WMw^r^^'^Sj^ ■ ,i-& '•.ti.''-f,'i^?;yfVr^i>'^e-^'ifr~t TC CUnntFll Interattg SItbrarg BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE FISKE ENDOWMENT FUND THE BEQUEST OF Millard SFiske LIBRARIAN OF THE UNIVERSITY 1S68-18B3 1905 a.3^(?/1^ trl -^-1 -6 The date shows when this volume was taken. To renew this book copy the call No. and give to the librarian. HOME USE RULES •'F'j ■fy"f^' All Books subject to Recall All borrowers must regis- ter in the library to borrow m All books must be re- turned at end of college year £or inspection and repairs.. Limits booVs must hp re- turned within the four week limit ^4. not renewed. Students must return all books befo^ leaving town. Officers should arrange for the return of books wanted during their absence from town. Volumes of periodicals and of pamphlets are held in the library as much as possible. For special pur- poses they are given out for a limited time. Borrowers should not use their library privileges for the benefit of other persons. Books of special value and gift books, when the giver wishes it, are not allowed to circulate. Readers are asked to re^ port ^U cases of hooka marked or mutilated.- Do not deface books by marks and writing. Cornell University Library TC 788.C96 1853 Isthmus of Darien ship canal :wlth a ful 1924 022 883 791 The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022883791 ISTHMUS OF DARIEN SHIP CANAL. SkeTckes of ike Da.r?:^ro S/iy^p Cay?z€iyl Moute, iryDflUUrb. Hvve-r Sa,vcLrhau. Ihaposed GxnaZ. JLtverZourcL. fxi~ro(MotuntjIvnaM Bird's £ye View frorrt. Che Jurtdurro of die proposed CmioZ witk- IAg JayanxL River to ffwAUcmZic. -i^i& •slsn«:w*..; -51 • »vrw: --^^Si River Scuvanxi, Moziihy of iJve River ScLvcvrooy. D'!'^t^!len. ■,0 ;v . ■■■■ ri • ' rP'." Ihi-rnnn »/ ' I hi Chevo ^^^^^^ ^ ol(^^ \Cr5 .\^' <•<>' .^^' F': V ,^ '^<>'/^,<- ■ir * a (^■(i<'S. M I r/ti> & ■^O! ^"^..J "^^-T-/-- fiO^' ^o> ^ /^ ';23 37 ,„ ?!' 7n.^ *--j>'^# Lotnht >j» TO ^? l>V^^ >.* t .'If., .VLMojua HeAyala i-'VH ">,. """*, Xt-Offiina- fdtJ Aiju ilfi' /I -\. ,iT' ii\ it r»- "4^ C/i/i+"''!?'"' aii\oii -<^''^ .^ •v/"' Cawic ^. '7"." (Av>/«> 'P'." ffi.iw. )« .«'/./ «....« /.> , /('. Svh(jiuUey(rti tee ginge akkwa who's there ? togwachi ? (rocks) in the near iptigine river to-day imiipe there wUl be iptigue dadogiie yesterday chae much rain imimutikiwito- yes ee to-night guontigue an- no chuli thake to dance quile head ochana to sleep kapenai foot naca to speak chumake feet nacamala to see petake to eat maskune to sit down pechique to drink cope to come nene rice caganturpa to go nae maize opa the face gwawkala plantain machee hair chagli ■ cocoa okoba ear uwa forest chapur eye ibia mountain chapurmala nose an uchuu fish huguaw mouth kagya little icheguaw tongue quawpina much ichogi teeth nukala wait a while anaptaqueJli beard chica night mutikuti neck tukala day ibiglne arms ankala good nugueti hands anchunkala bad istalga fingers coo it is late pato chetogi nails coo nu come with me ambag neni body anabgana will you come ambag betake leg thugwa I ani gun (bow) kinki you pee powder kinki boo he aa lead kinkwaka we nanmala canoe ultumati ye pemala calabash noka they amala wild hog yanu-chapurri rivulet tee ana sea termala dry season yola flint akkwanucha rainy season tee gini steel chekar old cheleti two canoes ultumati wal- young nuchukwa bogwa palanka or pole ulchogwala and stone akkwa otigali paddle cammi white woman ■pundola chipugwa cntlass echa black woman pundola chichiti the river is deep tee yegualgugwe rum inatitiliti (any the river is shal- tee thathala ■ liquor) low 1 quenchaqua the river source tee tokoo 2 pocoa APPENDIX. 101 3 pagwa a chingo has ulgwen nonigi 4 pakegua arrived 5 aptali a canoe has ar- walguen ulnonigi 6 nerkwa rived 7 kugle how is your son ? pemachi nugueti 8 pabagi when will the ingu ulak-te- 9 pakebagn canoe come yoguey nak- 10 ambe from up the walakari 11 ambegwargine river ? kaka quench- when will the ulo chana ulno- aqua canoe come nige diba te 12 ambe kaka pocoa from down th i yaJakari 13 ambe kaka pagwa river? 20 tulaguena my brother is in angmechati wir- 21 tulaguena kaka thebushhunt - chanati quenchaqua ' ing name nulcka at what time chana nang ma- what'syourname igi pennukka shall we go ? lowe the sea shore termankaka at noon ipe yolapugwe the tide is rising timureti nacqua- at midnight cabguena lomai we will go be- ipe yolukugwe the tide is falling timureti arreogali fore noon namaJogue where are you piyalpenai we win go be- yocabguengutag - going? fore midnight we namalogne whence come piyal petanigi after midday we ipe agupinitele you? namala wiU go namalogue let us go priest lele let us go bathe omamala Spaniards Guaca how do you do ? penuguetigua road napanane how are your penuchugana kettle eysmeti sons ? nugueti the day after alchuli where did you piya akari peta- to-morrow come from ? nigi ere yesterday astogi where did ye piya akari peta- clothes mola come from ? nimala biscuit meriki mato whence did youi peyayamala piya cocoa chiagua friends come kartanigi turtle moroko and patti from? pole negloneka when will you kana petakowe trunk nloogwa come ? looking-glass ispe, from the come soon quarrye petakowe Spanish espejo give me fire angacho cheeyalo shirt mola makalete your hand peyanchola leaves to thatch uruaga your hands )eyankalmala houses the chingo is tuwalulnai to sow epige ready beads kingwagwa two canoes have walapokwa ulno- nose-rings achu kineti aa-rived nigi cannon kinkihtumati 102 APPENDIX. have you a mo- ther ? have you a fa- ther ? do you know ? when will you come ? when will you go? nanna mai papa mai pewishi ikipiataniki ikip anai, chana ina or ipa- pigwanai pane nai I \yill go to-mor- row morning I will go at noon tata yorke nai will you come petaniki yo with me ? when are you piyanai china going to hunt cogue purkwisa deer? when isyourbro- ipequenati chana ther going ? penai money mania much money mani toga how many reals ? iki mani one real maniguena two reals manipowga five reals maniaptali a dollar tumguena two dollars tumpowga six dollars tunguerkwa seven dollars tungkukUi eight dollars tumpakeguaka yesterday a ves- psai ulotumati sel sailed from itikine nati hence yesterday a ves- psai itikine ulo sel arrived here noni a vessel will ar- eysmiqua ulo rive to-day noni to-morrowaves- pane ulo itikine sel ought to noni come in * ten days ago a ipambegiwusaulo vessel came here itikine nonni five foreigners meriki aptali iti- went on shore kinenapanannie A part of tlic above Vocabulary, which I forwarded from the Isthmus, ap- peared in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, for November, 1851. • Tliis and the three following sentences refer to Messrs. Gisborne & Forde's landing