millions sterling, to be lent for the public service upon interest at eight per cent. The old East India Company had offered to advance seven hundred thousand pounds, at four per cent. The necessities of the time made the offer of the highest sum most acceptable. The Whigs carried the New Company against the Tories, who supported the Old Company. In four more years the rival Companies were united.

Two months after the opening of Parliament, the Commons went up with an Address to the king, praying that he would issue his proclamation commanding all magistrates to put in execution the laws against profaneness and immorality; and they added a request that he would take measures "for suppressing all pernicious books and pamphlets, which contain in them impious doctrines against the Holy Trinity, and other fundamental articles of our faith." An Act was then passed for the suppression of Socinian doctrines. To combat profaneness and immorality, the principle of Association was to come to the aid of the government. Societies for the Reformation of Manners had for some time been in activity. Their business was to lay informations before the magistrates of swearers, drunkards, sabbath-breakers, and other offenders, and to appropriate that portion of the fines which were earned by common informers, to purposes of charity. Two Associations of greater practical utility were the "Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge," and the "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts," both established about this period, and both mainly owing to the efforts of one man, Thomas Bray, a native of Shropshire. Not the least of the opposing influences to any reformation of morals was the licentiousness of the Stage. The Lord Chamberlain, the Master of the Revels, and the more earnest part of the public remonstrated in vain. The morality of the age of the Restoration still tainted the Stage of the Revolution. The Court of William and Mary, in its seclusion at Kensington, had little influence upon the world of fashion; and thus there was no perceptible effect upon manners in the decorous example of the highest in the land.

William's ambassador, the earl of Portland, made his public entry into Paris with a sumptuous retinue on the 9th of March. He had previously had a private audience of Louis at Versailles. The French were charmed with the English ambassador; it became the fashion to see him, to fête him, to attend his parties. In the meantime count Tallard had arrived in London, to be introduced to William in the humble cabinet at Kensington. The correspondence of this ambassador with his master shows how narrowly every political movement in this country was watched; what anxiety there was to propitiate the ministers of the king, and the leaders of the opposition; how every indication of popular feeling was observed and noted down. The instructions of count Tallard to king James are conceived in the same spirit of concealed dislike to the government of William, and inculcate the same watchfulness over every manifestation of party hostility or popular discontent. Portland was instructed to say for William, that he so ardently desired the preservation of peace that he was not averse from listening to any proposal calculated to ensure its continuance, even in the event of the demise of the king of Spain "'—an occurrence which he feared, with the prescience of a sound

A.D. 1697-1700.

RESTRICTIVE COMMERCIAL POLICY.

479

statesman, might "again plunge all Europe in war.' Rouse the allies on all sides to the necessity of remaining armed, was the earnest exhortation of William to the Grand Pensionary of Holland. "I wish I could be armed, too," he sighed, "but I see little appearance of it."

There was a sovereign at this time in England, who had no voice in the Congress of the Hague-no interests to assert at the peace of Ryswick. This was Peter I., Czar of Muscovy, for whom William hired Mr. Evelyn's house at Sayes Court, that he might see the building of ships in the dockyards at Deptford and Woolwich. After his day's work as a carpenter at Rotherhithe, upon a ship that was building for him, Peter recreated himself with beer and brandy, and smoked his pipe at an alehouse on Tower Hill. He was a very incomprehensible monarch to the English people-by no means like a ruler who was to found a mighty empire, whose growth has been the terror of Western Europe.

