Historically Darien, Panama, has vindicated Pirate Partan's estimate of it in Warburton's seventeenth century Darien: "Ye little ken, leddie, what it is tae crass the says, and what a sair land is ayont 'em. It is wha' auld Tam hae called a painted sapulker, fair 'ithout but 'ithin o' corruption. What wi' favers and bucanners and serpints and Spaniards and ither reptiles, 'ts nae place fer Christian mon, muckle mair wee leddiesl"
It contains the completely obliterated Ada, the 1515-80 Atlantic terminus of Balboa's and other overland routes to the Pacific. There Balboa was beheaded and, shortly before the Scots settled Caledonia, the neighboring islands were a rendezvous for French-English privateers, long the terrors of Spanish Atlantic-Pacific commerce; and much later, in the 1850's and 1870's, came French, English, and American surveyor-explorers of rival isthmian canal project-routes (see the author's "Strain's Panaman Expedition" in the in the August, 1935, Naval Institute PROCEEDINGS.
William Paterson's ill-fated Darien venture in 1698-1700 was but one item in his practical, fanciful, long-time dream of rehabilitating overcrowded and impoverished Scotland by means of profitable colonization and world commerce. The colony was to have had complete freedom in trade, religion, and political matters. Its Atlantic-Pacific ports were to be links or depots in an overland and sea trade with the East and West Indies, Asia, and Africa.
So it was with wild huzzahs the Darien expedition sailed in mid-July, 1698; half of Scotland’s private capital and many of her best citizens were on those ships. Hence virtually the whole of Edinburgh was at the dockside “with the tears, prayers and praises for friends, relatives and countrymen; many seamen and soldiers, their services refused because of overcomplement, stowed away, but found and ordered ashore, they clung to ropes or timbers imploring passage.”
Inasmuch as the expedition had both colonial and military functions, the force of about 1,500 soldiers and colonist-artisans were presumably supplied for 8 months, estimated sufficient for their needs (when supplemented by local purchases or exchanges for their trade-goods aboard) until the harvest of their first crops. The St. Andrew, Unicorn, and Caledonia, about 550 tons each, carried about 175 guns in all (for later use as land batteries) and most of the men and supplies; a pink and a snow (the Endeavor and Dolphin, respectively), for use as dispatch boats or tenders, had additional supplies and stores.
The colony was controlled by stockholder-councilors, each local councilor having equal authority and weak about acting as president, Paterson having no more power than any other. The second day at sea the Council belatedly checked their supplies and trading-stock; they found the suppliers had robbed them, the stuff had been badly chosen and stowed and was already partially spoiled. Short rationing had to be begun immediately.
Arriving at Madeira August 29 and opening sealed orders, they found they must go to an intermediate port at Crab Island, Puerto Rico, for further instructions. The Council left dispatches for the company to send out further supplies by a later vessel (however, it sank with all aboard later off Scotland); with surprising improvidence they purchased nothing locally but 27 pipes of Madeira wine.
At Crab Island they learned their first landfall was to be Golden Island (Spanish name, Isla Aves), Panama. Paterson engaged an old privateer, Captain Allison, to pilot the fleet to his earlier haunts of stirring days. There were Spanish spies at Crab Island; so warning dispatches went to Cuba and Cartagena that the expedition was for military occupation of an area somewhere between Porto Bello and Cartagena. Golden Island was reached in early October, in the worst part of the rainy season’s deluges, squally weather, and sure spoilage of unhoused stores. After three weeks of coastal reconnaissance they unknowingly made an exact choice of Pedarias’ obliterated Acla, though the Scots called their settlement New Edinburgh, Caledonia.
With an energy that was to ebb seriously later, all hands were shortly clearing jungle and constructing thatched huts and fortifying the hill; cargoes were unloaded and the guns moved for mounting the forts’ land batteries. They severed the fortified New Edinburgh from the mainland by a military moat (it is still findable at Escoces Point and may appear on the new Hydrographic Office charts from the recent remapping of Panama’s easterly San Bias coast). The Council purchased lands and made a treaty-alliance with the two local chiefs. Traditionally these Indians were friendly and often allies of the English, and enemies of the Spanish. Nevertheless the canny native, occasionally meeting Spaniards from Porto Bello and Cartagena, played double by reporting the latest developments at New Edinburgh.
