their commercial interests, as well as those who would be actuated to
increase their own interests. The Massacre of Glencoe had no little
share in the matter. This massacre, which occurred February 13, 1692, is
the foulest blot in the annals of crime. It was deliberately planned by
Sir John Dalrymple and others, ordered by king William, and executed by
Captain Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, in the most treacherous, brutal,
atrocious, and bloodthirsty manner imaginable, and perpetrated without
the shadow of a reasonable excuse--infancy and old age, male and female
alike perished. The bare recital of it is awful; and the barbarity of
the American savage pales before it. In every quarter, even at court,
the account of the massacre was received with horror and indignation.
The odium of the nation rose to a great pitch, and demanded that an
inquiry be made into this atrocious affair. The appointment of a
commission was not wrung from the unwilling king until April 29, 1695.
The commission, as a whole, acted with great fairness, although they put
the best possible construction on the king's order, and threw the whole
blame on Secretary Dalrymple. The king was too intimately connected with
the crime to make an example of any one, although through public
sentiment he was forced to dismiss Secretary Dalrymple. Not one of those
actually engaged in the perpetration of the crime were dismissed from
the army, or punished for the butchery, otherwise than by the general
hatred of the age in which they lived, and the universal execration of
posterity. The tide of feeling set in against king William, and before
it had time to ebb the Darien Scheme was projected. The friends of
William seized the opportunity to persuade him that some freedom and
facilities of trade should be granted the Scotch, and that would divert
public attention from the Glencoe massacre. Secretary Dalrymple also was
not slow to give it the support of his eloquence and interest, in hopes
to regain thereby a part of his lost popularity.

The originator of the Darien Scheme was William Paterson, founder of the
Bank of England, a man of comprehensive views and great sagacity, born
in Scotland, a missionary in the Indies, and a buccaneer among the West
India islands. During his roving course of life he had visited the
isthmus of Panama--then called Darien--and brought away only pleasant
recollections of that narrow strip of land that unites North and South
America. On his