The Darien Adventure & The Treaty of Union: 1688-1707

Illustration: Map of Scottish settlement in Darien by Herbert Moll. Circa 1727. Copyright Glasgow University

 The Darien Adventure & The Treaty of Union: Overview

The late 17th century saw the major European states seeking to extend their powers by establishing trading and commercial links throughout the world. The Scots did not want to be left out of this scramble for power and instigated a scheme to set up a colony at Darien on the Isthmus of Panama in South America. The Darien Adventure was seen as a panacea for all the nation's ills but the scheme was fated to end in catastrophe. The events that followed forced a major re-definition of the relationship between Scotland and England - one that remains controversial to this day.

Historic Voices

"We looked for peace but no good came, and for a time of health and comfort, but beheld only trouble."

The Reverend Francis Borland, Minister on the second expedition to Darien, surveying the ruins of the Scottish settlement, November 1689.

Attention all bloggers, designers, publishers and business owners!

Are you looking for images of Scotland like those on the Heartland website?

A growing collection of images is available for purchase and download through our companion site www.heartland-heritage-photography.com 

Click on the logo to browse our portfolio.

Background: Scotland in Crisis

The Covenanter Revolution of 1638 was only the beginning of a prolonged period of serious military, political and religious conflict in Scotland that did not end until the Glorious Revolution of 1688 when the divisive King James VII was deposed in a palace coup. The Dutch Prince William of Orange was then accepted and crowned King William III of England, Scotland and Ireland fostering high hopes that stability and prosperity would follow after generations of upheaval.

These hopes proved to be short lived. A succession of failed harvests after 1695 devastated the Scottish countryside. Contemporary accounts of these “Seven Ill Years” paint a grim picture: of men and women collapsing and dying in the streets; of thousands reduced to begging from door to door; of up to half the population in some areas dying from hunger. The old English jibe that there were only eight commandments in Scotland because the people had nothing to covet or steal now evoked only hollow laughter.

Many Scots could not help but compare the wretched state of their nation with conditions south of the border. England too had suffered from the conflicts of the seventeenth century, but some kind of  recovery seemed to be under way there. The English East India Company had opened up vast markets in America and the Indian sub-continent, and the lucrative new world of trade and commerce was bringing some prosperity; but this was a marketplace from which Scottish merchants were legally excluded. Aspiring and ambitious Scots could only regard the burgeoning and lucrative empire of their English counterparts with envy - and not a little resentment.

It seemed obvious that what Scotland needed to do was strike out into the world and develop its own trading empire just as the other major European states were doing. It was with this intention that the Scottish Parliament passed an act in 1695 creating a Company of Scotland that many hoped would successfully emulate the commercial success of the English East India Company.

Not long after the Company had been set up one of its Directors, an ambitious and successful financier called William Paterson, presented his colleagues with a scheme that would, he promised, enrich the Company and solve all of Scotland's current woes too. Such was the idealism with which the Darien Adventure began. And like so many idealistic plans it would end in disaster..

Illustration: Post-1707 Union crest depicting the national arms of Scotland, England and Ireland.

The Darien Adventure & The Treaty of Union: 1688-1707

The origins of the Darien Adventure

Darien was the name given by Spanish explorers in 1510 to an area on the Isthmus of Panama, the narrow coil of land between the Atlantic and the Pacific that unites North and South America. These geographical details are significant, as a glance at a world map shows. Ships plying the lucrative trade between Europe and Asia were forced to navigate a lengthy, hazardous detour beneath the massive South American landmass. It would be much easier to unload a ship's goods on the Pacific side of the Isthmus and carry them by road across land to the Atlantic side where another ship would be waiting to transport them to the eager consumers of Europe. Furthermore, whichever country first claimed and developed this strip of jungle would be able to charge a lucrative commission on all the goods transported.

This was the essence of the scheme that the canny financier William Paterson proposed to his fellow directors of the Company of Scotland. In Paterson's florid, extravagant prose Darien was “the door of the seas, and the key of the universe”; whoever held the key to this door could not fail to become rich. The directors of the Company were bewitched by Paterson's fervour. Soon he had convinced them to commit the Company to setting up a Scottish colony in Darien.

Financing the Darien Adventure

The Company of Scotland directors began by seeking financial subscriptions in both England and Scotland. They ran into difficulty straight away. As should have been expected, the English East India Company were incensed when they discovered that a new trading company was being set up in direct competition against them. They successfully lobbied the English parliament to ban the Scots from collecting subscriptions in England.

Dejected, the Company's representatives returned north unsure what to do next; but there they found that the news of how the venture had been sabotaged in England had been received with outrage. Stung national pride galvanised the Scottish population and an avalanche of contributors came forward offering financial support to the Company; within a few months a staggering £400,000 had been collected. It was this money, amounting to half of all Scotland's capital and the life savings of many of her people, that was used to buy the ships and provisions needed to start the colony.

In July 1698 William Paterson and 1200 other colonists sailed off to begin the task of building a Scottish Empire. What had begun as a sober, hard-headed commercial venture had now become a patriotic national crusade.