with three sailors, and going into the bush. they went into the bush they went up the river 30 40 100 ■wUl you buy ? what do you want to buy ? give me fire what do you think ? to drink water to drink liquor sloop schooner brig ship steamer mast wind fair wind foul wind rough sea there are rocks in the sea there is very little wind there is very much wind south wind north wind E. yala nannie tiguala nannie tulaguena kaka ambegi tula pogoa tula tale . pepaque ipiani ampenuke so pincha iki pinchachu mai tee cope chicha cope ulo choarra quen- chaqua ulo choarra pogoa ulo tumati cho- arra datali ido choarra pagua so ulo choarra proa or puruaga proa nugueti proa isterga teemala uruetoga teemala akkwa proa pipigwa proa toga yala puruaga makati puruaga ti W. or vendaval chagri puruaga what wind is iki proa pole blowing ? loose the sail take in ditto to belay a rope a broken plank wur mola parmite wurmola he tupa eytine urkwa marali 103 II. DARIEN SHIP NAVIGATION. Engineer's Re poet. In December, 1851, our attention was called by Dr. Ciillen to the Isthmus of Darien, when from Hs statements and other information we were led to believe a favorable line of country existed for the formation of an inter-oceanic navi- gation. Mr. Lionel Gisbome with his assistant Mr. H. C. Forde, Civil Engineers, were despatched by us in April last to undertake the examination of the Isthmus; and hereto appended is the report of their investigations. The New Grenadian Government has since granted us a concession of land and privileges necessary for the construc- tion of an inter-oceanic communication. In submitting this report to the public, we confidently recommend the adoption of that navigation which will, without locks, at all times permit the passage of the largest vessels. Charles Fox, John Henderson, Thomas Brassey. London, Sept. 10, 1852. To Messrs. Fox, Henderson and Beasset. Gentlemen, — Having made arrangements with Sir Charles Fox to ascertain the practicability of an inter- oceanic navigation for the largest ships, at all times of the tide, across the Isthmus of Darien, between Port Escoces on the Atlantic and San Miguel on the Pacific, and having made such preparations as I could in this country, I sailed with my assistant, Mr. Henry C. Forde, on the 2nd of April 104 APPENDIX. last, from Southampton to Cartagena, where we arrived on the 1st of May. Here we completed our arrangements, chartered the schooner Veloz, sailed for Port Escoces on the 12th of June, and anchored in that port on the 15th. At Cartagena we obtained information which fully con- firmed what we had been led to expect from the little we gathered in England; — that no strangers had been allowed to visit the interior since the Buccaneers assisted the natives in repelling the Spaniards nearly two hundred years ago ; that it was in vain to think of obtaining from these jealous savages permission to enter their territory, and that to do so without their permission was hazardous in the extreme. Yet as it was generally supposed that the summit level between the two oceans was near the Atlantic coast, and it was, therefore, important to ascertain whether that was the fact, we determined to make the attempt. From the schooner the Cordilleras appeared to run in an unbroken range. We landed on the morning of the 17th of June, and crossed this range without any obstacle, ascertaining the lowest point visible from the seaboard to be 276 feet high. Beyond this point we followed a small stream, which led us to a larger river flowing from the S.W., in a semicircular sweep towards the north. A flat plain extended to the S.W. in the direction of the Gulf of San Miguel, as far as the eye could reach ; looking over the tops of the trees from a bluff about 100 feet high, which we ascended for the purpose, we obtained an uninterrupted view for at least six miles in that direction. The ranges of hills seen are shewn in red in Map No. 1. We followed the course of this river to the north until dark. Early on the following morning two Indians in a canoe came in sight, who, upon perceiving us, instantly landed and fled to the woods. Proceeding on our journey we met, a few hours afterwards, a woman and two children (one an Albino), from whom we were unable to derive any information. We had scarcely passed her when a canoe suddenly appeared with five well-armed Indians in it, who APPENDIX. 105 made us understand that we were to follow them, which we thought it prudent to do. They led us, fortunately, along the course of the river, which gradually assumed a more easterly direction, winding among the hills that overlapped each other, until we reached a village at its mouth in Caledonia Bay. We were thus singularly assisted in our object by the discovery of a passage through the range of the Cordilleras, which had been hereto- fore supposed to be unbroken. Here an Indian, who spoke a little English, and seemed a principal man in his tribe, questioned us as to our object in entering their territory. Thereupon a meeting was held of the chief men, who detained us as prisoners. After several hours, and with great difficulty, we prevailed on them to allow us to return to our vessel, on the condition, however, that we should set sail instantly, and upon the understanding that if we were again, caught in the interior, more summary measures would be adopted. Five or six Indians accompanied us to Port Escoces, about five miles off (where our vessel was lying), and they remained until the afternoon, when we were well clear of the coast. Our great object had, however, been obtained in finding that the Cordilleras, which appeared from the sea a con- tinuous range, had an intervening valley, and that the summit between the two oceans must be in the centre of the Isthmus, if not nearer the Pacific coast. It had also been ascertained that Port Escoces, though rather small for the terminus of a great ship navigation, would make an excellent harbour of refuge, and that Cale- donian Bay, as far as I had an opportunity to examine it, was most admirably calculated to serve the purpose of a habour to the contemplated undertaking. We now sailed for Navy Bay, and thence crossed the Isthmus to Panama, where we arrived on the 25th of June. Here we hired a small schooner of twelve tons burden, sailed on the 27th for the Gulf of San Miguel, and arrived in the night of the 29th at Bocca Chica, — the entrance of 106 APPENDIX. Dafien harbour. We proceeded on the following day to the examination of the Savannah river. At its mouth we found it two miles wide, narrowing for seven miles above to a width of half a mile, and skirted by hills from two to three hundred feet high, running within a mile or two of its banks. The