Fshings have further conceded and granted unto us the free and absolute Right and Property in and to all such Lands Islands Colonies Towns Forts and Plantations as we shall come to establish or possess in manner aforesaid as also to all manner of Treasures Wealth Riches Profits Mines Minerals and Fishings with the whole Product and Benefit thereof as well under as above the Ground as well in Rivers and Seas as in the Lands thereunto belonging or for or by reason of the same in any sort together with the right of Government and Admiralty thereof as likewise that all manner of Persons who shall settle to inhabit or be born in any such Plantations Colonies Cities Towns Factories or Places shall be and be reputed as Natives of the Kingdom of Scotland And generally the said Company have communicated unto us a Right to all the Powers Properties and Privileges granted unto them by Act of Parliament or otherwise howsoever with Power to grant and delegate the same and to permit and allow such sort of Trade Commerce and Navigation unto the Plantations Colonies Cities and Places of our Possession as we shall think fit and convenient And the chief Captains and supream Leaders of the People of Darien in compliance with former Agreements having now in most kind and obliging manner received us into their Friendship and Country with promise and contract to assist and join in defence thereof against such as shall be their or our Enemies in any time to come Which besides its being one of the most healthful rich and fruitful Countries upon Earth hath the advantage of being a narrow ISTHMVS seated in the heighth of the World between two vast Oceans which renders it more convenient than any other for being the common Store-house of the insearchable and immense Treasures of the spacious South Seas the door of Commerce to China and Japan and the Emporium and Staple for the Trade of both Indies And now by virtue of the before-mentioned Powers to us given We do here settle and in the name of GOD establish Our Selves and in Honour and for the Memory of that most Antient and Renowned Name of our Mother Kingdom We do and will from hence-forward call this Country by the Name of Caledonia and our selves Successors and Associates by the name of Caledonians And sutable to the Weight and greatness of the Trust reposed and the valuable Opportunity now in our hands being firmly resolved to communicate and dispose thereof in the most just and equal manner for increasing the Dominions and Subjects of the King Our Soveraign Lord the Honour and Wealth of our Country as well as the benefit and advantage of those who now are or may hereafter be concerned with us We do hereby declare That all manner of People soever shall from hence-forward be equally free and alike capable of the said Properties Privileges Protections Immunities and Rights of Government granted unto us and the Merchants and Merchants Ships of all Nations may freely come to and trade with us without being liable in their Persons Goods or Effects to any manner of Capture Confiscation Seizure Forfeiture Attachment Arrest Restraint or Prohibition for or by reason of any Embargo breach of the Peace Letters of Mark or Reprizals Declaration of War with any foreign Prince Potentate or State or upon any other account or pretence whatsoever And we do hereby not only grant and concede and declare a general and equal freedom of Government and Trade to those of all Nations who shall hereafter be of or concerned with us but also a full and free Liberty of Conscience in matter of Religion so as the same be not understood to allow connive at or indulge the blaspheming of God's holy Name or any of his Divine Attributes or of the unhallowing or prophaning the Sabbath Day And finally as the best and surest means to render any Government successful durable and happy it shall by the help of Almighty God be ever our constant and chiefest care that all our further Constitutions Laws and Ordinances be consonant and agreeable to the Holy Scripture right Reason and the Examples of the wisest and justest Nations that from the Truth and Righteousness thereof we may reasonably hope for and expect the Blessings of Prosperity and Increase NEW-EDINBVRGH Decemo 26. 