John Prebble

by The Darien Disaster (v1. 1) (epub)

  The Committee had been unable to question Lord Belhaven, or Blackwood and Balfour, though messengers had been sent to summon all three. Once the scare was up in Parliament, that burly lord had left for Scotland, quickly followed by the merchants.

  When Granville finished the reading of his Committee's report, the Commons agreed to hear another long and pitiable petition from the East India Company. It was late, and they called for candles, while outside in the courtyard their servants huddled about braziers, blowing on their fingers. After so much reading, so much evidence of impudent conspiracy and treason, of threats to the trade and prosperity of the kingdom, the Members were savagely excited. There were shouts for a vote and cries for impeachment. The resolutions were drawn, put, and approved.

  Resolved, that the Directors of the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies, administering and taking here in this Kingdom, an Oath De Fideli, is a High Crime and Misdemeanour.

  Resolved, that the Directors of the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies, under colour of a Scotch Act of Parliament, styling themselves a Company, and acting as such, and raising monies in this Kingdom for carrying on the said Company, are guilty of a High Crime and Misdemeanour.

  And there followed twenty-two further resolutions, each naming a Director of the Company, and each declaring that he be "impeached of the said High Crimes and Misdemeanours". One final motion resolved that a committee be appointed to prepare the impeachments, and to meet the next day for that purpose, at four in the afternoon in the Speaker's Chamber.

  Yet nothing came of it. The articles of impeachment, if drawn, were never presented. The up-ended pyramid of procedure rested upon the evidence of one man, Roderick Mackenzie, and he did not answer a summons sent him by the Committee for Impeachment. The Serjeant-at-Arms reported that his lodgings were empty, and although a proclamation was issued for his arrest on February 8, he was never found. He was in Edinburgh some weeks later, with a bitter hatred of the English that was to sustain him for the rest of his life.

  The failure to impeach the Directors made little difference. There was no hope now of a joint undertaking by English and Scots capital. The subscribers had withdrawn their names before Christmas, and since their appearance before the Lords and Commons the English Directors had been making peace as best they could with the trading companies of their own country. But a fear of the Scots remained, the risk that their pestilential Company might re-emerge in Edinburgh and menace the prosperity and possessions of England.

  Edward Randolph thought so. He was Surveyor-General of the Plantations, and since he had lately returned therefrom he was listened to with respect. In March he told the Lords that if care were not taken the Scots would plant colonies in America to the great mischief of England. He suggested that all proprietors, planters and others, from French Canada to the Caribbean, should be told that the giving of aid to the Scots would be high treason, "the whole tract from 32° to 44° being His Majesty's dominion and annexed to the Crown of England."

  Mr. Randolph had no love for the Scots. Their merchants were interlopers who twisted the Navigation Acts or scandalously avoided them by pretending to be Englishmen. "They have a long time tasted the sweetness of trade to our Plantations, they paying no duties to His Majesty for the goods they import to the Plantations, nor for the tobacco they carry from thence to Scotland." And he reminded the Lords, with the smug satisfaction of a civil servant teaching legislators their business, that the Commissioners of Customs had acted sensibly in this matter weeks before the Commons had demanded impeachment. Letters had been sent to the Governors of all the King's colonies in America, to New York and Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Carolina, to Jamaica, Nevis, Bermuda and the other islands of the Caribbean. Each had been sent particulars of the Scots Act, and each had been reminded of his obligations under existing laws for the security of the Plantations, "which will be found sufficient to prevent the inconveniences and mischiefs which may arise from this Act." But like most self-satisfied public servants, Mr. Randolph overestimated the prescience of his tidy mind.

  That Spring the King gave his English Parliament their sacrificial victims. He dismissed his Commissioner to Scotland. Since Tweeddale was close to death the old man may have regarded this as a kindly release from thankless office. William also discharged his sole Secretary of State for Scotland, James Johnston. There was some irony in this. Until a few months before, Johnston had shared the office with Stair, but coveting it for himself alone he had intrigued to bring the Master down over the Glencoe business.

  Abandoned by those who had once joined with him in a great and noble undertaking, William Paterson went home to Scotland.

