Chronicles and characters of the stock exchange

by of the Bank of England John Francis

It is a somewhat curious fact, that directly the Navy five per cents were reduced, the people rushed wildly into new securities to retrieve their loss, and missed in the promises of the one the certainty of the other. In 1822, foreign states which, in some cases, had not even attained the freedom for which they fought, became creditors to the English public to the amount of £10,150,000.

Chili, after a protracted resistance to the mother country, found success followed its efforts. Lord Cochrane gave his powerful support to the navy; and, in 1818, a large tract of coast was declared by him in a state of blockade. The vigor of his Lordship proved too much for the royalists; and in a short period a free constitution, with a popular government, was appointed. But neither the free constitution nor the popular government could do without money. The Chilian republic, therefore, borrowed one million of the English people, at six per cent., and, having received the cash, thought it unnecessary to pay the interest after 1826.

Peru, a place so interesting to the historic reader, from its early discovery, its connection with the Spaniards, and the cruelties of Pizarro, exhibited another specimen of loan-contracting. After years of violent commotion and of resolute resistance, her independence was proclaimed; but independence did not produce quiet, and the name of Bolivar became known in a sanguinary and protracted war. The Spaniards refused quietly to yield their territory; Lima surrendered to Spanish troops; and though they were dispossessed by Bolivar, and Peru became safe from subjugation, doubt, distrust, and anarchy remained. During this period, the opinion of the English people may be guessed from the fact, that they lent, in 1822, £450,000 at six per cent., and that it was contracted for at eighty-eight per cent.

Colombia, which only dates its history as a nation from 1819, followed. During the contest which preceded its independence, the insurgents were supplied with implements of war and ammunition from this country, on the security of debentures bearing ten per cent. interest; and when the great battle, in which Bolivar the hero of American independence obtained a complete victory, and consummated the freedom of Colombia, was fought, the new state borrowed two millions at eighty-four per cent.

Poyais was another instance of English liberality. £200,000 were lent on a security so visionary, that not one dividend was ever paid; while sadder and more sorrowful effects than this followed. Adventures which commercial history has rarely paralleled marked its progress; and sufferings, which make us shudder at the recital were the result of the delusion. But little known out of a particular circle, the name of the Poyais settlement is never mentioned there but with feelings of unmitigated detestation.

A Scotchman, named Gregor MacGregor, claiming to be chief of the clan which bears his name, formed the idea of creating a settlement on the shores of the Black River. The first appearance of this man in a public character was in the service of the patriots of Spanish America. Under the florid title of “General of Brigade of the Armies of the United Provinces of New Granada and Venezuela, and General-in-chief of the Armies destined against the Floridas,” he succeeded in seizing a place known as Amelia Island, which he proposed to use for purposes of aggrandizement. His views proving fallacious, he vacated it, and was next heard of as carrying, with a trifling force, the rich town of Portobello. Here he addressed to his men a manifesto, in which gold and glory, plunder and patriotism, equally occupied its periods. Scarcely was it issued, however, ere the force of MacGregor was surrounded, and the great general could only save his life by leaving his followers, leaping out of the window in his shirt, and swimming on board his ship. It is probable that, during these campaigns, the idea of a settlement first occurred to MacGregor, as, not long after their conclusion, he proposed a plan of emigration about to be related; a plan by which colonization was to extend to that part of America known as the Mosquito country. The more pleasing title of Poyais was given; the Stock Exchange was employed to circulate some bonds for a loan of £200,000, at eighty per cent., on the security of the country; and a land renowned for its inhospitable climate was puffed into a most undeserving celebrity. Every device of human ingenuity was practised. Books were published in which the climate of paradise seemed uncongenial by that of Poyais. The air was soft and balmy; the sun and sky were alike fructifying; the soil yearned to yield its fruits; the water ran over sands of gold. Grain was to grow without sowing. Tortoise-shell, diamonds, and pearls were plentifully promised; and, to the least imaginative, the most glowing realms of the Pacific grew pale in comparison with a region where the sun was ever bright, and the soil ever yielding. Labor would be superseded, life commenced in hardship would end in luxury; while gorgeous pictures of “the finest climate and most fertile place in the world,” excited the undisciplined imagination of those who had the money necessary to convey them thither. A song, to be paid for by a company of Poyais lancers, was chanted in the streets; and the attention of the passing crowd was attracted by hired ballad-singers. The new home was to be graced with a knight of the Green Cross, a colonel to command, three legislative houses to guide its affairs, and a sovereign in the person of Gregor MacGregor, under the romantic title of Cacique of Poyais. An agent was employed to make sales of land, and, unhappily, the applicants were numerous.

Nor was this all. An engraving was published, in which a church attracted the religious sympathies of some, and a bank the mercenary thoughts of others; while a theatre gave an air of civilization and luxury the scene.

