Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/144

130 at large, were sanguine contributors. Their younger sons saw a new highway to opulence and distinction suddenly opened. Many lords mortgaged all that they could to secure an ample share of the expected benefits. Their tenantry and servants were enthusiastic in their adhesion to it; and the officers, whom the peace had left at large, prepared for fresh campaigns and adventures in the golden regions.

The company had a number of stout ships built in Holland to convey over the emigrants and their stores. On the 26th of July, 1698, five of these ships, the St. Andrew, the Unicorn, the Caledonia, the Snow, and the Endeavour Pink, containing one thousand two hundred men, set sail from Leith. Such was the excitement, that all Edinburgh seemed to have poured out to see the departure of the colonists, and hundreds of soldiers and sailors who could not be engaged clamoured to be taken on board. Many contrived to get into the vessels and endeavour to conceal themselves in the hold, and when discovered they clung to the timbers and riggings, offering service without pay.

When the vessels had sailed the Scottish parliament unanimously addressed the king on behalf of the company, and the validity of the charter. The lord-president, Sir Hugh Dalrymple, the brother of lord Stair, and Sir James Stuart, the lord-advocate, also presented memorials defending the rights of the company. Paterson committed the error of sailing in the fleet as a private individual. He had incurred the resentment of the company by having remitted twenty thousand pounds to Hamburg for stores, part of which, without any fault of his own, was embezzled by the agent. The company, therefore, refused to give him the command of the colony, but appointed a council of seven members without a head. This was certain to insure want of unity of purpose and consequent failure. Paterson was the only man qualified by his abilities, his experience, and his knowledge of the country to take the command. He is said to have seen and conversed with the celebrated buccaneer Dampier and his surgeon, Lionel Wafer, on the statistics of Darien; and, if the expedition was sent at all, it should have been under his entire control. Nothing, under the political circumstances, could have insured the establishment of the colony, but Paterson's guidance would have prevented the dire calamities which ensued. He was certain that the vessels were not properly furnished with provisions and stores before setting out, and he in vain urged an examination. When out at sea a few days, he was enabled to get an examination, when there was discovered to be a serious deficiency, but then it was too late. They next sailed for Madeira, where their sealed orders were opened, and they then bore away for the West Indies. They put into St. Thomas's, and there might have obtained plenty of provisions from a ship-captain, but for the perverseness of the council. The advice of Paterson was uniformly rejected out of jealousy. On the 30th of October they landed in a fine bay on the coast of Darien, capable of holding one thousand ships, and about four miles east of Golden Island.

The incapable council, spite of Paterson's advice, would plant their new town in a bog, but the effects on their health soon forced them to remove to higher ground. They erected a fort and threw up defences at Acta, which they named New St. Andrews, and on a hill opposite made a signal station, where they placed a corps of highlanders to keep a good look-out for the approach of any enemy.

But the miserable management of the council brought speedy misfortune on the infant colony. The people were suffering from want of everything. Paterson soon lost his wife, and numbers sunk under disappointment, insufficient food, and the climate. The natives were friendly to them, but wanted them to go and fight the Spaniards. It was soon found that the mountains and forests offered enormous obstacles to that very transit to the shores of the Pacific which Dampier"s representations had promised. The different leaders of the expedition fell to quarrelling, and Paterson endeavoured in vain to reconcile them. They sent out vessels to the West India islands for provisions. One, the Snow, they lost, and the Pink, endeavouring to get to New York, after beating about for a month, was driven back. Amid the rapidly-sinking colonists and the fatal feuds of the leaders, they received on the 18th of May the stunning news that the king had issued a proclamation denouncing the act of the colony having infringed his treaty with Spain by forcibly entering the Spanish territory of Panama, and forbidding any of the English governors of the West India islands to furnish them with provisions or any necessaries.

The moment Louis XIV. heard of their settling in Darien he had offered to the king of Spain to send ships and forces and drive them out for him. The Spanish minister at London, the marquis de Canales, presented a remonstrance against this breach of the peace with his master on the 3rd of May. Dalrymple, who has left much information on this expedition in his "Memoirs," says the Dutch and English opponents were at the bottom of this remonstrance; that Spain had let the affair go on a long time without noticing it; and that the rights of the company had been debated before king William, in presence of the Spanish ambassador, before the colony sailed. All this may be true, for the real destination of the expedition was kept secret till the fleet arrived at Madeira, and Spain protested as soon as she discovered whither it was gone. William, who was just now making treaties with Louis, and anxious to be on good terms with Spain, strictly enforced the orders to deprive the suffering colony of all means of remaining. These measures of the king produced the most fatal consequences in the colony. Every one, says Paterson, was in haste to be gone from it. In vain he tried to persuade them to stay for more positive orders. Captain Pennicook, the captain of the fleet, was reported to be intending to steal away with his ship, on the supposition that they were all proclaimed pirates and would be hanged. The poor colonists continued to die off rapidly, and news now came that the Spaniards were marching against them with a strong force.

Famine, sickness, and the fear of being massacred in their weakness by the enemy, compelled the colonists to evacuate the place. On the 18th of June, 1699, the Unicorn, St. Andrew, and Caledonia sailed from Golden Island for New York. On the voyage they met the sloop which they had sent to Jamaica for provisions. It had got none, owing to the royal proclamation, and they all proceeded on their route. They lost one hundred and fifty out of two hundred and fifty of their number on the voyage, and arrived at New