THE DARIEN DISASTER

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

  Oswald did not know why the Almighty should grant him his life and yet take it from others, but he praised and thanked God for this mercy. "Though I preserved my life, yet I kept not my health. I was troubled with fever and ague that I raved almost every day and it rendered me so weak that my legs were not able to support me.... Our bodies pined away and grew so macerated with such allowance and hard work that we were like so many skeletons."

  Drunkenness increased, there was no shortage of spirits or wine, and a cunning man could get all that he wished. A little was medicine, enough was solace, and excess was suicide. The

  Council issued brandy as a bribe, and sometimes as the only reward it could give. Toward the end of March a bearded, exhausted white man was brought into the settlement by a party of Indians, and it was some time before the Scots realised that this horrifying caricature of their own form was Andrew Livingstone, the surgeon who had sailed with the Dolphin. How he had escaped and travelled from Carthagena no one recorded, and perhaps his bewildered mind could not remember, but in recognition of the courage he had shown he was given four gallons of brandy "for his own proper use, over and above the common allowance". Since wine and brandy assured the oblivion of temporary stupor, and for some a peaceful slide into death, Paterson had little success in his efforts to persuade the colonists to abstain altogether. He promised them that the price of the allowance would be placed to their credit in the Company's accounts, but only one man—an officer called Gordon—accepted the offer. He was still petitioning for the money many years later.

  Faced by the smouldering hostility of the settlement, and aware that it must be placated before it burst into a flame of mutiny, the Councillors finally decided to increase their numbers. Even this decision was not made without dispute and sulks. Since his recovery from a fever which all but he had thought would kill him, Daniel Mackay had been noisily active in Council, and it was during his week as President that he persuaded Paterson (who needed little persuasion) and Pennecuik (who must have needed a great deal) to move and second a motion to appoint four new members to the Council. Mackay's suggestion was not disinterested. It had been decided earlier that The Three Sisters should leave as soon as possible with letters for Scotland, and Mackay was anxious to carry them, but while there were so few of them it would have been unwise for one of the Councillors to go. When the motion to increase was put by Paterson, James Montgomerie protested without explanation and withdrew in a huff. Robert Jolly also objected, arguing with obscure logic that the smaller the number the greater the ease of government and the wiser its rule. Moreover, since no Councillor would receive a salary until the Colony was well established and thriving, it would be improper to involve the Company in extra expense. Receiving no support for this paradox, he also withdrew. "Although we sent our Secretary several times," said Paterson, "entreating them in a friendly and respectful manner to give their attendance and assistance in Council, yet they refused, and altogether forsook us." They were both tired of the Colony and wished to go home.

  With doubtful legality, the remaining three voted on the motion themselves. The new men were probably suggested by Paterson, accepted by Mackay who knew that they would be happy to see the last of him, and hopelessly opposed by Pennecuik. They were all officers—Thomas Drummond, Charles Forbes, Colin Campbell, and Samuel Vetch. The Glencoe Gang now dominated the Council, and although Montgomerie had once been their comrade-in-arms at Fort William and one of their faction in the Colony, he still would not come to the Council. He was perhaps jealous of them, and resented the fading of his little battle- honour before the blaze of their red coats.

