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When the London subscribers reluctantly
cancelled their subscriptions, owing to the threatened impeachment and other
hostile acts of the English Government, five of their number held out,
resolving to stand to their guns. Three of these gentlemen—viz., Paterson,
James Smyth, and Daniel Lodge—visited Edinburgh for the purpose of giving
their best help to the Scottish Directors in floating the Company in
Scotland.1 Mr John Holland, the London merchant, in his 'Short Discourse,'
states—
"When I came down to Scotland, which was on the
18th of March [1696], I found Mr Paterson very popular, and in some
proportion Mr Smyth and Mr Lodge; and I found the whole nation universally
in favour of the Indian and African trade."
After a short stay Smyth returned to London, but
Paterson and Lodge remained in Edinburgh and attended several committee
meetings of the Company. As Paterson was the only Director intimately
conversant with the methods of foreign trade, he figures as the chief
spokesman and counsellor at these meetings; and as his services were no
longer required in England, he now placed all his information and valuable
experience at the disposal of the Scottish Directors.
At an important meeting of the Committee of
Foreign Trade, held on 23rd July 1696, Paterson submitted several memoirs,
journals, reckonings, illuminated maps, and other papers of discovery, in
connection with which he proposed sundry designs and schemes of trade. The
meeting also came to some resolutions as to " ships, cargoes, stores, and
equipages needful for Africa and the East and West Indies." The members of
the committee appear to have been impressed with the feasibility and
advantage to the Company of the designs proposed by Paterson. They
unanimously requested him to commit his designs to writing, and deliver them
in a sealed packet, together with the relative journals, maps, &c., to the
Secretary for the Company's use. The packet was to be further sealed with
the respective seals of my Lord Ruthven and three other Directors, and was
not to be opened but by special order of the Court of Directors.
At this meeting the project of the great Darien
scheme appears to have been unfolded and discussed for the first time, and
Paterson was "encouraged freely to bestow all his pains and time
henceforward in prosecuting the undertaking." The design was communicated to
a select few of the Directors, upon whom strict secrecy was enjoined. [The
destiny of the Company was thus changed. If the English subscribers had been
permitted to retain their connection with the Company, it is probable that
their plan of operations would have been directed, as it was originally
intended, towards a safe and profitable East Indian trade.]
The scheme as propounded by Paterson was a
magnificent one, and one which has fascinated other projectors since his
day, who have emulated his project at enormous cost,—also without success.
[When De Lesseps' Panama Canal Company went into liquidation in January
1889, its bond and share indebtedness and interest charges were roughly
estimated at £74,000,000, with perhaps a fifth of the real work done.—'Chambers's
Encyclopaedia ': article " Panama."] For many years it had been Paterson's
dream, and had much engaged his thoughts, that a certain part of the Isthmus
of Darien, in Central America, should be made an entrepot for the exchange
of Western and Eastern commodities. At commodious ports on each side of the
Isthmus he proposed to establish emporiums, and to conduct the trade of the
Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, collected at these points, across the Isthmus
by an overland route. By reason of its geographical position, it was
anticipated that over this highway two-thirds at least of the commerce
between Europe and Asia would be diverted from the route round the Cape, and
Scotland might thus supplant Holland as the great mart for the wealth of the
East. Paterson himself described the advantages of the proposed new route in
the following words :—
"The time and expense of navigation to China,
Japan, the Spice Islands, and the far greatest part of the East Indies will
be lessened more than half, and the consumption of European commodities and
manufactories will soon be more than doubled. Trade will increase trade, and
money will beget money, and the trading world shall need no more to want
work for their hands, but will rather want hands for their work. Thus, this
door of the seas, and the key of the universe, with anything of a sort of
reasonable management, will of course enable its proprietors to give laws to
both oceans, and to become arbitrators of the commercial world, without
being liable to the fatigues, expenses, and dangers, or contracting the
guilt and blood, of Alexander and Csesar."
The inauguration of universal free trade and the
concentration of the commerce of the globe on the Isthmus of Darien were the
dominant ideas of Paterson's scheme; but when he lost influence with the
Company, as will be afterwards explained, the free trade idea was departed
from, and, instead, it was resolved to settle a plantation or colony on the
north side of the Isthmus, to be called by the name of " Caledonia."