1698. By Order of the Council Hugh Ross Secretary We dare refer it to the Scrutiny of the nicest Observers whether this Declaration infer any such thing as Plunder or a Patent from the King to pick a Quarrel with the Spaniards and to divide the Spoil of Mexico and Peru what clandestine Artifices are here to be found to drain the English Plantations and wherein does it interfere with the Interest of England any more than all free Ports must of necessity interfere with their Neighbours We wish that our Author would inform us how publick Declarations according to Act of Parliament can be call'd clandestine Artifices and defy him and his Suborners with all their art to find any thing pretended to in this Declaration but what the Colony has a right to by Act of Parliament The only thing this malicious Scribler can wrest to his Purpose in the Declaration is the Colony's publishing that all manner of Persons of what Nation or People soever c. should be equally free and alike capable of the same Privileges with themselves c. which are the express Words of the Act of Parliament and therefore supposing that the said Declaration should have influenc'd some People to come over to them from the English Plantations the Colony could not be any ways blam'd for it Qui utitur jure suo nil damni facit is a known Maxim in Law The Libeller's Malice is not satisfied with reflecting upon our Colony but flies on the face of the greatest part of the English in the West-Indies as if they had so little Honour or Love for their native Country as to lay their own Plantations desolate and run over to ours Indeed if most of them be such Persons as himself there might be some ground for the Reflection but till it appears to be so we must beg Mr. H s's leave to have a better opinion of them No Man fo sense can believe that those who found themselves at ease in the English Plantations would be fond of removing to a new Colony but if others who are at their freedom had a mind to do so we know of no reason they should be hinder'd The Subjects of England are a free People and not confin'd to their own Dominions but have liberty to trade and live elsewhere if they find their account in it There 's no man can blame the Scots for publishing their Declaration throughout the West-Indies the thing being absolutely necessary in it self and the natural Practice of all new Settlements to acquaint the World with the nature of their Design and on what Terms they may have Commerce with them We hope our Author and his Suborners
We leave it then to the impartial Thoughts of the good People of England whether we have not occasion to say that our King is in the Hand of our Enemies since we are thus condemn'd without a hearing and our Nation put to the trouble and expence to send Lawyers out of the Kingdom to defend themselves before those that had already condemned them And since this is a visible effect of the Union of the Crowns by which we are every day more and more oppressed let them speak their Consciences if we have not all the reason in the World to dissolve that Union except the Nations be more closely united and upon a better footing That we were so treated in former Reigns we had no great cause to wonder when the Court was engaged in a Conspiracy against our Religion and Liberties And our Nation being inferior to none in their Zeal for both it was but natural to think that we should be the first Sacrifice But to be treated thus by a Prince who hath ventur'd his Life to save us from Popery and Slavery a Prince who for Courage in War and Conduct in Peace is not to be match'd in Story a Prince who is under God the Great Champion of our Religion and the bold Asserter of Europe's Liberty a Prince whose Family we revere and whose Person we adore a Prince for whom we have so chearfully ventur'd our Lives and lost so much of the best Blood in our Veins to be so treated by such a Prince hath some thing cutting beyond expression and proves that our Disasters are no way to be remedied but either by a total Separation or a closer Union of the two Kingdoms We cannot be so unjust to his Majesty's Character as to think a Prince of his Magnanimity could be guilty of so mean a thing as willingly to subject the Crown of his Antient Kingdom which he received free to that of another We cannot once suffer it to enter into our thoughts that he who dares to out-brave Death in the Field a thousand times a day should act so unworthy a part as first to condemn and then to try us These and all other things of that sort we must needs charge to the account of our Enemies about him who misrepresent us and therefore surprise his Majesty into any thing he does against us As to that positive Sentence of our having acted contrary to the Peace betwixt his Majesty and his Allies we have all the Reason in the World to complain of it Is our Kingdom then become so mean and contemptible that what is transacted according to the Acts of our Parliaments and Patents of our Kings is liable to be annull'd or declared illegal by any Person that has the hap to be made an English Secretary of State Governor of one of their American Plantations or a Member of their Council of Trade If it be so his Majesty's Dignity as King of Scots is well defended in the mean time when it is liable thus to be trampled upon by his own Servants as King of England This does indeed verify what has been said that our Kings since the Union leave their Antient Kingdom to the disposal of their Servants but whether this be agreeable to the Coronation Oaths of our Kings let them determine that are concern'd to enquire and perhaps it may be worth the consideration of our Neighbours whether