The Great Affair is to Move: Travel and Topography at the Signet Library

The WS Society Annual exhibition 2021

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Room 5: The Darien Scheme

A fleet of five ships set out from Leith in July 1698. They were laden with trading goods, materials for building a colony, and the hopes of the Scottish nation. Their destination was Darien in the Isthmus of Panama, soon to be the site of the new Scottish colony of Caledonia.

The plan was the brainchild of William Paterson, a Scottish financier who had been one of the founders of the Bank of England in 1694. Paterson had experience of setting up joint stock companies whereby investors received shares in a company in return for money. Shareholders would benefit from the profits made by the company.

In 1695, the Scottish Parliament passed ‘An Act in favour of the Scots Company Trading to Africa and the Indies’ which enabled Scotland to set up its own colonies. Paterson intended that the management of the new company would be split between Scottish and English investors, the English East India Company, sensing a rival, objected. It became treason for English investors to participate in the new company. Undaunted, Paterson travelled to Edinburgh to rally support for his scheme.

He was met with enthusiasm. Subscribers from all echelons of society eagerly bought shares and the Company soon controlled half of all the money available in Scotland. They invested in trade goods, including wigs and bibles. But where would the ships sail? The Company turned to Paterson for advice. Armed with an idealised description by surgeon-buccaneer Lionel Wafer, Paterson recommended Darien. Paterson’s very selective reading of a pre-publication manuscript copy of Wafer’s A New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America (1699) convinced the directors of the Company that their ships would be sailing to a tropical Eden blessed with friendly natives, a pleasant and fertile climate, and a natural harbour. The narrow strip of land that separated the Atlantic and Pacific oceans would put the Scots at the centre of their own world-wide trading empire.

The reality was very different from Paterson’s promised land. In addition to English hostility to the venture, the Scottish colonists found Spanish opposition since the region was claimed by Spain. There were no supplies to be had from passing European ships of any kind. The native people offered food to the starving colonists, but most of this was taken by the expedition’s leadership who mainly stayed on the ships and did not help with trying to clear the land for crops. The land proved resistant to agricultural development and the colonists were plagued by sickness and death in the tropical environment. The Scots abandoned New Edinburgh and the Fort of St Andrew long before the second wave of colonists and the supplies they sailed with could arrive.

The scheme proved to be an economic disaster. The shareholders lost their investments and pushed a Scotland already reeling from a decade of famine into further poverty. This selection of pages from the Signet Library’s collection of pamphlets from the Darien debate both before and after the expedition provide a ringside seat on the sophisticated arguments employed both in favour of the expedition and against, and map the blame war that followed the expedition’s failure.

investing in “New caledonia”: the list of joynt-stock adventurers

A perfect list of the several persons residenters in Scotland who have subscribed as adventurers in the joynt-stock of the Company of Scotland trading to Africa and the Indies together with the respective sums which they have severally subscribed in the books of the said Company… [Edinburgh, Andrew Anderson 1696]

This extraordinary document contains a list of some of the most prominent subscribers to the Darien Scheme from 1696. The marked pages show some of the biggest contributors to the scheme including Lord Belhaven, Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun and the oddly precise sum of £2325 contributed by John Drummond of Newton.

The scheme was set up by William Paterson as a method for Scotland to acquire a trading colony in Panama. The Scots were envious of the English’s growing empire and trading opportunities and wished to acquire a colony of at a crucial trading point between the Atlantic and pacific oceans. Ironically, when the first ship set sail from Leith in 1698 nobody if the territory was at all appropriate for colonisation. When the settlers arrived they named the colony ‘Caledonia.’ Unfortunately, the land was very unsuitable for habitation and the scheme failed. It bankrupted Scotland and lost every subscriber in this pamphlet their investment.

A just and Modest Vindication of Scots Design, 1699

A just and Modest Vindication of Scots Design for having established a colony at Darien

Robert Ferguson (fl. 1699)

The Signet Library has a significant collection of the pamphlets published in the years after 1697 in which Scots argued on both sides both as to the wisdom of the Darien Scheme overall and as to the precise circumstances of its failure. In this selection from his 1699 pamphlet, Robert Ferguson presents one of the longest such explanations for the situation, taking the side of Paterson and seeking to justify the attempt and to place the blame for the outcome beyond the Scots camp.

