John Prebble

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

  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 strange, 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 rece
ived 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 cramped 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.

  Nor are these youths the scum of this our land,

  But, in effect, a brave and generous band, Inspired with thirst of fame and soon to have Titles upon the marbles of their graves.

  Twelve hundred men, some boys, a few women. Graves most of them would certainly have within the year, on land and at sea, but no marble headstones. A wooden marker for the more fortunate, and that quickly eaten by ants.

  The fleet sailed on the morning tide of Thursday, July 14, the fiction of its secret destination still maintained. Though few men did not know that it was to be Darien, it could not be acknowledged until Pennecuik and his captains broke open their sealed orders. Three packets wrapped in oiled sailcloth, one to be unfastened when the fleet had cleared the firth, the second to be read at such a time and place indicated in the first, and the third to be opened "when at the place of settlement".

  There were crowds on Castle Hill and Caltoun Craigs, white faces and waving hands at every window on the northern cliff of the city. At Leith, men and women pressed forward to the water's edge, crying, calling, singing. Some knelt to pray, exhorted by the inspired voices of their ministers. A few were bitter with disappointment. At dawn, officers had gone through each ship from stem to stern, from truck to keel, turning out stowaways, wrenching their hands free from rigging and timber, ignoring their imploring voices. Now these unhappy men stood on the quay and the dunes, watching the ships they would willingly have joined without payment or reward. As top-sails cracked and bellied, there was a bray of trumpets from the decks, a rolling of drums, and a great cry from Leith Sands to Castle Hill. The ships passed through the smoke of the Saint Andrew's signal gun and turned their golden stern-castles to the shore.

  But that day they sailed no more than ten miles, northward to Kirkcaldy where they took up moorings again. There they remained for five days more, while Robert Blackwood and his clerk came over from Leith to check the last of the invoices and bills of lading. He also brought word that William Vetch was still too ill to leave his bed, and the expedition must sail without him. Aboard the Dolphin young David Dalrymple, seaman, stared at the windows and chimneys of Kirkcaldy, trying to pick out his own house. When he could endure his homesickness no longer, he slipped over the tender's stern and into a dory with another deserter, John Wilson the boatswain of the Dolphin. They went ashore in the dark.

  On the evening of Monday, July 18, the ships cast off their moorings, lay by all night, and were finally gone in the morning. They sailed on an early tide and into the rising sun.

  They did not go without William Paterson. At the beginning of July the Company had asked the Presbytery to order prayers for a fair wind, and to persuade the Reverend Mr. Thomas James to change his mind. After a week of emotional argument and equivalent meditation, he agreed to go with the expedition, providing, he said, "that Mr. Paterson did go, believing him to be a propagator of virtue and a discourager of vice, and would be exemplary to others." The Directors did not see Paterson in this light, or any light at all nowadays. They would rather have done without the man, and they havered for another week. But Mr. James was insistent, and so was the Presbytery. Paterson was called before the Directors and asked if he wished to go. He said yes, without hesitation, and was told that the Company therefore accepted him as an ordinary member of the expedition, without office and without authority. When he asked permission to take with him his wife and his clerk, Thomas Fenner, it was grudgingly granted.

  On Saturday afternoon they were rowed across to Kirkcaldy, where Pincarton generously found the Patersons a small cabin board the Unicorn. Sudden good fortune, the warm welcome he received from other colonists, went to Paterson's head. Within the hour he boarded the Saint Andrew and told the astonished Commodore that there should be an immediate inspection of all stores, so that any deficiencies might be reported to the Directors and made good before the fleet sailed.

  Captain Pennecuik wasted no words. He told Paterson to mind his own business.

  3 The Door of the Seas

  "Yet we had patience, hoping things would mend ashore" The First Voyage, July to November 1698

  It began well. There was a strong and favourable wind, blowing so hard that the larger ships sailed with their main canvas reefed. For most of the first day the fleet kept in to the Fife coast, passing between it and the Isle of May. Horsemen from Kirkcaldy had brought news of its departure and there were crowds on the shore at Elie and Saint Monans, Anstruther and Crail, fluttering hands and unheard cries. Before dusk, with Fife Ness on their larboard quarter, the ships were sailing north-east by north toward Bell Roc
k, spritsails curtseying to the open sea. Hull down by nightfall, their stern-lanterns were unseen by the last crowd on Saint Andrews' sands.

  Captains and Councillors had opened the first of their sealed orders long before the fleet cleared Largo Bay. They were to make for the Orkneys and the Atlantic west of Ireland, thus avoiding the curious watch of English cruisers in the North Sea and Channel. At the Orkneys they could take aboard what provisions might be necessary, and from thence they were to make all sail to Madeira. Here the second orders were to be opened, but if wind and weather made this landfall impossible the papers were to be broken out as soon as the fleet reached Latitude 32° North.On the fourth day and north of Aberdeen the ships were becalmed, the sunlit air so still that the captains' pennants scarcely moved at the topmast heads. At noon the wind rose and blew gently from the south, carrying the fleet gallantly past Peterhead where the townsfolk fired three guns in salute. The compliment was ignored by Pennecuik. He was in his cabin, presiding over a bitter meeting of all sea-captains and Councillors whom he had called aboard the Saint Andrew during the calm. They had brought with them, at his request, a list of their provisions and stores as drawn up by their pursers, and the reading of these produced at first a state of speechless shock and then violent argument. The Directors of the Company had assured the Council that the provisions would be more than enough for nine months, but now the pursers reported that they would not last above six. A great deal had been consumed during the weeks the ships lay at Burntisland, and much of the bread that remained had become damnified, beef and pork had been spoilt by bad stowing. Walter Herries, who presented himself as the originator of all wise decisions and the steadfast critic of all that were bad, later claimed that the reports had been called for at his suggestion. He made his own inspection and said that he "could not make above five months and a half of any provisions except stockfish, of which there was a full eleven months and that at four days of the week, but (we) had not above four months butter and oil."