Disaster at Darien

After arriving in Darien in November 1698 the colonists made good progress, establishing a fortified community called New Caledonia; but this early success proved to be short-lived. Until now the awkward fact that this area was already claimed by the Kingdom of Spain had been ignored; but now the Spaniards had been alerted that a foreign power was attempting to establish itself in Darien.

In February 1699 Spanish troops arrived to expel the Scottish intruders. The beleaguered colonists fought back and won an initial skirmish; but this was only a temporary reprieve from the relentless troubles that they would now endure over the next few months. In April 1699 they area was deluged by ferocious tropical storms for which the Scots were woefully unprepared. Work ground to a halt; disease decimated the population; ships carrying desperately needed supplies to Darien were wrecked at sea; and morale collapsed as the community's leaders bickered amongst themselves.

Worse was to come. By May 1699 food was almost exhausted and a ship set out to purchase supplies from English colonies in nearby Jamaica. A week later it returned with nothing except some devastating news - their own king had turned against them. William III, king of Scotland and England, had issued a proclamation forbidding any English colony from offering any kind of assistance to New Caledonia.

The colonists now realised that they were in desperate trouble. Without access to supplies from neighbouring colonies the New Caledonia settlement was doomed. Deprived of support, and likely to be be slaughtered in any future Spanish attack, the panicking colonists prepared to leave. Delirious with fever William Paterson had to be carried onto the last ship, bitterly protesting against the abandonment of his Darien dream.

Recriminations and consequences

The abject failure to set up an overseas trading colony forced the Scottish nation to recognise an unpalatable truth: Scotland was not militarily powerful enough to establish itself as an international trading state. With Anglo-Scottish relations soured by the Darien fiasco the English were also forced to reconsider their relationship with Scotland. There was now a real fear in England that the rancorous Scots might side with their old French allies leaving England vulnerable to an invasion from the north - the old English nightmare. Both nations were also compelled to recognise that the existing constitution in which one king was expected to rule over two separate kingdoms was no longer viable. Despite the animosity between them, both countries recognised the importance of reaching a peaceful settlement to these problems. This was the origin of the Treaty of Union in 1707.

The Treaty of Union

The Treaty was a document that set out how England and Scotland would settle their differences by uniting to form a single new state to be called the United Kingdom of Great Britain. In return for accepting the Treaty the Scots were to be allowed to cooperate with the development of England's overseas territories. For the English, a union with Scotland would amalgamate the two countries thus ending for all time the long-running security threat of invasion from the north.

How the Union divided the nation

On paper it all seemed very straightforward; in reality it was anything but. In England there was little enthusiasm for uniting with a country that many saw as poor, backward and a liability. In Scotland there was even greater scepticism and pockets of downright hostility. True, the Union Treaty might bring greater opportunities for trade and prosperity to Scotland with increased security for England; but the price was the abolition of the Scottish parliament and the end of Scottish national independence.

Whatever the advantages might be, the prospect of Scotland becoming a vassal English state was extremely distasteful to many - on both sides of the border. Consequently, the drawing up of the Treaty and the subsequent debate in the Scottish parliament over it was long, complicated and bitter. Numerous clauses were added to preserve some vestiges of Scottish autonomy in the spheres of law and religion. Money changed hands in circumstances the precise nature of which is still the subject of uncertainty and argument.

Outside parliament, there were anti-Union demonstrations, civil unrest and even riots. Scottish politicians were attacked in the streets of Edinburgh. There was a sour, ugly mood in the air. Meanwhile, inside the parliament, Scotland's ruling class struggled on with the business of debating and deal-making. The whole process took nearly four months; but finally, on 16 May 1707, the Treaty of Union was signed into law. Its opening clause declared:

“The two Kingdoms of England and Scotland shall for ever after be United into one Kingdom by the name of Great Britain.”

The Scottish nation in particular was deeply divided by this and many years of violent conflict followed before the Union was broadly accepted. Even today, 300 years after the Treaty was signed, many Scots are still arguing over its implications.

Illustration: The Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh.

For the first few years of its existence the Anglo-Scottish Union would prove to be a great disappointment to everyone. Where the Scots had expected economic benefits they did not materialise, or at any rate took a long time to do so. Where the English had hoped for greater peace and security they were faced with civil conflict and the continuing threat of invasion from overseas.

 The greatest danger came from the series of Jacobite Risings which occurred in the years following the Union Treaty in 1707. It was only after the Jacobite threat was finally extirpated after the middle of the eighteenth century that the Union settlement finally stabilised. Thereafter many Scotsmen both at home and abroad profited greatly from trade and commerce with the burgeoning British Empire and the Anglo-Scottish Union seemed to have at last justified itself.

Throughout the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century the Union and its benefits came to be widely accepted on both sides of the border. During that time countless Scots played an energetic role in building up Britain's industry and Empire. Driven by Scottish business acumen, Scotland built up a formidable international reputation in the fields of engineering, shipbuilding and textiles that was out of all proportion to her miniscule size. This headlong rush towards industrialisation presented the Scottish nation with unique new problems, some of which were tackled by social reformers like Robert Owen.

The Union continues to endure today, although recent years have seen a significant minority on both sides of the border expressing dissatisfaction with the three hundred year old settlement. The section dedicated to the Scottish Parliament offers an introduction to this complex and controversial theme.

Return To:

Homepage

Heartland Projects

Contact