1698.] SCOTCH SPIRIT OF COMMERCIAL ADVENTURE. 215 About six or eight years before the close of the seventeenth century a spirit of commercial activity seems to have sprung up in Scotland, and to have taken a direction somewhat remarkable in a country possessing very little superfluous capital. Yet this direction may be satisfactorily explained. The natural commerce of Scotland was labouring under great disadvantages. The ancient intercourse with France was cut off by the war with Louis XIV. The exchange of commodities with England was interrupted by prohibitions and heavy duties. The trade with the English colonies was absolutely forbidden. The most serious impediment to the commercial progress of Scotland was the Navigation Act of Charles II.-distinctly opposed to the policy of Cromwell, by whose ordinance all goods passing from England to Scotland, from Scotland to England, or from Scotland to any of the English foreign dominions, were to be treated exactly the same as goods passing from port to port in England. The two countries were then regarded essentially as one kingdom in those matters of trade in which the prosperity of each country. was involved. Scotland, in the time of William III., could not advantageously trade with the East Indies, in consequence of the monopoly of the East India Company. Nevertheless, it was not legally cut off from that trade, as were English adventurers. It could not trade with the American Plantations, in consequence of the Navigation Act. It is not surprising, therefore, that a kingdom which was beginning to feel the benefits of peaceful industry-a kingdom containing a most energetic and industrious population -should desire to seek new fields of enterprise, under the jealousies which prevented their fully participating in the commerce of its richer neighbour. This national desire was manifested in the Act of the Parliament of Scotland in 1693 "for encouraging foreign trade." It declares that nothing has been found more effectual for the improvement and enlargement of trade "than the erecting and encouraging of companies, whereby the same may be carried on by undertakings to the remotest parts, which it is not possible for single persons to undergo." It accordingly provides that merchants may enter into societies for carrying on trade to any kingdoms or parts of the world, not being at war with our sovereign Lord and Lady. The East Indies were not excepted. The general powers of this Statute seem to have excited little alarm amongst the jealous merchants and party legislators of England. They probably knew nothing of this attempt to legislate for rival interests. English statesmen were too much accustomed to look with contempt upon the poverty of Scotland to entertain much dread of her commercial competition. It is recorded that Sir Edward Seymour, in a debate in Parliament which touched upon a union with Scotland, applied a coarse proverbial saying about marrying a beggar.+ * But at the end of 1695, the favour with which a Scottish commercial project had been received in England stirred up all the national jealousy of the House of Commons. A Scot, who was well known as the originator of the scheme of the Bank of England, had been in London, and under the authority of a Scottish Act of Parliament, passed in the previous June, had in a few days obtained subscriptions to the amount of three hundred thousand * "Acts of Parliament of Scotland," 1693, vol. ix. p. 311. 216 AFRICAN AND INDIAN COMPANY. [1695-1700. pounds, for constituting a Company "for trading from Scotland to Africa. and the Indies." This success was secured by the energy of William Paterson, when the English government was in great financial difficulties. The supporters in London of the project for a Scottish trading company were apprehensive of a parliamentary opposition to the scheme. "They think," wrote Paterson, on the 9th of July, to the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, "that we ought to keep private and close for some months, that no occasion may be given for the Parliament of England, directly or indirectly, to take notice of it in the ensuing Session, which might be of ill consequences, especially when a great many considerable persons are already alarmed at it." * A new Parliament met in November, and in December the Lords and Commons went up with an Address to the king, to represent that an Act which had lately received his royal assent in his kingdom of Scotland, "for erecting a Company trading to Africa and the Indies, was likely to bring many great prejudices and mischiefs to all his majesty's subjects who were concerned in the wealth or trade of this nation." The answer of William was perhaps the only one that he could have given with any regard to prudence: "He had been ill-served in Scotland, but he hoped some remedies might be found to prevent the inconveniences which might arise from this Act." + "He had been ill-served in Scotland." Dalrymple, the Master of Stair, had been his principal servant; and for his share in the affair of Glencoe the Scottish Parliament had requested the king to signify his disapprobation at this very period. He had promoted the scheme of the Company trading to Africa and the Indies. When sir Walter Scott affirms that Dalrymple was deprived of his office of Secretary of State to William, not for his share "in the bloody deed of Glencoe," but for 'attempting to serve his country in the most innocent and laudable manner, by extending her trade and national importance," he uses the privileges of the novelist. William had been "ill-served" in both these matters. The