THE DARIEN DISASTER

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

  On December 3 the uncertain friendship of Captain Andreas was cemented by a treaty. He came aboard the Saint Andrew in the forenoon, with a wife or two and a bodyguard in sodden white smocks. A platoon of soldiers, equally drenched, saluted him from the ship's waist, and beneath an awning on the poop- deck the Councillors sweated in their heavy clothes and itching wigs. The treaty, written fairly on parchment by Mr. Rose and decorated with gold-striped ribbon and the Company's seal, was read aloud by the Clerk and translated into Spanish by Benjamin Spense. It commissioned Andreas as a captain in the service of Scotland, and promised him the protection of the Colony against all his enemies. It was then handed to him, together with a basket-hilted broadsword and a brace of pistols. He accepted them with the grave bow he had learnt from the Spanish, swore that he would use the weapons in defence of the Scots, and presented in return a sheaf of brightly-feathered arrows. The flagship's seven waist-deck guns fired a salute, and everyone retired hurriedly to the roundhouse for a glass of wine. According to Herries, one glass led to another, and another. "Captain Andreas went ashore with his flag flying and the other designs of his honour, except the Commission which I found the day following crammed into a locker of the roundhouse where empty bottles lay."

  A week later, a smartly-manned longboat came through the sea- gate just as the watchman on Point Look-out was reporting a ship, or perhaps two, at anchor in the haze of rain by Golden Island. A French lieutenant climbed aboard the Saint Andrew with a flourish and told Pennecuik that he was from the Maurepas, a merchantman of 42 guns, commanded by Captain Duvivier Thomas who had King Louis' commission to sail and trade in these seas. The other ship, he said, was a 22-gun Dutchman. The news he brought of the Spanish was alarming. Their Windward Fleet, the Barliavento, was fitting out at Carthagena for an attack on all European privateers, and its cruisers had already snapped up two English turtling sloops which bad weather had blown within range of their guns. The Maurepas and the Dutchman would be grateful for the protection of the Scots' ships and harbour until the Barliavento had sailed by to Portobello. The Council gave it willingly, and the next day Captain Thomas came in by longboat. He was as hearty a drinker as Richard Long, but carried himself better, and was able to tell the Scots "all the news of the coast, and that the President of Panama had given an account to the Governors of Carthagena and Portobello of our arrival." Wildly over-estimating the strength of the Scots, they believed that the settlement was a bridgehead for an intended attack across the Gulf of Mexico to the mouth of the Mississippi. "This obliges us," wrote Pennecuik that night, "to make all possible haste in our battery, and to get our ships in line of battle across the mouth of the harbour."

  Despite the rain, the sickness and the exhaustion, the Scots were heartened by the news the Frenchmen brought. Even Hugh Rose, normally a cautious body, was moved to vainglory. "Our men are very hearty, and seem to long for a visit from Jaque, that they might have a just pretence to their gold mines not far off." The thought of gold, the hope of gold, of great fortunes to be won by the sword, excited the Scots more than a wretched life growing plantains or trading hodden grey. The greater the risk of fever and death, the stronger their desire to be quickly rich and quickly away. When the Maurepas and the Dutchman came into the bay, dropping anchor behind the Scots' line of battle, a rumour spread that the Frenchman's hold was full of treasure taken in the raid on Carthagena. The Frenchmen did not deny it, or confirm it, they were too busy drinking and feasting.

  The day their ships came in, the Rupert was once more sighted to the north-west. Long sent a boat with news that the Barliavento, now at sea, consisted of seven great sail and a number of tenders full of soldiers. He was soon gone again, apparently in fright and not waiting for his longboat to return. When questioned by Pennecuik, its crew revealed that the Quaker had been behaving very oddly. He had put a landing-party ashore and joined the Indians in a senseless attack on a trading-post east of Portobello, killing seven Spaniards. He had then sent messages to all the Indian villages, "to tell them we were a pack of thieves and robbers, being only a parcel of disbanded officers and soldiers, and that nobody would protect us." The Commodore was glad that the battery on Forth Point was completed, with sixteen 12-pounders mounted. "We are now in such a condition," he said, with an arrogance that wearied Drummond and Vetch, "that we wished nothing more than that the Spaniards would attack us." This braggart self-confidence, which most of the Scots shared, was increased when Ambrosio came with a warning that the Spaniards were mustering 600 veteran soldiers and 200 Indian levies at Santa Maria and Panama City for a landward attack across the Isthmus. "It's feared with us," wrote Hugh Rose, "that they will not come, but whatever be in it, the work goes well on, the men working with much vigour and resolution."

  The Council met in dissension and argument. Each new President spent much of his week's office undoing the work of his predecessor, or hampering what he believed would be the intentions of the next. Paterson was less worried by the thought of a Spanish attack than by the shortage of provisions, the urgent need to secure fresh supplies from Jamaica. They were, he said, in a prison for want of sloops or brigantines, coastal vessels for trade, and he was delighted when an English sloop slipped into the harbour on December 20. Captain Moon had kept his promise to an old friend and had sent a colleague, Edward Sands, with a cargo of beef and flour. The Council's gratitude was shortly phrased and shortly given, it then began to argue about the proper value of the goods to be traded for Moon's supplies.