“A short and impartial view” 1699

A Short and Impartial View of the Manner and Occasion of the Scots Colony’s Coming away from Darien... 1699

Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, (1655-1716) Politician and writer.

Andrew Fletcher was a landowner and Commissioner of Haddingtonshire in the Scottish Parliament. He invested £1000 in the Darien Scheme and was a later very vocal critic against the Parliamentary Union between Scotland and England. In the short work from which these selected pages are taken, he outlines his anger at the failure of the scheme, his anger was focussed upon ‘English Ministers’ for not contributing to the scheme rather than the company Directors. Therefore the claim in the title that he was offering an impartial view was not entirely honest!

“the causes of the miscarriage”

Attributed to George Ridpath (d.1726) Journalist and Pamphleteer.

An Inquiry into the causes of the miscarriage of the Scots Colony at Darien.

This short pamphlet has been attributed to George Ridpath but its true authorship is unknown. It is a reply to another pamphlet, not found in Signet Library collections, ‘Defence of the Scots abdicating Darien.’ The pamphlet from which this selection of pages have been taken argues against the accusations made by English pamphleteers that the Scots had illegally settled the colony and the disaster was due to their own irresponsibility. He outlines the economic and social difficulties such as bad harvests, which forced the Scots to attempt to create a colony in Darien in order to improve the country’s prospects.

A description of darien with map, 1699

Map of the Isthmus of Darien in A Short Account from and description of the Isthmus of Darien... 1699 According to William Dampier and Lionel Wafer

This map displays the Isthmus of Darien were the Scots created the Colony of New Caledonia. The top corner displays a close up of the ‘excellent harbour,’ which was the biggest draw for the colony as they wished to create a trading post. However, it was only after the Scots arrived that they realised the harbour was hidden and would not been seen by passing ships. This added yet another issue to add to the growing list of problems of the Darien colony. The pamphlet from which this selection of pages has been taken contained descriptions of the colony from Lionel Wafer a Welsh explorer who had informed the Darien scheme founder William Paterson of the ‘paradise’ he had discovered.

letter to a friend from a member of parliament, 1696

A letter to a friend from a Member of the Parliament of Scotland to his friend in London... 1696, Philonax Verax (Pseudonym)

This tract on the Darien scheme, from which this selection of pages has been taken, assumes a more contemplative approach which reflects on the future relationship between Scotland and England. The letter was written just as the decision was made to set up a Scottish company to trade in Africa and India. The pages on display show that letter writer hoped the eventual creation of a joint Scottish and English India Company. The letter expresses a hopeful tone that the venture would be prosperous for all involved and it is probable to speculate that the writer had also invested in the scheme.

philo-britan’s defence of the scots settlement at darien, 1699

The Defence of the Scots Settlement at Darien Answered Paragraph by Paragraph, Philo-Britan, 1699

The defence pamphlet by Philo-Britan, from which these selected pages have been taken, carefully outlines all the arguments presented in the Darien case, the main one being that the Spanish had already claimed the land around Darien and that the Scots were settled there illegally. The pamphlet opposes that idea, but it is one that still persisted and went some way to explain why England was reluctant to become involved in the scheme for fear of war breaking out with the Spanish.

a short vindication, 1700

A Short Vindication of Phil. Scot’s Defence of the Scots abdicating Darien... 1700

The pamphlet from which this selection of pages has been taken outlines the author’s anger with the scheme managers in so readily believing Lionel Wafer’s descriptions of Darien.

Lord belhaven’s speech, 1701

A Speech in Parliament on the 10th day of January 1701 by the Lord Belhaven... 1701,

John Hamilton 2nd Lord Belhaven, 1656-1708, Scottish Peer and politician

The pamphlet from which this selection of pages has been taken was published by Lord Belhaven who was a Director of the company formed to enact the Darien Scheme and one of the biggest investor in the scheme investing £3000 in the scheme - the equivalent to around £350,000 today. In the speech he directs his anger and disappointment at the huge losses he has suffered towards the English, claiming their part in disrupting the scheme was a result of pure malice. At one point in his speech he realises he may have gone too far, proclaiming ‘I must stop, for I find old-Caledonia blood too hot in my veins...lest I offend this house by some angry and indecent expressions...’ Belhaven would be best known for his oratory around the Act of Union speaking against the plans.