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Becomes herself harmonious: wont so long
In outward things to meditate the charm
Of sacred order, soon she seeks at home
To find a kindred order, to exert
Within herself this elegance of love,

This fair-inspired delight: her tempered powers
Refine at length, and every passion wears
A chaster, milder, more attractive mein.
But if to ampler prospects-if to gaze
On Nature's form, where, negligent of all
These lesser graces, she assumes the port
Of that Eternal Majesty that weighed
The world's foundations-if to these the mind
Exalts her daring eye, then mightier far

Will be the change, and nobler. Would the forms
Of servile custom cramp her generous powers?
Would sordid policies, the barbarous growth
Of ignorance and rapine, bow her down
To tame pursuits, to indolence and fear?

Lo! she appeals to Nature, to the winds

And rolling waves, the sun's unwearied course,
The elements and seasons: all declare

For what the Eternal Maker has ordained
The powers of man: we feel within ourselves

His energy divine: he tells the heart,
He meant, he made us to behold and love

What he beholds and loves, the general orb
Of life and being; to be great like him,
Beneficent and active. Thus the men

Whom Nature's works can charm, with God himself
Hold converse; grow familiar, day by day,
With his conceptions, act upon his plan,

And form to his, the relish of their souls.

THE DARIEN SCHEME.

BY SIR WALTER SCOTT.

Human character, whether national or individual, presents often to our calm consideration the strangest inconsistencies; but there are few more striking than that which Scotchmen exhibit in their private conduct, contrasted with their views when united together for any general or national purpose. In his own personal affairs the Scotchman is remarked as cautious, frugal, and prudent in an extreme degree, not generally aiming at enjoyment or relaxation till he has realized the means of indulgence, and studiously avoiding those temptations of pleasure to which men of other countries most readily give way. But when a number of Scotchmen associate for any speculative project, it would seem that their natural caution becomes thawed and dissolved by the union of their joint hopes, and that their imaginations are heated and influenced by any splendid prospect held out to them. They appear, in

particular, to lose the power of calculating and adapting their means to the end which they desire to accomplish, and are readily induced to aim at objects magnificent in themselves, but which they have not, unhappily, the wealth or strength necessary to attain. Thus the natives of Scotland are often found to attempt splendid designs, which, shipwrecked for want of the necessary expenditure, give foreigners occasion to smile at the great error, and equally great misfortune of the nation-I mean their pride and their poverty. There is no greater instance of this tendency to daring speculation, which rests at the bottom of the coldness and caution of the Scottish character, than the disastrous history of the Darien colony.

Paterson, a man of comprehensive views and great sagacity, was the parent and inventor of this memorable scheme. In youth he had been an adventurer in the West Indies, and it was said a buccaneer, that is, one of a species of adventurers nearly allied to pirates, who, consisting of different nations, and divided into various bands, made war on the Spanish commerce and settlements in the South seas, and among the West Indian islands. In this roving course of life Paterson had made himself intimately acquainted with the geography of South America, the produce of the country, the nature of its commerce, and the manner in which the Spaniards governed that extensive region.

On his return to Europe, however, the schemes which he had formed respecting the New World were laid aside for another project, fraught with the most mighty and important consequences. This was the plan of that great national establishment, the Bank of England, of which he had the honour to suggest the first idea. For a time he was admitted a director of that institution, but it befell Paterson as often happens to the first projectors of great schemes. Other persons, possessed of wealth and influence, interposed, and, taking advantage of the ideas of the obscure and unprotected stranger, made them their own by alterations and improvements more or less trivial, and finally elbowed the inventor out of all concern in the institution, the foundation of which he had laid.

Thus expelled from the Bank of England, Paterson turned his thoughts to the plan of settling a colony in America; a country so favoured in point of situation, that it seemed to him formed to be the site of the most flourishing commercial capital in the universe.

The two great continents of North and South America are joined together by an isthmus, or

narrow tract of land, called Darien. This neck of land is not above a day's journey in breadth, and as it is washed by the Atlantic Ocean on the eastern side, and the Great Pacific Ocean on the west, the isthmus seemed designed by nature as a common centre for the commerce of the world. Paterson ascertained, or at least alleged that he had ascertained, that the isth-ential persons obtained a statute from Parlia mus had never been the property of Spain, but was still possessed by the original natives, a tribe of fierce and warlike Indians, who made war on the Spaniards. According to the law of nations, therefore, any state had a right of forming a settlement in Darien, providing the consent of the Indians was first obtained; nor could their doing so be justly made subject of challenge even by Spain, so extravagantly jealous of all interference with her South American provinces. This plan of a settlement, with so many advantages to recommend it, was proposed by Paterson to the merchants of Hamburgh, to the Dutch, and even to the Elector of Brandenburgh; but it was coldly received by all these states.

the Darien scheme the full support of his eloquence and interest, in hope to regain a part of his lost popularity.

