nor Intention immediately to follow an East-India Trade the apprehensions of which did so much alarm the Kingdom of England That it was not our Intention is evident from our rejecting the Proposals of our Countryman Mr. Douglas the East-India Merchant with which H s upbraids us by which at the same time he discovers his own folly and dishonesty his Folly in arguing against the Interest of England which he pretends to espouse and his Dishonesty in proposing our following a Trade which his new Masters who have paid him so well for his false Evidence look upon to be destructive to theirs That it was not our Interest immediately to think of an East-India Trade is evident from this that it would have exported our Mony with which it 's known we do not abound and ruin'd the Linen Manufacture of our Country upon which so many of our Poor depend This we think the City of London may be sensible of in a good measure by the multitudes of their own Silk-Weavers that are starv'd for want of Imployment and also by the unsuccessfulness of their own Linen Manufacture in England by reason of the great quantity of Silks Mullins Calicoes c. brought from the East-Indies from whence some wise Men have been and are still of opinion that an East-India Trade of that sort tends to the general Impoverishment of Europe tho it may enrich particular Persons These Considerations together with some Jealousies that Mr. Douglas might have been put upon making us that Proposal on purpose to divert us from our other Design of an American Trade were the true Reasons of our not hearkening to Mr. Douglas's Advice This our Neighbours might have known had they proceeded with us in such a friendly manner as we had reason to expect when we were so kind as to offer them a share in the Benefits of our Act. And the Government at the same time might soon have been satisfied that the sinking of their Customs by our one and twenty years Freedom from that Duty was a meer bugbear Pretence It is evident that we could not have spent much East-India Goods in Scotland and therefore must have exported them If we had brought them to England they were liable to Customs there If we had offer'd to run them over the Border they could as well have prevented that as the stealing over their own Corn and Wool and if we had exported them to any other places of Europe the English by their Draw-backs could have done it in effect as cheap as we By all which it appears that there was no solid Foundation for any of those pretended Reasons why the Government in particular or the English in general should have oppos'd us and we wish that upon due inquiry it may not be found to be the effect of Dutch Councils for that People being jealous of their Trade and Rivals to England on that account cannot be suppos'd to have sat still and done nothing when they saw we had obtain'd such an Act and were resolv'd to take in the English to partake in our Trade which if suffer'd to go on might endanger theirs and enable the English to outrival them indeed besides the present loss they foresaw of our Custom the Scots having most of their East-India Goods from Holland This we have the more reason to suspect first because tho the English have formerly suffered in their Trade by the Incroachments and Intrigues of the Dutch but never by the Scots yet they have made no Application to his Majesty for preventing the like in time to come If it be said that he is but Stadtholder there whereas he is K. of Scots We can easily reply that it appears by what has been said already of our true Constitution that the Kings of Scotland were as much accountable to the States of that Nation as the Dutch Stadtholder is to the States of Holland The 2 d Reason we have to suspect the Influence of Dutch Councils in this Affair is this that 't is their Interest to keep us and the English from uniting and if possible of forcing us by that means into an Alliance with themselves to prevent their own ruin if England should after this come to fall out with them upon the account of Trade or otherwise and likewise to have their Privilege of fishing in our Seas continued which they know to be of such vast Advantage to them that they are shrewdly suspected of having by Bribes or other indirect Methods prevail'd with some great Men to supplant us as to the Benefits we had just reason to expect from the Act of 1661. incouraging our Fishery the Privileges granted by which are very considerable and to continue for ever nay to put it out of all doubt that they are join'd in this matter against us H s owns it as beforemention'd Being upon this subject we cannot but take notice of the difference betwixt the Spanish Memorials about Darien and of those late Memorials presented by them to our Court against their meddling with the Succession of that Monarchy or the cantoning it out into several Parcels in case the King of Spain die without issue The former tho insolent and huffing enough were procur'd by our Court therefore calmly digested and the desire of them effectually answer'd to the ruin almost of the Scotish Nation but the latter was no sooner presented than the Spanish Ambassadors are disgrac'd in England and Holland and forbid both Courts It may therefore deserve the Inquiry of our Neighbours what this Regulation about the