At this stage Councilman-Secretary Rose’s Councilbook is enthusiastic (though his was to be one of the colony’s early deaths): “Harbour of Caledonia . . . can contain 500 sail of ships . . . landlocked against storms . . . can be well fortified . . . ships’ guns cannot reach us . . . 10, 000 hogsheads of sugar can be raised . . . soil fertility . . . climate’s mildness and healthfulness . . . friendliness of natives . . .beauties of near-by hills that contain valuable minerals .... No conflict of interest . . . Indians only occupy the area . . . much game to be had. . .”
Early in November the English man-of- war Ruppert Prize of Jamaica called. It is now known Captain Long was to have come earlier and prevented the colony being founded; however, he had no orders to cover the case of an established colony, so he looked things over and sailed away. Since his presence seemed to bode later interference, the Council ordered the Endeavor loaded with local cedar logs preparatory for a trip to Scotland with the news of Darien events. Then a French and a Dutch armed vessel, 42 and 22 guns, respectively, came into the bay; they reported the new settlement was exciting much comment along the coast and that a Spanish fleet was mobilizing. Later Captain Long dropped in with about the same report. Desperate as the supply condition was becoming, all preparations for planting crops were dropped for hurrying the defenses.
The friendly Frenchman offered to drop the Colony’s messenger and dispatches at Jamaica, so the Endeavor's orders were canceled; the Dolphin was loaded with trade goods (though the Scottish heavy serges, tweeds, stockings, etc., ill-fitted tropical uses), for the need for West Indian food supplies was becoming dire. However, the Dolphin didn’t get very far—she and her whole cargo were seized and taken into Cartagena and the crew jailed. Here the pipes of Madeira wine may have done the colony a bad turn; the colony’s bon voyage felicitations had been too frequently in liquid form. In leaving Caledonia’s outer harbor the drunken French captain piled his vessel on the rocks, a complete loss with many of his crew drowned. Then friendly Indians reported 600 Spaniards and 200 Indians were approaching to attack New Edinburgh. Later an allied adjoining tribe was attacked, but on February 6, 100 Highlanders put the invaders into precipitate rout, after a hot skirmish.
A spot of good luck was the timely arrival of a West Indian trade-schooner with much-needed beef, fruits, and yams; better still she took the dispatches, begging for help from Scotland, to Jamaica for being forwarded to Europe. Malaria or dysentery became rampant. Nearly everyone became ill or died (Paterson’s son and wife were among the latter). All three of the ministers were dead. However, the Council records say of these dour men: “They were of small comfort ... It pleased the Lord soon to remove . . . One died at sea the others soon ...” Men deserted to seek gold in the adjacent hills. There were bitter inter-Council dissensions that spread; continued policy was rare and morale very bad.
Mid-June, 1699, the melancholy Council voted abandonment of the colony with the vessels to rendezvous at Boston for sale of the local assets. The ships were foul with barnacles and leaking badly from the ravages of teredos. So unseaworthy were they that the Endeavor shortly sank; the St. Andrew was abandoned at Port Royal, Jamaica; though the Unicorn held together as far as New York, she lost 100 of her 250 souls and was there abandoned. August 24 the Caledonia limped into the same port, was repaired and finally went on to Leith, Scotland, the only unit of the colony’s fleet ever to see home port. Over half the expedition were now dead and most of the others were miserable, penniless refugees in Jamaica, America, or Scotland.
Before the Caledonia left New York news came that Scottish relief boats were en route to Caledonia Bay, with stores and 300 more colonists. This so fired Thomas Drummond of the Caledonia that he poorly fitted out a schooner and headed back to Caledonia. In mid-August, not at all a fine turnout like the first expedition, the second saw the depressing sight of a weed-overgrown, deserted New Edinburgh—they had no information as to what had happened. Many were for returning home directly, but others demurred; the matter was settled by another disaster. The larger of the two vessels, the Olive Branch, fired and burned in Caledonia Bay, with a total loss of all her cargo. Then Thomas Drummond arrived with news he had had a 4-hour engagement and had just barely escaped from a Spanish man- of-war, just outside the harbor.
