These powers
aroused great jealousy and indignation in England, and the House of
Commons decided that, as the company had its headquarters in London, the
directors were guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours. There followed a
failure of the English capital on which the promoters had reckoned, but
shares to the value of L400,000 (on which L219,094 was paid up) were
subscribed in Scotland. At first the company was a prosperous trading
concern, but its only attempt at colonization involved it in ruin.
Paterson wished his fellow-countrymen to found a colony in the Isthmus
of Panama, and to attract thither the whole trade of North and South
America. The ports of the colony were to be open to ships of all
nations. In the end of 1698 twelve hundred Scots landed on the shore of
the Gulf of Darien, without organization and without the restraint of
responsibility to any government. They soon had difficulties with their
Spanish neighbours, and the English colonists at New York, Barbadoes,
and Jamaica were warned to render them no assistance. Disease and famine
completed the tale of misery, and the first colonists deserted their
posts. Their successors, who arrived to find empty huts, surrounded by
lonely Scottish graves, were soon in worse plight, and they were driven
out by a band of Spaniards. The unfortunate company lingered on for some
time, but merely as traders. The Scots blamed the king's ill-will for
their failure, and he became more than ever unpopular in Scotland.
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