sulting from the
enterprise, and England's jealousy of trade at once interfered to crush
an adventure which seemed so promising. The English East India Company
instigated a cry, echoed by the city of London, and taken up by the
nation, which induced their parliament, when it met for the first time,
after the elections of 1695, to give its unequivocal condemnation to the
scheme. One peer declared, "If these Scots are to have their way I shall
go and settle in Scotland, and not stay here to be made a beggar." The
two Houses of Parliament went up together to Kensington and represented
to the king the injustice of requiring England to exert her power in
support of an enterprise which, if successful, must be fatal to her
commerce and to her finances. William replied in plain terms that he had
been illy-treated in Scotland, but that he would try to find a remedy
for the evil which had been brought to his attention. At once he
dismissed Lord High Commissioner Tweeddale and Secretary Johnston; but
the Act which had been passed under their management still continued to
be law in Scotland.

The Darien Company might have surmounted the opposition of the English
parliament and the East India Company, had not the Dutch East India
Company--a body remarkable for its monopolizing character--also joined
in the outcry against the Scottish enterprise; incited thereto by the
king through Sir Paul Rycaut, the British resident at Hamburg, directing
him to transmit to the senate of that commercial city a remonstrance on
the part of king William, accusing them of having encouraged the
commissioners of the Darien Company; requesting them to desist from
doing so; intimating that the plan had not the king's support; and a
refusal to withdraw their countenance from the scheme would threaten an
interruption to his friendship with the good city of Hamburg. The result
of this interference was the almost total withdrawal of the Dutch and
English subscriptions, which was accelerated by the threatened
impeachment, by the English parliament, of such persons who had
subscribed to the Company; and, furthermore, were compelled to renounce
their connection with the Company, besides misusing some native-born
Scotchmen who had offended the House by subscribing their own money to a
company formed in their own country, and according to their own laws.

The managers of the scheme, supported by the general public of Scotland,
entered a strong protest against the