affair was
remembered, and some one suggested that the pedestal should have on the
one side a view of Glencoe, and on the other the Darien colony. Queen
Anne, in 1702, tried to pacify her Scotch subjects by an autograph
letter, stating that she regretted the Company's losses and
disappointments, but this did not kill the ill-feeling. As for Paterson,
in 1715 the English House of Commons voted him the sum of L18,241 as
some indemnity for his losses, but as the bill was thrown out by the
House of Lords, he got nothing.

Thus ended one of the most disastrous of British attempts to colonise
the Indies. From beginning to end it was an example of the Dutch caution
of William of Orange, as contrasted with the recklessness of Queen
Elizabeth's time or the sturdy defiance of Cromwell. The king was not
prepared to risk war for an idea, yet at the same time he would not
prohibit the expeditions.

From 1702 to 1713 there was war between England and Holland on the one
side, and France and Spain on the other. By the treaty of Utrecht,
which again brought peace, the English received the concession for the
exclusive supply of negro slaves to the Spanish colonies for thirty
years. This _Assiento_ contract was given to the Great South Sea
Company, which resulted from one of those joint-stock manias, now
epidemic in France, England, and even Holland.

The Company was projected by the Earl of Oxford in 1711, and, like the
Mississippi scheme in France, was intended to assist the Government,
which was virtually bankrupt. As yet there was no funded national debt,
but large sums were owing to the army and navy, which had been
provisionally settled by debentures, that could be discounted only at a
serious loss to the owners. Down to the establishment of the Bank of
England in 1693 no public loan existed, but this was commenced by
borrowing the capital of that institution. At the peace of Ryswick, in
1697, the public debt amounted to twenty millions, but by the time the
South Sea Company was started the arrears of pay made it half as much
again. Part of the great scheme was to advance this amount on security
of English customs duties amounting to L600,000 per annum, and a
monopoly of the Spanish trade in the Indies as far as the _Assiento_
contract would permit.

Whether the whole affair was a fraud from the commencement is doubtful;
there were certainly misrepresentations in the prospectus, either wilful
or possibly in good faith. Spain w