  At least there was now a real chance of sending letters and journals back to Scotland. An earlier hope that the Maurepas might take them as far as Jamaica had been soon destroyed by her captain's plain reluctance to leave either the harbour or the pleasant drinking-companions he had found among the Scots. Edward Sands said that he would take the papers to Jamaica, and any messenger the Council appointed to carry them. The question now was: who shall go? The decision would be important, the choice involved inevitable risks for all the Councillors remaining. The first man from the Colony to reach Edinburgh would have an uninterrupted audience with the Council-General and the Court of Directors. His prejudices, the complaints of his faction, his account of the settlement would be accepted by virtue of his office, despite what might be written in Hugh Rose's journal or the Commodore's letters. Daniel Mackay was anxious to go, and was lobbying for the election. Cunningham, whose conceits and notions had now become unbearable, thought that he should go, that he would go whether chosen or not. Walter Herries had tired of the Colony, as everybody had tired of him, and he had already transferred himself, his servant, his baggage and a purse of gold-dust aboard the Maurepas, but nobody thought seriously of his candidature. Paterson, with the interested support of Cunningham, proposed Samuel Vetch and two other Land Officers, but Pennecuik noisily quashed that. He would not have one of Thomas Drummond's friends at large in Milne Square, and to prevent it he decided to support Mackay, having no reason to believe the young lawyer bore him any ill-will. For the next two or three days both of them spent as much time as they could aboard the Unicorn appealing for the support of Pincarton and Robert Jolly.

  Inevitably, the man finally chosen belonged to no faction. If he could not be trusted to favour one party before another, he might at least report impartially upon all. Alexander Hamilton, the Accountant-General of the Colony, was a sober, sensible man who had kept apart from the more acrimonious disputes of the settlement. He was still accepted reluctantly by some of the leaders within the Council and out. Paterson thought they could ill afford to lose the man's knowledge of the cargoes and stores, and said that his departure would cause even more disorder and confusion. The Drummonds and Vetch objected to him because they believed him to be a friend of Robert Jolly, whose weak, vacillating humours they now detested.

  Cunningham was also told that he might go with the sloop. The other Councillors had given in to his nagging, as men agree to the extraction of an incisor, considering the relief from pain against the loss to their a
ppearance. "After weighing his temper," said Paterson, "they consented to his going, but thought it were prudent to part with him in friendship than otherwise, lest any that might espouse his humour in Scotland should prove a means of retarding or frustrating our needful supplies." He was given a letter of recommendation, but it was made clear to him that Hamilton, not he, was the emissary.

  Now there was a great writing of letters throughout the Colony, a parcelling of journals and small gifts—an arrow, a silver disc, the wing-feathers of a parakeet, a wondrous sea-shell, a pressed flower. Though many were homesick, disillusioned, despairing, at the least full of doubt, there was an almost unanimous desire to reassure their friends and families, to pretend that New Edinburgh was not a mean huddle of palmetto huts, that Fort St. Andrew was not an unfinished palisade, that sickness and death were not commonplace. "Being in haste," wrote Colin Campbell to his brother, "else I would have writ to my mother, and other friends, but let me be remembered to all." Surgeon Mackenzie's letter to Haldane of Gleneagles said nothing of his distressing failure to check the fever and flux, it glowed with praise of the abundant land, and only at the end betrayed the colonists' fear that Scotland would forget them and abandon them. "I very heartily wish that a mistaken notion ... may not occasion the old mother to obliviate her new-born babe before it is fit for weaning and in a condition of doing for itself." One phrase occurred again and again in many of the letters, in Hugh Rose's journal and Pennecuik's log, as if there had been some agreement to use it and it alone. Mackay used it when he wrote to the Earl of Leven. Darien, he said, was "one of the fruitfullest spots of ground on the face of the earth" And being a Highlander, with an ability to confuse hope with certainty, he added that "it will make the Scots nation more considerable in the balance of Europe than ever, and you'll have such a settlement in the Indies in a few years as scarce any European nation could brag of."

  Writing to the Earl of Panmure, one of the Councillors- General, Pennecuik blithely said that all things had succeeded beyond expectation, and that nothing could go wrong if the Company's friends in Scotland did as much for the Colony as Heaven had already done. To another Councillor he wrote of gold mines within three days' march, of a country that was "one of the most fruitful and healthy upon earth." He sent them trinkets for their wives, nose-plates and rings which Ambrosio had given him. And also "a little instrument of silver which I beg your Lordship will not expose to the view of the fair sex, for if they measure the country by the magnitude of that instrument I am sure they'll have no inclination to visit these parts."