  The increase in numbers brought no harmony to the Council. Supported by Vetch, Thomas Drummond did not hide his contempt for Paterson, and was the instrument of his brother's hatred of Pennecuik. Though they were bitterly concerned for the condition of their starving men, Forbes and Campbell had no skill in debate or government, and their only value to the Council was that their presence restored a little of the Planters' respect. Not sure that he could survive an open breach with the Drummonds, Pennecuik began to quarrel with Mackay. The Commodore divided all men into "brave boys and lads" or "lubberly rogues and rascals", and he had recently moved the Highlander from the first to the second category. He remembered that Mackay had once taken Pincarton's part against him in some childish dispute, that on another galling occasion he had persuaded him to apologise to Jolly and invite the lubberly rogue to dinner. When Ephraim Pilkington brought the Maidstone back from her fruitless cruise against the Spaniards, Pennecuik reminded the Council that he had opposed the idea of reprisals and that Mackay had hotly supported it. He badgered the sick man at every meeting, wasting hours in abuse and recrimination. He opposed the motion that Mackay should carry dispatches to the Company and then, realising that the vote must go against him and that he would thus have a vengeful enemy abroad in Edinburgh, he shamelessly put about and came up on another tack. He visited Mackay's sick-bed with blustering good cheer, pressing upon him a letter of recommendation to the Directors in which he asked that Mackay be given a guinea a day should he travel home through England, and that they bear all his expenses while he was in Scotland. Mackay cynically accepted the letter, and their uneasy friendship was restored. There were suspicions later of a darker compact between them.

  The Councillors now met regularly ashore, in Paterson's hut or one shared by the officers. They could be seen through its open walls, wigs removed and coats loosened, the air thick with tobacco smoke to fight off clouds of insects, Mr. Rose's pen scratching at paper, and the noise of shouting voices. No longer separated from the colonists by the water of the bay and the closed door of a ship's cabin, they lost some of their august superiority, and were seen and heard to be what they were— jealous, contentious and human. This, as much as a growing discontent in the Colony, led to the first of several seemingly unrelated incidents that took the settlers and the seamen to the end of their ragged patience and a sad and abortive mutiny.

  Encouraged by the presence of their officers on the Council, some of the Planters went hopefully to the door of the hut and asked for more food. If their miserable rations could not be increased, they said, then the Colony should be abandoned. Pennecuik blandly told them that there was not a month's supply left in the ships, and therefore not enough to provision them for a withdrawal. He refused to accept the proposal, which was supported by other Councillors, that the stores should be brought ashore from the Saint Andrew and lodged in the fort, confident that Robert Drummond would allow none to be unloaded from the Caledonia. The Planters went away confused by what sounded like a sentence of death, and they were further angered when Robert Jolly, hearing of the Commodore's reply, came out of his sulky retirement and said that there were enough provisions for three months at the present allowance, not including the oatmeal set aside for the sick.

  The Commodore denied it, and no one could persuade him to release an inventory of the stores aboard his ship. He was acting altogether strangely. His seamen were filling the water-casks of the Saint Andrew, and a rumour quickly spread that he intended to weigh anchor and leave the settlement to starve. Robert Drummond believed it, and with the same concern for his own safety ordered the Caledonia's casks to be filled and the ship put in trim for sailing. When both vessels began to take ballast aboard, John Anderson of the Endeavour hurriedly did the same. Ashore, the Planters watched in stupefied amazement, and the Council did nothing.

  "About this time," wrote Jolly in his memorial, "Captain Pennecuik invited aboard several of his best and trustiest friends to whom, after dinner, he proposed that, seeing victuals were like to be expended and ships destroyed, he thought it most expedient that the Saint Andrew and the Caledonia, well-manned and provided with provisions, should be fitted out for a design." This design, it was implied, would be a privateering cruise, but to those best and trustiest friends—and to the rest of the colonists when they heard of it—it sounded like desertion and cowardice. Pennecuik hurriedly wi
thdrew the suggestion, protesting that he was thinking only of the good of the settlement. The affair had a paradoxical effect on morale. "The greatest number of the Colony," said Jolly, "were positively inclined that rather than forsake the place before they have recruits, or hear from Scotland, that they will be satisfied with the quarter or third, yea rather than sail, half abatement of their ordinary allowance of provisions." It was a noble declaration of faith, but it made hunger no easier to endure.