The Scottish ministers obtained permission, accordingly, to grant such privileges of trade to the Scotch as might not be prejudicial to that of England. In June, 1695, these influ

The scheme was at length offered to the merchants of London, the only traders probably in the world who had the means of realizing the splendid visions of Paterson. But when the projector was in London, endeavouring to solicit attention to his plan, he became intimate with the celebrated Fletcher of Salton. This gentleman, one of the most accomplished men and best patriots whom Scotland has produced in any age, had, nevertheless, some notions of her interests which were more fanciful than real, and, anxious to do his country service, did not sufficiently consider the adequacy of the means by which her welfare was to be obtained. He was dazzled by the vision of opulence and grandeur which Paterson unfolded, and thought of nothing less than securing, for the benefit of Scotland alone, a scheme which promised to the state which should adopt it the keys, as it were, of the New World. The projector was easily persuaded to give his own country the benefit of his scheme of colonization, and went to Scotland along with Fletcher. Here the plan found general acceptation, and particularly with the Scottish administration, who were greatly embarrassed at the time by the warm prosecution of the affair of Glencoe, and who easily persuaded King William that some freedom and facilities of trade granted to the Scotch would divert the public attention from the investigation of a matter not very creditable to his majesty's reputation any more than to their own. Stair, in particular, a party deeply interested, gave

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ment, and afterwards a charter from the crown, for creating a corporate body, or stock company, by name of the Company of Scotland trading to Africa and the Indies, with power to plant colonies and build forts in places not possessed by other European nations, the consent always of the inhabitants of the places where they settled being obtained.

The hopes entertained of the profits to arise from this speculation were in the last degree sanguine; not even the Solemn League and Covenant was signed with more eager enthusiasm. Almost every one who had or could command any sum of ready money, embarked it in the Indian and African Company; many subscribed their all; maidens threw in their portions, and widows whatever sums they could raise upon their dower, to be repaid an hundred fold by the golden shower which was to descend upon the subscribers. Some sold estates to vest the money in the Company's funds, and so eager was the spirit of speculation, that when eight hundred thousand pounds formed the whole circulating capital of Scotland, half of that sum was vested in the Darien stock.

But it was not the Scotch alone whose hopes were excited by the rich prospects held out to them. An offer being made by the managers of the Company to share the expected advantages of the scheme with English and foreign merchants, it was so eagerly grasped at, that three hundred thousand pounds of stock was subscribed for in London within nine days after opening the books. The merchants of Hamburgh and of Holland subscribed two hundred thousand pounds.

Such was the hopeful state of the new Company's affairs, when the English jealousy of trade interfered to crush an adventure which seemed so promising. The idea which then and long afterwards prevailed in England, was that all profit was lost to the British empire which did not arise out of commerce exclusively English. The increase of trade in Scotland or Ireland they considered not as an addition to the general prosperity of the united nations, but as a positive loss to England. The commerce of Ireland they had long laid under severe shackles, to secure their own predominance; but it was not so easy to deal with Scot

land, who had not only a separate legislature, but acknowledged no subordination or fealty to England, being to all effects a foreign country, though governed by the same king.

This new species of rivalry on the part of an old enemy was both irritating and alarming. The English had hitherto thought of the Scotch as a poor and fierce nation, who, in spite of fewer numbers and far inferior resources, was always ready to engage in war with her powerfal neighbour; and it was embarrassing and provoking to find the same nation display, in spite of its proverbial caution, a hardy and ambitious spirit of emulating them in the paths of commerce.

These narrow-minded, unjust, and ungenerous apprehensions prevailed so widely throughout the English nation, that both Houses of Parliament joined in an address to the king, stating that the advantages given to the newlyerected Scottish Indian and African Company, would insure that kingdom so great a superiority over the English East India Company, that a great part of the stock and shipping of England would be transported to the north, and Scotland would become a free port for all East Indian commodities, which they would be able to furnish at a much cheaper rate than the English. By this means, it was said, England would lose all the advantages of an exclusive trade in the eastern commodities, which had always been a great article in her foreign commerce, and sustain infinite detriment in the sale of her domestic manufactures. The king, in his gracious answer to this address, acknowledged the justice of its statements, though as void of just policy as of grounds in public law. It bore, that "the king had been ill served in Scotland, but hoped some remedies might still be found to prevent the evils apprehended." To show that his resentment was serious against his Scottish ministers, King William deprived Stair of his office as secretary of state. Thus a statesman, who had retained his place in spite of the bloody deed of Glencoe, was deprived of it for attempting to serve his country by extending her trade and national importance.