Succession of Spain and the dismembring of their Monarchy is that occasion such outragious Memorials for there must needs be something in it that touches the Spaniards more sensibly than the business of Darien and which they did not complain of till they were put upon it and in like manner touches our Court more sensibly to the quick than any Memorials about that Affair tho they had not been of their own procurement were capable of doing Perhaps upon a narrow Scrutiny into this Affair it will be found that this keen and uninterrupted Opposition made to the Scots Settlement at Darien does not proceed from any foresight of damage that it could do to the Trade of England tho that be the specious Pretext but from a Cause which touches some People more nearly crosses their Project of dismembring the Spanish Monarchy and of having that important Post to their own share they know that they have a natural as well as political Interest in some great Courtiers and make little doubt of obtaining the preheminence before either of those Nations that compose the Empire of Great Britain It concerns our Neighbours so much the more to inquire into this because it is visible from the Resentments of it by the Spanish Court that this matter is more like to affect the advantageous Trade that England drives with Spain than our Settlement in America was ever like to do which tho it be made a Sacrifice
Conditions c. as the said Company shall by writing in and upon their Books c. appoint As to the Landmen whom he will also have to be impos'd upon they knew what they had to relie on and were very well satisfied with it and as to the Companys levying Souldiers under the Notion of Planters without asking leave of the Privy Council admitting it to be true they are not at all to be blam'd for it since they had no reason to think that the Faction at Court which had contraven'd Acts of Parliament by opposing their Subscriptions and denying them the Men of War built for the protection of our Trade would allow them to levy Souldiers under that Name But the truth of the matter is this they were really design'd for Planters and not at all for Military Business tho it was highly necessary the Colony should have as many Officers and disciplin'd Men as they could that they might be the more able to defend themselves in case of Attaque and therefore his railing against the Colony for offering to punish Deserters and other Criminals pag. 31. only discovers his own ignorance and malice for by the Act of Parliament they had the whole Power Civil and Military conferr'd upon them and accordingly might exercise their Power upon all Persons belonging to the Company as they saw cause so that this is again a libelling of the Act of Parliament thro the Company 's sides His Representation of the seven Men chosen for Counsellors page 34. is false and malicious to the highest degree The liberty given to add other six to those seven was not as he spitefully insinuates for English or French-men of Substance that should join them from the West-India Plantations but for such of their own number as they might think fit to assume afterwards It cannot once enter into the thoughts of any man of sense that the Colony should at first entrust Foreigners and especially French Papists in their Government or that the Company had any design they should do so but he and his Suborners think it their Interest to make us odious to the English and French by accusing us of a design to drain their Colonies As to Mr. Paterson whom he hath all along abus'd he happens now thro Inadvertency to vindicate him from his own Calumnies he formerly charg'd him as being Partner with Smith in cheating the Company of 8500 l. and now he tells us that Mr. Paterson was brought to this Dilemma either to go aboard the Fleet bound for Caledonia as a Volunteer or to go to Prison at Edinburgh for Debt which had he cheated the Company of so much Mony as this Libeller pretends there had been no occasion for he might have paid his Debts and gone where he would and besides the Scribler vindicates the Company at the same time from his former Charge of their being bewitch'd by Paterson's golden Dreams c. for had they relied so much upon him as the Libeller alledges they would never have shew'd that indifference for him which here he ridicules him with Such has been the hard Fate of the Suborners that their Tool has not the sense to make his Evidence consistent but every where cuts his own Throat by Self-contradictions To sum up the Matter according to the Libeller's own Evidence In the Council there were some Men of Quality that had been bred to the Sword and the Law others had been Officers both by Sea and Land and some that had gain'd Experience in Merchandizing and several Trades His Banter on the death of the Ministers and Blasphemous abuse of Scripture P. 37. smell so rank of the Atheist and Libertine and do so evidently prove that he hath lost all sense of Humanity and Religion that we are satisfied it will do his Masters and their Cause more hurt than Service and therefore we pass it over The next Proof we have of his Falshood and Malice is his long Story about Mr. Wafer from Page 38 to 45 wherein he does so blend Truth with Falshood as shews he had a mind at any rate to bespatter the Reputation