The expedition designed by Balboa was now relinquished; but the removal of the colony soon afterward to the Pacific side of the isthmus may be considered a step toward the realization of an exactly similar attempt by Pizzaro.
To some historical readers the word "Darien" only recalls the bitter prejudice entertained against William III, our "Dutch King," notwithstanding the special pleading of Lord Macaulay and others. Some Scottish merchants had adopted a scheme recommended by the most reliable authorities[23] of that age, viz., the settlement of a half-commercial, half-military colony on the Atlantic coast of the isthmus. Such a company, in the words of Paterson, would be masters of the "door of the seas," and the "key of the universe." The East India Companies both of England and Holland showed an envious jealousy of the Scottish merchants, and therefore no assistance was to be expected from the King, although he had given his royal sanction to the Scots Act of Parliament creating the company. The Scottish people, however, zealously continued the scheme. Some 1,200 men "set sail from Leith amid the blessings of many thousands of their assembled countrymen. They reached the Gulf of Darien in safety, and established themselves on the coast in localities to which they gave the names of New Caledonia and New St. Andrews." The Government of Spain (secretly instigated, it was believed, by the English King) resolved to attack the embryo colony. The shipwreck of the whole scheme soon followed, due undoubtedly more to the jealousy of the English merchants (who believed that any increase of trade in Scotland or Ireland was a positive loss to England) and the bad faith of our Dutch King, than to all other causes whatever. Of the colony, according to Dalrymple (ii, 103), not more than thirty ever saw their own country again.
In 1526 a company of English merchants was formed to trade with the West Indies and the "Spanish Main," and commanded great success. Other merchants did the same. Soon after the Spanish court instituted a coast-guard to make war upon these traders; and as they had full power to capture and slay all who did not bear the King of Spain's commission, there were terrible tales told in Europe of mutilation, torture, and revenge. The Windward Islands having been gradually settled by French and English adventurers, Frederick of Toledo was sent with a large fleet to destroy those petty colonies. This harsh treatment rendered the planters desperate, and under the name of buccaneers,[24] they continued "a retaliation so horribly savage [v. Notes to Rokeby] that the perusal makes the reader shudder. From piracy at sea, they advanced to making predatory descents on the Spanish territories; in which they displayed the same furious and irresistible valor, the same thirst of spoil, and the same brutal inhumanity to their captives." The pride and presumption of Spain were partly resisted by the English monarchs, but not with real effect before the time of Cromwell, strongest of all the rulers of Britain. Under his government of the seas Spain was deprived of the island of Jamaica; and the buccaneers to their disgust found that the flag of the great Protector was a check against all piracy and injustice.
Under Charles II, however, the buccaneers resumed their conflict with the Spanish, and in 1670, Henry Morgan, with 1,500 English and French ruffians resolved to cross the isthmus like Balboa, to plunder the depositories of gold and silver which lay in the city of Panama and other places on the Pacific coast. Having stormed a strong fortress at the mouth of the Chagres River, they forced their way through the entangled forests for ten days, and after much hardship reached Panama, to find it defended by a regular army of twice their number. The Spaniards, however, were beaten, and Morgan thoroughly sacked and plundered the city, taking captive all the chief citizens in order to extort afterward large ransoms.
Ten years afterward the Isthmus of Darien was crossed by Dampier, another celebrated buccaneer, but his party was too small to attack Panama. They seized some Spanish vessels in the bay and plundered all the coast for some distance. The following description by the bold buccaneer is not without interest to those who consider the present importance of the place:
Near the riverside stands New Panama, a very handsome city, in a spacious bay of the same name, into which disembogue many long and navigable rivers, some whereof are not without gold; besides that it is beautified by many pleasant isles, the country about it affording a delightful prospect to the sea.... The houses are chiefly of brick and pretty lofty, especially the president's, the churches, the monasteries, and other public structures, which make the best show I have seen in the West Indies.
The present prosperity of Panama is due to its large transit trade, which was recently estimated at £15,000,000 a year. The pearl-fisheries, famous at the time of Balboa's visit, have now little value. The narrowest breadth of the isthmus being only thirty miles, there have naturally been many engineering proposals to connect the Pacific and Atlantic oceans by a canal. M. de Lesseps founded a French company in 1881 for the construction of a ship-canal with eight locks, and over forty-six miles in length; but in 1889, the excavations stopped after some 48½ millions of cubic meters of earth and rock had been removed. Meanwhile a railway 47½ miles long connects Colon on the Atlantic with Panama on the Pacific.
The Mexican Isthmus of Tehuantepec, only 140 miles across, separates the Bay of Campeachy from the Pacific, and failing the Panama Canal some engineers were in favor of a ship-railway for conveying large vessels bodily from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The scheme met with great favor in the United States, but has not yet been carried out.
The third proposal for connecting the two great oceans is probably the most feasible because it follows the most deeply marked depression of the isthmus. The Nicaraguan Ship-canal will, if the scheme be carried out, pass from Greytown on the Atlantic to Brito on the Pacific, about 170 miles apart, through the republic of Nicaragua, which lies north of Panama and south of Guatemala. One obvious advantage of this ship-canal is that the great lake is utilized, affording already about one-third of the waterway; only twenty-eight miles, in fact, being actual canal, and the rest river, lake, and lagoon navigation. In the latest specifications the engineers proposed to dam up the river (San Juan) by a stone wall seventy feet high and 1,900 feet long, thus raising the water to a level of 106 feet above the sea. Only three locks will be required to work the Nicaraguan Ship-canal.