The English Parliament persisted in the attempt to find remedies for the evils which they were pleased to apprehend from the Darien scheme, by appointing a committee of inquiry, with directions to summon before them such persons as had, by subscribing to the Company, given encouragement to the progress of an undertaking so fraught, as they alleged, with danger to the trade of England. These persons being called before Parliament, and men

aced with impeachment, were compelled to renounce their connection with the undertaking, which was thus deprived of the aid of English subscriptions, to the amount, as already mentioned, of three hundred thousand pounds. Nay, so eager did the English Parliament show themselves in this matter, that they even extended their menace of impeachment to some native-born Scotchmen, who had offended the House by subscribing their own money to a Company formed in their own country and according to their own laws.

That this mode of destroying the funds of the concern might be yet more effectual, the weight of the king's influence with foreign states was employed to diminish the credit of the undertaking, and to intercept the subscriptions which had been thence obtained. For this purpose the English envoy at Hamburgh was directed to transmit to the senate of that commercial city a remonstrance on the part of King William, accusing them of having encouraged the commissioners of the Darien Company; requesting them to desist from doing so; intimating that the plan, said to be fraught with many evils, had not the support of his majesty; and protesting that the refusal of the senate to withdraw their countenance from the scheme would threaten an interruption to the friendship which his majesty desired to cultivate with the good city of Hamburgh. The senate returned to this application a spirited answer:-"The city of Hamburgh," they said, "considered it as strange that the King of England should dictate to them, a free people, with whom they were to engage in commercial arrangements; and were yet more astonished to find themselves blamed for having entered into such engagements with a body of his own Scottish subjects, incorporated under a special act of Parliament." But as the menace of the envoy showed that the Darien Company must be thwarted in all its proceedings by the superior power of England, the prudent Hamburghers, ceasing to consider it as a hopeful speculation, finally withdrew their subscriptions. The Dutch, to whom William could more decidedly dictate, from his authority with the states of Holland as stadtholder, and who were jealous, besides, of the interference of the Scotch with their own East Indian trade, adopted a similar course without remonstrance; and thus the Company, deserted both by foreign and English associates, were crippled in their undertaking, and left to their own limited

resources.

The managers of the scheme, supported by the general sense of the people of Scotland,

made warm remonstrances to King William on the hostile interference of his Hamburgh envoy. In William's answer he was forced meanly to evade what he was resolved not to grant, and yet could not in equity refuse. "The king," it was promised, "would send instructions to his envoy not to make use of his majesty's name or authority for obstructing their engagements with the city of Hamburgh. The Hamburghers, on the other hand, declared themselves ready to make good their subscriptions if they had any assurance from the King of England that in so doing they would be safe from his threatened resentment. But in spite of repeated promises, the envoy received no power to make such declaration. Thus the Darien Company lost the advantage of support to the extent of two hundred thousand pounds subscribed in Hamburgh and Holland, and that by the personal and hostile interference of their own monarch, under whose charter they were embodied.

Scotland, left to her unassisted resources, would have acted with less spirit but more wisdom in renouncing her ambitious plan of colonization, sure as it now was to be thwarted by the hostile interference of her unfriendly neighbours. But those engaged in the scheme. comprising great part of the nation, could not be expected easily to renounce hopes which had been so highly excited, and enough remained of the proud and obstinate spirit with which their ancestors had maintained their independence to induce the Scotch, even when thrown back on their own limited means, to determine upon the establishment of their favourite settlement at Darien in spite of the desertion of their English and foreign subscribers, and in defiance of the invidious opposition of their powerful neighbours. They caught the spirit of their ancestors, who, after losing so many dreadful battles, were always found ready, with sword in hand, to dispute the next campaign.

The contributors were encouraged in this stubborn resolution by the flattering account which was given of the country to be colonized, in which every class of Scotchmen found something to flatter their hopes and to captivate their imagination. The description given of Darien by Paterson was partly derived from his own knowledge, partly from the report of buccaneers and adventurers, and the whole was exaggerated by the eloquence of an able man pleading in behalf of a favourite project.

The climate was represented as healthy and cool, the tropical heats being mitigated by the height of the country, and by the shade of extensive forests, which yet presented neither

| thicket nor underwood, but would admit a horseman to gallop through them unimpeded. Those acquainted with trade were assured of the benefits of a safe and beautiful harbour, where the advantages of free commerce and universal toleration would attract traders from all the world, while the produce of China, Japan, the Spice Islands, and Eastern India, brought to the bay of Panama in the Pacific Ocean, might be transferred by a safe and easy route across the Isthmus to the new settlement, and exchanged for all the commodities of Europe. "Trade," said the commercial enthusiast, "will beget trade-money will beget moneythe commercial world shall no longer want work for their hands, but will rather want hands for their work. This door of the seas, and key of the universe, will enable its possessors to become the legislators of both worlds and the arbitrators of commerce. The settlers at 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." To those more vulgar minds, who cannot separate the idea of wealth from the precious metals, the projector held out the prospect of golden mines. The hardy Highlanders, many of whom embarked in the undertaking, were to exchange their barren moors for extensive savannahs of the richest pasture, with some latent hopes of a creagh (or foray) upon Spaniards or Indians. The lowland laird was to barter his meagre heritage and oppressive feudal tenure for the free possession of unlimited tracts of ground, where the rich soil, three or four feet deep, would return the richest produce for the slightest cultivation. Allured by these hopes, many proprietors actually abandoned their inheritances, and many more sent their sons and near relations to realize their golden hopes, while the poor labourers, who desired no more than bread and freedom of conscience, shouldered their mattocks and followed their masters in the path of emigration.

