ocv S? PAPERS RELATING TO THE SHIPS AND VOYAGES OF THE COMPANY OF SCOTLAND TRADING TO AFRICA AND THE INDIES 1696-1707 Edited by GEORGE PRATT INSH, M.A., D.Litt. (Glasgow) RESEARCH FELLOW, GLASGOW UNIVERSITY PRINCIPAL LECTURER IN HISTORY, GLASGOW TRAINING CENTRE Printed at the University Press by T. and A. Constable Ltd. for the Scottish History Society 1924 Printed in Great Britain PREFACE This volume is a selection from the large amount of fresh manuscript material to which I have had access during my study of the activities of the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies, commonly known as the Darien Company. Some of the papers, such as the correspondence of Sir Paul Rycaut, reveal in clear detail episodes known hitherto only in vague outline ; other documents, such as those dealing with the voyage of the Speedwell to the China Seas, throw light on enterprises not previously dealt with by historians of the Darien Company. In collecting this material I have received invaluable aid from several friends. Mr. J. J. Spencer has placed at my disposal his collection of Darien books, pamphlets, and manuscripts. Mr. Hugh Pillans of Edinburgh has given me the transcripts he had made of the Darien papers in the Archives of the Royal Bank. Mr. William Angus, Curator of the Historical Department of the Register House, and the staff of the Advocates’ Library have in every possible way facilitated my work among the manuscripts of which they have charge. To the Directors of the Royal Bank and to the Council of the Royal Society I am indebted for permission to use the Darien papers in their Archives. The Training Centre, Jordan hill, Glasgow, June 1924. PUBLICATIONS OF THE SCOTTISH HISTORY SOCIETY THIRD SERIES VOLUME VI PAPERS RELATING TO THE SHIPS AND VOYAGES OF THE COMPANY OF SCOTLAND TRADING TO AFRICA AND THE INDIES 1696-1707 1924 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION, ix CHAPTER I PREPARATIONS FOR THE FIRST EXPEDITION— A. —The Despatch of Commissioners, .... 1 B. —The Scots Commissioners at Hamhurg, . 6 C. —The Scots at Hamburg, from the Departure of the Commissioners to the Sailing of the Ships, 34 D. —Expert Advice concerning Darien, ... 48 E. —Assemrling and Fitting Out, .... .'55 CHAPTER II THE FIRST EXPEDITION, 1698-1699— A. —Sailing Orders, ...... 64 B. -—A Journal kept from Scotland by one of the Company who sailed on board the Endeavour Pink ; with a short account of Darien, . 69 C. —Captain Pennycook’s Journall from the Madera Islands to New Caledonia in Darien, . 78 D. —The Voyage of Captain Richard Long, . 97 E. —First News of the Colony, . 107 F. —The Abandonment of the First Colony, . 108 G. —The Darien Ships at New York, . .115 H. —The Caledonia in the Clyde, . 129 CHAPTER III THE SECOND EXPEDITION, 1699-1700— A. —Leger kept at Glasgow by Peter Murdoch for African Comp*, . .135 B. —The Sailing of the Second Expedition, 1699? • 181 viii DARIEN SHIPPING PAPERS C.—Accompt of Prime Cost and Charges of Outrick Provisions & Cargo on Board the Indian and African Company** Ship the Speedy Retube for Caledonia Cap1 John Baillie Commander dis- bursed by William Arbuckle Merchant in Glasgow, for Accott of the said Company, . 191 CHAPTER IV TRADE WITH THE EAST— A. —Negotiations with the Armenian Merchants, . 219 B. —The Voyage of the Speedwell to the China Seas, 229 C. —The Voyage of the Content and the Speedy Return to Madagascar, ..... 243 D. —Other Eastern Designs, ..... 249 E. —Warrant for the Capture of the East India ship Worcester, Captain Green, . , . 26l APPENDIX A.—Schedule for the Construction of one of the Darien Ships, 267 B.—Darien Manuscripts in Archives of the Royal Society, 271 INDEX, 275 ILLUSTRATIONS Chart of Caledonia Bay, Frontispiece (From Earl of Levcn's Darien MSS., Advocates’ Library.) Arms of the Company of Scotland, . to face page x INTRODUCTION One of the noteworthy features of Scottish colonial projects is that the results they achieved invariably differed widely from those originally aimed at: Sir William Alexander’s efforts to found a New Scotland beyond the Atlantic led to the capture, by a fleet of Anglo-Scottish privateers, of Champlain’s fortress of Quebec ; the deputation of West- land Covenanters who went up to London to negotiate with the Lords Proprietors of Carolina concerning the site of a Scottish colony of refuge, became involved in the great Whig Insurrectionary Plot; and the Company of Scotland, whose chief title to remembrance has been the tragic failure of its efforts to establish a colony on the Isthmus of Darien, was founded for the purpose of trafficking in the Indian and China seas. The credit—or the notoriety—of being the founder of the Company of Scotland is generally ascribed to William Paterson. This assumption, however, is hardly borne out by an examination of the early history of the Company. Moreover, Paterson, though not backward in emphasising the importance of the part he had played in establishing the Bank of England, at no time laid claim to be the projector of the Company of Scotland : on one important occasion, indeed, he was at some pains