Tempted by such descriptions, two hundred and fifty persons embarked for the land of promise; their lives, their fortunes, and their families engaged in a scheme which led to destruction. The mere adventurer was drawn by the beauty of the settlement, the fineness of the climate, and the hope of making a fortune. The son of the soil, who had amassed a capital which in Great Britain was unable to save him from a poor-house, but promised in Poyais a sufficiency for life, gathered his family together, sold his little furniture, reserving, with Scottish piety, the Bible which had often consoled his Scottish hearth, and sought an unknown clime, and a new home for his household deities. Notes, payable at the Bank of Poyais, were given in exchange for notes of the Bank of Scotland, under the plea that the latter would not circulate in the Mosquito country. At length, the barks which were to conduct the settlers were entered at Leith harbour; and under different auspices, but with similar results to those which marked the Darien expedition from the same port, they left the spot which many were destined to see no more.

Their arrival at the Black River was ominous. As their vessel neared the new country, a gun was fired, and colors hoisted, to announce the coming of the emigrants. Every moment they looked anxiously out for some symptoms of the settlement. Every eye was strained to see the spire of the church which, in all their dreams, had decorated their home. Every heart beat with a strange, unwonted anxiety as they came near the place which had been pictured in such vivid colors. No great powers of imagination are necessary to conceive their watchful expectation, as hour after hour passed, and their signals remained disregarded; or with what a bounding joy they must have seen the first boat, conveying three white people, approach the ship. The delusion was brief; and a few words damped their hopes and destroyed their visions, by the information that it was a savage, sterile, and desolate spot. Greatly dispirited, they commenced a sad and sullen journey up the creek. With a burning sun and sky above, no traces of civilization around, exhausted by the climate, and galled by insects which the heat of the air nourished in great size, they proceeded with an almost funereal melancholy to their city of refuge. The young and ardent asked for gold and gems; the old and cautious looked at the situation, as, with an anxiety they could not conceal, they questioned of the soil, its capabilities, and its cultivation. “Lo!” wrote one who suffered greatly in this disastrous expedition. “Lo! they said it was all swampy.” By the shades of evening they landed, and eagerly looked for their future home. It was too dark to see where the old town of St. Joseph’s formerly stood, as its site was covered with bushes; and new town there was none, save a couple of huts, scarcely worthy the name. The next day, the terrible heat of the climate demanded shelter; but, with every possible exertion, it occupied three days in clearing sufficient ground for their habitation. Some wept at sight of the desolate spot; others gnashed their teeth; while many, yielding to despair, threw themselves on the ground, and declared themselves abandoned of God and man. The more hopeful were employed in pitching tents, and had scarcely commenced landing the goods, on which their safety depended, when a great gale arose, and the vessel was blown away; nor did they hear of her until a month had elapsed. Their situation was not only painful and perilous, but almost hopeless. Hardy as they were, and fit to battle with any fate, they bore with them those for whose safety they would gladly have perilled their lives.

The young child and the aged grandsire, alike incapable of restraining their wants and wishes, were there. The mother and the infant, the maiden and the matron, had each her representative. “Bushes were around, and the moon above,” wrote one of the survivors. Night brought its fearful malaria, day its yet more fearful sun; and who can imagine the first dig of the spade which, as it sunk deeply into a soil, half mud and half water, sunk more deeply into the heart of the unhappy agriculturist. They sowed corn, and the sun withered it as it rose from the ground. They planted potatoes, and as they sprung up, they perished from the great heat. A further danger appeared to the settlers. They were told by the king of the Mosquito nation, that no grant would be recognized by him, and that they must acknowledge allegiance or quit his territory. In these circumstances, it was deemed advisable for a deputation to wait upon his Majesty; and over sandy beaches they took their way. Weak from want of food, weary from want of rest, their journey proved one of toil and trouble. The rainy season was fast approaching; sickness and death decimated the wanderers; and vainly did they make desperate efforts to avert their impending fate. One party procured a boat, and started in search of aid; but, unhappily, forgetting to take water, died ere it could attain help. Others bought a canoe, and, with Indians to guide them, were scarcely at sea, ere their treacherous companions plundered and flung them overboard. Those who remained had yet to be acclimated; and sickness added to the sufferings they had already endured. Eating salt provisions, drinking impure water, burning by day and shivering by night, on the borders of a creek which bred disease, with a fatal malaria around, they were unable to resist the ague, which in its worst form seized upon them. Without help and without hope, far from home, in an inhospitable country, sickness seized upon one and all. It spared neither age nor sex, neither strength nor decrepitude. The most resolute fell beneath its power; the weakest felt its fatal influence; and so fearfully was the colony at one time situated, that not one could lift a finger to assist the other. Death ensued; and the only portion of the soil gained by many was that which gave a grave. The mortality was two thirds.