House of Commons went farther than the king. They resolved that the directors of the Scottish Company, naming the lord Belhaven, William Paterson, and others, were guilty of a high crime and misdemeanour, upon the ground that under colour of a Scotch Act of Parliament these directors had levied money, and had done other corporate acts in England, which could not be legally done without the sanction of the English Parliament. With every symptom of a national jealousy unworthy of a people that was becoming commercially great, it could scarcely be expected that in England the very sweeping powers of the "Company trading to Africa and the Indies" should not have excited considerable alarm. The ships of the favoured Company were to be free from all dues; the Company were to be privileged to fit out vessels of war; they were authorized to make settlements and build forts in any uninhabited places in Asia, Africa, or America; they might make alliances with sovereign powers; all other Scotsmen were prohibited from trading within their range, without licence from them. But the English jealousy of commercial rivalry once roused, there could be no com * Bannister's "Life of Paterson," p. 133. "Parliamentary History," vol. v. col. 975. "Tales of a Grandfather." 1695-1700.] AFRICAN AND INDIAN COMPANY. 217 promise which would make the speculation safe for the London capitalists. They forfeited their first instalments upon their shares. The angry mood of the English legislature had also roused the public spirit of Scotland; and by a general consent it was resolved that a great opportunity of asserting the national independence should not be lost. In six months from the opening of the subscription books, the sum of four hundred thousand pounds was subscribed. This subscription was not accomplished by a few large capitalists, such as those who had come forward in London. "The subscription book is an interesting analysis, as it were, of the realised wealth of Scotland, at a time when it was more difficult to raise five pounds than it is now to raise a hundred." There were a few large subscriptions from the nobility and the higher mercantile classes; but the majority of the subscribers were professional men and shopkeepers. The list "affords little indication of that quiet and comfortable class, deposited in a long-enriched social system like the Britons of the present day, who are seeking a sure investment for disengaged capital." The available funds of Scotland were devoted to the romantic adventure of founding a great Scottish Colony, in some favoured spot of the new world which was yet shrouded in mysterious anticipations. Not Cortez, "Silent upon a peak in Darien."† stared at the Pacific with more eagle eyes than those entrusted with Paterson's secret. The concealed destination of the Colony was the famous Isthmus of Panama. A Scottish merchant, named Douglas, shrewdly guessed Paterson's design, in September, 1696; and he exposed the perils and uncertainties of the enterprise. This acute reasoner held the amount proprosed to be raised as insufficient for the project, and predicted that the Company would have to encounter the determined hostility of the Spainards. "He" [Paterson] "deceives the Company, and imposes upon them-and indeed the nation, which is generally concerned in it-in that he puts them upon attempting so bazardous and costly an undertaking with so little stock. Whereas it is reasonable to believe that, if they were able at last to accomplish it, after a long war with the Spaniards, and to make themselves masters of both seas, it may cost more millions than they have hundreds of thousands. Nevertheless the national enthusiasm was at its height, filled with dreams of gold and rubies and copper-mines-of untaxed trade, and the mighty power of joint stocks. "Trade's Release" was the theme of an "excellent new ballad": "Come, rouse up your hearts, come rouse up anon! To fetch home Indian treasures." § The four hundred thousand pounds which, on the 1st of August, appeared to have been subscribed, were, to some extent, made up "by a method of fictitious support well known in the stock market." The ledgers of the Company, which still exist, show that some large subscribers were guaranteed by the directors. Twenty-five per cent. upon the subscriptions was, how Burton, vol. i. p. 294. § Ibid., p. 48. + Keats. 218 AFRICAN AND INDIAN COMPANY. [1695-1700. ever, paid up within the year, or very nearly so. With this amount in hand, somewhat less than a hundred thousand pounds, the Company began to engage in magnificent undertakings. They did not leave the trade of Scotland to adapt itself to their enterprise of finding new markets for a profitable exchange, but made contracts in various small seats of manufacture, for iron goods and cutlery, for stockings and gloves, for hats, shoes, linen, periwigs, and tobacco-pipes. The Highlands even were stimulated into the production of home-woven tartan. They issued bank notes; and with this device, and with the general confidence in their credit, they collected stores and built warehouses. But their means were still found inadequate to their ambition. They attempted to dispose of stock at Hamburg, but were interfered with by the English resident. Remonstrances were made to king William, but he afforded no redress to the complaints of his Scottish lieges. "Whether from wisdom," says Mr. Burton, "or the obduracy of his Dutch nature, he long effectively baffled every attempt to extract from him either an act or an opinion." We are inclined to think that if the king had followed the higher wisdom of