. The list names nearly two score more Scottish peers, some sixty baronets and knights, nearly half a hundred doctors and surgeon-apothecaries, several hundred merchants, and shows that goodly sums were put down by the merchant-companies, guilds and wrights, as such. Many of the richer city corporations subscribed officially—Edinburgh and Glasgow for £3000 each, Perth £2000 and Dumfries, £500. The distribution of subscriptions to lesser amounts is widespread amongst the professions and trades—advocates, ministers, professors, writers, suiters, clerks, tutors, booksellers, goldsmiths, tailors, glovers, servitors, soap-boilers, brewers, maltmen, felt makers, and periwig makers—all are represented. The imaginative side of the Scottish character, not always adequately recognized, overcame its natural wariness. Whatever views the London subscribers may have had as to the purposes of the new company in the way of trade, there can have been little illusion amongst Paterson’s associates in Scotland as to the Darien objective. With their courage and confidence stimulated by the vision of a great colonial establishment it would be a matter of surprise if many of the subscribers did not put down their names for more shares than they could pay for.
Dependence was placed upon the securing of credit as well as actual cash. It is doubtful if the available floating capital of Scotland could have met an immediate call for the whole sum subscribed. An early success of the venture might have made credits available; but the delays in starting and the lack of sufficiently reassuring reports, even before the actual misfortunes were known, made difficult the collection of the full amount called upon the shares.
The record book of the company[40] shows that a call was made for payment of 25 per cent in June, 1696, followed by smaller calls of from 2½ per cent to 5 per cent in November, 1698, Candlemas, 1699, May, 1699, November, 1699, and February, 1700, a total of 42½ per cent, which on the basis of the full subscription of £400,000 should have yielded £170,000. The books show that the first call of 25 per cent was collected very nearly in full, the actual amount entered being £98,223, 17s., 2-2/3d. out of a possible £100,000. The whole sum paid, however, on all the calls was a few shillings in excess of £153,448, showing something over £16,000 in default. Under the terms of the subscriptions interest was to be credited from the various dates and the books show a total of over £65,000 so credited, making a total sum of £219,094, 8s., 7-1/3d. as the “precise extent of the pecuniary sacrifice incurred by Scotland in the Great Darien scheme.”[41]
Information on trade and colonies obtainable at the time, if given even casual study by usually intelligent and cool-headed Scotsmen, would have deterred them from the venture. With such knowledge at hand it seems incredible that confidence in Paterson or a desire for “a place in the sun” of the West Indies should have so completely closed the minds of such eminently thoughtful men as were many of these subscribers. Such was the fact and as such it stands as a record and measure of the capacity of the Scots for passionate enthusiasm.
It must be remembered, however, that news travelled slowly and almost solely through personal communications and correspondence. The occasional pamphlet and broadside appeared, but was the offspring of some particular event or proposal and not the purveyor of general information. The London Gazette during those years contained regularly letters from correspondents at the principal continental capitals, but news from Edinburgh was infrequent and unimportant, a fact which suggests a greater meagreness of London news in Scotland. It is perhaps evidence of the aloofness of Scottish peers and merchants from the better informed men of similar station in London that adequate enquiry was not made upon the trade conditions and geography of the Caribbean Sea.
William Pagan, Birthplace and Parentage of William Paterson, Edinburgh, 1865, pp. 6, 7, 8.
[Walter Herries], A Defense of the Scots abdicating Darien, 1700, p. 40.
Sir Dalby Thomas, An Historical Account of the Rise and Growth of the West-India Colonies, and of the great advantages they are to England in respect to trade, London, 1690.
Wednesday’s Club in Friday-Street, An Enquiry into the State of the Union, London, 1717, pp. 68-80.
Daniel Defoe, Advantages of Scotland in a Corporate Union with England, Edinburgh, 1706.
[Walter Herries], A Defense of the Scots abdicating Darien, 1700, p. 2.
J. S. Barbour, William Paterson and the Darien Company, Edinburgh, 1907, p. 8.
Dictionary of National Biography, xxv, p. 269.
See Appendix I for full text.
Letter from Paterson to the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, 4th July, 1695.
Letters of Paterson to the Lord Provost of Edinburgh on the following dates—4th July, 1695, 9th July, 1695, 6th August, 1695, 15th August, 1695, 3d September, 1695, 5th September, 1695, 19th September, 15th October (Darien Papers, Bannatyne Club, Edinburgh, 1849).
S. P. Col., Col. Entry Book, c, pp. 348-52.
In 1699 the courts ruled that Scotsmen were not debarred by this Act from holding posts.
East India Company’s Court Book, Library of the India Office, MS. No. 37, folio 38A (74 by new pagination).
Journal House of Lords, xv, pp. 603 (3d Dec.), 605 (5th Dec.), 608 (9th Dec.), 610 to 615 (12th to 16th Dec.).
Scottish Historical Review, iii, pp. 210, 316.
Journal House of Lords, xv, p. 615 (17th Dec.).
Ibid., xv, p. 618.
Included amongst these were James Chiesly, Thomas Coutts, and even one shareholder of the English East India Company (Journals, House of Commons, xi, pp. 401-05).
