the merchants of London resolved to join
stock with the Scotch company; and the exemption from all duties gave a
great prospect of gain. Such was the posture of affairs in Scotland....

Great complaints were made in both houses of the act for the Scotch East
India company, and addresses were made to the King, setting forth the
inconveniencies that were like to arise from thence to England: the King
answered, that he had been ill served in Scotland: but he hoped remedies
should be found, to prevent the ill consequences that they apprehended
from the act: and soon after this, he turned out both the secretaries of
state, and the marquis of Tweedale: and great changes were made in the
whole ministry of that Kingdom, both high and low....

But when it was understood in Scotland that the King had disowned the
act for the East India company, from which it was expected that great
riches should flow into that Kingdom, it is not easy to conceive how
great and how general an indignation was spread over the whole kingdom:
the Jacobites saw what a game it was like to prove in their hands; they
played it with great skill, and to the advantage of their cause, in a
course of many years; and continue to manage it to this day: there was a
great deal of noise made of the Scotch act in both houses of parliament
in England, by some who seemed to have no other design in that, but to
heighten our distractions by the apprehensions that they expressed. The
Scotch nation fancied nothing but mountains of gold; and the credit of
the design rose so high, that subscriptions were made, and advances of
money were offered, beyond what any believed the wealth of that Kingdom
could have furnished. Paterson came to have such credit among them, that
the design of the East India trade, how promising soever, was wholly
laid aside: and they resolved to employ all their wealth in the settling
a colony, with a port and fortifications, in Darien; which was long kept
a secret, and was only trusted to a select number, who assumed to
themselves the name of the African company, though they never meddled
with any concern in that part of the world; the unhappy progress of the
affair will appear in its proper time.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] Scotland.

B. CONSTITUTION OF THE COMPANY (1698).

+Source.+--_The Darien Papers: being a Selection of Original Letters
and Official Documents relating to the Establishment of a Colony at
Darien by the Company of S