  2 The Rising Sun

  "They came in shoals, from all corners of the kingdom" Edinburgh, January to July 1696

  He did not travel alone. There was his wife, of course, and perhaps a child or two, we cannot be sure. A manservant and a maidservant, and two Londoners who were his friends, he thought, though one was to prove himself a rogue and the other a cipher. Paterson was able to see the villainy and self-interest of men who opposed him, but was sadly blinded by flattery. Walter Herries, who had a penetrating eye for a fellow rascal, claimed to have been undeceived by both men.

  He brought a couple of tutors, or nurses, along with him, who passed for partners in the project, though in effect a couple of subtle youths whose office was to put Paterson's crude and indigested notions into form. One of these was a Walloon by birth, whose native name was Le Serrurier, and his English one James Smith. He was a master of most of the European languages, and particularly of the English. He formerly acted as secretary to the famed Italian prince who put as many tricks on the Hollanders with his philosophers' stone; but at this juncture he passed for a considerable London merchant. The other's name was Daniel Lodge, born of Yorkshire parents in Leith in Scotland, per accident, bred a merchant in Holland, but cracked and turned to his shifts in England. This was a pleasant, facetious fellow, and acted his part in this tragicomedy to a miracle. It could not have been all lies. Herries knew both men, and was writing for others who might know them too. A good caricature must have a recognisable feature, a nose, an eye, a manner of dress that is a familiar signpost to inner character. Smith had been the first outside director accepted by the London Scots, taking his place at their second meeting on September 26. This was probably on Paterson's recommendation, a return for aid or friendship during those fruitless months in Holland and Hamburg, and he continued to trust the man, even after Smith hastily supplied the Commons with that address in Denmark Street by Soho. Perhaps Smith had nothing to lose in coming to Scotland, one man's coat-tails being as good as another's at that moment, and Paterson's the closest. Edinburgh accepted him and Lodge because they came with Paterson, and within the week all three were made burgesses and gild-brethren of the city without payment of dues. Paterson discovered that he was the nation's darling, the victim of English treachery, the architect of future prosperity, larger than life when seen by eyes glazed with emotion. Men toned to smile at him in the Canongate, to call his name, and after the bitterness of London the praise of the ballad- writers was pleasing to his simple vanity.

  Come, rouse up your hearts, come rouse up anon!

  Think of the wisdom of old Solomon,

  And heartily join with our own Paterson,

  To fetch home the Indian treasures.

  In the cooler air of their fine houses, however, the city's merchants remembered that this Solomon had demanded a high payment for his wisdom. Though they needed his advice, his knowledge of the Caribbean trade, and the inspiration of his presence in Scotland, they resented a popularity which gave him more credit than he deserved. Letters from their friends in London encouraged this view. "I think Mr. Paterson talks too much," wrote David Nairne, "and people's expectations are raised too great from him. People that did concern themselves here did not always depend upon his management of the affair."

  But Scotlan
d needed a hero and a deliverer, for times were hard. The Lowland fields promised a poor harvest for the second year in succession, plague and famine seemed inevitable. "We voted His Majesty a standing army," remembered Fletcher of Saltoun, "though we had more need to have saved the money to have bought bread, for thousands of our people that were starving for want afforded us the melancholy prospect of dying by shoals in our streets, and have left behind them reigning contagion, which hath swept away multitudes more, and God knows where it may end." By its gentle nettle-touch, the King's cautious complaint that he had been ill-served in Scotland brought up a rash of pride. The Scots Parliament, it was claimed, had greater powers than England's, and what it offered to the touch of the Sceptre the King could not refuse. "Have not the Scots," asked Saltoun, "ever since the Union of the Crowns been oppressed and tyrannised over by a faction in England, who will neither admit of an Union of the Nations, nor leave the Scots in possession of their own privileges, as men and Christians?" Scotland needed a hero and a deliverer. Though he was no Wallace, for a brief while there seemed to be no better man than William Paterson.