depth of the river varies from nine to six fathoms at low water; and soundings gave us a soft muddy bottom. From this point to the junction with the river Lara, the depth diminishes till the bottom becomes level with the mid-tide. The tide rises for fire miles further up the Savannah to a fall of about two feet over stratum of rock crossing the stream diagonally N.E. by E. at a dip of 60°. The point marked I. on the accompanying Map shews how far we are able to ascend in a canoe. The same class of rock appears both at the bottom and the sides. The course of the Savannah beyond tidal influence is tortuous, the width of water way being sixty feet at I. On the morning of the 2nd of July we began our land journey to the N.E. in the direction of Caledonia Bay. For the first two miles the country was level and less overgrown than on the Atlantic side, which made our progress com- paratively rapid. We then crossed a range of hills which we ascertained to be 100 feet high. After passing a valley in which was the confluence of two small streams, we crossed a second range 130 feet high, forming the summit between the Savannah and Caledonia rivers; at the foot a stream flowed nearly due east. We followed it for two miles, which led us to a larger one, the course of which we traced to the point marked D on the map. At this point a clear view to the N.E. in the direction of the point marked E, towards Cale- donia Bay, shewed a flat plain with no intervening hills- The points D and E being only six miles apart, our view from D toward E, and our still more commanding view, for at least six miles from an elevation of 100 feet at E in the direction of D, overlapped and were perfectly conclusive with regard to the few miles seen and not actually walked APPENDIX. 107 over. We therefore accepted the admonition of a foot-path and a bridge formed by the trunk of a tree placed across the river at this point, that we were again in the territory of the Indians into whose hands we had fallen at Caledonia Bay, and that our object being accomplished, it was unwise to incur further risk from the Indians by walking over these six miles, thinking it best for the success of the undertaking to retrace our steps at once. On mapping our route, I found that the point I. was too high up the Savannah River for the shortest junction between it and Caledonia. We therefore ascended the River Lara, which ran in a more easterly direction; the tide carried us up six miles, the width narrowing from 300 feet to 30 feet; some falls of a few inches each are caused by rock of the same character as that of the Savannah ; its course is very tortuous; for the five miles I examined beyond tidal action the bottom was uniformly rock, and it became an insignificant stream. After mapping the direction, I feel confident that its source is the confluence of the small streams found in the valley between the two ranges of hills previously mentioned. The gravel banks in the Savannah and Lara Rivers are composed of the detritus of igneus and stratified rock. The latter is the same as that forming the falls on both rivers; its dip being from 60" to near 90°, and its strike varying from N.E. to S.E. The general character of the country is that of a flat plain, subject to inundation at high tides for a considerable distance out, and covered with mangrove wood, whose high interlacing roots growing out of soft mud, render walking impossible. Beyond tidal influence the banks rise five or ten feet above ordinary water-level, and are covered with the finest timber I have seen on the Isthmus — cedar, mahogany, ebony, lignum vitse, culpa, palms, and other tregs. On the 9th July we returned to San Miguel. This bay is naturally divided, by a promontory and a chain of islands, 108 APPENDIX. intp a roadstead and a magnificent harbour. Captain Kellett's unpublished chart, supplied by the Admiralty, shews only a part of the former. I have made a survey of the remainder; and the general features are represented on the accompanying maps, as also those of Darien Harbour. I did not examine Bocca Grande, as I understood from the natives that the navigation through it is rendered dangerous by rocks; and as Bocca Chica, on account of its depth and position, is far more advantageous. I do not think it possible to exaggerate the merits of this part of the Isthmus as the terminus of a great ship naviga- tion ; it requires but an examination of the Map to be con- vinced of this factj We returned to Navy Bay, and sailed for England on the 24th July, where we arrived on the 17th inst. On Map No. 1, I have shewn in red colour the topo- graphical facts which have been ascertained by personal investigation, with sections of the portions traversed. From this, it will be collected that the harbours of San Miguel and Caledonia are both excellent as the termini for a ship navigation on the largest scale, with Port Escoces as a harbour of refuge, should circumstances occur to render its use necessary; that the Savannah river has six fathoms or upwards in depth at low water, for a distance of seven miles from its mouth, the effect of the tide reaching on the Lara tributary eleven miles above this, or eighteen miles from Darien Harbour, leaving a distance of thirty miles to Caledonia Bay, which is the actual breadth of of the Isthmus between the tidal effect of the two oceans ; tha the summit level is ascertained to be 150 feet, and is formed by a narrow range of hills, having a gradually rising plain at their foot at each side. There is every reason to believe that a more detailed examination of this division of waters will result in a considerably lower summit being found ; but this, under the circumstances of the section, is not such^n important point as might at first be supposed ; the narrow- ncfs of the ridge making the cubic quantity through it very APPENDIX. 