Twelve hundred men, three hundred of whom were youths of the best Scottish families, embarked on board of five frigates, purchased at Hamburgh for the service of the expedition; for the king refused the Company even the trifling accommodation of a ship of war which lay idle at Burntisland. They reached their destination in safety, and disembarked at a place called Acta, where, by cutting through a peninsula, they obtained a safe and insulated situation for a town called New Edinburgh, and a fort named Saint Andrew. With the same fond remembrance of their native land,

the colony itself was called Caledonia. They were favourably received by the native princes, from whom they purchased the land they required. The harbour, which was excellent, was proclaimed a free port; and in the outset the happiest results were expected from the settlement.

The arrival of the colonists took place in winter, when the air was cool and temperate; but with the summer returned the heat, and with the heat came the diseases of a tropical climate. Those who had reported so favourably of the climate of Darien had probably been persons who had only visited the coast during the healthy season, or mariners who, being chiefly on ship-board, find many situations healthy which prove pestilential to Europeans residing on shore. The health of the settlers, accustomed to a cold and mountainous country, gave way fast under the constant exhalations of the sultry climate, and even a more pressing danger arose from the want of food. The provisions which the colonists had brought from Scotland were expended, and the country afforded them only such supplies as could be procured by the precarious success of fishing and the chase.

This must have been foreseen; but it was never doubted that ample supplies would be procured from the English provinces in North America, which afforded superabundance of provisions, and from the West India colonies, which always possessed superfluities. It was here that the enmity of the king and the English nation met the unfortunate settlers most unexpectedly and most severely. In North America, and in the West India Islands, the most savage pirates and buccaneers, men who might be termed enemies to the human race, and had done deeds which seemed to exclude them from intercourse with mankind, had nevertheless found repeated refuge - had refitted their squadrons, and, supplied with every means of keeping the sea, had set sail in a condition to commit new murders and piracies. But no such relief was extended to the Scotch colonists at Darien, though acting under a charter from their sovereign, and establishing a peaceful colony according to the law of nations, and for the universal benefit of mankind.

The governors of Jamaica, Barbadoes, and New York published proclamations, setting forth, that whereas it had been signified to them (the governors) by the English secretary of state that his majesty was unacquainted with the purpose and design of the Scotch settlers at Darien (which was a positive falsehood), and that it was contrary to the peace entered

into with his majesty's allies (no European power having complained of it), and that the governors of the said colonies had been commanded not to afford them any assistance; therefore, they did strictly charge the colonists over whom they presided to hold no correspondence with the said Scots, and to give them no assistance of arms, ammunition, provisions, or any other necessary whatsoever, either by themselves or any others for them; as those transgressing the tenor of the proclamation would answer the breach of his majesty's commands at their highest peril.

These proclamations were strictly obeyed; and every species of relief, not only that which countrymen may claim of their fellow-subjects, and Christians of their fellow-Christians, but such as the vilest criminal has a right to demand, because still holding the same human shape with the community whose laws he has offended-the mere supply, namely, of sustenance, the meanest boon granted to the meanest beggar, was denied to the colonists of Darien.

Famine aided the diseases which swept them off in large numbers; and undoubtedly they who thus perished for want of the provisions for which they were willing to pay, were as much murdered by King William's government as if they had been shot in the snows of Glencoe. The various miseries of the colony became altogether intolerable, and after waiting for assistance eight months, by far the greater part of the adventurers having died, the miserable remainder abandoned the settlement.

Shortly after the departure of the first colony, another body of fifteen hundred men, who had been sent out from Scotland, arrived at Darien under the hope of finding their friends alive and the settlement prosperous. This reinforcement suffered by a bad passage, in which one of their ships was lost and several of their number died. They took possession of the deserted settlement with sad anticipations, and were not long in experiencing the same miseries which had destroyed and dispersed their predecessors. Two months after they were joined by Campbell of Finnab with a third body of three hundred men, chiefly from his own Highland estate, many of whom had served under him in Flanders, where he had acquired an honourable military reputation. It was time the colony should receive such support, for, in addition to their other difficulties, they were now threatened by the Spaniards.

Two years had elapsed since the colonization of Darien had become matter of public discussion, and notwithstanding their feverish jealousy of their South American settlements, the

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