since we have been govern'd by Servants they have not for the most part been subject to Minions and that the one does naturally pave the way for the other So that they are no great gainers by the Bargain If it be answer'd that the Proclamations are issued by his Majesty's Authority and that therefore our Sentence proceeds from his Bar We answer 1. That there are shrewd Suspitions that a certain Gentleman or two who have affected all along to shew their Zeal against the Scots in this Affair have push'd this matter beyond their Instructions for there 's no man that knows his Majesty's Justice and Wisdom can admit a thought that he would condemn us before we were heard 2. We don 't at all question his Majesty's Authority as King of England to forbid his English Subjects to give any manner of Assistance to the Scots at Darien tho we might say it was unkind but we absolutely deny that he has any Authority as King of England to condemn the Proceedings of the Subjects of Scotland for any thing they transact without the Dominions of England If it be otherwise his Majesty as King of Scots is bound to appear at the King 's Bench-bar in Westminster-Hall for what he hath done as King of Scots upon the Lord Chief Justices Summons and of what Consequence this may be to himself or his Successors may be easily judg'd Had Oliver and the other Regicides bethought themselves of this it had been more for the Honour of England and would have taken off a great deal of the odium that is charg'd upon them for cutting off King Charles had they search'd for something Criminal in his Conduct toward the English Nation as King of Scots and condemned him for that Tho they did not think upon this perhaps others may and then the English will be able to justify themselves as not having cut off their own King but their Enemy the King of Scots as there 's no doubt they would have done by King Charles II. had he not made his escape after the battle of Worcester This may perhaps deserve the thoughts of his present Majesty and others concern'd in the Succession and so much the more that the dependence of the Crown of Scotland upon that of England hath been lately asserted by some English Historians and indirectly hinted at in a pretended Answer to the Defence of the Scots Settlement at Darien p. 24. But to satisfy that Gentleman and others who please themselves so much in vilifying the Scotish Nation they may turn to the Reigns of Edward I. II. and III. and they will quickly find that Sir William Wallace K. Robert Bruce Iames Lord Douglas Thomas Randolph Earl of Murray and others that we could name did so gallantly defend the Soveraignty of Scotland against those bold Pretenders to a Superiority over us that their Successors have had no great stomach to pursue their Claim to it since So that if ever they had any it is forfeited by Prescription Oliver's imaginary Conquest so much insisted on by the dull Answerer of the Scots Defence and others will be of no use to the Faction in this matter since that was no National Quarrel nor did the English pretend to any such thing as a Conquest of us but immediatly withdrew their Forces upon the Restoration So that Oliver's Conquest as he calls it was only the Victory of one Party over another in a Civil War it being well known that he had Friends in Scotland as well as England which if that Wise Author will have Oliver's Victories to be Conquests he
discours'd him whether he could do them any Service or not it was not their Wisdom to expose him to publick View and having sound that he could not serve them it was equally prudent in them to keep him at an uncertainty as to their design they being under no obligation to acquaint him with it As to the Story of Admiral Bembo's waiting their motion if they did say so the Event hath made it but too probable he hath waited so long in those Parts till our Colony hath left Darien what Orders he had concerning it or what Part he hath acted in it Time must determine but if all that we have heard of large Bills being return'd him and of his Offers by his Sloops to draw our Men from our Colony be true there 's reason to suspect that he was sent thither with no design for our advantage However that may be we know not but this we know that if our Enemies at Court had been as zealous to protect us as they have been to ruin us the Admiral would certainly have had Orders to have made Reprisals on the Spaniards for detaining Capt. Pincarton his Ship and Men contrary to Treaty with the King of Great Britain when forc'd a-shoar by a Storm under the Walls of Carthagena He tells us P. 45 That two thirds of the Provision were spent e're the Fleet sail'd that there was none to be had in Scotland at that time and if there had there was no Money the 100000 l. being sunk and the Company 's Credit not worth 2 d. and that they had stuck there had it not been for some few Pillars of the Scots Company who mortgag'd their Estates for which the