109 small compared to the excavation through the plains, so that should the hills depress into th& actual level of the plains, the estimate will not be materially affected. The bulk of the work to be done is in the plains themselves, and the cost will be proportionate to the cross section adopted, or, in other words, the depth and breadth of the navigation required. The question, therefore, resolves itself into what are the necessities of commerce as an inter-oceanic water communication . I do not consider it necessary to enter into the merits of this question. My instructions are, to design a navigation capable of passing with security at all times the largest vessels navigating the two oceans, not with a view to a local coasting trade, but for the accommodation of the whole maritime world. There are two methods of accomplishing this object: — 1st. To make a cut of sufficient capacity to form an uninterrupted navigation (without locks) from sea to sea. 2nd. A navigation with locks on a scale suitable to the object in view. There can be no doubt that the carrying out of the first proposition will comply in the fullest sense with the re- quirements of all classes of vessels, and, when completed, will best supply the want of a natural connexion between the oceans. Its execution offers no engineering difiiculties, and no chance of future failure ; it is simply a question of cubic quantity of excavation dependent on the dimensions of the cross section. Many large Merchantmen and men-of-war draw from 24 to 28 feet of water; and oceanic steamers measure 350 feet over all, with a breadth of 70 to 74 feet across the paddle- boxes. Ship-building is not at a stand ; on the contrary, the size of vessels is rapidly on the increase. In. such an undertaking it is therefore reasonable to forestall progress by a timely concession to it. I propose to make a cut of 30 feet deep at low tide, 140 feet broad at bottom, and no APPENDIX. 160 feet at low water's surface. Such a cut, carried from sea to sea, is not Iswger tlian the trade of the world re- quireSj and will form a permanent, safe, and rapid mode of transit. On Plan No. 2, the direction of the navigation is marked by a red line, and on the section, the depth of cutting required is shewn in red colour. On the Pacific the tide rises twenty-three feet, and on the Atlantic it is scarcely appreciable. Mid-tide is on a level, or nearly so, in the two oceans, so that there will be a current both ways dependent on the ebb and flow of the Pacific. This current will not exceed three miles an hour, and will act most beneficially, not only as a scour to pre- vent deposit, but as an assistance in the transit of vessels. It will secure the passage being effected in one tide, and prevent the passing of vessels going different ways, as the direction of the trade wUl be influenced by the ebb or flow of the Pacific tide. The material to be excavated through is chiefly rock (not expensive to quarry), so that this current will not wear away the banks, nor will the wash of passing steamers cause injury; it also affords security against any interruption to the navigation from slips, and reduces the cost of maintenance to a nominal sum. This rock is a stratified shale, with thinnish beds, easy to get, though sound, and will form an admirable side-lining to the navigation, dispensing with the necessity of any arti- ficial protection. The fact of its existence is one of the most favourable features of the undertaking as regards per- manence and certainty of success. I estimate the cost of this design at j£l2,000,000. It must be remembered, that no project has ever been before the public which embraces any thing like the objects attained by such an uninterrupted navigation. All other propositions have but local importance, and look to their profits from local trade ; this one is adapted to every ship afloat, and seeks a return from the trade of every country. Its completion will make a change in the carrying com- APPENDIX. HI merce of every Pacific port ; andj as a railway makes its own traffic, so will this work most certainly greatly in- crease the commerce between the distantly separated coun- tries which steam-power is only now beginning to reach. This is the design which, after mature consideration, I confidently recommend for adoption ; and it is almost with regret that I feel it my duty to submit any other, so sure am I that it is the only one which will satisfy the require- ments of commerce. • My second proposition necessitates two levels, joined by a series of locks. I adhere to the cross section of cut recommended in the previous design, as well as the fact of the navigation being open to the largest vessels at all times of the tide. A tidal canal, supplied on the upper level at high water, would be a very imperfect navigation, and one-third more expensive than the design I am about to submit. I esti- mate the cost at about £7,000,000. It would involve all tlie disadvantages of a canal, and offer many obstacles to be guarded against, such as the arrangements for draining the coimtry on each side, without the risk of strong currents and shoals formed by deposit, and increase the time of transit considerably, by the small speed attainable by steamers in such a class of navigation. I cannot recom- mend it for the purposes Intended. It has been before mentioned, that the Savannah and Caledonia rivers run in two extensive plains. They are uninhabited, and the land is uncultivated. It grows, how- ever, fine timber, which, if means of transit were at hand, would be of considerable value. During the dry season, neither of these rivers could, near their source, supply the water required at a summit-level of a navigation on the scale contemplated ; during the wet season, again, they discharge a large volume of water, which, in an ordinary canal, would cause trouble and expense to regulate, and prevent accumulations of deposit.! Under these circum- stances, I propose placing an embankment across both 112 APPENDIX. these rivers at the points marked in red on Map No. 3, making the embankments long enough and high enotigh to raise the water at their back 90 feet above low tide in the Pacific. This will flood both plains up to the range of hills which forms the boundary of their catchwater basins. Through the summit a cut is to be made of the same cross section recommended in Design No. 1, but with 40 feet depth of water, so as to allow 10 feet to be drawn off the lake for lockage, or a rise of 10 feet to catch flood-waters, and prevent too rapid a current in the tidal entrances to the harbours. All the valuable timber in the lake must be cut previous to the water being let in, so that an easy means will be afforded to convey it to the harbours for shipment. From Caledonia Bay to the embankment, a cut will have to be made of the cross section adopted in the other design. The Savannah is navigable up to the point where the embankment is to cross. The rise of 90 feet will have to be overcome by locks placed in the side of one of the ranges of hills against which the embankments terminate, and which are composed of rock; weirs will also be provided to discharge surplus waters. It is a serious undertaking to raise a large vessel 90 feet, without much loss of time. I am fully prepared to meet this difficulty, and propose that the locks should be 400 feet long from mitre to mitre, and 90 feet wide between the gate quoins. Each lock to have a lift of .30 feet, to be overcome by wrought iron gates. The large supply at the summit level does away