THE DARIEN DISASTER Read online

  In one matter the Directors had been honest with Wafer. Their fleet was ready to sail. It would be at sea before the printer had set the first page of his book.

  "A brave and generous band, inspired with thirst of fame" Edinburgh, July 1698

  There were fine ships in the firth, but against the broad hills and the wide water they seemed absurdly small to carry a nation's desperate hope of survival. The sun which shone brilliantly, day following day, was a cruel mockery of the emblem the Company had chosen for itself. For every ton of meal or cask of beef taken aboard the fleet there were dry fields and empty byres that promised little in replacement. "The main difficulty and discouragement," Lord Marchmont wrote to Carstares, "is from the bad appearance of the crops on the ground. The drouth has continued long, and the corns are very short and look ill... Truly the country is in a hardened and straitened condition, and all people are very sensible of it." What harvest there might be would certainly be late, and this was dangerous in a country where snow could fall on high ground before summer flowers had turned to seed. In the worst year of scarcity yet known, Scotland had stripped its larder to provision the fleet, and was left with nothing to supply the Colony when needed, and little to help itself through the certainty of a more bitter famine next year.

  The Company was aware of the heavy obligations upon it and to it. "Whereas," it declared to the newly-appointed Councillors of the Colony, "the Company has laid out, expended, and bestowed the most considerable part of their whole stock toward the settling of their intended Colony, the charge thereof ought in all reason and gratitude to be refunded in due time by the Colony to the Company, with a valuable consideration during the non-payment thereof." The seven men who were thus bluntly told that the purpose of the Colony was profit had been chosen by a special committee, set up at the beginning of the year to determine the type of man most needed as a Councillor. In view of the contentious, jealous band finally selected, it is hard to know what qualities the committee particularly admired.

  Major James Cunningham of Eickett was the first to be accepted by the Directors, and would be the first officer to desert. He had served in Hill's Regiment at Fort William, and as a company commander he had marched into Glencoe with that battalion on the morning of the massacre, later carrying Hill's account of it to Edinburgh. He was stiff-necked, egocentric and insolently proud, and his first thought as Councillor was to secure the appointment of his brother William as his secretary. He had never been out of Scotland in his life, had seen no action in the field, and knew nothing of ships or trade. Walter Herries said that he was "a Pillar of the Kirk", and this may explain his appointment, for by now the Company was doing little without the approval and the prayers of the Presbytery.

  Daniel Mackay, who was selected on the same day, was a hot- tempered but conscientious young Highlander from Lord Reay's country, and a hard man to like for he intrigued as busily as he worked. According to Herries he was "a scrivener's or writer's clerk, newly come out of his apprenticeship", but he was in fact already a practising lawyer, though the Directors might have found one more experienced. The third Councillor, James Montgomerie, was another of Hill's disbanded officers. He had been an ensign in the Scots Guards, said Herries, "but not liking that office, left it, and carried a brown musket in another regiment." He was a brave soldier, and if he could make no intellectual or political contribution to the government of the Colony he served it in the best way he knew, against the Spaniards in the field. Even so, his appointment can only be explained by the fact that his grandfather was the Earl of Eglinton, his father a Major- General, and his uncle a Privy Councillor and a Lord of the Treasury.

  William Vetch,* the fourth appointment, had accepted the office only after several representations, and even now he was sick and doubted whether he would ever be able to get up from his bed. Herries said that he was a man of no trade, "but was advanced to this post on account of his father who was a godly minister and a glorifier of God." The father was certainly a legendary member of the Scots hagiarchy, a Lanarkshire preacher who had led a troop of horse against the Episcopacy, been a spy for the Covenanters in Edinburgh, and suffered more than most from persecution and exile. The Privy Council had condemned him to death in absentia, and only since the Revolution had he and his family known private peace and security. He had intended that both his sons should follow him into the ministry, and had educated them at Utrecht to this end, but with the accession of William III they became soldiers instead. William joined the Scots Greys, and Samuel became a lieutenant in the Cameronians, sharing their first bloody fight when they drove the clans from the burning streets of Dunkeld. Both young men later served in Flanders, and it was a nagging wound got at Steinkirk that still kept the elder brother to his bed. They were resolute veterans, and loyal friends of Thomas Drummond whom they called their "entire comrade". Samuel Vetch," who had inherited little of his father's piety and unselfishness, was now an Overseer, commanding a "mixed lot" which included the young volunteer Roger Oswald.

  The three remaining Councillors chosen were seamen. Robert Jolly, however, had not commanded a ship for a dozen years or more, having left the sea to become a merchant in Hamburg. His proposal for a Scots company with the monopoly of trade between that city and the Shetland Isles (and with a certain net gain, he was sure, of 30 or 40 per cent on every voyage) never got much further than the paper on which it was written, but such uninhibited visions of profit, and the help he gave the Company's Commission in Hamburg, probably impressed the Committee for Selection. Labouring the inevitable pun, Herries said that he was "a jolly Scotch overgrown Hamburger", but in truth he was a sad and ineffectual man who would have been happier had he kept to his house on the Elbe.

