And now, by virtue of the before-mentioned powers to us given, we do here settle and in the name of God establish ourselves; and in honour and for the memory of that most ancient and renowned name of our Mother Country, we do, and will from henceforward call this country by the name of Caledonia; and ourselves, successors, and associates, by the name of Caledonians.
There was little but this to show for the first two months. An uncertain foothold on an exposed peninsula, a ragged village of huts and an uncompleted fort. The price paid so far had been high, though it seems to have been accepted stoically. For dispatch to Edinburgh, Mr. Rose had drawn up a list of those who had died, seventy-six between July 23 and Christmas Day. The greatest number in one group were Planters, men with little stake in the Colony except the obligation to defend it and the hope of fifty acres when the land was broken. For many of these the venture had been no more than an alternative to a beggarly life as a disbanded soldier. Few of them, certainly not the Highlanders who were cut off from the rest of the settlers by their knowledge of no language but Gaelic, shared the youthful zest of the Volunteers. Both ministers had died, and since November 20 the Colony had thus had no one to intercede on its behalf with a quixotic Almighty. There had died the trumpeter whose music had been a solace, two surgeon's mates from exposure to their patients, five young midshipmen and the junior mate of the Saint Andrew, whose splendid name was Recompense Standburgh. The last name on the list was Thomas Fullarton, captain of the Dolphin, who "died suddenly after warm walking." He had eaten and drunk well at the Christmas feast, taken a stroll to clear his fuddled mind, and was dead of the flux before nightfall.
"No doubt," wrote Roderick Mackenzie when he published the list later in Edinburgh, "everyone will justly regret the loss of his own nearest friend.... As even a greater number of so many as went might have died by this time, had they all remained at home, so it may be some satisfaction to the nearest friends of the deceased that their names shall stand upon record as being among the first brave adventurers that went upon the most noble, most honourable, and most promising undertaking that Scotland ever took in hand."
The sloop sailed, taking with her Hamilton, Cunningham, and Walter Herries. The decks and yards of the ships, the high ground of the peninsula were crowded to watch her going. The watchman on Point Look-out was the last to see her as her sail went down over the horizon to the north.
"An Address to His Majesty in such terms as shall please him" Edinburgh, August to December 1698
When Robert Blackwood returned to Edinburgh from Kirkcaldy on the afternoon the expedition sailed, he brought the shocking news of the desertion of young David Dalrymple and John Wilson, both of the Dolphin. The Directors were incensed, and particularly noted that the boy had gone with two months' advance pay in his pocket. Before the Court resolved anything else it ordered that the deserters be pursued, arrested, and prosecuted with the utmost severity. The incident was a clashing note, and spoilt the harmony of the fleet's departure. The Company's affairs were at stake in the arena of Parliament House, and it would have been a comfort to know that its ships had sailed without fainthearts and cowards. There was also John Dickson, the clerk who had gone with Blackwood to Kirkcaldy, and whose deplorable bookkeeping had caused the delay in sailing. He was told to bring his accounts to order before the end of October or forfeit half of his year's salary.
The seventh session of Parliament had assembled. The King's servants had come to town from London or their estates, determined to defend their paymaster against the Company's adherents who wished to send him an angry Address of protest, one which complained most bitterly of the behaviour of his Agent in Hamburg. His Majesty's Commissioner, the Earl of Marchmont, was especially concerned for the honour of the king he had served with devotion and loyalty. He had once been "handsome and lovely", but tireless service had aged him prematurely and much of the work of bribery, corruption and oratorical persuasion would necessarily fall upon Seafield as President of Parliament. When this Ogilvy came to Edinburgh he looked anxiously from the window of his coach, doubtful of the welcome he might receive. He was relieved, he told Carstares, to see "many coaches and horsemen ... most of the nobility and parliament men .. and a very great confluence of the common sort", all, apparently, greeting him with joy. He was thus hopeful that things would go well for the King. Reason and persuasion, of course, would not be enough. "We do treat and caress the members, and have our friends at work doing all they can with them."
Softer than silk would be that caress of gold. This Parliament was a paradox. Though it introduced legislation of the most humane and enlightened nature, it was also one of the most corrupt in Scotland's history. Eight years before, William had told his Scots Secretary, Lord Melville, that he was to be generous to those who would favour the King's cause, that "what employment or other gratification you think fit to promise them in our name we shall fulfill the same." Few public men resisted such bribes, and fewer still protested against them or saw that the nation suffered by them. The sickness was endemic. "Let no man say," Fletcher would write, "that it cannot be proved that the
English court has ever bestowed any bribe in this country. For they bestow all offices and pensions; they bribe us, and are masters of us at our own cost."
But within a parliamentary government it was still necessary to bargain with the as yet unbribed, to persuade or corrupt the honest men. The Address before the Estates boldly asked the King to give the Company of Scotland that support and protection the Act demanded. Seafield and Marchmont, Argyll and Queensberry, could not hope to see it voted out of Parliament Hall, but they could soften its language—take out its sting, as Argyll proposed—and delay its dispatch. This they had to do without loss of reputation, for although the King was their master he could not save their windows from being broken. "God knows what trouble this matter is to me," Seafield told Carstares, "and what anxiety is upon my spirit to get fairly out of it, which I am hopeful I shall."