with the usual objection to a high lift wasting water. There will be no difficulty in constructing the locks and gates of the dimensions proposed, stone, lime, and sand of excellent quality, are obtainable in more than one place on the line of country to be traversed. Three locks will thus be required in each embankment, and I have estimated for two sets at each end ; the second set to be 300 feet long and 50 feet wide, with 22 feet of 113 water on their cills. Thus four vessels can be passed into the lake at the same time, and the larger locks only used for those adapted to their size. For a navigation requiring the use of locks, I can submit this design with confidence. It possesses the facilities of deep still water lake navigation, without the disadvantages attendant on the use of a canal. The concentration of lockage in two places will save time. Great facility is also offered in the execution of the work by its not being spread over a large area, and only a small portion of it below tidal level. The estimated cost is j64, 500,000, it is only about one third of that set down for an uninterrupted cut from sea to sea, but the disadvantages are very great ; locks are decidedly objectionable in an undertaking of this mag- nitude and mercantile value. The best studied plans carried out in the most perfect manner, cannot guard against acci- dent or neglect, which may stop the whole transit for months. Delay and risk there must be when such large machinery is worked; and there is no doubt shipowners would sooner pay a higher toll to pass directly from sea to sea, than run the risk and incur the delay of lock navi- gation. This question is not one on which a hasty opinion should be formed, nor must the decision be biassed by the disparity in the cost of the two measures. The real point is, which is of the greatest value to the mercantile community? A far-seeing thinker cannot doubt that the level cut is the only one which will comply with the requirements of the world. In framing the estimates I have calculated wholly on im- ported labour, making a liberal allowance for the diminution of work to be expected in a tropical climate and the extra wages necessary to induce parties to emigrate. This portion of the Isthmus of Darien is without doubt in one of the most healthy districts. Neither Mr. Forde nor I suffered in the least from the climate until our return to Panama, not- withstanding we were often for days together in the same 114 wet clothes without a blanket to cover us at night and living on bad provisions. The reason of this comparative salubrity is the absence of swamps or overflowings of the river banks out of the range of the tide, and the general dry character of the surround- ing district. I have purposely abstained from entering into any detail of the works contemplated, or the arrangements for carrying them out. My object has been to give a concise view of the facilities of the Darien route, the facts elicited by the examination of the country by Mr. Forde and myself, and the best means of carrying out a project which has for centuries occupied the attention of Governments and mer- cantile men without much advance towards its completion; I cannot conclude, however, without again earnestly recom- mending for adoption that design which will, without lochs, at all times, permit the passage of the largest vessels. I remain, Gentlemen, Your obedient servant, LIOXEL GISBORXE, C.E. 41, Craven^street, Strand, London, Avgust, 28ih, 1852. 115 III. THE ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC JUNCTION COMPANY. (kavigation through the isthmus of darien without locks.) (FroTisionally Reg'istered,) To be Incorporated by Boyal Charter or Act of Parliament, limiting the liability of the Shareholders. Capital, Fifteen Million Pounds Sterling, ia 150,000 Shares of £100 each. Deposit 10s. per Share, without further liability. Being the Amount limited by the Act 7th & 8th Vic, cap. 110. Provisional Direotors. Ghairman. — The Right Honourable Lord Wharnclifpb. Deputy- Chairman. — John Pemberton Heywood, Esq. J. S. Brownrigg, Esq., Governor of the Australian Agricultural Company. Charles Brownell, Esq., Liverpool. Thomas R. Crampton, Esq., 2, Kensington Square. Edward Cropper, Esq., Liverpool. J. C. EwART, Esq., Liverpool. G. D'Olier Gowan, Esq., CopthaU Court. W. J. Hamilton, Esq., Chesham Place. Lewis H. Haslbwood, Esq., Highgate. T. H. Hope, Esq., Piccadilly. Hugh Hornby. Esq., Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce of Liverpool. Admiral C. R. Moorsom, R.N., Highfield, Birmingham. Captain Mackinnon, R.N., 4, Hyde Park Place. A. Montoya, Esq., Consul General for New Grenada. I 2 116 Francisco Db Riveiro, Minister Plenipotentiary from the Govern- ment of Peru in Paris. EzEdUKiL RoGAS, Minister of New Grenada. Mblvil Wilson, Esq., Albermarle Street. Alexander Wilson, Esq., 34, Bryanstone Sqijare, Director of the Bank of Australasia. WITH POWER TO ADD TO THEIR NUMBER. Bajikers. Messrs. Hetwood, Kennards, and Co. Solicitors. Messrs. J. C. and H. Freshfield. Official Auditor, Secretary. J. E. Coleman, Esq. Dr. Black. Engineer in Chief. Lionel Gisbornb, C.E. Tempoirary Offices — 36, Moobgatb Ssrret. The object of this Company is to unite the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by an open navigation across the Isthmus of Darien. The vast importance of this design has long made it a subject of anxious attention to all civilised nations. So early as the year 1695, when commerce and engineering science were comparatively in their infancy, Mr. Paterson, the founder of the Bank of England, obtained an act of Parliament, under which the large sum of j6500,000 was subscribed for this purpose ; but this design was frustrated by the influence of the new East India Company. It was believed that the great elevation of the Cor- dilleras presented an insurmountable barrier to the opening of a passage by sea, and the supposed difference of the level of the waters in the two Oceans formed a further imaginary obstacle. The period having arrived when the spread of commerce and the flow of emigration from the over-populated countries of Europe to the western shores 117 of America, Australasia and China, demand a passage more direct than that by the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn, various projects were formed for imiting the two oceans by roads, railways, and canals, and the routes by Nicaragua in the north, Chagres in the centre, and Atrato in the south of the Isthmus, were selected by different parties for these purposes. All these projects, though intended in some measure to meet the exigency, were open to the manifest objection that they fell shan't of supplying a continuous