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.

... Our English plantations grew ... very jealous of this new colony:
they feared, that the double prospect of finding gold and of robbing the
Spaniards, would draw many planters from them into this new settlement;
and that the buccaneers might run into them: for by the Scotch act, this
place was to be made a free port; and if it was not ruined before it was
well formed, they reckoned it would become a seat of piracy and another
Algiers in those parts. Upon these grounds, the English nation inclined
to declare against this, and the King seemed convinced, that it was an
infraction of his treaties with Spain: so orders were sent, but very
secretly, to the English plantations, particularly to Jamaica and the
Leeward islands, to forbid all commerce with the Scots at Darien. The
Spaniards made some faint attempts on them, but without success. This
was a very great difficulty on the King; he saw how much he was like to
be pressed on both hands, and he apprehended what ill consequences were
like to follow, on his declaring himself either way.

D. INDIGNATION IN SCOTLAND (1699).

+Source.+--Bishop Burnet's _History of His Own Times_, vol. iv., p.
429. (Oxford: 1833.)

In Scotland all men were full of hopes, that their new colony should
bring them home mountains of gold; the proclamations sent to Jamaica and
to the other English plantations were much complained of, as acts of
hostility, and a violation of the common rights of humanity; these had a
great effect on them, though without these, that colony was too weak and
too ill supplied, as well as too much divided within itself, to have
subsisted long; those, who had first possessed themselves of it, were
forced to abandon it: soon after they had gone from it, a second recruit
of men and provisions was sent thither from Scotland; but one of their
ships un