  The Edinburgh promoters were probably relieved by the dismal failure of their Company in London. They had been lukewarm for a joint venture, and Belhaven's speedy retreat with his two companions had not been entirely due to a fear of the Commons. Home was best, and freed from the domineering superiority of the Londoners Scotland would now create its own Company, raise Scots money, fit out Scots ships with Scots crews and Scots cargoes, and plant good Scots shoe-leather upon whatever part of the earth a Scots Act did so permit. Great servants of the King might now draw back their ermine skirts from a venture they had once welcomed, and Tweeddale might tell his friends that he thought it his duty to stop this heat from burning up his countrymen (and would have tried had not the King dismissed him), but Balfour, Blackwood and the others decided to open a Subscription Book as soon as possible. Though they had once been alarmed by the £300,000 asked of them by the Londoners, they now called for £400,000 Sterling, an astonishing sum which was perhaps half the available capital in Scotland. The increase had been made necessary by the withdrawal of the English, but it was announced like a defiant challenge.

  The Book was opened on Wednesday, February 26, at Mrs. Purdie's coffee-house, by the Cross on the north side of the High Street. The minimum amount which could be subscribed, by individuals or by associations, was £100 Sterling, and nobody who could honestly guarantee it would be turned away before the Book was closed. There was a great and immediate surge of emotion, a unity unknown since the National Covenant sixty years before. Though most of the subscribers were greedy for profit, for a share in those Indian treasures which Paterson was supposed to fetch, none was entirely free from a fevered patriotism, or unaffected by the excitement of united purpose. The uniqueness of the political, religious and social structure of the country, outside the Highlands, made it possible. The principles of the Presbytery had established the idea that men of all ranks could be equal in common dedication. The tradition of "ane band", by which Scotsmen promised to aid each other in defence of their rights, was an old one, and it was easy to see Rorie Mackenzie's Subscription Book as such a Bond. The response was national from the Tay to the Tweed, a wave flooding over the old and bloody barriers of feud, religion and politics.

  It did not, however, cross the barriers between the Highlands and Lowlands. Though the promoters called it the Company of Scotland, it was in fact a peculiarly Lowland affair. The Highlanders, a large part if not the majority of the population, gave it little or no willing support. With a few exceptions, like Mac- Farlane of that Ilk and Campbell of Argyll, the clan chiefs stood arrogantly aside from this shopman's venture. No Cameron, MacDonald, Macleod or Fraser gentleman, no Appin Stewart, Chisholm, Maclean or Grant is to be found in the Subscription List. Many of them had lately been at war with William, and where they were not exiles they were subdued rebels, Jacobite in sympathy, suspicious of the Lowlands and resentful of the Government. It does not appear that the Company ever thought of support from the chiefs, apart from those who had recently fought for William. None the less, hundreds of ordinary Highlanders would share the bitter hardships of the colony to come.

  "They came in shoals," said Water Herries, a grudging admiration showing through his threadbare derision, "from all corners of the kingdom, rich, poor, blind and lame, to lodge their subscriptions in the Company's house and to have a glimpse of the man Paterson."

  Three women were the first to sign their names in the Book. Mrs. Purdie's little coffee-house was filled as soon as its door opened with the silk of society and the broadcloth of commerce, merchants and soldiers, the law and medicine, while the High Street was noisy with coaches, horses and a yelling crowd. Mackenzie's clerk sat on a high stool with a freshly-cut quill and wrote the first words in thin, curving strokes: We Anne Dutches of Hamilton and Chastlerault doe Subscrive for Three Thousand Pounds Sterling... He handed her the pen and she signed, and was followed by the Countess of Rothes who subscribed a thousand pounds for herself and a thousand for her son the Earl of Haddington, and by Lady Margaret Hope with a thousand pounds for herself and two thousand for her young son the Laird of Hopetoun. Sir Robert Chiesly next, for two thousand, then others, pushing back cuffs and sword-hilts, pressing close to the Book regardless of rank or precedence. Balfour and Blackwood, Fletcher of Saltoun, Cockburn of Ormiston, Baillie of Jerviswood, Belhaven and Lord Basil Hamilton. And Mr. James Byres a merchant of Edinburgh who signed for £500, and whose consequent hopes of preferment in the Company's colony were to be disastrously realised. By the end of that first day there were sixty-nine names in Rorie Mackenzie's Book, and a subscribed total of £50,400.