channel from sea to sea, for vessels of all dimensions, by which alone trans-shipment could be obviated, and the objects in view adequately obtained. That the Isthmus of Darien admitted of a communi- cation of this nature^ was first urged upon the consideration of Sir Charles Fox, by Dr. CuUen. After much inquiry and investigation into the existing charts and surveys of the country, so many reasons for the conclusions advanced were discovered, that, after communications with the governments of Englind and the United States, who cordially responded to the call for co-operation in a cause of such vast importance to the interests of the world. Sir Charles Fox resolved on dispatching engineers to the spot for the purpose of examining the country and reporting on the feasibility of the undertaking. Arrangements were accordingly made with Mr. Lionel Gisbome, a civil engineer of great experience in the execution of navigations, to proceed to the locality indi- cated by Dr. CuUen, which lay in the narrowest portion of the Isthmus between Chagres and' the river Atrato, a part of the country which is believed not to have been traversed by any European for two centuries. Sir Charles Fox, Mr. John Henderson, Mr. Thomas Brassey, and Dr. Cullen, applied to the Congress of New Grenada for a concession of territory, between the point of Mosquitos and the western mouth of the Atrato, which was complied with by a grant of about 200,000 acres, for 118 a canal, a railway, or a road, conditional on the sum of £24,000 being deposited within twelve months, to be returned without interest, on the opening of the commu- nication, and was accompanied by assurances of cordial co- operation on the part of the government. Mr. Gisborne, accompanied by his assistant, Mr. Henry C. Forde, arrived at the Bay of Caledonia, in the month of May, 1852, and after surveying the coast on both sides and the intervening country, ascertained beyond doubt, that between the Bay of Caledonia on the Atlantic, and the Gulf of Saint Miguel on the Pacific, there is a dis- tance of only thirty miles between deep water on either side, consisting of land generally level, which in no case is of considerable elevation, or presents greater obstacles than have been surmounted on railways and other engineer- ing works; and he returned to England, reporting his opinion that three modes existed of effecting the object, the most costly, but most effectual of which was, to con- struct an open channel between the two oceans, as originally proposed, which can be executed in five years from the date of its commencement, at a cost not exceeding Twelve MiUions. The practicability of forming an inter-oceanic navigation without locks, having been thus ascertained, it is now proposed to form a Company to carry out this great work in co-operation with the Governments of the United States and the European powers interested in it, on such terms as may make the undertaking permanent, secure, an profitable. As a mercantile investment, there is no doubt that this inter-oceanic navigation is capable of being made one of great pecuniary advantage. No sufficiently authentic account exists of the number of vessels or the amount of tonnage which passes round Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope to the Western Coast of America, Australasia, and China; but sufficient data have been obtained to prove that the tonnage is so great as to make a small toll on 119 vessels passing through this channel, a source of very large return on the capital required, while a toll of considerable amount would be a very small burthen in comparison with the vast saving of expense to sailing vessels and steam boats in time and money, by the use of so short and desirable a passage. Upon these points it is not necessary here further to dilate. It is not intended to embark in the execution of the work, without the most satisfactory assurances based on the fullest enquiry and investigations into the prospects of the undertaking in every respect. For the present purpose it is proposed to raise a nominal capital of Fifteen Millions sterling, in shares of £100 each, of which ten shillings per share will be paid on allotment, forming a fund of ^675,000. This sum will suffice to defray the preliminary expenses incurred, to pay the deposit required by the terms of the concession, and provide for the expenses of prosecuting such further surveys and investigations, and also negociations with the govern- ments both at home and abroad, for grants, or guarantees, or co-operation in such other form as may be deemed necessary to success. The sum of Twelve Millions sterling is believed upon the authority of the subjoined Report of Mr. Gisborne, to be amply sufficient for the execution of the works on the largest scale, and the capital has been fixed at £15,000,000 in order to provide a sufficient fund for payment of interest to the Shareholders during the progress of the undertaking, in the event of no better arrangement being made for obtaining it. A Charter of Incorporation or Act of Parliament, conveying limitation of liability, is considered essential; and parties taking shares will not be liable to any further call beyond the deposit, until a constitution on one or other of these bases has been obtained, or without the sanction of a General Meeting, and any Shareholder desirous of withdrawing at any time will be permitted to do so on sending 120 in his sn'ip for cancellation, and forfeiting the dqposit paid on his Shares. In order to meet the wishes of those foreign governments whose co-peration will be sought in securing the neutrality of this navigation, pursuant to powers contained in the concession, and who may also desire pecuniary participation in this enterprise, it is part of the proposed arrangements to take measures for ascertaining, at as early a period as possible, the extent to which such nations wish to become interested, and the form in which they propose to do so, and to give effect to their views in these respects, it may ultimately become necessary to reduce the Shares to a smaller nominal amount, so as to admit these parties into a a participation in the capital, or to extend it with that object. It is understood that the Concessionaires (in lieu of any other remuneration), are to have a tenth part of the nett annual profits, after payment of a dividend of five per cent, on the capital. The preliminary expenses hitherto incurred do not exceed £5000. Application for shares may be addressed to the Directors, according to the subjoined Form, and Prospectuses and Forms of Letters of Application may be had at the Com- pany's offices, and of Mr. Edward Haslewood, 15 Angel- " court, London. TO