CHAPTER XXXI.
PANAMÁ.
1672-1800.
The Scots Colony—They Propose to Establish Settlements in Darien—Subscriptions for the Enterprise—Departure of the Expedition—Its Arrival at Acla—Sickness and Famine among the Colonists—They Abandon their Settlement—A Second Expedition Despatched—Its Failure—Cartagena Sacked by Privateers—Indian Outbreaks—Conflagrations in Panamá—Pearl Fisheries—Mining—Spanish Commerce Falling into the Hands of the British—Seizure of British Vessels and Maletreatment of their Crews—Jenkins' Ears—Declaration of War—Vernon's Operations on the Isthmus—Anson's Voyage round the World—Vernon's Second Expedition—Its Disastrous Result.
Yet another phase of life and restless human endeavor on the Panamá Isthmus here presents itself. Great Britain is seized by an idea, born of greed and nurtured by injustice; and this conception expands until it covers the earth, and until the good people of England and Scotland are in imagination masters of the whole world, which possession is acquired not through any honest means, but after the too frequent vile indirections of the day and the nation; in all which the people of those isles give themselves and their money over to Satan.
WILLIAM PATERSON.
In June 1695 a number of wealthy Scotchmen under the leadership of William Paterson[XXXI‑1] obtained from the Scottish parliament a statute, and later letters patent from William III.,[XXXI‑2] authorizing them to plant colonies in Asia, Africa, or America, in places uninhabited, or elsewhere by permission of the natives, provided the territory were not occupied by any European prince or state. Paterson had spent several years in the Indies and had explored the province of Darien. Near the old settlement of Acla he had found a port safe for shipping. Three days' journey thence, on the other side of the Isthmus, were other suitable harbors. By establishing settlements on either shore, he purposed to grasp the trade whereby Europe was supplied with the products of North and South America, China, Japan, and the Philippine Islands, with European goods. From the Isthmus to Japan and parts of China was but a few weeks' sail, and the products of Asia could thus be landed in Europe in far less time than that occupied by the vessels of the India companies. Moreover on the rich soil of Darien, sugar, indigo, tobacco, and other articles of value could be raised. "Trade," said the projector of the bank of England, "will beget trade; money will beget money; the commercial world shall no longer want work for their hands, but will rather want hands for their work. This door to the seas and key to the universe will enable its possessors to become the legislators of both worlds, and the arbitrators of commerce. The settlers of Darien will acquire a nobler empire than Alexander or Cæsar, without fatigue, expense, or danger, as well as without incurring the guilt and bloodshed of conquerors."
Paterson was either knave or fool; having been both preacher and pirate he may have been both fool and knave. It was impossible for him to have explored the Isthmus as he claimed and not know that the climate was deadly, and that to the wild highlander, fresh from the cold north, the harbors of Darien could prove nothing but pest-holes, breeding swift destruction. As for the people who blindly threw themselves into the adventure, they were as sheep, and differed little from the human sheep of the present day.
Spain had at least the right of discovery and conquest to her possessions in the New World, even though such conquest had been attended with cruelty almost as great as that of the English in Hindostan. The natives of Darien were never indeed entirely subdued. Yet even according to the European code of robbery it does not appear that Great Britain had any more right to plant colonies in Tierra Firme than she now has to establish them in portions of the United States that may be infested by hostile Indians. Nevertheless in the year 1699 when, as we shall see, the scheme was on the verge of failure, the English monarch, in answer to a petition from "The Company of Scotland trading to Africa and the Indies and their Colony of Darien," as the association was styled, asking that "His Royal Wisdom be pleased to take such Measures as might effectually vindicate the undoubted Rights and Privileges of the said Company, and support the Credit and Interest thereof," replied, "Right Trusty and Well-beloved, We greet you well: Your Petition has been presented to us by our Secretaries, and we do very much regret the Loss which that our antient Kingdom and the Company has lately sustained."[XXXI‑3]
THE SCOTS COLONY.
"To prove," says a writer of the period,[XXXI‑4] "the Falsehood of the Allegation, That the Province of Darien is part of the King of Spain's Domains: It is positively denied by the Scots, who challenge the Spaniards to prove their Right to the said Province, either by Inheritance, Marriage, Donation, Purchase, Reversion, Surrender, Possession or Conquest." "And as to their Claim by the Pope's Donation," writes another author of the period,[XXXI‑5] "the very mentioning, and much more the pleading of it, is a ridiculing, as well as bantring of Mankind; seeing even on the supposal that the Roman Pontiffs should be acknowledged the successors of St Peter, which as no Protestants are forward to believe or confess, so they have never hitherto found, nor do they think the Pontificans able to prove it: Yet this would invest them with no right of disposing the Kingdoms of the World as they please and unto whom they will. For Peter being cloathed with no such Power himself, nor having ever pretended to exert such a Jurisdictive Authority as some Popes have had the Vanity and Pride to do, how could he convey it unto, and entail it upon others, under the quality and character of being his Successors"? These and similar excuses, however sorry, were all that the apologists for the Scots' colony had to offer for thus grasping at this territory. It may be remarked that the claim of Great Britain to her colonies is in few instances based on discovery, and that nearly all her most valuable possessions have been gained at the point of the sword. Might is right.
Six hundred thousand pounds were required for the enterprise and the amount was quickly subscribed, in Scotland, England, Hamburg, and Amsterdam. The scheme was a bold one, but the promise of returns was vast, and as will be remembered this was the era of gigantic and insane speculations. In Scotland alone the subscriptions summed up three hundred thousand pounds, an amount which absorbed almost the entire circulating capital of the country. All who possessed ready money ventured at least a part of it in the enterprise. Some threw in all they had; others all they could borrow. Maidens invested their portions; widows pledged their dower, expecting to be repaid fifty or a hundred fold. In England half the capital stock was subscribed for in nine days, one fourth being paid in specie or bank notes, and the rest in bills payable on demand. The total of the subscriptions from all sources was nine hundred thousand pounds, a sum which at the close of the seventeenth century was enormous even in the money capital of Great Britain. Soon the success of the scheme aroused the jealousy of English merchants, who feared that the commerce of the world might pass into the hands of the Scotch. William III. was at heart opposed to the scheme, although he had granted letters patent to the association; and partly through his influence the contributions in England, Hamburg, and Amsterdam were withdrawn. Nevertheless, another hundred thousand pounds was raised in Scotland, thus making up a capital of four hundred thousand pounds sterling.