The minister of Glassford in the Covenanting parish of Avon- dale, Borland had himself been chosen to go to the Colony. In July, the Commission of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland had met in Glasgow, listened to an inspiring and relevant sermon (upon the text Hebrews 11:8, By faith Abraham, being called of God, obeyed, and went out, not knowing whither he went), chosen four ministers for Caledonia, and given them their instructions. In addition to Borland, they were Alexander Shields, Archibald Stobo and Alexander Dalgleish, all good men in the faith and of proven worth. Upon arrival, they were told, they should immediately set a day apart for public thanksgiving, and should then constitute themselves as a Presbytery by electing a Moderator and a Clerk. Thereafter, with all speed and the consent of the people, they should select the most pious, prudent and judicious among the settlers to be Elders and Overseers of the community, holding parochial sessions and Diets of the Presbytery as often as occasion required. "And thus we commit you, and our Lord's great and glorious work in your hands, unto His own powerful, wise and gracious conduct and blessing."
Of the four ministers only Borland would return to Scotland, and it is history's good fortune that he was a tireless scribbler. He was also a bigot, a prig, and an intolerant critic of human frailty, convinced that the Almighty guided him in righteousness and damned those who did not follow. If Gibson had transported Papists and Episcopalians, instead of Covenanters, Borland might not have deplored his inhumanity toward them. He had been particularly chosen because he had spent some time in the Dutch colony of Surinam, though this had given him little sympathy for other men and no understanding of the peculiar temptations they suffered in such remote places. His dear friend and mentor was his companion Alexander Shields, minister of the second charge of Saint Andrews, and a strong man in the service of the Lord. Shields was still young, but for most of his life he had been persecuted for his beliefs, and had at one time been a prisoner on the Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth. His physical courage was exceptional: as chaplain to the Cameronians he had sung psalms with them in their advance at Steinkirk, and sustained them with prayers in the trenches before Namur. He had been a field preacher with James Renwick and had vindicated that ardent Covenanter's work in The Hind Let Loose. In his study at Saint
Andrews he left behind a manuscript life of Renwick, and would never live to see its publication.
The last of the supplies were being loaded by gabbards from Glasgow and wherries from Greenock, the same diverse cargoes of hardware and haberdashery that had been sent with the first expedition. And bayonets and powder. Raisins and sugar. Brandy and beer. All entered in his ledger by Peter Murdoch, the Company's agent in Glasgow, with a neat index so that the Committee for Equipping might know at a glance how many pounds of bees-wax or casks of brimstone, firkins of black soap or kegs of nails were aboard the ships. The Directors worked industriously, rose early, and consumed prodigious quantities of claret when they entertained each other at dusk. Their euphoric self-satisfaction was disturbed only momentarily by some unpleasant news from London. Montgomerie and Jolly, back from Caledonia by way of Jamaica and Bristol, had arrived there and had as yet sent no word that they were coming north. Writing to Paterson, the Marquis of Tweeddale said that he could not think what the villains would have to say for themselves. They were reported to be preparing a petition for presentation to the Duke of Hamilton, but His Grace, having had notice of their behaviour in letters from the Colony, would be on his guard against it. The arrival of both men in England reminded the Directors of the sad lack of unity in Caledonia, and they wrote long letters to the now extinct Council, recalling earlier admonitions against "jealousies, animosities, factions, heart-burnings and disagreements." Such evils the colonists should zealously renounce with the help of their new ministers, even though they were "penned up in a corner close together, in a state of lazy idleness."