On the 22nd August the Company, at a meeting, at
which Paterson and Lodge were both present, instructed John Munro, Doctor of
Medicine, along with other four "Chirurgeon-Apothecaries" in Edinburgh, to
prepare sufficient medicaments for the use of 1500 men for two years. On
30th September the doctor was further ordered to proceed to Dundee,
Montrose, Aberdeen, and other northern towns, to ascertain the cheapest
price of beef, and also dry and barrelled cod-fish, for the Company's use.
He was also instructed to employ gunsmiths "wherever he can find them," and
set them to work to make as many pistols "as they'll undertake " at 17s. or
18s. per pair.
Right on to 1697 the Company continued to
purchase and amass a vast quantity of provisions and articles of trade,
which they stored in their warehouse in Miln Square, Edinburgh. Large
purchases were made of arms and ammunition and general ironmongery, also
smiths', coopers', and carpenters' tools.
The following list gives an indication of the
various stores which were collected :—
The Company also closed with the widow of Andrew
Anderson, printer, for "a bargain of Bibles and Catechisms," for which £50
sterling was paid in advance. A contract was also entered into with Jeromie
Robertson, periwig-maker, for "Campaign Wigs and Bobb Wigs"; and three
Edinburgh hatters delivered into the Company's warehouse 1440 hats, at 2s.
each, as the first instalment of their contract. [Herries describes the
cargo in his ' Tract,' and refers to these purchases in the following
sarcastic terms : ' Scotch Hats, a great quantity; English Bibles, 1500;
Periwigs, 4000, some long, some short; Campaigns, Spanish bobs and natural
ones. And truly they were all natural, for being made of Highlanders' hair,
which is blanched with the rain and sun, when they came to be opened in the
West Indies they looked like so many of Samson's fireships that he sent
among the Philistines, and could be of no use to the Colony if it were not
to mix with their lime when they plastered the walls of their houses."]
The Directors had appointed two agents to go
"beyond the seas" (Alexander Stevenson to Hamburg, and Thomas Gibson to
Amsterdam) to get the necessary ships built for the Company's use. Shortly
after this, towards the end of September 1696, Paterson and other two
Directors were deputed to visit these places to secure additional marine
stores, and pay for the ships and arrange for their transference to
Scotland. At that time such stores could be obtained much cheaper in Holland
than in Scotland. There were also no dockyards in Scotland where ships could
be built, and England was forbidden to give the Company any help in regard
to seamen or shipping.
Owing to his familiarity with the home and
foreign Exchanges, Paterson was selected as the Director fittest to handle
the funds required to defray the cost of shipbuilding and other charges
abroad. The sum of £25,000 was therefore entrusted to him, and of this
amount, in anticipation of a rise in the rate of exchange, he remitted about
£17,000 to his friend James Smyth, merchant in London. Smyth was to act as
the Company's correspondent to retire bills drawn upon him from the
Continent for the purchases made abroad, and in this connection an incident
occurred which unfortunately marred Paterson's whole after-career. According
to arrangement, Paterson and Colonel Erskine travelled direct to Holland.
The other foreign deputy, Mr Haldane of Glen-eagles, was instructed to pass
through London and take Smyth by the way, and examine the state of the
Company's cash in his hands. To Gleneagles' surprise, he found that Smyth
had been unfaithful to his trust, and had decamped with a large part of the
funds. An immediate pursuit led to the recovery of a portion of the money,
but a balance remained unaccounted for of over £8000.Paterson got much blame
in the affair, and his credit was injured. A committee, consisting of Mr
William Dunlop, Principal of the College of Glasgow, and Mr Robert
Blackwood, two of the leading Directors, was appointed to examine into the
business. After an exhaustive inquiry, these gentlemen gave in a report
completely exonerating Paterson, and stating that it was entirely a case of
misplaced confidence. On being pressed by the committee to say how he
proposed to repay the balance, Paterson stated that, by leaving his own
business in London abruptly to advance the interests of the Company both in
Scotland and abroad, he had lost more than the balance due to them,
especially referring to £4000 which he had in the Orphans' Fund and £2000 in
the Hampstead Waterworks. He was, therefore, now devoid of funds to pay off
the debt. He proposed that the Company should either dismiss him from their
service, so that he could return to mercantile pursuits in London, hoping
thereby to make good the balance, or that he should be allowed to go abroad
in the service of the Directors, they appropriating a large part of his
salary for the Company's benefit. The committee recommended the second
alternative—viz., that Paterson's services should be retained, and that he
should accompany the intended expedition in an official capacity. The Court
of Directors, however, disregarded their committee's recommendation and made
Paterson stand aside. He might go with the expedition if he chose, but only
as a supernumerary.