of the Committee of the Company the said Committee knew nothing of those Gentlemens treating with Wafer at London till they acquainted them with it and it was only upon their Recommendation that they sent for him As to their Collecting any Guineas at Pontack's for Mr. Wafer it is altogether false The Articles were drawn by Mr. Iames Campbel the Merchant now in London and wrote by Mr. Fitz Gerald an Irish Merchant who both can testify that this Matter is foully misrepresented for Mr. Wafer had an Alternative propos'd to him which he agreed to viz. to have so much if the Company thought fit to imploy him and so much for his trouble and pains if they did not the Company was so far from standing in any need of his Book that they had a Manuscript of it before ever they saw him which was altogether unknown to the Gentlemen that treated with him at London this he himself knows to be true and that to his no small surprize they repeated several Passages out of it to him and indeed the Manuscript is more particular than his Book whatever Cause he hath since had to make any Alterations in it we know not The Company upon the whole finding that he could inform them of no thing considerable more than what was in the Manuscript and that he could do them no great Service left him at his Liberty to publish his Book when he pleas'd gave him about 100 l. first and last for his Pains and Expence with which he was very well satisfied and hath declared several times since that the Company dealt very honourably with him tho Mr. H s took a great deal of pains to make him publish a Memoire to the contrary which by his honest Friend Mr. Fitz Gerald's Advice he desisted from doing As to the Libeller's malicious Insinuation that they had no further Service for him when once he had discovered the place where the Nicaragua-Wood grew It is absolutely false for the Manuscript they had was very particular in that This Mr. Wafer knows to be true and if he have but a just resentment he is equally concern'd to vindicate himself for the Libeller reflects as much upon him as upon the Company when he charges him with putting a Cheat upon them as to their Nicaragua-Wood P. 44. which H s says he and others went in search of for several Miles along the Ceast but could find none and yet he magnifies Wafer's Freedom and being ingenious by informing them so particularly as to the place where the Nicaragua-Wood grew P. 41. So perpetually does this malicious Libeller contradict himself As to the other parts of his Story of Mr. Wafers being conceal'd near Haddington and afterwards at Edinburgh it was no more than what Prudence would have directed any Men to do in the like Circumstances the Company not knowing till after having
opposition and unaccountable Proclamations for which they had no Authority we hope that this will be allow'd to be something more than refusing to be accessary to an Act that neither he nor his Suborners will ever be able to prove Felonious and which we have already told him the Laws of England have in a parallel nay much worse case judg'd to be honest and righteous So that all this Author hath got by his charging us maliciously with Felony is to prove himself a wilful Felon for he tells us at the end of his Book of a long dispute betwixt himself and Sir I. Stewart his Majesty's Advocat for the Kingdom of Scotland about the Title of the Spaniards to Darien and if we may believe H s he baffled the Advocat and prov'd the Right of the Spaniards which proves himself to have engaged in a Design that he thought Felonious for we do not find by his own Relation that he left the place from remorse of Conscience but only on the Account of a Malladie Imaginaire and want of Provisions so that we thank him for telling the World from his own Mouth that his Evidence against us is that of a Felon As to their engaging themselves in an unreasonable War and assisting us with Weapons to break their own Heads we did not desire they should engage in a War for us but think it very unreasonable the English Court should have engaged so far as they have done against us It had been sufficient for them to have denied us their Assistance without having condemn'd us as guilty of breach of Alliance which as all the other parts of the opposition made to us we are satisfied is not the Act of the English Nation and therefore can create no misunderstanding betwixt them and us but perhaps may prove a Weapon in time to break the Heads of H s and his Suborners In the 5 th Page that his Book may be all of a piece he advances a forg'd Obligation upon us from the Union of the Crowns which is that we are thereby deliver'd from the daily Feuds and bloody little Wars that rag'd amongst us for 1900 years which unnatural Massacres our native Princes were unable to suppress c. This is down-right falshood in matter of Fact for those Feuds as he calls them ceas'd in the Lowlands long before the Union but continue still in the Highlands which we can scarcely think is unknown to our Author who was born so near that Country as Dumbarton The Macdonalds have been several times in Arms against the Earl of Argile since the Restoration and there 's a Feud now depending between the Frazers and the Murrays or rather the Family of Athol Nor did we ever hear of any thing that look'd