MESSRS. FOX, HENDERSON, AND BRASSEY. Gentlemen, According to my instructions, I proceeded in April last, with my assistant, Mr. H. C. Forde, to the Isthmus of Darien, to ascertain whether the country would admit of the construction of an inter-oceanic navigation 150 feet wide, 30 feet deep, and without locks, as proposed by Sir Charles Fox. 121 Tke accompanying map and section are compiled from per- sonal observation. The following are the leading natural features of the locality : The distance between the tidal influences of the two seas is thirty miles. The mean water of the two oceans is nearly level. On the Pacific the tide rises from twenty-two to twenty-five feet (spring and neap); on the Atlantic from fourteen to eighteen inches. Excellent natural harbours exist at each end of the proposed navigation, that at St. Miguel, on the Pacific, being without doubt one of the finest in the world, as regards its extent, depth of water, freedom from shoals, land-locked character, and ease of access. The Caledonia and Savannah rivers run through two extensive plains, the separating ridge being 150 feet over the mean water of the oceans. These plains, though flat, are suffi- ciently elevated to be dry, and consequently, free from those unhealthy influences which affect many parts of the Isthmus of Panama. The tide flows up the river Savannah for eighteen miles. For seven miles above its mouth there is six fathom depth at low water, with a breadth of nearly half a mile. The material to be excavated in forming the channel consists of alluvial deposit, clay, gravel, and rock, the latter is a dark sandstone, very regular in the stratification, and lying most advantageously for removal. Having ascertained these facts, it is recommended to form a navigation between the two oceans, which will, without locks, at all times permit the passage of the largest vessels, having J 50 feet breadth at mid-water, and thirty feet depth at low tide. In consequence of the Pacific rising above, and falling below, the level of the Atlantic, there wiU, during every tide, be a current flowing each way, whose greatest velocity will not exceed three miles an hour. This is a most important point, the direc- tion of the trade will naturally follow the flow of the tide, so that the meeting of vessels will be obviated, and the navigation kept free from deposit. In calculating the cost, nearly the whole of the' material has been estimated as rock, and at prices 75 per cent, above the cost of the same class of work in England ; allowance has been 122 made for imported labour, and a sufficient sum set down for preliminary arrangements : — Cost of excavations, masonry, etc., for the completion of the navigation £1 2,000,000 Interest on capital during progress of work . 2,000,000 Preliminary arrangements, importing labour, purchase of land, etc., etc 1,000,000 Total . . £15.000,000 The capital appears large ; but the return will be in proportion to the magnitude of the undertaking. This is not a question dependent -on local trade; every maritime nation has an interest in its success, and the commerce of the world will yield the profits. Moreover, the vast supplies of gold now discovered, afford means which cannot be applied to more beneficial objects, than in extending the blessings of civilisation by thus facilitating the operations of commerce. In such a case statistics are almost superfluous ; it is safer to consult the history of the progress of commerce, and argue from it, than to calculate profits from the existing state of things. But even on this limited ground it can be shewn that the capital invested will meet with a good return, by charging only a little more than the amount saved in the insurance, without reference to all the other advantages which this route will offer. From the trade statistics, it appears, that in 1 851 upwards of 3,000,000 tons of shipping, and 150,000 passengers would in that year have taken advantage of this navigation. The question of engineering resolves itself into the removal of a large quantity of material, and the time necessary to do it in. Nature not only facilitates in a most remarkable manner the execution of the necessary works, but also provides an assistant motive power for the transit of shipping by the fortunate variation in the level of the tides causing a current to flow each way alternately. My own experience, and a thorough investi- gation of the question, led me to fix three miles an hour as the maximum rate at which this current would flow, and the facts and observations upon which I arrived at such an opinion have 123 since been submitted to the most scientific men of the day, who fully corroborate my conclusion. The requirements of the age demand this inter-oceanic junc- tion, and as every nation is interested in it, both politically and commercially, it is to be hoped that this undertaking will receive the cordial support of the civilised world. I am. Gentlemen, Your obedient Servant, LIONEL GISBORNE, C.E. 41, Craven Street, Strand, London, 7th December, 1852. FORM OF APPLICATION FOR SHARES. To the Provisional Directors of the Atlantic and Pacific Junction Company. Gentlemen, I request that you will allot to me Shares of £100 each, in the above Company; and I hereby undertake to accept the same, or any less number you may allot me, and pay the Deposit of 10s. per Share thereon, and to sign the Subscribers' Agreement when required. Dated this day of Name in full Place of business Residence Business or Profession Signature Name, Residence, Profession, and ] Reference. 124 OBJECTIONS AND THEIR ANSWERS. " The Times " and Sir Charles Fox. " A Company has been advertised for constructing an Atlantic and Pacific Junction Canal through the Isthmus of Darien, at a cost of j615,000,000 sterling. This route, it appears, has- never been actually surveyed, but some superficial observations lately made have led to the assump- tion that, if the levels should prove such as they are supposed to be, a canal capable of passing the largest vessels without locks might be excavated for the sum specified. That the revenue to be derived from a ship-canal between the oceans would be such as to repay even a very heavy expenditure is a conclusion long since arrived at by those who have most thoroughly investigated the question, but whether an outlay of £15,000,000 for a work that must be subsidiary to the Nicaragua Canal, every foot of which has been the subject of the most precise estimates, and which can be built so as to admit large ocean steamers, such as the Northern Light, for less than £4,000,000, will be found profitable, is a point upon which there woiild seem little difficulty in forming an opinion. The shares of the pro- posed Company are to be of £100 each, with a deposit of 10s., and a conditional concession of the Line has been obtained from the government of New Granada, to whom the sura of £24,000 is to be paid within twelve months of its date."