Up to this time Paterson had been the chief
counsellor in all the Company's proceedings and the projector of their
plans, but through this unfortunate incident he now lost influence, and as
an adviser was quite ignored—a strange turn in affairs, which naturally
wounded him to the quick.
It was not until near the close of 1697 that
three of the ships, built at Hamburg and Amsterdam, were ready to sail for
Scotland, although they had been lying idly at these ports with their
complement of men for several months. They arrived in Leith Roads on 20th
November, to the no small joy of the proprietors of the Company's stock,
many of whom had become dubious of their very existence, and were afterwards
taken up the Firth to winter there.
In about four months after the arrival of the
ships the following advertisement was issued. It is printed on a folio
sheet, with the Company's arms at top :—
Edinburgh, 12th March 1698.
The Court of Directors of the Indian and African
Company of Scotland, having now in readiness Ships and Tenders in very good
order, with Provisions and all manner of Things needful for their intended
Expedition to settle a Colony in the Indies; give Notice, that for the
general encouragement of all such as are willing to go upon the said
Expedition—
Everyone who goes on the first Equipage shall
Receive and Possess Fifty Acres of Plantable Land and 50 Foot Square of
ground at least in the Chief City or Town, and an ordinary House built
thereupon by the Colony at the end of 3 years;
Every Councillor shall have double. If anyone
shall die, the profit shall descend to his Wife and nearest relations. The
family and blood relations shall be transported at the expense of the
Company;
The Government shall bestow rewards for special
services.
By Order of the Court,
Rod. Mackenzie, Secy.
Shortly before the expedition sailed, these
arrangements were slightly altered. Each planter was to be indentured for
three years, and maintained during the period at the Company's expense, and
at the expiry of the three years he was to receive his allotment of land,
&c. The officers were to be allowed 100 acres in all, with a house in the
capital city proportionable ; and the councillors were to have three
portions, or 150 acres. The maximum holding was fixed at 150 acres, "to the
end that what is taken up may be the better cultivated, and may not be
engrossed by a few to the discouragement of other industrious people."
In response to the Company's advertisement for
volunteers for their intended expedition " to settle a Colony in the
Indies," they had the offer of many more men than they could employ. Owing
to the continuance of a severe famine in Scotland, large numbers of the
population had been driven to Ireland for subsistence, and Paterson's new
enterprise, in addition to its novelty, opened up a fine field for intending
emigrants. Out of the numbers offering, 1200 were accepted by the Company,
300 of whom were young men of the best Scottish families,
—"Gentlemen-Volunteers," in search of fortune in the far-off settlement.
There were also 60 militaiy officers, with many of the rank and file who had
served under them in Flanders, and who had been thrown out of employment by
the Peace of Ryswick lately concluded. The officers were enrolled under the
denomination of "Overseers" and "Sub-Overseers," and the soldiers under that
of "Planters," the Company's Act forbidding the enlistment of soldiers as
such without the formal sanction of the Lords of the Privy Council, which
the Directors did not deem it prudent to ask.
The expedition (its destination being still kept
secret) was meant to start in spring, but various delays arising, it was
ultimately timed to sail in the month of July 1698. In anticipation of this,
the Directors on 8th July elected a Council consisting of seven,1 some
of them in the double capacity of captains of the ships as well as
councillors, in whom they vested the supreme direction of their intended
Colony, with power to the survivors to fill up vacancies in case of death or
other removal. No provision, however, was made for the appointment of a
permanent President of the Council.
Regulations were next framed defining the
financial relations of the Council of the Colony to the Directors at home,
wherein, among other matters, it was provided that, in return for the fleet
of five ships and relative stores, &c., which would be tedious; wherefore I
desire you may accept of this in short—
I. James Cunningham led the Van; he had been a
Major in the Scotch forces, and disbanded on the peace; a Pillar of the
Kirk, and never out of Scotland before.