In the commercial policy of England at the end of the seventeenth century all industrial operations were conducted upon the system of Prevention and Encouragement. But there was, probably, no manifestation of commercial jealousy more absurd than the interference of England with the free course of the industry of Ireland and Scotland. Scotland, in the time of William III., could not advantageously trade with the East Indies, in consequence of the monopoly of the East India Company. It could not trade with the American Plantations, in consequence of the Navigation Act. The ancient intercourse with France was cut off by the war with Louis XIV. The exchange of commodities with England was interrupted by prohibitions and heavy duties. The trade with the English colonies was absolutely forbidden. It is not surprising, therefore, that a kingdom which was beginning to feel the benefits of peaceful industry-a kingdom containing a most energetic and industrious population-should desire to seek new fields of enterprise. This national desire was manifested in the Act of the Parliament of Scotland in 1693, "for encouraging foreign trade," which provides that merchants may enter into societies for carrying on trade to any kingdoms or parts of the world, not being at war with our sovereign Lord and Lady. At the end of 1695, William Paterson, had been in London, and under the authority of a Scottish Act of Parliament, passed in the previous June, had in a few days obtained subscriptions to the amount of three hundred thousand pounds, for constituting a Company "for trading from Scotland to Africa, and the Indies." The ships of this favoured Company were to be free from all dues; the Company were to be privileged to fit out vessels of war; they were authorised to make settlements and build forts in any uninhabited places in Asia, Africa, or America; they might make alliances with sovereign powers; all other Scotsmen were prohibited from trading within their range, without licence from them. The English Parliament met in November, and in December the Lords and Commons went up with an Address to the king, to represent that this Scotch Act "was likely to bring many great prejudices and mischiefs to all his majesty's subjects who were concerned in the wealth or trade of this nation." They then resolved that the directors of the Scottish Company were guilty of a high crime and misdemeanor, upon the ground that under colour of a Scotch Act of Parliament these directors

had levied money, and had done other corporate acts in England, which could not be legally done without the sanction of the English Parliament. The English jealousy of commercial rivalry once roused, there could be no compromise which would make the speculation safe for the London capitalists. They forfeited their first instalments upon their shares. The angry mood of the English legislature had roused the public spirit in Scotland, and in six months from the opening of the subscription books, the sum of four hundred thousand pounds was subscribed. There were a

few large subscriptions from the nobility and the higher mercantile classes; but the majority of the subscribers were professional men and shopkeepers. ♦ The ledgers of the Company show that some large subscribers were guaranteed by the directors. Twenty-five per cent. upon the subscriptions was, however, paid up within the year, or very nearly so. With this amount in hand, somewhat less than a hundred thousand pounds, the Company began to engage in magnificent undertakings. They issued bank notes; and with this device, and with the general confidence in their credit, they collected stores and built warehouses. But their means were still found inadequate to their ambition. They attempted to dispose of stock at Hamburg, but were interfered with by the English resident. Remonstrances were made to king William, but he afforded no redress to the complaints of his Scottish lieges. It was more than difficult for him to steer a just and prudent course as the sovereign of two kingdoms having such conflicting interests in their unnatural separation.

On the 26th of July, 1698, three vessels purchased from the Dutch, and armed as ships of war, sailed from Leith, with twelve hundred men on board. The destination of the adventurers was unknown to them. Paterson was on board one of the vessels, the Saint Andrew, but in no responsible position. Throughout the voyage the projector of the colony was at issue with the officers of the ship and the Council appointed by the Directors. The passengers were soon reduced to short allow ance. On the 4th of November, they landed at a point in the Gulf of Darien. This spot was a peninsula united to the mainland, and capable at its narrower junction of being fortified. The Colony was to be settled on that mainland, which was to be called New Caledonia. Seven gentlemen had been appointed for the government of the settlement. It had been ostentatiously proclaimed that the Scottish Colony was to be the great emporium of free commerce. The adventurers had little acquaintance with the difficulties of colonisation, and knew not the obstacles that would prevent a body of private men, unsupported by the strong arm of a government, from planting themselves on the Isthmus of Panama, and becoming the medium of commercial intercourse between the Atlantic and the Pacific. They sent civil messages to the governors of the neighbouring Spanish settlements. Their overtures were rejected with disdain. Soon they got into conflict with the Spaniards, in taking part in a dispute between them and some friendly Indians. At Carthagena a vessel of the Company, armed with fourteen guns, running into the bay, the captain and crew were seized and condemned to death as pirates. The English resident interfered and saved the men. The authorities of the Colony now declared war against Spain, and attacked the ships of that