publicly to deny the imputa- tion. The ‘ Act for a Company Tradeing to Affrica and the Indies,’ which on 26th June 1695 was finally read, voted, and approven in the Scottish Parliament, and thereafter touched with the sceptre by His Majesty’s Commissioner, was the outcome of a prolonged and persistent campaign b DARIEN SHIPPING PAPERS carried on by a group of influential London merchants comprising both Englishmen and Scotsmen—a campaign which had for its objective the turning of the flank of the strongly entrenched monopoly of the English East India Company. The Eastern aspirations of the founders of the Company of Scotland are revealed significantly in the arms of the Company. They are revealed even more significantly in the history of the early activities of the Company. Im- mediately after the successful inauguration of the Company in London, in the late autumn of 1695, the London Directors discussed the question of fitting out, with all haste, a vessel from Scotland for the East India trade. The London life of the Company was brief and troubled : under the bitter and determined attacks of the all-powerful English East India Company the Anglo-Scottish venture soon collapsed. When some months later it was established in Edinburgh as a purely Scottish concern—almost, indeed, a Scottish national concern—the Scottish Directors sent two com- missioners abroad ‘ to inform themselves of the best and most expeditious way of purchasing or building five or six ships of about 600 tons each, well and sufficiently built, and such as are fit for voyages to the East Indies.’ It was, moreover, ‘ to consider what place might be fitted for the ships belonging to the Indian Company ’ that Paterson, in June 1696, came through to Glasgow and, along with the Lord Provost, rode down the riverside to Dumbarton. This investigation of the shipping facilities of Clydeside, however, is symptomatic of a coming change in the policy of the Company, a change effected solely through the influence of Paterson. A month after his Glasgow visit, Paterson laid before the Court of Directors ‘ certain Manu- scripts, Books, Journals, Reckonings, and illuminated ARMS OF THE COMPANY OF SCOTLAND INTRODUCTION xi Mapps and others papers of discovery ’; among these was a manuscript copy of Lionel Wafer’s Journal of his travels across the Isthmus of Darien. The Directors proceeded with admirable caution. They made no public announce- ment of their policy. They resolved ‘ that some particular discoveries of the greatest moment to the designs of the Company should be committed to writing, sealed, and kept in safe custody ’ ; Paterson was encouraged ‘ freely to bestow all his pains and time henceforward in prose- cuting the undertaking.’ A few weeks later an Edinburgh physician and four assistants were preparing medical stores for an expedition of fifteen hundred men for two years. Arrangements were also made on a large scale for collecting provisions and trade goods. Already in his dreams Pater- son could see the realisation of his project of establishing on the Isthmus of Darien a great world emporium—that project for which ten years before, on his return from the West Indies, he had vainly tried throughout Europe to find a sponsor. In the stir and excitement of these new and fascinating plans the Eastern designs of the Company were jostled into the background. But these Eastern designs survived both the hectic dreams and the dismal realities of the American expeditions. And when the rank growth of the tropical jungle had finally obliterated the clearing that had been New Edinburgh, when the name of Darien lived on the lips of Scotsmen merely as the slogan of a bitter party warfare—the Eastern trading plans were quietly revived. n Two voyages were made by the Company’s ships to the Eastern seas. One voyage, that of a ship called the Speedwell, can be traced in realistic detail. Our knowledge of the Speedwell and its adventures is derived from four xii DARIEN SHIPPING PAPERS documents : the charter-party ; a precise and lengthy set of instructions issued to the supercargo ; and two long letters sent from Malacca by the supercargo. The first of these documents, dated London, 30th September 1700, is the record, written on stout parchment in a fair clerkly hand, of the Articles made and agreed upon ‘ Between Mr. Robert Blackwood, Junior, Merchant of Edinburgh and Co., Proprietors of the Ship Speedwell and Cargo, Captain John Campbell, Commander, and Robert Innes, First Supracargoe, for a Voyage intended, with God’s per- mission, for China and the East Indies.’ ‘ The Company * —so runs the first article—‘ are to fitt out the said Ship, Being of Burthen 250 Tunns or thereabout with all Neces- saries and Accommodations proper for so great an Under- taking, and [it] is to depart from this for Scotland with all convenient speed, wind and weather permitting, where the said supra cargoe is to receive a New Commission from the Company trading to those parts.’ This new commission, dated from Edinburgh, 12th December 1700, gives a vivid glimpse of the working con- ditions of Eastern trade.