  All members of the Council signed a brief letter to the Court of Directors which was to go as a cover for the journals and dispatches. Although it declared that God Almighty must have preserved the country for their occupation, that its "fruitfulness" was unequalled anywhere, it ended on a note of uneasy urgency. Supplies were needed, provisions and stores, and it was hoped that they would be sent with the least delay. "But however it be, by the help of God we shall not fail to do our utmost "

  As the year ended, bad weather delayed the departure of the sloop. Obstinate winds closed the harbour, and although Edward Sands could have warped her out he was unwilling to risk his ship in the gales beyond. The Maurepas had been forgotten by all except Herries, who was still aboard her. On the evening of December 23 there was not a sober man among her officers and crew, and most of them were still drunk the next morning when Captain Thomas unaccountably weighed anchor, set his topsails and mainsail and moved toward the sea-gate. Great rollers were coming through it, but by fool's luck his helmsman managed to ride them well until the wind dropped abruptly. The ship swung to leeward and on to the sunken rock.

  Pennecuik, who had been watching in astonishment from the Saint Andrew, ordered his longboat away and was rowed across to the Maurepas. He took command with a rare decisiveness, calling for more boats and hauling the Frenchman off the rock. Little serious damage had been done, and when the ship had weathered the point he advised Thomas to drop his bow and stern anchors and wait for a gentler sea. Forty-five minutes later both cables broke, which was what Pennecuik should have foreseen, the ship spun about and back on to the rock, this time tearing a great hole in her hull. She sank slowly, her timbers parting and her masts snapping, but Pennecuik bravely stayed aboard until he had seen Thomas lashed to a raft. He then stripped off his clothes and walked from the deck into the water. "Naked as I was born, with much ado I swam ashore. The seas broke over me, under each of which I was at least twenty seconds, and indeed two such more had done my business." He found Thomas along the beach, half-drowned, and ordered him to be hung up by the heels until the water had run out of his lungs. Nearly half the crew of the Maurepas had been lost, including all her officers with the exception of Thomas and a lieutenant, and the angry survivors would have cut the throats of both had not Pennecuik sent them aboard the Saint Andrew.

  There they were to remain for the next two months, and never, thought the Scots, were men "more ungrateful, unreasonable, and uneasy." They had good reason to be. According to Pennecuik, there had been 60,000 pieces of eight in gold and silver aboard their ship, and 30,000 more in trading goods, and the thought of this, lying out there in the bay, would plague the greed of the Scots for weeks. Thomas made some attempts to dive for the treasure, without success, and gave up when Pennecuik promised him that all that came ashore from the wreck would be his. He was cheerfully unconcerned when a package of letters was washed up on the beach. Some were for delivery to the Indian captains, threatening them with the anger of France and Spain if they continued to support the Scots. Others were from Spaniards of Carthagena and Portobello, promising the support of the Indies for the Dauphin's claim to the throne of Spain when His Catholic Majesty, who had been making a long business of dying, finally expired.

  Walter Herries also escaped from the wreck. Though he lost his baggage, and his unfortunate servant, the purse of gold-dust was in his pocket when he swam ashore.

  Christmas was a day of rest, and was celebrated by a great feast aboard the Saint Andrew. Andreas and Ambrosio were both invited, nobody realising or caring that each had a hearty dislike of the other. They were civil enough at first, but as the bottles passed they began to quarrel. Herries was there again, and his story may perhaps be believed against the indignant denials of others who were not. From a wordy quarrel the Indians went on to brawl, until they were separated by Pennecuik. Drunk himself, he was still jealous of his own dignity and the solemnity of the day. The next morning no one could remember much of what had happened, and it was assumed that both Indians had gone happily away in their canoes some time before dawn. And then Andreas was found in the hold below the main hatchway, unconscious and with a bloodied head. Little was done for the man. He was hauled up to the waist and left on deck until his wives and his bodyguard came to collect him.

  Once the desperate, self-indulgent carousal of Christmas was over, the year ended on a high and noble note. Edward Sands said that he would sail on Thursday, December 29, and on Wednesday the Council hurriedly published a declaration constituting the settlement as a Colony of the Company of Scotland. Drawn up and written by Hugh Rose, it repeated the substance of the Act and the Company's right to the land. It established that all who were then, or who might thereafter come to be associated with the Colony were free men, with equal privileges, immunities, and rights of Government. It declared "a full and free liberty of conscience in matter of Religion, so as the same be not understood to allow, connive at, or indulge the blaspheming of God's holy name." Freedom and liberty of conscience are words that always have the inherent and expedient qualifications of the age which uses them, and in this case no one took the first to mean that the Colony would not buy or employ slaves, or that the second included the toleration of Papists.

  The declaration was read to all as they stood on the wet earth about New Edinburgh, to tired men and sick men in stained scarlet, yellow duck and rusty broadcloth. They were told that not only were they here in "one
of the most healthful, rich and fruitful countries upon earth", but that they were also to live by reason, by the Scriptures, and by the example of the most wise and just among nations. From truth and righteousness would come the blessing or prosperity.