pointing out to the Scottish legislature that they had sanctioned and stimulated an enterprise fraught with peril, and likely to cause his government serious embarrassment in the difficult and delicate position in which it stood in relation to foreign affairs, he would have brought down upon himself even a greater amount of indignation than was the result of his cold reserve. On the other hand, had he encouraged the project, which many sensible men proclaimed as fallacious, and which the jealousy of his English Parliament had denounced, he would have risked a rupture with that Parliament, which he scrupulously avoided even under the severest mortifications personal to himself. It was more than difficult for him to steer a just and prudent course as the sovereign of two kingdoms having such conflicting interests in their unnatural separation. The embarrassments arising out of the Darien scheme, without doubt gave a stronger impulse to his ardent wish for the union of England and Scotland. On the 26th of July, 1698, three vessels, purchased from the Dutch, and armed as ships of war, sailed from Leith, with twelve hundred men on board. "The whole city of Edinburgh poured down upon Leith, to see the colony depart, amidst the tears, and prayers, and praises of relations and friends.* The destination of the adventurers was unknown to them. Paterson was on board one of the vessels, the Saint Andrew, but in no responsible position. He addressed a Report of his proceedings at the end of the next year to the Court of Directors of the Company. At the first, when he suggested that a Council should be held to inquire how the vessel was provided for the voyage, he was told by the captain not to interfere with business for which there were ample instructions. The passengers were soon reduced to short allowance. Throughout the voyage the projector of the Colony was at issue with the officers of the ship and the Council appointed by the Directors. The sealed orders were opened at Madeira, and then the destination of the twelve hundred colonists ceased to be a secret. On the 4th of November, they landed at a point in the Gulf of Darien. In a letter which Paterson wrote to a friend in Boston, we find that his sanguine 1695-1700.] SCOTCH COLONY AT DARIEN. 219 "Our spirit had overcome all the unpleasant circumstances of the voyage. situation is about two leagues to the southward of Golden Island (by the Spaniards called Guarda), in one of the best and most defensible harbours, perhaps, in the world. The country is healthful to a wonder, insomuch that our own sick, that were many when we arrived, are now generally cured. The country is exceedingly fertile, and the weather temperate." The riches of the country, he says, are far beyond what he ever thought or conceived. The natives, for fifty leagues on either side, are in entire friendship. The Spaniards, indeed, are much surprised and alarmed,-the news of the arrival of the colony has come like a thunder-clap upon them. "We have written to the President of Panama, giving him account of our good and peaceable intentions, and to procure a good understanding and correspondence. If this is not condescended to, we are ready for what else he pleases." * The spot where the colonists landed was a peninsula united to the mainland, and capable at its narrower junction of being fortified. The colony was to be settled on that mainland, which was to be called New Caledonia. Seven gentlemen had been appointed for the government of the settlement. They were thoroughly ignorant of what they ought to do for the management and profitable employ of twelve hundred men, some of whom were of the old buccaneering stamp, and far readier for plunder than for labour or traffic. It had been ostentatiously proclaimed that the Scottish Colony was to be the great emporium of free commerce; that the ships of all nations were to exchange in its favoured ports without restriction. The projectors were before their time in their doctrine, as set forth in some verses of the day— 66 that trade by sea Needs little more support than being free." The adventurers had little acquaintance with the difficulties of colonization, and knew not the obstacles that would prevent a body of private men, unsupported by the strong arm of a government, from planting themselves on the Isthmus of Panama, and becoming the medium of commercial intercourse between the Atlantic and the Pacific. There had been terrible visitors there before the Scots,-ruffians who had carried desolation into the Spanish possessions on the Isthmus-robbers and murderers who hoisted the black flagthe remembrance of whose atrocities was still fresh. The colonists sent civil messages to the governors of the neighbouring Spanish settlements. Their overtures were rejected with disdain. Soon they got into conflict with the Spaniards, in taking part in a dispute between them and some friendly Indians. At Carthagena a vessel of the Company, armed with fourteen guns, running into the bay, the captain and crew were seized and condemned to death as pirates. The English resident interfered and saved the men. The authorities of the Colony now declared war against Spain; attacked the ships of that power; and turned very readily to the same sort of exploits for which captain Morgan, the great buccaneer, had been distinguished. The Court of Spain, by its ambassador, made a formal representation to the government in London, that its territory had been invaded by the subjects of king William. In our narrative of the remaining events of William's reign it will be seen * "Life of Paterson," p. 209. |