  The only sea-captain who showed any concern for the sick and the starving was William Murdoch, Pincarton's first mate, who now commanded the Unicorn. When the others were taking on water and ballast, he ordered his yards to be stripped and the ship prepared for careening, hoping that the men ashore would understand that he did not intend to desert them. He and his crew also volunteered to take their boats out in search of turtles, and invited the other ships to join them, but they, said Jolly, "busied in fishing the French wreck and catching of small fishes with their twined nets, appropriated all they took for themselves." The Unicorns boats had extraordinary luck, sometimes returning at sunset with a dozen or more great turtles, one alone being enough to feed a hundred men on the peninsula.

  Murdoch had a rough integrity, and a stubborn wish to do what his "honest Captain Pincarton" would think was best for his ship and the Colony. "I stood in defence of the ungrateful Company's interest," he would write with pride seven months later, "and in support of the Colony against their Glencoe Council when few of their men of honour had the soul to do it." He sympathised with Jolly, now aboard the Unicorn, and with Montgomerie, and when both were formally expelled from the Council he bluntly declared, with more generosity than justification, that they had been unfairly treated. He detested Pennecuik whose sole ambition, he thought, was that "the world might hear of his grandeur". He had called Cunningham a "greeting beast", and now, when he heard of Mackay's wish to carry the dispatches home he made no secret of his contempt for the Highlander's "vain stomach". Understandably, he was popular with his own crew only, and the grateful Planters ashore. His innocent involvement in the mutiny was a disaster for him, and ended his loyal service to the Colony.

  He heard of it one evening when he returned with his turtling boats. Going aboard the Endeavour to take a glass of wine with John Anderson, he found the master alarmed and troubled. One of Pennecuik's officers, said Anderson, had that day approached him with a scheme to take over the Saint Andrew with drawn swords and bent pistols, and to sail her out on a buccaneering cruise. Though Anderson had refused to join the plot and had reprimanded the officer (whom he would not name), he was reluctant to inform the Council, thinking, perhaps, that Pennecuik might somehow be involved. "I told him that it was dangerous to conceal it," wrote Murdoch, "and that I going aboard presently should have the opportunity to declare it to Captain Jolly, which I did." Jolly advised him to keep a good watch, and that if any of the other ships attempted to clear the bay he should open fire on them with the Unicorn's guns. According to his own memorial, Jolly then told Montgomerie and Paterson of the plot, but the Council's report, which Paterson signed, said that he kept the information to himself. Probably he did, in the machiavellian hope that Pennecuik would be brought down and disgraced when the mutiny failed.

  A few days later, the Council ordered Murdoch to beach the

  Unicorn for careening and to put all his crew ashore in the fort. Though he had intended careening her himself, he decided that this must be an attempt to prevent him from opposing the Saint Andrew's departure. His stern sense of duty, his respect for the only government of the Colony, albeit the Glencoe Gang, would not permit him to refuse an order. He resigned his command instead and told the Council that he would serve it no longer. He asked permission to go aboard the Maidstone or The Three Sisters, and to leave for Scotland with whichever sailed first. Jolly and Montgomerie, fearful of their safety ashore, were already aboard Pilkington's ship.

  The President of the week, Daniel Mackay, invited Murdoch to Sunday breakfast, which he refused. There followed an invitation to dine, which he again refused when he saw that the other guests were all members of the Highlander's clan. He lost his temper with Mackay and told him that neither flattery nor bullying would change his mind. "On Monday the Council sent for me and flattered me which I took little notice of, upon which Mackay produced my saucy note, as he termed it, and called me a hundred rogues, rascals and villains. I was remanded about and told they would force me to serve them." At ten in the evening of the next day he was again called before the Council, accused of disobedience, and placed under guard in the fort. Jolly, who had also been summoned, wisely pleaded illness, but it did not save him. A file of musketeers took him out of the Maidstone and across the bay to the Caledonia where Robert Drummond "used him like a dog" and locked him in the surgeon's cabin. He was accused of taking aboard the Maidstone, as his own property, half a hogshead and two ankers of brandy, as well as a cask of Madeira, all the rightful property of the Colony.

