=58. Darien Scheme.=--Just at this time the public attention was taken up with a scheme for founding a new colony on the _Isthmus of Darien_, and people's minds were so full of it that nothing else was thought of. It was got up by _William Paterson_, who is to be remembered as the originator of the _Bank of England_. He fancied that he had found, what _Columbus_ and the other navigators of his day had sought in vain, a short cut to the _Indies_. His plan was to plant a colony on the isthmus which unites _North_ and _South America_, and to make it the route by which the merchandise of the East should be brought to Europe, thereby shortening the long sea-voyage. He drew glowing pictures of the untold wealth that would thus fall to the lot of those who were clear-sighted enough to join in the venture. A charter was granted to the new Company, which gave them a monopoly of the trade with Asia, Africa, and America for a term of thirty-one years, with leave to import all goods duty free, except foreign sugar and tobacco. Never had project been so popular. Every one was anxious to take shares. Half the capital of Scotland was invested in it, and poor and rich alike, deceived by _Paterson's_ lying stories of the healthiness and fertility of the soil and climate, were eager to hasten to the new colony. A few vessels were bought at _Hamburg_ and _Amsterdam_. In these twelve hundred emigrants set sail on the 25th July, 1698, and arrived safely on the shore of the Gulf of _Darien_. They named the settlement which they founded there _New Caledonia_, and built a town and a fort, to which they gave the names of _New Edinburgh_ and _St. Andrews_. But, to set up such a trading market with any hopes of success, they ought to have had the good will and help of the great trading countries of Europe. Instead of this, _England_ and _Holland_ were much opposed to the scheme, as being an interference with their trading rights. The _East India Company_ looked on the bringing in of Eastern merchandise to Scotland as an infringement of their privileges. _Spain_ too claimed the Isthmus as her own, and seized one of the Scottish ships; while the Governor of the English colonies in North America refused to let them have supplies. In addition to these difficulties from without, the climate was wretchedly unhealthy. Disease quickly thinned their ranks, till at last the miserable remnant whom it spared were glad to flee from almost certain death. They deserted the new settlement, and set sail for _New York_. Meanwhile such glowing reports of the success of the venture had been spread abroad at home, that a second body of thirteen hundred emigrants, ignorant of the fate of those who had gone before them, set sail in _August_ of the next year. They found the colony deserted, and the colonists gone. They themselves fared no better than the first settlers, and were in a few months driven out by the Spaniards. The Scottish people were deeply mortified and much