And let them be of good cheer, a great number of reinforcements was coming with these letters, including men whom the Company understood were desperately needed. For the defence of the fort there was John Jaffray to be Fire-master and Bombardier. Captain John Wallace and Thomas Kerr were engineers of renown from Flanders, and the former something of an artillerist as well. He had recently examined and fired 36 leather guns, the gift of Lord Elcho, and declared them in good condition. For the proper management of the precious metals that would seem to be found in every stone upturned, the Company was sending a goldsmith, Robert Keil, and also John Hunter who was "perfectly versed in the art of coining money and the making of mills for the edging of money." David Dovale was coming to help his friend and co-religionist Benjamin Spense, having a remarkable fluency in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch and English, as well as some of the Indian tongues of the Darien coast. Upon the recommendation of the Duke of Hamilton Robert Johnson had been appointed to employ his new method of teaching the Indians both English and Scots. And George Winram had gone aboard the Hope with his "stills and other necessaries, for the distilling and fermenting of several sorts of liquors."
A hundred women were sailing with the expedition at the Company's expense, and as many more were willing to pay £4 to a private speculator who was proposing to charter a sloop or brigantine for the purpose. Most of them were loyal wives, and all but a few of them are now nameless. There was Mrs. Stobo, wife of the minister. There was Mrs. Jaffray, sailing with the Fire-master and their daughter Mary, Mrs. Johnson and her son. There was Mrs. Bell and there was Mrs. Merston who did not know that they were in fact widows, for the husbands they hoped to join in Caledonia, like the men of other wives aboard, were long since dead in their water-logged graves.
The captains, lieutenants, ensigns and soldiers were again discharged men of the disbanded regiments of Leven and Strathnaver, Mackay, Hill and Argyll. Many of them had been waiting impatiently about Milne Square since the Company refused their services a year ago. More than a third of the common men, according to Francis Borland, were from the mountains, Highlanders whose lack of English and scandalous contempt for the discipline of the Presbytery were to fill him with disgust and pity, the pity being reserved for himself. William Dunlop, Principal of the University of Glasgow, asked the Company to take as volunteers "some young men who passed their course at the college and are desirous to go to Caledonia." They were accepted, on condition that one of their masters accompanied them, and that Dunlop advanced them £10 for the purchase of small necessities.
The cadet sons of twenty-two leading families were given commissions as lieutenants or ensigns. Others, of no eminence but proud lineage, asked to go as Planters or Volunteers until their valour and industry won them a commission. One of these was Lauchlan Bain, whose father was a tacksman in the Mackay country, and his promotion would be as rapid as his following disgrace was irrevocable. Among the company commanders was another Colin Campbell from Argyll's, and two more of his clan were lieutenants. Another overseer was Lord Mungo Murray, a brave and selfless member of the house of Atholl. Captain Andrew Stewart was the landless brother of the Earl of Galloway, but carried with his commission the Company's promise that if he purchased "some considerable share of the stock this Court shall for his further encouragement assume him to the number of Directors." Among all the officers of the companies there was once more a scattering of splendid names, predominantly Highland—Carmichael and Campbell, Farquhar and Grant, Ramsay, Colquhoun, Mackay and Urquhart, Murray, Gordon, Menzies and Ross. At least one father was inflamed by the fire of his son's enthusiasm and went with him. Alexander Kinnard of Culbin had once been a Jacobite, an officer in the Highland army that had risen against William ten years before. Although he had been pardoned in 1693, his estate on the Moray Firth had since been engulfed by tidal sand. When his son was appointed an ensign in Captain John Telfer's company, he secured an overseer's commission for himself, and it may be that in addition to sharing the boy's life he hoped to restore a tarnished name and a broken fortune.
Another father concerned with family honour, if n
ot his own obligations thereto, was Sir James Oswald. He plagued the Directors during these last days with petitions on behalf of his luckless heir. It had been understood that Roger Oswald would serve the Colony as a clerk, but the only letter Sir James had received—by Mr. Hamilton's hand and addressed to Thomas Aikman—suggested that he was not so employed. Would the Directors once more recommend the young man to the Council? Wearily, they resolved that they would.
Four new Councillors, described as "men of special trust", were being sent with the expedition. Firstly William Vetch of course, though his uneasy health had again been affected by the wreck of the Dispatch and his struggle to reach the Islay shore.