A.D. 1695-1700. DISASTERS OF THE DARIEN COLONISTS. 481

power. The Court of Spain, by its ambassador, made a formal representation to the government in London, that its territory had been invaded by the subjects of king William. The proceedings in the Gulf of Darien had alarmed the English government previous to this remonstrance; and notice had been sent to the governors of English colonies in the West Indies, and in America, that the objects of the expedition had been unknown to the king, and that the proceedings of the adventurers had not his sanction. The colonists soon began severely to feel the want of food. No supply from home had reached them, for Scotland itself was suffering from a fearful deficiency of harvest. The unhappy settlers could find no exchangers amongst the Indians. They had sent in vain to Jamaica to obtain supplies, for a proclamation had been published prohibiting all English subjects from holding any sort of correspondence with them, under the severest penalties. In the huts which they had built pestilence found its seat, side by side with famine. In June, those who remained alive resolved to abandon the land to which they had gone with such eager hopes. They sailed away, sick and feeble, in their three vessels, two of which arrived in New York, and one at Jamaica, with the remnant of the colonists in a state of indescribable wretchedness. Paterson was amongst their number. In the meantime another expedition from Scotland had been organised. Two vessels with provisions were sent out in May; and in September, thirteen hundred men, ignorant of the unhappy fate of those who had gone before them, set sail from Leith. When the truth became known in Scotland, of their lamentable failure in the scheme which had raised the hopes of the nation to an extravagant height, the Directors sent out another squadron under military command; and ordered their officers to pay no respect to any authority but that of the Secretary of State for Scotland. The expedition which had left in September, as well as those which had preceded them, had been insufficiently provided with a stock of food. For the most part they kept on board the vessels, quarrelling with each other, and ready for any act of mutiny. Accounts at last reached them, that the Spaniards were preparing to attack the Scottish settlement with an overwhelming force. Then Campbell of Finab, who had come out with the warlike instructions of the Company, led two hundred men, by a wearisome march of three days, across the Isthmus ; and finding a Spanish force on the river Santa Maria, took the post by storm. The Spaniards fled from this fierce onslaught; and Campbell and his band marched triumphantly back with their spoils of war. During their absence five Spanish men of war had arrived. The settlement was blockaded by an overpowering naval squadron. It was surrounded by large bodies of troops by land. A surrender was inevitable. On the 18th of March the settlement was abandoned, upon terms of capitulation which had been agreed upon with the governor of Carthagena.

The wrongs of the Indian and African Company were echoed from the English border to the remotest north. The Scottish Parliament was not propitiated by a temperate and conciliatory message from the king, that it had been to him a deep regret that he could not agree to the assertion of the right of the Company's Colony in Darien; that he was fully satisfied that his yielding in this matter would have infallibly disturbed the general '

peace of Christendom, and have brought on a heavy war, in which he could expect no assistance. The Parliament agreed to a series of resolutions, in which the national grievances of Darien were recapitulated, as if Scotland rejected all considerations of the general peace of Christendom, and stood isolated amongst the nations, proud and defiant. The House of Lords addressed the king in terms of strong condemnation of the proceedings of the colonists at Darien, and of approbation of the means adopted by the colonial governor to discourage and injure them. William, in his reply, declared that he was very sensibly touched with the loss his Scotch subjects had sustained, and he took "this opportunity of putting the House of Peers in mind of what he recommended to his Parliament soon after his accession to the throne, that they would consider of a Union between the two kingdoms."

CHAPTER XXXVII.

IN 1698, the question of the succession to the throne of Spain was very complicated. Charles II. was equally enfeebled in body and mind, and he had no issue. Louis XIV. had married Charles's eldest sister; but upon their marriage, the Infanta of Spain, by a solemn contract, had renounced for herself and her successors, all claim to the Spanish crown. The emperor Leopold had married a younger sister, and she had made a similar renunciation, which, however, was considered of none effect, from not having been confirmed by the Cortes. Her daughter had married the elector of Bavaria, and their son, the electoral prince, was the inheritor of his mother's claim. The emperor himself was a claimant to the succession in his own person, for he was the grandson of Philip III. of Spain, and first cousin to Charles II. Thus, the question of the Spanish succession influenced the political combinations of Europe. William's most anxious hours had been given to discussions with Tallard, the French ambassador, of the terms of a treaty which would reconcile these conflicting claims. Tallard wrote to Louis that the English nation "consider the partition of the succession of the king of Spain as something in which they must take a part." The scheme of a partition of the vast dominions of the crown of Spain unquestionably originated with the court of France. It was formally proposed to Portland soon after his arrival in Paris, as "a thing of the greatest importance, and which demanded the greatest secrecy." In the summer of 1698, William made his usual journey to Holland. Tallard was invited to follow the king, and the negotiations were resumed at Loo. William negotiated these treaties upon purely defensive principles. They had no reference to the especial advantage of England or the States-General, beyond their protection against the first imminent danger of a vast addition to the power of France, or the secondary danger of a similar addition to the power of Austria. On the 24th of