so like an unnatural Massacre in Scotland as that committed since the Revolution upon the Inhabitants of Glenco which had it not been for the Union of the Crowns would not have been suffer'd to go unpunished But admitting it to be true that the Union had deliver'd us from those little Feuds we are no gainers by the Bargain since it hath occasion'd greater particularly that unnatural Feud which rag'd so long betwixt the Episcopal Party and Presbyterians and had its rise altogether from the Union of the Crowns the very prospect of which was the sole cause why the Earl of Morton when Regent set up the first Protestant Bishops in Scotland Into what Couvulsions that Imposition threw the Nation is well enough known and how besides the bringing down K. Charles I. with 30000 Men against our Kingdom and contributing to engage the Nations in a Civil War it occasioned King Charles II. to plunder the West of Scotland first by Sir Iames Turner which gave rise to the Insurrection at Pentland and twice afterwards by the Highland Host which occasion'd that of Bothwel-Bridg And afterwards the Oppression run so high that it forc'd some of the Presbyterians into unaccountable Actions which gave occasion to oppress the whole Party so that it was made punishable by Death for any of their Ministers to preach or for the People to hear them From this indeed we were totally delivered by the Revolution tho our freedom in that respect was partly begun by the late King Iames's Declaration But our Enemies unwilling that our Nation should be long at ease have found other Methods to set our Court against us And because they know that his present Majesty has too great a Soul to persecute any man on the account of Conscience our Enemies have chang'd their Battery and instead of pointing their Cannon at our Religion they level them against our Civil Liberties The Powder they prime their Artillery with is That we are Enemies to Prerogative But because this would not go down with the good People of England who are strenuous Assertors of Liberty and Property they must gild it over with the specious Pretence that we have a design to undermine their Trade and have unjustly invaded the Spanish Dominions This is the Design of H s and his Suborners and therefore they insist so much on our Clandestine Declarations as they call them that we publish'd in the English Plantations on purpose to drain them of their People but unhappily overthrow what they advance at the same time when they tell us That the Jamaica Sloops were Witnesses that we had neither Provisions nor Money for the sustenance of our own People pag. 148. And therefore it cannot reasonably be suppos'd that we had any such design as he maliciously charges us with to draw over the People from the English Plantations since we had not wherewith to support our own but more of this anon Our Author learn'd the Maxim of Calumniare audacter aliquid haerebit when he was a Papist And if he and his Suborners can be any way instrumental to set the Nations together by the Ears by this Method or if that fail if they can but raise Animositys between them they know it will be a good pretence for some People to put his Majesty upon pressing for a Standing Army and perhaps for having it enlarg'd it being necessary say they to overaw the Scots but in reality to protect such evil Counsellors from being brought to Justice that have advis'd to such Measures as visibly tend to the disadvantage of both Nations It may perhaps be worth the Enquiry of our Neighbours whether this be not the real meaning of this intolerable Oppression exercis'd upon our Nation as to their Trade both at home and abroad viz. that knowing our praefervidum Ingenium as they are pleas'd to call it to be impatient under Tyranny the Faction think thereby to provoke us to a resentment that may give occasion for raising an Army against us which if it have the good hap to subdue us or force us to digest our Oppression without any more to do shall be made use of afterwards to chastise themselves and bring them to better Manners then to limit their
their Quota is demonstrably false by our sending away two Convoys since the thirds being greater by far than the first and that we are now preparing a fourth As to the Companies charging 25 per Cent. advance on every Article of the 19000 l. Stock it 's well enough known that so much Advance is thought nothing in a West-India Trade it was all the profit the Company was to have and only charged in the Books by way of Formality that the Colony might know what they were indebted to the Company His Story p. 23. of its being propos'd in the Company to sell off their Ships and Cargo and divide the Product amongst the Subscribers is nothing to our dishonour nor at all to be wondred at considering the unreasonable opposition we had met with from Court That we rejected it as inglorious argues still that we are not so mean-spirited as he elsewhere represents us His base Reflections p. 24. on the Company as if they had despair'd of the design and sent their men to Sea on purpose to perish and on Drummellier that he order'd the Colony to get Mony honestly if they could but be sure to get it and if they came home without it then the Devil get them all serve only to discover his own Temper and that he thinks