Scotland, in 1704, when the _Worcester_ was thus blown into the port of Leith, was again having her troubles, all of which were turning around the hoodooed Scotch African-Indian company. That afflicted corporation had already marked the _Content_ and the _Speedy Return_ off the register as unaccountably missing, when behold a sister ship of these two, the _Annandale_, imprudently venturing into the Thames, was seized by the English East India Company in the assertion of its exclusive rights in the Indies, one of the impudent things which so endeared that company to the rest of the trading world. Now add that grievance to the dreary Darien affair, already laid, as we have seen, at the door of the English company, and you can understand why “Annandale” became a slogan in Scotland and the focus of all its hate. Public opinion whirled the Scottish authorities into action. These petitioned the return of the _Annandale_, but in vain; the tenacity of the East India Company, capable of holding a country of hundreds of millions of people in its fist, regarded the Scotch protest as lightly as some folks do their debts. To have and to hold was its motto, though all the kilted Highlanders beyond the border skirled in a fury of revenge. The Scot, however, is no baby; nay, he has considerable iron in his own system, and a turn for definite action himself. “Verra guid, mon,” said the north to the south, “verra guid; ther’s an English ship cam’ into Leith; you keep the _Annandale_; we tak’ your Englishman.” Which they promptly did--none other than the _Worcester_. Captain Green was certainly now in a pickle. The Scotch government seized his ship and now he had to stand around with his hands in his pockets and wait the problematic issue of all this international bickering. And the thousand pounds’ worth of patiently collected cargo, the fruit of the peculiar industry of many Cogis--that, too, was sealed by the authorities so that a man dare not take as much as enough for a cup of coffee from the hold. If he had been an East Indian Company ship he might have seen a little sense to it all; but what cared he for either the Scotch or the English companies? Very little, indeed, and yet--well, it was beyond words, even purple maritime words. He plumped down in his cabin to wait.