Company made over three of their Ships to them for their Security That there was no Provisions to be had then in Scotland will readily be allow'd him is sufficient to answer all his malicious Clamour against the Company and to confute his own Objection P. 155. in defence of his Masters against the Company for not sending them Provisions That there was no Money and that the Company 's Credit was not worth 2 d. is confuted by himself when he owns that a few of the Pillars rais'd 5000 l. and took three of the Company 's Ships for Security For that a few of the Pillars could raise 5000 l. and the Company have three new Ships one of them of 70 Guns to give for Security and yet the Company 's Credit not to be worth 2 d. is a palpable Contradiction That any of the Company Mortgaged their Estates to raise Money is false they advanc'd it on their own Credit as they might well do it being well known there are several of them who have as much yearly Estate as the Sum he speaks of Nor did they desire the Company 's Ships in security but only a Bond which it was reasonable they should have He comes next to give us an Account of the shortness of the Provisions P. 46. and of his own Honesty in the mean time in not acquainting the Commadore with it till they were three days at Sea perhaps he had embezel'd them himself or Pocketed some of the Money for he own that he had some time before been concerned in the Victualling part and therefore dar'd not to say any thing of it on Shore left it might have been prov'd upon him but however that is this we are sure of that the Company had Letters from their Ships at the Mideras that they had Twelve Months Provisions of all sorts at sharp Allowance and that if any thing fell short it was likely to be their Bread That they thought this to be true may be reasonably concluded from his own Narrative where he says the Council upon his Representation design'd to send an Express from the Orkneys to acquaint the Company with the shortness of their Provisions which to be sure they would have done had they been sensible that they were so short as he alledges Besides he owns they had full Eleven Months Allowance of Stock-fish at four Days in the Week whence it is probable that they had other things in proportion The Reason why they had no more Beer but Ten Tun was that the Seamen could not depend on the Beer because it spoils they had great store of very good Water and a very great quantity of Brandy which the Libeller takes no notice of As for the Company 's promising them Credit at the Maderas it is false nor was there any need of it they had Pipe Staves and other Goods which were thought proper for the Maderas but if it did not answer so well as 't was expected 't was but the common Misfortune of Merchants who many times meet with such disappointments Nor is it to be expected that a Nation of so little Experience in Trade as ours should at first setting out be free from Mistakes or Mismanagement especially since we have such Invective Enemies to deal with who make it their business to get ill Men amongst us every where on purpose to break our Design His next Reflection is on the small Allowance of Ready Money which is sufficiently answer'd when we tell him their Cargo was reckon'd instead of it and as has been already said must needs be conceiv'd to be very proper for a Country where People go naked for want of Apparel They had a great deal of Butter and excellent Beef of Scots Breed by which we gain'd an Experiment contrary to the common Notion for upon trial it was found to be better than the Irish and therefore our Men resolv'd to keep it last His Objection as to its having been Eighteen Months in Salt is frivolous Seamen think nothing of that when they can carry Beef to the East Indies and back again and keep it good all the while His Charge upon Drummelier as having bought damnified Wheat for their Bread and put the Money in his Poket is malicious and false There 's no Man but one of the Renegadoes Temper that can suspect that Worthy Gentleman to be capable of any such thing Besides the Bread was extraordinary good His Story p. 50. about Crab-Island is false the Company gave no positive Orders to leave any Men there and it s equally false that the Danes prevented our taking Possession of it our Men were there before the Danes came from Sr. Thomas the Governour of which suspecting our Design upon the arrival of the Vnicorn there sent an Officer and Fifteen Men to Assert the King of Denmark's Right after our Men went off from the Place they saw the Danish Sloop in another Bay of the same Island call'd French-Man's Bay and a Tent ashore with Danish Colours on it upon which Captain Pennicook Landed again told them we were Possessed before them against which they offer'd their Protest to please the Court of Denmark but wish'd with all their Hearts we might settle there for we should be a good Bulwark to them against the Spaniards of Porto-Rico who are