The debate opened on August 1 with long speeches on behalf of the Address as drafted. One was made by Tweeddale, and another by Tullibardine who was still trying to ride two horses and in opposite directions, to be the King's faithful servant in London and the Company's supporter in Edinburgh. Seafield listened to him without alarm, knowing just how far the young man might run when his pockets were filled with the right metal, or his ambition diverted by brighter promises. To the President this debate was tiresome, but not greatly to be feared. A month before the fleet sailed he had shaken the support of many peers in the Company's party by letting them know of the King's resolve that "no man who opposed him should enjoy either place or pension." He had since been buying others on the lower benches of the Estates, taking a boyish pleasure in outwitting or outbidding the Company. "I have gained the Commissioner for the town of Brechin, under my Lord Panmure's nose." Argyll also boasted of having won over some purse-greedy members of the Hamilton clan. "All the heads of the opposite party are broke," Seafield reassured Carstares, "except the Earl of Tullibardine, and I believe his wings are clipped."
The case for the Address was presented with passion and urgency. The country had subscribed a great sum of money. Fine ships, brave men, and rich cargoes were already on their way to found a Colony. If the Company did not get the support and encouragement it deserved from Parliament, if its privileges and immunities were not confirmed by the Throne, if the King did not protect his Scottish subjects then the noble undertaking would be ruined.
For a week the supporters of the Address spoke without serious opposition. The King's men, from whom Seafield had expected an early return on the payments made them, were silent. Many of them were probably waiting for a lead from him or Argyll, but others were uneasy, uncertain of the volatile passions outside Parliament Hall. The anger of the people, their resentment of English arrogance and English contempt, their joyous pride in their Company, separated them from their time-serving representatives. A few months later, Andrew Fletcher would put his people's defi
ance of the English into angry words.
They must not think that we have so far degenerated from the courage and honour of our ancestors as tamely to submit to become their vassals, when for two thousand years we have maintained our freedom, and therefore it is not in their interest to oppress us too much. If they consult their histories they will find that we always broke their yoke at the long run.
"I waited a considerable time," Seafield wrote to Carstares, "but none of the King's servants speaking anything, I thought it needful to speak my mind freely; and yet I did it so as that my enemies could catch no advantage of what I said." He blandly acknowledged that of course it was important for the Company and the nation to prosper jointly. If he had any quarrel at all with the undertaking it was upon the matter of the assistance which should, or should not be given to it. The demands for an extension of the Company's monopolies, for a new Act confirming its privileges, for the gift of ships by the King, were extravagant and foolish. Let the Colony be properly settled, let it then be seen how things marched. It had been unwise to give the King's Secretary and the King's Commissioner no foreknowledge of what they were now being asked to place before him, for "there might be many proposals made of greater advantage to the Company than these, and it would be cross and contrary to press a vote." He further disarmed the major complaint of the Address by explaining at length how he and others had persuaded the King to restrain his Resident in Hamburg from putting obstacles in the way of the Company. "I think that since His Majesty has done so much in this matter you would not offer to give him further trouble concerning it."
A motion by the Company's friends to put the Address to a special committee was hotly debated for three hours, during which, said Seafield, "I did not so much as sit down." He intervened persistently, with adroit argument and soft threats, persuading the uncommitted and subtly reminding the bought men of their obligations. He did not oppose a committee, believing it would be more manageable than the whole house, and persuaded the Members to pass the matter to the existing Committee of Security rather than elect a new one. He was pleased when the Directors appeared before it to press their demands. "I hope it shall turn to our advantage," he told Carstares, "for this does plainly make appear that (they) proceed by way of humour, and have no regard either to the honour of the King or the satisfaction of his servants."
When the Committee reported to Parliament the debate became a formality. There would still be an Address, a sop to the self-respect of the Estates and the pride of the nation, but it was now easy to turn it from a protest into a declaration of loyalty. The resistance of the Company's party had been broken by the bribes and threats of the King's servants, and Seafield retired exhausted from the battle, leaving the rout to the light cavalry of Argyll and Marchmont. The Address was rephrased and accepted unanimously. The sting had been removed and there was now what Marchmont called "an Address to His Majesty in such terms as shall please him." It thanked William for his gracious assurance that the kingdom's trade would be suitably encouraged, and it humbly recommended the Company to his favour, without suggesting how he might bestow it. Argyll sent copies of the original and final version to Carstares in Flanders. "You'll see it clipped as much as possible of what might choke," he said. "It is now in the King's power to establish his servants who have always been faithful to him." And that, in the opinion of those servants perhaps, was all that really mattered.