From his sick-bed, he promised the Directors that should he be able to stand on his feet he would most certainly go aboard the Rising Sun at the time appointed. As Commodore and captain of the flagship, and in acknowledgement of the assistance he and his brother had given to the Company, James Gibson was also elected. He was a rough man and little liked, and it is easy to see him as another Pennecuik, though he was the better seaman. The third was James Byres, the Edinburgh merchant who had been among the first to sign his name in Mrs. Purdie's coffee-house, subscribing £500 in the hope of a preferment now abundantly realised. If a contentious nature and an arrogant conceit were the principal qualifications for the Council—as they seem to have been—then Byres was an excellent choice. Upon his appointment he asked for a certificate declaring his right to the office, a passage for his brother-in-law and his apprentice, and a guarantee that he, his dependants and his baggage would be given fitting accommodation aboard the Rising Sun. The fourth man was Major John Lindsay, so self-effacing, unquarrelsome and obliging that little has survived of his existence but his signature, boldly penned below those of his colleagues.*
Lindsay was a late appointment, almost an afterthought. It had been intended that he and Dr. John Munro of Coul should go as "persons of special trust", without office or authority clearly defined. Remembering that he had lost his hoped-for place on the first Council when the Company followed the Kirk's advice and chose Pennecuik, Munro said that he could not accept unless he were made a Councillor and member of the Court of Directors. Refused these offices, he sulkily declined to go, and was thus saved the embarrassment of explaining to the other surgeons why the medical supplies he had ordered were so inadequate.
Drummers beat along the Renfrew shore on Wednesday, August 16, with a proclamation calling "all Overseers, Assistants, Sub-Assistants, Gentlemen Volunteers, Tradesmen, Planters and Others" to the boats. At once, lest they forfeit their passage. By
* He may have been one of the disbanded officers of the Earl of Argyll's Regiment. A disproportionate number of them served in the Colony, as a result, no doubt, of the Earl's efforts on their behalf. A John Lindsay took part in the Massacre of Glencoe as a lieutenant in Campbell of Glenlyon's battalion-company, but the Councillor could have been the John Lindsay who was Aide-Major to the Earl.
ten o'clock the next day nearly thirteen hundred men, women and children were aboard, crowding the decks and lower shrouds, cheering and waving as a dozen Directors were rowed by in a last review. In Gibson's yellow cabin later, the ships' captains and the four Councillors—William Vetch having come despite his febrile health—took wine and meat with the Court and were given their final instructions.
They were to go jointly and with all speed to their ships and make ready to sail. Once at sea, and westward of Ireland, they were to make for Golden Island by the shortest route and without landing a man, except for watering-parties, until Caledonia was reached. There they would stand off the harbour mouth, fire a gun, and wait for a pilot. During the voyage they would keep good order among their crews and passengers, insist that the surgeons took diligent care of the sick, and exercise the Landsmen regularly in the use of arms. A strict eye would also be kept on the ships' stewards, who might otherwise sell the Company's provisions to the colonists "under pretence of goods belonging to them". The daily allowance of brandy was that laid down in the Bill of Fare, but since some thought the ration too large it could be left to each captain's discretion. They were to fight if attacked at sea, fly the Company's standard and no other if sighted by an English man-of-war, and to send word of their progress by any homeward ship they believed to be a friend to the Company. "And so, wishing you a happy voyage and a safe return, we bid you a hearty farewell...."
The fleet left with the ebb-tide on Friday. By dusk it was sailing south, with Loch Long astern and the heather-red hills of Cowal turning black on the starboard beam.
"Repossess yourselves thereof by force of arms..." Glasgow and Edinburgh, August to October 1699
The four ships sailed no further than the Isle of Bute. As they came up to Rothesay Bay the wind changed against them. Liking none of the weather signs, Gibson hoisted a white flag to his ensign-staff and fired one gun. Upon this signal the others drew in to his flagship and dropped anchor in the bay. There they remained for a month, waiting for a fair wind, wasting their provisions, watching the days pass in wondrous colours across the mountains to the north. They were visited every forenoon by anxious message-boats from Greenock. From Glasgow the Directors impatiently urged Gibson to sail, but he stubbornly refused to move until he could be sure of a wind that would carry him down the firth and about the Mull of Kintyre.