  In the confusion of evidence, the deliberate obscurantism of its reporters, the truth of this miserable comedy cannot now be discovered, for each man recorded only what he thought to be true, or what he wished the Company and his countrymen at home to believe. Yet it is possible that Murdoch came closest to understanding when he said that he was kept a prisoner until Mackay sailed for Scotland "lest I should force a passage with him and spoil his embassy."

  On April 11, still weak from another attack of fever, Mackay went aboard The Three Sisters and left with her before sunset. The dispatches he carried from the Council, the sad letters home, had one common theme—an appeal for help, for food, for reinforcements. Those that were private were also bitter with complaint against the Council, the idle Lords, the Doges, the Glencoe Gang. Murdoch, who knew something of these complaints, and who would be in Scotland when the letters should have been delivered, later hinted at that compact made between Mackay and Pennecuik at the moment of their reconciliation. He said that Mackay opened many of the letters on the long voyage home, and destroyed those "that gave account of the truth." But by the time of writing this his hatred of Mackay was venomous, and it may have clouded his good sense. "Wherever I meet him, if he was guarded by the ghost of the great Mackay, and all the Macraws and Mackays in the Highlands, it shall not save his carcass."

  Throughout it all William Paterson had been weakly acquiescent. Sick, tired, closer still to losing his reason and unmercifully bullied by Pennecuik and Thomas Drummond, he signed all that was placed before him. But his conscience was troubled. When Murdoch was released from the fort, five days after the sailing of The Three Sisters, Paterson went to him and wept. "He hoped I would not take in ill part his pronouncing that unjust sentence against me," said Murdoch, "the Council had obliged him to do it to please Pennecuik." He begged Murdoch to reconsider his resignation, and to take service with the Colony again, but the seaman refused.

  On April 17, Jolly was also released, and he joined Mont- gomerie and Murdoch aboard the Maidstone. Jolly said that seamen from the Caledonia came aboard the ship at night, asking Pillangton for rum and sugar, offering salt-blackened coins which they had fished from the French wreck. The Maidstone sailed in the afternoon of April 20, but the wind fell once she was clear of the harbour and she was forced to drop anchor. Before sunset, the Caledonia's pinnace came up under the sloop's stem, demanding Murdoch's presence at a Council meeting aboard the flagship. He went with reluctance, and upon an assurance that Pilkington would wait for his return.

  He discovered that the plot he had long ago reported to Jolly had now been betrayed to the Council by one of the conspirators, a midshipman. He and three others—the boatswain, gunner and gunner's mate of the Saint Andrew—were in irons and accused of resolving "in a most barbarous manner and with cocked pistols to attack the officers thereunto belonging, as likewise for nailing up the guns on the battery and other mischievous and horrid designs tending no less than the ruin of the Colony."

  When he appeared before
them, the Councillors told Murdoch that they had but discovered the plot that evening, yet were disturbed to learn that he had known of it for some time and had not laid information against it. He stared at them with astonishment. "I could not forbear laughing to see a heap of rogues sitting magistrate-like to examine about that which they themselves had hatched." He meant Pennecuik, who he was blindly sure had been responsible for the conspiracy, but remembering the Maidstone waiting for him beyond the harbour he controlled his anger and his amusement and told the Councillors all he knew. Mr. Rose took down his deposition, and Murdoch insisted that the secretary sign each page, "that I might not be tricked." When Murdoch, growing bold, began to accuse them of making ill use of the information he had given Jolly, they dismissed him, saying they had no complaint against him.

  At the ship's side, Pennecuik plucked at Murdoch's sleeve and invited him to take a valedictory bowl of punch, believing no doubt that here was another departing enemy whom drink might transmute into a friend, or at least a submissive servant. They were joined by Robert Drummond, who offered the use of his cabin and could thus be present to hear all that was said. By the fourth bowl, Murdoch was angry and disgusted with them both. He said that he believed Pennecuik to be at the bottom of the mutiny, and he asked Drummond for a boat to carry him back to the Maidstone.