II. Daniel Maekay, a Scrivener's or Writer's
Clerk, newly come out of his Apprenticeship, but a youth of good parts.
III. Wm. Veitch, a man of no trade, but advanced
to this post on the account his father was a godly Minister and a Glorifier
of God, I think in the Grassmarket."
(Note.—Herries is in error here. The Rev.
William Veitch, the father, died, after long illness, in May 1722, having
completed his eighty-second year.)
"IV. Robert Jollie, a jolly Scotch overgrown
Hamburger, who was formerly a Skipper, and used to the Shetland trade, but
had for some dozen years been set up at Hamburg in quality of Merchant, and
after that a Broker, and now a Councellor.
V. Robert PennycooJc, formerly a Surgeon in the
English Navy, then a Lieutenant, and afterwards Commander of a Bomb ; this
gentleman having gained experience by being the Directors were to hand over,
the Council were to pay annually to the Company the sum of £7000. This
yearly payment could be made void at any time by a payment down of £70,000,
the capital value which was placed on the ships, &c.
Herries, in his ' Tract,' roughly estimates
that, at this time, the Company had spent or otherwise parted with the whole
call-money paid in, nearly £100,000, thus :—
years from Scotland in several trades or
occupations, he was, by a stratagem of an acquaintance of mine, called home
to take this post upon him about 6 or 7 weeks before we sailed, and was
advanced by the interest of the Kirk party, the better to balance that of
the Church, and to keep out Dr M-, a reputed Atheist, who would certainly
have debauched both. Mr Pennycook was not only Councellor, but likewise
Captain, Commodore, and the very Orford of our Navy.
VI. James Montgomerie, whose designation I
cannot well tell, but you may know him by the story of the bloody fight he
had with the Spaniard, where so many hundred were killed and taken
prisoners, though at the same time there was never a Spaniard hurt. This
gentleman was formerly an Ensign in the Scots Guards, but not liking that
office, left it and carried a brown musket in another regiment. The reasons
of his preferment to this post was his grandfather's being Earl of Eglington,
and his own Father by the Mother's side being Major-General Montgomerie.
VII. Robert Pincarton, a good, downright, rough - spun Tar, never known
before by any designation or State Office, save that of Boatswain to Sir
William Phipps, when he was on the wreck, and now, poor fellow, a Diver in
the Spanish Mines at Carthagena."
The Directors next prepared and delivered to the
councillors sealed sailing orders. In a separate paper the councillors were
instructed, after arriving at the place of settlement named in the sealed
orders, to debark the people, provisions, and merchandise, &c., and take
possession of the place in the Company's name; there to build, plant, and
fortify ; dispose and employ the ships and men in the best manner for
serving and promoting the Colony, and for the most advantage to the Company.
After landing, they were with all possible speed to despatch home an exact
journal of the voyage, with an account of their landing, proceedings, and
also a description of the place of settlement. They were further to name
their various places of settlement after well-known places in Scotland, as
they should think fit.
At Leith, on 12th July 1698, the newly appointed
councillors signed the following oath of fealty:—
"The Oath appointed by the Council-General of
the Indian and African Company of Scotland, to be taken by the Councillors
appointed, or to be appointed, for the Government of their intended Colony
in the Indies—
"We do solemnly promise and swear, in presence
of Almighty God, that we shall be faithful and just to the trust reposed in
us by the said Company, and shall to the best of our knowledge and skill
endeavour to promote the benefit of the said Company and interest of the
said Colony, as we shall answer to God.
It will be observed that Paterson's name does
not appear among the signatory councillors. In virtue of his past services,
and his capacity for strong and prudent government, he ought to have been
appointed to the position of presiding member of the Council. The Directors
found out afterwards that the man whom they had banished from their counsels
was the one who alone, if such had been possible, could have saved the
ill-starred scheme from failure. In a letter to the Rev. Alexander Shields,
written after the first abandonment of the Colony, dated Edinburgh, 6th
February 1700, Paterson says :—
"In short, our Tarpolian Councillors and raw
heads and undigested thoughts ruined us, and the difficulties I had met with
in Scotland were turned to brow-beatings in Caledonia. . . . There was not
one of the old Councillors fit for government, and things were gone too far
before the new [election] took place." |
