Volume 3 > Half-Volume 5

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journey into the interior, accompanied by a Lieu-
tenant Turnbull, who had some slight knowledge of
the Indian language. They spent several nights in
the cabins of the natives, by whom they were re-
ceived with great kindness; and on their return
brought back to the colonists the first notice of the
approach of the Spaniards. When apprised of all
the circumstances, the directors felt highly indignant
at the conduct of those who, upon such slight grounds,
had left the settlement desolate; and whose glory,
they said, it ought to have been to have perished
there, rather than to have abandoned it so shame-
fully. In their letters to their new councillors and
officers they implored them to keep the example of
their predecessors before their eyes as a beacon, and
to avoid those ruinous dissensions and shameful
vices on which they had wrecked so hopeful an
enterprise. "It is a lasting disgrace," they add,
" to the memories of those officers who went in the
first expedition, that even the meanest planters were
scandalized at the licentiousness of their lives, many
of them living very intemperately and viciously for
many months at the public charge, whilst the sober
and industrious among them were vigilant in doing
their duty. Nor can we, upon serious reflection,
wonder if an enterprise of this nature has misgiven
in the hands of such as, we have too much reason to
believe, neither feared God nor regarded man."
They also blamed the old council heavily for desert-
ing the place without ever calling a parliament or
general meeting of the colony, or in any way con-
sulting their inclinations, but commanding them to
a blind and implicit obedience, which is more than
they ever can be answerable for. "Wherefore,"
they continue, "we desire you would constitute a
parliament, whose advice you are to take in all im-
portant matters. And in the meantime you are to
acquaint the officers and planters with the constitu-
tions, and the few additional ones sent with Mr.
Mackay, that all and every person in the colony may
know their duty, advantages, and privileges.
Alarmed by the accounts which they soon after re-
ceived from Darien, the council-general of the com-
pany despatched a proclamation, declaring " that it
shall be lawful to any person, of whatever degree,
inhabiting the colony, not only to protest against,
but to disobey and oppose, any resolution to desert
the colony;" and, "that it shall be death, either
publicly or privately, to move, deliberate, or reason
upon any such desertion or surrender, without special
order from the council-general for that effect. And
they order and require the council of Caledonia to
proclaim this solemnly, as they shall be answerable."
Before this act was passed in Edinburgh, however,
New Caledonia was once more evacuated. The
men had set busily to the rebuilding the huts and
repairing the fort; but strenuous efforts were still
made in the council to discourage them, by those
who wished to evacuate the settlement. Veitch was
with difficulty allowed to protest against some of
their resolutions; and for opposing them with warmth
Captain Drummond was laid under arrest. Speak-
ing of Drummond, Mr. Shields says, " Under God,
it is owing to him and the prudence of Captain
Veitch that we have stayed here so long, which was
no small difficulty to accomplish." And again, "If
we had not met with Drummond at our arrival, we
had never settled in this place, Byers and Lindsay
being averse from it, and designing to discourage it
from the very first; Gibson being indifferent if he got
his pipe and dram; only Veitch remained resolved to
promote it, who was all along Drummond's friend,
and concurred with his proposal to send men against
the Spaniards at first, and took the patronizing as
long as he could conveniently, but with such caution
and prudence, as to avoid and prevent animosity
and faction, which he saw were unavoidable, threat-
ening the speedier dissolution of this interest, if he
should insist on the prosecution of that plea, and in
opposition to that spate that was running against
Drummond. But now Finab coming, who was
Drummond's comrade and fellow-officer in Lorn's
regiment in Flanders, he is set at liberty." This was
the son of Colonel Campbell of Finab, who, with
300 of his own men, had come out and joined this
last party about two months after their arrival. The
Spanish troops meantime, from Panama and Santa
Maria, conducted through the woods by negroes,
were approaching them. They had advanced, to the
number of 1600 men, as far as Tubucantee, in the
immediate neighbourhood of the colony, when Finab
marched against them with 200 men, and defeated
them in a slight skirmish, in which he was wounded.
The victory, which at one time would have been
of signal service to the colony, was now unavailing;
a fleet of eleven ships, under the command of the
governor of Carthagena, Don Juan Pimienta, having
blocked up the harbour and landed a number of
troops, who, advancing along with the party which
had found their way through the woods, invested the
fort. Cut off from water, reduced by sickness, and
otherwise dispirited, the garrison was loud in its
demands for a capitulation, and the council had no
other alternative but to comply with it. Finab being
laid up at the time with a fever, Veitch conducted
the treaty, and was allowed honourable terms. The
inhabitants of the colony having gone on shipboard
with all that belonged to them, they weighed anchor
on the nth of April, 1700, and sailed for Jamaica,
after having occupied New Caledonia somewhat
more than four months. The Hope, on board of
which was Captain Veitch and the greater part of
the property, was wrecked on the rocks of Color-
ades, on the western coast of Cuba. Veitch, how-
ever, was dead before this accident happened. The
Rising Sun was wrecked on the bar of Carolina,
and the captain and crew, with the exception of six-
teen persons who had previously landed, were lost.
Of the few survivors, some remained in the English
settlements, some died in Spanish prisons; and of the
3000 men that at different periods went out to the
settlement, perhaps not above twenty ever regained
their native land.
In this melancholy manner terminated the greatest
attempt at colonization ever made by Scotland. The
conception was splendid, the promise great and every
way worthy of the experiment; and but for the jeal-
ousy of the English and the Dutch, more particularly
the former, it must have succeeded. The settlers,
indeed, were not all well selected; the measures
actually pursued fatal to success; and above all, the
council were men of feeble minds, utterly unqualified
to act in a situation of such difficulty as that in
which they came to be placed. Had the wants of
the Scottish settlers been supplied by the English
colonies, which they could very well have been even
with advantage to the colonies, the first and most
fatal disunion and abandonment of their station
could not have happened; and had they been acknow-
ledged by their sovereign, the attack made upon
them by the Spaniards, which put an end to the
colony, would never have been made. Time would
have smoothed down the asperities among the
settlers themselves; experience would have corrected
their errors in legislation; and New Caledonia might
have become the emporium of half the commerce of
the world.
Mr. Paterson, not disheartened by the failure of