Daniel Mackay arrived from Darien in the middle of September. The different tone of the letters he brought, the worrying reports of death, disease, hunger and despair, alarmed the Directors, and they sent an express to Gibson, ordering him to remain in Rothesay Bay until Mackay joined him with fresh dispatches for the Colony. He acknowledged the order, but his master at this moment was the weather and he was determined to obey that before all else.
Montgomerie and Jolly had come to Edinburgh at last. Jolly had presented his long, exculpatory memorial to the Duke of Hamilton, and both men were ready to answer any questions the Directors might wish to put, to refute all charges made against them. The Court had no time for them, and refused to see them. They waited miserably in their lodgings, or went abroad to defend themselves passionately before any man with the time or inclination to listen. And it can have been no comfort to see young Mr. Mackay going in and out of Milne Square daily.
Toward the end of the month an express from London brought news of a disturbing rumour. It was said there that the Colony had been entirely abandoned, that the Scots had surrendered their fort and town to the Spaniards. When Mackay was asked if it could be true, he laughed and said there was nothing in it. His confidence reassured the Directors, and when they sent news of the rumour to Rothesay Bay they urged the Councillors not to believe anything so inconsistent and fabulous. "We can believe no set of men in the world of any reasonable measures of discretion and resolution, and much less those in whose fidelity and courage we have placed such an entire confidence, could be guilty of so much groundless cowardice, folly and treachery."
As if the thought of cowardice had reminded them of Jolly and Montgomerie, the Directors called both men before the Court the next day. They were closely questioned, their memorials read, and their defence compared with the letters from the Council which Mackay had brought. From the moment they entered that panelled chamber in Milne Square, there can have been no hope for them. The charge of desertion was proven by their presence in Scotland, and after its distasteful encounter with Major Cunningham the Court was in no mood to be lenient. It was resolved, and written into the minutes by Rockerick Mackenzie, that their conduct in leaving the Colony had been "altogether groundless and unwarrantable". They were cast out, disgraced, and their share of the Company's stock withdrawn from them.
On Friday, September 22, Daniel Mackay left Edinburgh for the Clyde and his return to Darien. That day, the three Directors who were watching the Company's affairs at Greenock sent an express to the fleet, informing the Councillors that Mackay would join them on Saturday evening with late dispatches and two gabbards full of bread and rice. They too wrote
of the rumour from London, and Mackay's derision. Why should Scots retreat before Spaniards, "of whom we never heard that our people were afraid"? The story was a malicious invention of the English, contrived by James Vernon to discourage the dispatch of provisions to the Colony.
The fleet sailed in the forenoon of Saturday, without warning, and without waiting for Mackay or the bread and rice. The Councillors had received the Greenock letter, and by the boat that brought it sent back what the Directors later complained was a "short and supercilious" note. It declared that a favourable wind at last could not now be ignored. When Mackay arrived at Rothesay the bay was empty, and the ships long since gone below the horizon. He pursued them unsuccessfully as far as Loch Ryan and then returned to Greenock in an angry temper. The Directors were outraged, writing furious letters in pursuit of the fleet, but the nation was delighted.
Our sable night is gone, the day is won,
The Scots are followed with the Rising Sun.
Twelve days later that sable night returned, and the day seemed clearly lost. Rumours of disaster could no longer be dismissed as English lies. Past sunset on Monday, October 9, a rider reached Milne Square from Leith where the London pacquet had arrived. He brought papers from James Foulis, Paterson's old friend and associate, and enclosed with them were copies of two letters sent from New York in August. They had been written by George Moffat, supercargo of the Caledonia, and addressed to his master Joseph Ormiston in London. They were brief and unemotional, but from what they said there could be no doubt that the Colony had been abandoned.
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