  Throughout the Spring and Summer, in Glasgow and Edinburgh, the subscriptions continued. From lords and ladies, soldiers, sea-captains and merchants, brewers, maltsters and tailors, lawyers, surgeons, physicians and apothecaries, ministers and printers, bookbinders and glaziers, tanners, vintners, Wrights, hammermen, beltmakers and weavers, farmers and Senators to the College of Justice, Writers to the Signet, goldsmiths, schoolmasters and widows, postmasters, skinners and harness-makers, gunsmiths, sword-welders and fencing-masters. Not individuals only, but associations also, the Faculty of Advocates, the Incorporated Cordiners of Edinburgh, the Coopers of Glasgow. Masons, tailors, saddlers and shipwrights, not rich enough alone, but strong in a body and able to find £100 or £300 for their joint subscription. The "good towns" of Edinburgh, Saint Andrews, Glasgow, Paisley, Selkirk, Inverness (a Highland exception), and more, subscribing in the name of their cities, so that even the poor and landless, the thieves, whores and beggars could think themselves a part of the noble undertaking.

  Sensing an imminent end to the King's war, and an uncertain future on half-pay or no pay at all, officers promised their prize money, the rewards of loot, or loans from more provident relations. From Flanders honest Captain John Blackader, though sanguine enough in print about a soldier's life and always confident that the Lord stood at his side, took out insurance against a crippling ball or an unlucky sword-thrust. He wrote to his brother Adam, a merchant of Edinburgh, asking for £100 to be put down in his name. Eleven officers—two majors, six captains, two lieutenants and an ensign—all of John Hill's Regiment at Fort William, subscribed £1,900 between them. Because no other unit made so large a contribution, theirs is intriguing. They had been involved, with the Earl of Argyll's Regiment, in the Massacre of Glencoe four years before, and many of them had been in Edinburgh for the Inquiry when the Company's Act was pushed through Parliament. They may have been caught up by the enthusiasm for it, or they may have hoped that in this way they would redeem some of their honour. More probably one of them persuaded the rest, Major James Cunningham of Eickett, for like Byres he was ambitious for office in the colony, and could have argued that by bringing such support he had earned preferment.

  As it had put a thousand broadswords at the service of William in 1689, Clan Campbell now offered the
money they had secured and protected. Its great chief, MacCailein Mor, Archibald the 10th Earl of Argyll, subscribed £1,500, his brother James £700, and in their tail were twenty-two gentlemen and merchants, all of Clan Diarmaid's name and allegiance. There was Campbell of Ardkinglas the Sheriff of Argyll, and there was Campbell of Aberuchil the Senator of the College of Justice. There were Campbell lairds and tacksmen of Soutar, Monzie, Bogholt, Calder, Cesnock and Kinpoint, as well as Mungo, Matthew, Daniel, Archibald and more, who kept merchant houses in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Between them they subscribed £9,400, and this though some of them had scarcely recovered from the terrible raid which the Jacobite clans had made upon their lands and stock ten years before.

  A Glasgow Subscription Book was opened on March 5 and closed on April 22. When the Edinburgh Book was also closed on August 1, the full £400,000 had been subscribed. There were over 1,400 entries in both books, but since many were for associations and incorporations, for towns and burghs, the number of people involved could be counted in tens of thousands, and all men now spoke proudly of their Company, their African Company, their India Company. When the first 25 per cent call for money was made on the subscribers in June, the response was just under £100,000 Sterling, and there were no defaulters.

  Paterson was busy throughout the Spring and early Summer, writing note after note upon a proposed constitution for the Company, which he submitted to the promoters and which were politely read and set aside. The Company took shape without him. There was now a Council-General of great men, and there was a Court of Directors to which were appointed many of those whose ardent support and shrewd bargaining had carried the Act so triumphantly through the Estates. The ultimate number of Directors was set at fifty, to accommodate all who should be so rewarded and to provide enough members for the various working committees. It was a time for honouring pledges and returning favours, but Paterson had to wait until May before the Court, reluctantly almost, admitted him as a Director. Upon a promise that James Smith would subscribe the £3,000 he had underwritten in London, he became a Director too, and the Court was later to remember that the promise had been made by Paterson, and that it had been upon Paterson's recommendation that Smith was then sent to London as the Company's agent.