hares were fixed at a hundred pounds sterling
each; and from the Pentland Firth to the Solway Firth every man who had
a hundred pounds was impatient to put down his name. About two hundred
and twenty thousand pounds were actually paid up. This may not, at first
sight, appear a large sum to those who remember the bubbles of 1825 and
of 1845, and would assuredly not have sufficed to defray the charge of
three months of war with Spain. Yet the effort was marvellous when
it may be affirmed with confidence that the Scotch people voluntarily
contributed for the colonisation of Darien a larger proportion of
their substance than any other people ever, in the same space of time,
voluntarily contributed to any commercial undertaking. A great part of
Scotland was then as poor and rude as Iceland now is. There were five or
six shires which did not altogether contain so many guineas and crowns
as were tossed about every day by the shovels of a single goldsmith
in Lombard Street. Even the nobles had very little ready money. They
generally took a large part of their rents in kind, and were thus able,
on their own domains, to live plentifully and hospitably. But there were
many esquires in Kent and Somersetshire who received from their tenants
a greater quantity of gold and silver than a Duke of Cordon or a
Marquess of Atholl drew from extensive provinces. The pecuniary
remuneration of the clergy was such as would have moved the pity of the
most needy curate who thought it a privilege to drink his ale and smoke
his pipe in the kitchen of an English manor house. Even in the fertile
Merse there were parishes of which the minister received only from
four to eight pounds sterling in cash. The official income of the Lord
President of the Court of Session was only five hundred a year; that
of the Lord Justice Clerk only four hundred a year. The land tax of
the whole kingdom was fixed some years later by the Treaty of Union at
little more than half the land tax of the single county of Norfolk. Four
hundred thousand pounds probably bore as great a ratio to the wealth of
Scotland then as forty millions would bear now.

The list of the members of the Darien Company deserves to be examined.
The number of shareholders was about fourteen hundred. The largest
quantity of stock registered in one name was three thousand pounds. The
heads of three noble houses took three thousand pounds each, the Duke
of Hamilton, the Duke of Queensbury and Lord Belhave