all men act and speak like himself We have said enough already to demonstrate the Honesty of both Company and Colony Had their design been to get Mony without regard to Honesty they would not have been starv'd to death by the Proclamations and other opposition made them at Court they could quickly have possessed themselves of the Spanish Mines which the Scribler owns p. 164. were within twelve Leagues of them and with much more ease of the 40000 l. that was sunk in the French Ship But he serves the Suborners for their Mony much at the same rate he did the Scots Company His Reflection p. 25. that Mr. Stratford was oblig'd to arrest our Ships at Hamburgh for 800 l. Flemish as they were fitting out serves only to discover his own malice and folly Mr. Stratford had very good Security for 800 l. Flemish when he had four Ships in Port not yet fitted out and his receiving his Mony in a fortnight or three weeks as the Libeller owns in the same Paragraph shows he had no ill Paymasters to deal with It were well for England if all those that have been imployed in the Royal Navy could say as much by his Suborners and their Friends As for our discharging Mr. Stratford to be any longer our Cashier there 's no need of assigning any other Cause for it but that Sr. Paul Ricaut's Memorial render'd it needless and to that same account we must charge the two Ships that were left there to rot in their Ouse But at the same time we will tell him we had no great reason to be satisfied with Mr. Stratford's Conduct and believe we have less now than ever since this Libeller defends him His Story p. 26. of Mr. Henderson's arresting another of our Ships for 3000 l. is sufficiently answer'd by himself when he tells us that he and his Partners fail'd in their Subscriptions which was a just debt due to the Company and therefore they had reason to demand and expect it especially he being a Scots-man yet the Company dealt very kindly with him on that account and so much the more that they consider'd his being a Residenter in Holland where he was liable both to the English and Dutch Court to whose account the Libeller must also charge this Affront and the Loss we sustain'd at Amsterdam What he says of our Seamen p. 27 28. is a manifest untruth They were immediately paid extreamly well satisfied and we had such choice of able Seamen who were willing to go in the Expedition that we turn'd several ashoar after they had embarqu'd as having no occasion for them As to his Reflection on Mr. Robert Blackwood for pinching them of their Wages and p. 46. for cheating them as to their Provisions that Gentleman is now at London where we leave H s and him to account for it We doubt not but Mr. Blackwood may have Justice done him in Westminster-hall if he thinks fit to sue for it but so much we think our selves oblig'd to say in his Vindication during his absence that he was never charg'd with any such thing by the Company His next Reflections on the Transfer p. 29. by which he would impose on the World as if it had been a Trick of the Company to cheat the Seamen of their Wages are so much the less to be credited that he himself is a Party and commenc'd the Suit he talks of in Doctors Commons which tho that Court may perhaps have determin'd in his favour because the Bargain was made with him in London and those that made it were on the Spot and for other Causes best known to themselves it is nothing at all to the matter in hand our Courts have no reason to take them for a Precedent and our Company has as little to allow the Libeller any Wages But to come to the Transfer which he so foully misrepresents It was so far from being a clandestine practice that it was agreed on in publick Council and but highly reasonable that the Colony should be accountable to the Company for the Stock they intrusted them with The Libeller only betrays his own Folly and Malice and imposes upon his Suborners when he says the Gentlemen who gave their joint Bond to the Company for 70000 l. were not worth so many English Pence for admitting they had not been worth one penny of personal Estate they were intrusted by the Company with 19000 l. Cargo and Ships Provisions c. to make it up 70000 l. which was not charg'd upon them as their personal Debt but upon the Colony as a Corporation till the same was paid What he says as to the Seamen is a malicious Untruth It was indeed agreed that the Colony should pay them but if they did not the Company was to do it and besides the two months advance which the Libeller owns was paid them the Company was to pay to them or to those that had their Powers or Letters of Attorny a Month in six and have accordingly paid them As to the Seamens being made believe that assoon as they had set the Landmen on shoar they were to proceed on a trading Voyage and return to Scotland to be paid it is equally false they being to stay out whilst the Company pleas'd Then as to the Transfer in general it was so far from being clandestine or a Trick that the Company was impower'd to make it by the Act of Parliament which gave them their Original as any Person may see by turning to the Act it self which authorizes them to transfer their joint Stock or Capital Fund or any Estate real or personal Ships Goods c. belonging to the Company under such Restrictions Rules