Journals, House of Commons, p. 400. The Company is referred to as the Scotch East India Company.
The memorial of the Resident to the Senate of the City of Hamburg, the Address of the Council-General of the Company of Scotland to His Majesty in protest thereto, and further correspondence are all contained in The Original Papers and Letters Relating to the Scots Company. Printed 1770.
W. L. Mathieson, “The Union of 1707,” Scottish Historical Review, iv, p. 252.
For example, Thomas Scott, Merchant of Dundee, in one day appears as subscribing, with authority, for over forty of his fellow townsmen.
“The letters were drawn; the Great Seal was affixed; the subscription books were opened; the shares were fixed at a hundred pounds sterling each; and from the Pentland Firth to the Solway Firth every man who had a hundred pounds was impatient to put down his name.” Lord Macaulay, History of England.
The Darien Papers, Bannatyne Club, Edinburgh, 1849.
J. H. Burton, The Darien Papers, Bannatyne Club, Edinburgh, 1849, p. xxvi.
CHAPTER III PREPARATIONS FOR THE FIRST EXPEDITION
Since his return to England, Paterson had been too intimately concerned with finance not to include banking in his scheme for the Darien Company. Instead, however, of waiting until the operations of his trading and colonizing company developed banking as a necessary corollary, he conceived the organization of a banking business by the company as a means of promoting it. It is not certain whether his ideas were stimulated by resentment that he may not have been asked to coöperate in the organization of the Bank of Scotland, then in process of organization by John Holland, who became its first Governor.[D]
An Act establishing the Bank of Scotland had been passed in July, 1695; this Act gave the bank a monopoly in Scotland. As the Darien Company possessed no express statutory authority on banking, Paterson devised what he called a Fund of Credit. An organization of considerable size, comprising a secretary, five accountants, two cashiers, three tellers, and various clerks, messengers, etc., was established by the company to conduct a banking business under this title. A copper plate was engraved and notes of various values from £5 to £100 were printed and circulated by issuing them to those who borrowed on personal bonds, collaterals or discounted bills. The great popularity of the Darien Company deterred the directors of the Bank of Scotland, not then firmly established, from contesting this invasion of its rights.
It does not appear that the purpose of the “Fund of Credit” or banking business of the Darien Company was to lend money on the security of its own shares, but such loans were made until the practice was found undesirable and it was discontinued.[42] In due course the working needs of the company itself demanded more than its available funds, which led to the discontinuance of its banking activities. All notes in circulation were retired in June, 1701. It is difficult to find justification for this banking venture nor did it help the company. On the contrary, the loans made on insufficient security reflected unfavourably upon the Darien stock itself. This banking episode certainly did not quicken the preparations for the main operations of the company, even if to it cannot be wholly attributed the long delay which took place before any expedition started.
The first necessity was a definite plan of operations, and the next to secure the necessary ships, supplies, and men to carry out that plan. The time had come for Paterson to unfold the full details of what he designed to secure for Scotland. In masterly fashion Paterson had conceived a great scheme—the product of superior intelligence, broad vision, and his own personal observations and information obtained in the West Indies. Its faults were not those made by the ordinary promoter; they were rather his failure properly to weigh the strength of the opposition his projects would evoke. He treated too casually the claims of Spain to Darien and his geographical concepts of the Pacific were distorted. No doubt appears of his sincerity and honesty of purpose.
Even before the deposition of James II Paterson had given thought to the advantages of Darien as a great trading centre. In his own words it was “the key of the Indies and door of the world.” He had pointed out to James that to take possession of Darien and establish a settlement there would accomplish the treble purpose of furnishing a base for operations against Spain, a storehouse and market for the West Indian trade, and an important post which, he asserted, would become the trade route to India and the Far East. A discussion of Spain’s title to dominion over all Darien, to which title Paterson should have given weight at the time, appears elsewhere in this account. It seems probable that he was badly informed as to the distances across the Pacific Ocean and underestimated the difficulties of transport over the Isthmus of Panama; but much that he foresaw is in the way of accomplishment something over two centuries after his failure.
It was a noble conception. Possibly he exaggerated his own convictions in the closing words of his address to the King, although in general it must be said of Paterson that he was a full convert to his own enthusiasms. He wrote:
“There will be herein, more than sufficient means for laying the foundation of our trade, and improvement as large and extensive as his Majesty’s empire, and to order matters so that the designs of trade, navigation, and industry, instead of being like bones of contention, as hitherto, may for the future become bonds of union to the British kingdoms; since here will not only certainly and visibly be room enough for these, but, if need were, for many more sister nations. Thus they will not only be effectually cemented, but, by means of these storehouses of the Indies, this island, as it seems by nature designed, will, of course, become the emporium of Europe. His Majesty will then be effectually enabled to hold the balance and preserve the peace among the best and most considerable, if not likewise amongst the greatest part of mankind, from which he hath hitherto principally been hindered and disabled by the mean and narrow conceptions of monopolists and hucksters, who have always been, and if not carefully prevented will still be, presuming to measure the progress of the industry and improvements of the very universe, not by the extent and nature of the thing, but by their own poor, mistaken, and narrow conceptions thereof.
