fortifications. Others, and among them the captain, were sent
to Seville to be tried for piracy. Soon an envoy with a flag of truce
arrived at Carthagena, and, in the name of the Council of Caledonia,
demanded the release of the prisoners. He delivered to the authorities a
letter threatening them with the vengeance of the King of Great Britain,
and a copy of the Act of Parliament by which the Company had been
created. The Castilian governor, who probably knew that William, as
Sovereign of England, would not, and, as Sovereign of Scotland, could
not, protect the squatters who had occupied Darien, flung away both
letter and Act of Parliament with a gesture of contempt, called for a
guard, and was with difficulty dissuaded from throwing the messenger
into a dungeon. The Council of Caledonia, in great indignation, issued
letters of mark and reprisal against Spanish vessels. What every man of
common sense must have foreseen had taken place. The Scottish flag had
been but a few months planted on the walls of New Edinburgh; and already
a war, which Scotland, without the help of England, was utterly unable
to sustain, had begun.

By this time it was known in Europe that the mysterious voyage of the
adventurers from the Forth had ended at Darien. The ambassador of the
Catholic King repaired to Kensington, and complained bitterly to William
of this outrageous violation of the law of nations. Preparations were
made in the Spanish ports for an expedition against the intruders; and
in no Spanish port were there more fervent wishes for the success of
that expedition than in the cities of London and Bristol. In Scotland,
on the other hand, the exultation was boundless. In the parish churches
all over the kingdom the ministers gave public thanks to God for having
vouchsafed thus far to protect and bless the infant colony. At some
places a day was set apart for religious exercises on this account. In
every borough bells were rung; bonfires were lighted; and candles were
placed in the windows at night. During some months all the reports which
arrived from the other side of the Atlantic were such as to excite hope
and joy in the north of the island, and alarm and envy in the south. The
colonists, it was asserted, had found rich gold mines, mines in which
the precious metal was far more abundant and in a far purer state than
on the coast of Guinea. Provisions were plentiful. The rainy season had
not proved unhealthy. The settlement was wel