Throughout autumn and into early winter the Company's committees were engaged, in a desultory manner, with preparations for a second great expedition to Darien, and they were in no haste to send a ship with those supplies the Council had so urgently demanded in letters from Madeira. In September the Rising Sun arrived from Amsterdam, dropping anchor by Greenock on the Firth of Clyde. There she would stay for months, her bare yards black against the water of the Gair Loch and the snow-hills of Dunbarton. At one time it had seemed as if Scotland would never see this fine ship with the emotive name, upon which Willem Direcksone had expended such skill and art. When the ice melted and released her from his dock, the Company's Dutch creditors had detained her against the money owing them. The Company had sent Stevenson orders to sell her and realise what he could, but she had been saved by generous advances from some of the richer stockholders and by the prospect of a second call on the subscribers at Martinmas.
In Edinburgh it was as if the great orgasm of the fleet's departure had left the Directors listless and benignly unconcerned. They were late for meetings at Milne Square, if they attended at all, and it became necessary to fine them sevenpence if they were not there promptly at nine, and to withhold their sederunt fee of twenty shillings entirely if they could not arrive before a quarter past. There were other distressing matters. James Smith, thought to be safe in the King's Bench Prison, London, escaped therefrom one night with the aid of his gaoler and was never to be seen again. Dr. John Munro was troublesome, complaining that although he had worked two years for the Company, and had brought his family from Caithness to Edinburgh at great expense, he had received no salary at all. The Directors may have been unimpressed by his protestations of loyal and diligent service when they discovered that the apothecaries who had supplied medicines for the expedition, and whose accounts he should surely have settled, were now clamouring for their money. Erskine and Gleneagles also wanted to be paid for their expenses in Hamburg. And finally there were English and French ships lying in the Forth and Clyde, taking on bonded servants and provisions for their own plantations, to "the manifest prejudice of the Company".
There was no news of the fleet, no reason for hope or despair, no encouragement and no dismay. But the spirit of the nation was high. At his print-shop in Parliament Close, James Wardlaw published A Poem upon the Undertaking of the Royal Company of Scotland.
Admire the steady soul of Paterson;
It is no common genius can persuade
A Nation bred in war to think of trade.
"I represented how sad and scandalous our condition was" Caledonia, January and February 1699
Don Andres de Pez, General Commanding the Windward Fleet of His Most Catholic Majesty, was troubled by wild rumours from Spain, by the indecision of the Council of the Indies in Madrid, and by the failure of the provincial governors to realise that his splendidly-styled squadron was in a lamentable condition. Apart from the tenders, he had four warships only, and when they finally sailed from Carthagena at the beginning of January they could limp no further than Portobello. There, he said, they would have to stay. His flagship, and one other, leaked so badly that they would have to be careened before he would take them to sea again, and this work could not be completed before April. The maintenance of the fleet, which was Spain's only defensive force on the Main, was costing 8,000 pesos a month, and this did not include the pay of the soldiers in the tenders. Don Andres had been given no exact account of the strength of the Scots in Caledonia, and he was alarmed to hear from Spain that a second expedition had already sailed to reinforce them.
Since it would be madness to take his tenders and his two sound ships out of Portobello for an attack by sea, he proposed a sensible alternative to the Conde de Canillas, President of Panama. He would bring 500 of his soldiers over the Isthmus to Panama City, and they, together with all the men the President might gather, could attack the settlement from the south. The Conde accepted the proposal, not because he believed it would be possible to destroy the Scots, but because, as he later explained to his King, "we should alarm them, and let them know that in this kingdom there was force and inclination to oppose them." Having thus excused failure before trying for success, he mustered two companies of gentlemen volunteers and waited for de Pez.
The expedition was miserable, wretched and useless. The soldiers and the volunteers were carried eastward by boat along the southern coast of the Isthmus until they reached the Gulf of San Miguel. There, at the mouth of the River Savana, was waiting a cloud of Indian levies in whose canoes the Spaniards were to travel into the heart of the Isthmu
s. Once the stores were loaded, however, there was no room for men, and the soldiers had to march along the bank, sweating in the moist heat, hacking desperately at the thick undergrowth. Leaving the river they entered the jungle, moving northward and climbing. In the foothills of the continental divide, with tall, green mountains rising before them, they reached Toubacanti. This was an outpost which the President had established three months before upon the first news of the Scots' arrival. A crude, palisaded fort, it was manned by four companies of militia under Campmaster Don Luis Carrizoli, and they now brought the strength of the expedition to fifteen hundred men. Still not sure that he was strong enough to engage the Scots, the President decided to advance over the mountains. Each man was to carry a basket containing rations for ten days, as well as his arms and ammunition. Though he thanked God for the fine weather, de Canillas remembered the nightmare misery of that march.
We had first to cross a river shut in between cliffs and full of boulders. We could not avoid it, and had to march through the actual bed of the stream. It took two days and the men were much knocked-up, because of the weight of the supplies to which was added that of muskets, arquebuses and rifles, bags of shot and fifty balls which the soldiers carried loose. The most lamentable part of it was the men fell frequently, which wet the food they carried.... We came to the end of the river, which is at the foot of the southern slope, and despite the fact that the men were much exhausted, lest the subsistence give out entirely at dawn next day we began to ascend the range, which is extremely impenetrable. We mastered it in that day's march and reached a very marshy
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