The shortage of food and boat space was desperate. So the Hopeful Binning, with all hands (but 12 volunteers remaining to meet the expected other relief ships still en route) slipped away to Jamaica. The volunteers had a long wait; not until February 11 did the stouthearted Captain Campbell arrive in a small sloop with a small force and a few supplies. Shortly after landing he had a sharp skirmish with a Spanish land force, which he routed with some loss to his own. Then he set himself desperately to repairing the land defenses to hold off the Spanish fleet, whose land force he had lately engaged. His cycle of illnesses, poor food, and insufficient munitions, idle rumors, deserting men, made it difficult for the experienced warrior (from the recent European wars) to hold out against the Governor of Cartagena with his 11 men-of-war. So after a little skirmishing a capitulation was arranged and signed. The colonists were to sail away within 14 days, taking all personal property and small arms but leaving all ordnance and its ammunition. All prisoners were also interexchanged.
On April 11, 1700, New Edinburgh was again abandoned. The second colony had occupied it less than 5 months. The ships sailed for the American colonies via Jamaica, but they were fearfully overcrowded and were generally in bad condition. Men died by the scores and no ship of the second expedition ever actually reached its destination: the Hope of Bo'ness was leaking so badly she had to divert to Cartagena where she was confiscated by the Spaniards (with all aboard prisoners) for breach of the capitulation; the Rising Sun and Duke of Hamilton got as far as Charles Town (South Carolina), and 17 passengers had got ashore, before a destructive norther caught and sank both with all aboard. It will be recalled the Olive Branch had burned in Caledonia Bay the previous April; the Hopeful Binning, sent to Jamaica with colonists surviving the fire, had been abandoned there. In all about 940 men died of the 1,300 that were of the second expedition; the others were widely scattered refugees or prisoners at Cartagena, Jamaica, or America.
The Scots, then and later, were widely famed in Europe, the West Indies, Canada, Australia, and America for their stubborn hardihood as soldiers and colonists. How could such a people make such a fiasco as the Caledonia venture! Of course there are several reasons.
No colonists of Scotland’s altitudes and latitudes could ever easily fit into the tropical Caledonia of 1700. However, aside from that the colony was doomed from sabotage, mostly behind the scenes, in Europe.
Originally Paterson’s prestige, as founder of the successful Bank of England, induced oversubscription of his company’s stock in London, Amsterdam, Hamburg, and Scotland. However, the broad and liberal charter menaced the East India Company’s monopoly in foreign commerce. So shortly the new company found itself badgered in financial and diplomatic circles. The unrest and rumors caused all foreign and English subscribers to withdraw—which so perturbed Scotland that it became a matter of white-heated national patriotism to put the project through.
King William III of England had lately been absorbed in negotiating and signing the Treaty of Ryswick; he now found himself accused of violating his own treaty by infringement of Spanish territory in Darien. Furthermore the managers of English colonies in the West Indies and America began complaining that their struggling settlements would undoubtedly drain to the proposed more liberal one about to be established.
The bedeviled King discharged Lord Tweedale, his Commissioner to the Scottish Parliament, and renounced the crown’s approval of the company’s charter. He also then initiated placating and conciliatory diplomacy with the disturbed Spanish court; likewise he ordered the governors of all West Indian and American colonies to give no help to, nor have any commerce with, the new settlement. Amid all these gathering storms Paterson's confidential agent embezzled much company funds; in the ensuing investigation Paterson beggared himself by paying the deficit and accepting a mere colonist's place at New Edinburgh; thus did the colony lose the advantages of his experienced management.
With all these troubles countering the faltering and inexperienced Edinburgh directors and the New Edinburgh Council the resulting inanities and delays are the more nearly understandable. In fact it is likely the Governor of Cartagena's seemingly too long period of fleet mobilization was not entirely the well-known Spanish way of procrastination. His intelligence reports from Europe and Darien showed him time was a surer ally than any military force he could muster.