... The company in Scotland, this year, set out a fleet, with a colony, on design to settle in America: the secret was better kept than could have been well expected, considering the many hands in which it was lodged; it appeared at last, that the true design had been guessed, from the first motion of it: they landed at Darien, which, by the report that they sent over, was capable of being made a strong place, with a good port. It was no wonder that the Spaniards complained loudly of this; it lay so near Porto Bello and Panama on the one side, and Carthagena on the other, that they could not think they were safe, when such a neighbour came so near the centre of their Empire in America: the King of France complained also of this, as an invasion of the Spanish dominions, and offered the court of Madrid a fleet to dislodge them. The Spaniards pressed the King hard upon this: they said, they were once possessed of that place; and though they found it too unhealthy to settle there, yet the right to it belonged still to them: so this was a breach of treaties, and a violent possession of their country. In answer to this, the Scotch pretended, that the natives of Darien were never conquered by the Spaniards, and were by consequence a free people; they said, they had purchased of them leave to possess themselves of that place, and that the Spaniards abandoned the country, because they could not reduce the natives: so the pretension of the first discovery was made void, when they went off from it, not being able to hold it; and then the natives being left to themselves, it was lawful for the Scots to treat with them: it was given out, that there was much gold in the country. Certainly, the nation was so full of hopes from this project, that they raised a fund for carrying it on, greater than, as was thought, that kingdom could stretch to; four hundred thousand pounds sterling was subscribed, and a fourth part was paid down, and afterwards, seventy thousand pounds more was brought in, and a national fury seemed to have transported the whole kingdom, upon this project.