  Robert Pincarton, the second seaman Councillor, was of a different warp and weft, and even Herries grudgingly admired him, describing him as "a good, downright, rough-spun tar, never known before by any designation or state office save that of boatswain." Boatswain or not, he was the Company's best sea- officer, courageous and uncomplaining, esteemed by his men and respected by the Landsmen. He took pride in his command, the Unicorn, in his simple, lonely cabin with its folding-table and linen cloths, its cushions and copper candle-sticks, peppermill and looking-glass. As if he were commanding a man-of-war he dressed his boat's-crew in smart uniforms, every man wearing a velvet cap embroidered with a silver unicorn. He was to have too little time to prove himself as a Councillor, and the Colony was to be the worse for that.

  Finally there was Captain Robert Pennecuik, commander of the Saint Andrew and commodore of the fleet, and by his own reckoning the only man on the Council with the wisdom and experience to justify the office. He was pig-headed and domineering, suspicious of all but other seamen, and of those too if they

  *The father spelt his name Veitch. I have used the spelling used by both brothers and by the Company.

  challenged his judgment. He had been twenty-one years away from Scotland, and his qualifications for a sea command were that throughout the war he had served, consecutively, as a surgeon, lieutenant, and captain of a bomb-ketch in the English Navy. He was appointed to the Council, said Herries, "by the interest of the Kirk party, the better to balance that of the

  Church, and to keep out Dr. M, a reputed Atheist who

  would certainly have debauched both." This anonymous doctor was undoubtedly Munro, who sulked and pouted like a thwarted child, and found excuses for refusing when he was later ordered away to the Colony. Pennecuik's conditions for accepting office were almost despotic, but appear to have been granted by the Directors without argument. He insisted that those placed in authority over him, if ever he were to suffer that ignominy, should at least be men who had seen action afloat. He asked for, and was given, fifteen shillings a day plus allowances for each of his five servants, half-pay when not at sea, and half-pay for life if disabled. He also demanded, and received, "as much privilege in trade as any commander in the English East India Company."

  These were the st
range, ill-assorted men chosen to govern Scotland's noble undertaking. With the exception of Robert Pincarton, and possibly Vetch, none of them had qualities that promised a wise and selfless administration. It is impossible to believe that the country could not find a more experienced lawyer than Daniel Mackay, a nobler spirit than Cunningham, a more skilful soldier than Montgomerie, a less foolish merchant than Jolly, or a more humane commander than Robert Pennecuik. If they had been chosen by lot they might have been more representative of what was best in the nation, but interest and preferment had appointed them, and the method cannot be judged by hindsight since it was the custom of the age, and Scotland has always had more than her tragic share of placemen and committee-men. They were chosen, and at the beginning of July six of them took the oath, William Vetch sending word that he was still "under the physic". They took the oath at Leith, and within sight of the fleet.

  We do solemnly promise and swear, in the presence of Almighty God, that we shall be faithful and just to the trust reposed in us by the said Company, and shall to the best of our knowledge and skill endeavour to promote the benefit of the said Company and interest of the said Colony, as we shall answer to God.

  Men and ships had been ready since early June, five good vessels, twelve hundred men, and a year's provisions. On the eighth day of that month the first eighty Landsmen were sent aboard the Caledonia, Unicorn and Saint Andrew. During the next few weeks there were delays and havering, few men being willing, while there was no sign of an immediate sailing, to exchange their quarters ashore for hot and foetid 'tween-decks afloat. At the end of the month the Directors whipped up those laggard officers who had not yet mustered their companies, promising them fourteen-and-a-half pence "for every man raised here in town, and half a dollar for every man they brought in from the country", providing they went aboard at once. Roderick Mackenzie issued a coffee-house proclamation on Wednesday, June 29, "ordaining that all officers and others who are resolved to proceed on the voyage be on board of the several ships allotted for them before or upon Monday next, at twelve a clock in order to sail." So the streets of Edinburgh and Leith rattled with drums, the tap and paradiddle of a company call, and the long roll of assembly. Ferries took the men across the firth, and in the three great ships they waited for another two weeks.

  Much had not yet been done. There were still quarrels and disputes over the payment promised the laggards, which the Directors now seemed reluctant to make. Unusually low tides made loading difficult. The water aboard the Saint Andrew was found to be brackish, and long-boats from the Unicorn and the Caledonia were sent away to bring fresh casks. Captains for the pink and the snow had still to be appointed, and Pennecuik was confusing everybody with his own preferences. There were small matters, like the petition of Marion Smyth, asking for charity because her only support and her only son, a ship's boy, had been drowned. She was sent twenty shillings. From their miserable cell in the Tolbooth, Bowrie and MacAlexander and Turnbull pleaded for mercy, promising to go with the expedition if they were released. They were sent aboard under guard. William Vetch had not yet taken the oath, though he was still eager to go "if his health serve him at that time." The Court of Directors was meeting daily now, in Milne Square and at Leith. Even the Council-General, which had rarely met and usually without a quorum, now managed to assemble, determining the government of the Colony and issuing instructions to its Council. They were published on July 8, and if the site of the Colony was still not identified it was at last given a name.

