Darien Disaster

This is a welcome and long-overdue reissue of the late John Prebble's 1968 classic about Scotland's disastrous venture into creation of a trading colony. Even today, the Scots do not like to talk about Darien - it remains a scar on their national consciousness, one that arouses bitterness and helps to inflame anti-English passions. In the 1690s the Scottish parliament overcame royal opposition, voting to set up a trading company and settle a colony on the Panama isthmus. The colony, Darien, was the brainchild of William Paterson, a Scot to his core although he helped to found the Bank of England. Paterson described his utopian colony as 'the door of the seas and the key of the universe'. Doubters were assured, 'Trade will increase and money will beget money.' Paterson convinced himself, and most of his countrymen, that Darien would become a cultural and trading bridge between East and West, a portal for the world's wealth - a sort of Hong Kong well before its time. He proved to be woefully wrong. The Scots' determination was reinforced by the reaction from England. The London parliament scorned what it regarded as too uppity an idea, and English MPs did all they could to undermine the venture. Nettled by this, the enthusiastic Scots sank half of the nation's wealth into their dream - and lost the lot. One disaster followed another due to the machinations in England, the armed opposition of Spain and the quarrelsome stupidity of Darien's leaders. Thousands of colonists died, ships were destroyed or abandoned, and in three years a bankrupt Scotland faced the ignominious reality of a forced union with England. John Prebble, the author of many Scottish histories, spared no nationalist agonies in compiling this first detailed account of the Darien disaster. He drew upon journals, letters and memoirs of those who believed they could turn William Paterson's dream into reality, and his writing is as compelling as are the salutary incidents he narrates. (Kirkus UK)