No other episode in history has left such a devastating imprint on Scottish life as the Darien adventure – the ambitious 17th-century scheme to establish Scotland as an influential colonial power.
Half of the country’s financial capital was invested in a project to take over and control a strip of land in central America that was expected to return untold riches to its investors.
But the scheme was an absolute and ignominious failure, impacting on Scottish business and political life for generations to come and leading, in large part, to the Act of Union with the England a few years later.
Now, with a referendum on independence on the horizon and with attention focused once again on Scotland’s place in the world, a collection of previously unseen documents on the Darien scheme is being opened up to public view for the first time.
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The Royal Bank of Scotland – which came into being itself as a direct result of the Darien adventure – has opened up its previously unseen archive and loaned its business records of the scheme to the National Library of Scotland (NLS), where they will be on public display for the summer from today. One of the volumes lists every one of the 2,000-plus speculators, every investor and the amounts each contributed the £400,000 subscription scheme. It shows that towns vied with each other for the kudos of raising the most for the project, with some communities investing a substantial part of their communal wealth – and money they could little afford – to take part in the subscription. Edinburgh and Glasgow raised the most: £3,000 each – or £262,000 in today’s money – a phenomenal sum for 1696 before either city had become the trading hubs they were to become in the 18th century. The extraordinary extent to which some of Scotland’s small towns invested heavily in the Darien scheme is also revealed in the RBS documents. The decision by each town to raise money was not a genuinely collective one, but was done by the town’s civic leaders on what the town could bring together from private sources. The failure of the scheme – and the limited compensation which was eventually available – left many provincial traders short of money for a considerable time to come. Inverness, Irvine, Queensferry, Inverkeithing and Cupar all raised the minimum amount – £100 (£8,750 today) – while Renfrew subscribed £150. St Andrews (presumably mindful of Cupar’s donation of £100), Ayr, Paisley and Linlithgow all managed to go a little further and each clubbed together to raise £200 (£17,500). Haddington raised £400, Selkirk and Dumfries £500 each, and Brechin a mighty £700. Perth raised as much as it could, but didn’t quite manage to match Edinburgh and Glasgow, eventually bringing £2,000 to the scheme. These big population centres were more than matched by the wealthiest landowners. The Duchess of Hamilton also subscribed £3,000. Groups of tradesmen and professionals also banded together to subscribe as a group. The Faculty of Advocates, for example, raised £1,000 for the adventure – the equivalent of £87,500 – and the Royal College of Physicians £200. The RBS papers show that the subscriptions were not confined to the wealthy. The Incorporation of Skinners of Edinburgh put in £300 – £26,250 in today’s money – and William Stewart, clerk to the Custom House in Leith, invested £100. The aim of the scheme was to shorten the trade routes to the East Indies and Asia, but the result was catastrophic. Two failed expeditions in 1698 and 1699 resulted in more than 2,000 deaths and the loss of a quarter of Scotland’s financial capital. Many Scots blamed lack of co-operation by England and outright hostility by Spain for the adventure’s failure, and there is a feeling among some historians that Scotland would have remained independent had the scheme been a success. Another of the books in the RBS collection contains minutes of every meeting of the Company of Scotland, the business set up to raise the money and invest in the Darien project. As a piece of business history it is extraordinary, because it shows how Scotland’s first, big, public subscription company was run, organised and – eventually – had to manage its own collapse. Robin Smith, manuscript and map collections nanager at the NLS, told the Times: “The Darien papers are an important record of a remarkable period in Scotland ’s history about a bold attempt to establish a Scottish colony in Central America.” The NLS will be hosting the display and contributing the national documents relating to Darien – Acts of Parliament and official records – as well as personal journals from the ill-fated project. RBS is contributing the business records. “These are priceless documents which record a key moment in Scotland ’s economic history,” Mr Smith said. And Ruth Reed, the RBS archive manager, explained how important the documents were for Scotland’s psyche, both politically and in business terms – both themes which have become increasingly topical in recent years. “They are crucial documents from a vital period in Scotland’s history," she said. "This is the period immediately before the Union when England and Scotland were united. What happened in Darien was one of the key elements that caused that to happen. Politically that is very relevant today. “This is the beginning of the modern world for Scotland in some ways. This was the first time Scotland organised a really big company with lots of shareholders, how they administered that and the shareholdings, even the failure and the payment of debts, it taught Scotland a lot about organising business and taking it forward. Skip a generation and Scotland had become one of the most advanced business cultures in the world. “There is a link between what happened then and Scotland’s development as a business culture. Simply because it had so many shareholders and it was such a complicated thing, Scotland learned a lot from it.” Mrs Reed said the documents provided an “amazing snapshot” of Scottish society. “It is certainly a glimpse of what Scotland was like and what it was doing with its money,” she said. One of the more famous names in the subscription book is that of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun. According to the official Company of Scotland record, Fletcher donated £1,000 to the Darien scheme (£87,500 in today’s money) which was understandable, given that he had been one of the scheme’s most vociferous champions. A leading Scottish writer, politician, soldier and patriot, Fletcher spent his time after the failure of Darien trying to oppose then amend the Act of Union to give more power to Scotland and retain at least something of Scottish parliamentary authority. He died in London in 1716, having lost a substantial part of his fortune in the Darien scheme and having been unable to soften the terms of the Act of Union to anything like his satisfaction. – RBS History 100.Donate to us: support independent, intelligent, in-depth Scottish journalism from just 3p a day
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