  Know all men by these presents, that in pursuance of the powers and privileges granted by the 32nd Act of the 4th Session, and the 8th Act of the 5th Session of this current Parliament, as well as by His Majesty's Letters Patent under the Great Seal of this Kingdom, to the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies, the Council-General of the said Company have upon mature deliberation, Resolved (God willing) to settle and plant a colony in some place or other not inhabited in America, or in or upon some other place by consent of the natives thereof, and not possessed by any European Sovereign, Potentate, Prince or State, to be called by the name CALEDONIA

  All powers of government, military and civil, would rest in the Councillors of the Colony, who would have the right to increase their number by not more than six once they had landed and settled the plantation. They were to divide the land into districts of not less than fifty, and not more than sixty free men, "who shall yearly elect any one Freeman Inhabitant whom they shall think fit to represent them in a Parliament or Council-General of the Colony." This Parliament, to be called or adjourned at the discretion of the Council, was to make and enact all rules, ordinances and constitutions, and to impose what taxes might be necessary for the good of the Colony. A free man of any nation could trade with and from the Colony, enjoying equal rights and privileges with the Scots if he made it his home, and the conditional word in these splendid declarations was "Freeman". Although it was not directly stated, it was clearly understood by the Company and its supporters that this Colony, like all others, could not prosper without the ultimate employment of slave- labour.

  All exports from the Colony would be subject to a two per cent levy, payable to the Company in money or goods. The Company also reserved to itself one twentieth of all the lands, and one twentieth of all gold, silver, jewels, gems or stones, pearls, wrecks, ambergris and precious woods, the remaining nineteen parts belonging to the Colony in return for one hogshead of tobacco yearly (which presumably the Company then intended to give to the King). From January 1,1702, all goods imported by the Colony from Europe, Asia, and Africa, and in the ships of the Colony or Scotland, would also be subject to a two per cent levy.

  Less publicly, the Councillors received their particular instructions. They were to direct the fleet to the land named in their secret sailing orders. There they were to build, plant and fortify, to employ men and ships in the best interests of the Colony. They were to be jealous of the Company's honour, to accept no insults to its flag, and to defend both by force of arms. They were to keep an exact journal of the voyage and the landing, and to send this home by the first ship leaving. They were also to maintain proper accounts, to insist upon fair trading, and to ensure that lie land was justly divided. The original and egalitarian promise of fifty acres to every man had, not surprisingly, been changed. Officers were now to receive a hundred, and Councillors one hundred and fifty. Given this much, they were warned to take no more, and to grant no more to others, "to the end that what is taken up may be the better cultivated, and may not be engrossed by a few to the discouragement of other industrious people."The Councillors signed an acknowledgement of their instructions at Leith on Tuesday, July 12. That morning the ships came over from Burntisland and anchored off the southern shore of the Forth. Among the white saltires and the rising suns that flew from sprit and top-mast, a commodore's red pennant was run up to the fore-peak of the Saint Andrew, a vice-admiral's snapped above Pincarton's Unicorn. It was another day of yellow sunshine, bright on white canvas and red gun-ports, the refurnished gold of stem and stern. The little tenders now had their captains, Thomas Fullarton on the Dolphin, and John Malloch on the Endeavour, both being men whom Pennecuik had known in the English Navy and who had now been given these commands by his preferment. Great crowds on the Leith shore watched and cheered the ships until late dusk passed into night, and there was nothing to be seen but the orange glow of stern-lanterns, nothing to be heard but the creak of the yards and lone voices calling the hours of the watch. Ballad-writers had been alert to the pleasing ambiguity of the ships' names, and the author of Caledonia Triumphans made good use of them.

  Saint Andrew, our first Tutelar was he,

  The Unicorn must next supporter be,

  The Caledonia doth bring up the rear

  Fraught with brave hardy lads devoid of fear;

  All splendidly equipt, and to the three,

  The Endeavour and the Dolphin handmaids be.

  All the Directors were now in Leith, in cramp
ed and crowded quarters, conducting the final business as best they could. For three years there had been a great expenditure of ink and paper that was to enrich the archives of Scotland with both trivia and tragedy, and among the busy writers now the most tireless was Captain Pennecuik. He had not been aboard a day before he sent his clerk ashore for more pens, more ink, more paper. Three miles away, Lord Seafield was also writing, to Carstares, and confessing himself much fatigued by the excitement, viewing the expedition with lacklustre eyes. "I believe, and so does most people here, that it will not succeed so well as expected; but yet no man that desires to be well esteemed of in his own country will be persuaded to oppose what is for the interest of the Company." The paradox contained its own untruth, for the country was in fact afire, convinced that the expedition could not fail. Edinburgh was full of visitors, the inns and houses of Leith crowded with men and women who had come to say good-bye to a son, a brother, or a husband, to pay valedictory honour to their glorious fleet. The Colony could not fail, not when it was served by such noble young men. Caledonia Triumphans spoke out against the scattered faint-hearts, the English traducers.