— T/ie Times of 8th Feb. 1853. The Isthmus of Darien. To the Editor of the Times. Sir, — I have seen with some regret, and I may say disappointment, the observations appearing in your City Article of this day on the subject of the proposed navigation across the Isthmus of Darien. 125 Any observations appearing to emanate from you are entitled to so mucli weight, that I need not say it behoves any one, writing under your authority, to be very cautious in the opinions he expresses, lest in doing so he should damage or retard objects of public utility, which it is your whole policy and system to encourage and support. The article I refer to impugns the principle and prospects of the Darien undertaking substantially in three assumed positions, all based on a comparison with the proposed canal from St. Juan to the Gulf of Fonseca, known popu- larly as the Nicaragua Canal. The writer states, first, that the proposed navigation across the Isthmus of Darien must be subsidiary to the Nicaragua Canal. He states, secondly, that that canal can be executed, "so as to admit large ocean steamers, such as the Northern Light, for less than i64,000,000 sterling;" and he infers, thirdly, from these statements, that the navigation across the Isthmus of Darien would not pay, while he assumes that the Nicaragua Canal would be remunerative. These positions, I venture to say, are in many respects based upon incorrect data ; and I think I shall have no diffi- culty in satisfying you on that point. The necessity of a communication by sea between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans being strongly felt both in the United States and in this country, it was recently proposed to construct a canal, commencing at St. Juan, on the shore . of the Atlantic, and proceeding through the Lake of Nicaragua, to the Gulf of Fonseca, on the Pacific. It was ascertained that this work could be executed, with a depth of water-way of about twelve feet, at an estimated cost of j£4, 000,000 sterling; but, on further considering the sub- ject, it appeared that this depth, though sufficient for the coasting and local traffic, was not adequate to the more general demands of commerce; and it was, therefore, sub- sequently proposed to increase the depth to seventeen feet, which was found to involve an increase of the cost to upwards of £6,000^000 sterling. The sufficiency of the 126 depth thus increased was, however, considered so question- able, both by the English and American engineers, to whom the matter was referred, that it was proposed to ex- tend it to twenty feet ; but this alteration raised the estimate to about £10,000,000 sterling. In the policy of the original proposition, various capitalists and individuals of great eminence in this country and in the United States con- curred, upon the principle that the communication was expedient if it could be obtained at commensurate cost ; but further deliberation, and especially the increase of ex- pense attendant on increased depth, threw great doubt on the policy of the measure, especially as twenty feet was still greatly below the requirements of commerce, which nothing short of a depth of thirty feet could satisfy, the draught of vessels of the largest class at present being twenty-eight feet. Moreover, it appeared that in this work there would not be less, in the whole, than upwards of 100 miles of canalised river, besides much necessary expenditure in the lake of a very serious character. The passage was 195 miles in length ; there were twenty-eight locks in its course ; the period of transit was calculated at about six days ; the country was very unhealthy; and the annual cost of main- taining the canal very great. Under any circumstances, the canal could not be constructed to carry ships of all sizes, and at best, therefore, it constituted only a partial and imperfect work. Minor drawbacks connected with the position of the canal were felt, which it is not necessary here to notice. It was in this state of the inquiry that my attention was drawn to the subject, accompanied by a suggestion, that a means existed of opening the communication between the two oceans, which would accommodate the whole present and future traffic of the world, at a cost not materially, if at all, exceeding the proposed imperfect and incomplete measure. It appeared to me, that an object so vast was of importance sufficient to justify some expense and labour, and I resolved on despatching engineers to the spot. Mr. 127 GIsborne accordingly proceeded thither witk his assistant, Mr. Ford; and, though it is true, in some sense, as the writer states, that " the land has not been actually surveyed," he examined the locality, he fathomed the water on both sides, and went over the ground, so at least as to satisfy himself of the height of the summit level and the nature of the soil. Mr. Gisborne's qualifications for such an investigation are well known, from his long experience under government in canal and other works, and his reputation is staked upon the correctness of his statements. He reported (and' his report is published) to the effect, that an open navigation, only 30 miles in length of 30 feet depth and 160 feet wide, terminating in a good harbour on each side, affording pas- sage in one tide for vessels, not only of the largest modern construction, but admitting of the increase now- in con- templation, can be constructed at a cost not exceeding, on a high estimate, £12,000,000 sterling. That the conclusion thus arrived at is not as absolutely certain, as if " every foot of the land had been the subject of precise estimate," as the writer assumes of the Nicaragua route, I freely admit; but I think you will agree with me, that the information obtained affords a very strong and cogent reason for concluding that the proposed selection of the Nicaragua route was a mistake, and that attention ought to be directed to this portion of the Isthmus. It is obvious that, if a means exist of opening a passage for the whole commerce of the world, navigable at all times, it must be greatly preferable to a close canal, which can accommodate ships only of a certain tonnage. It is further obvious, that if that passage, once opened, can be main- tained without cost, if it admits of transit in six hours instead of as many days, if it is free from the impediment of locks and canal navigation, and enjoys a good harbour at each terminus, it must be in principle greatly preferable. But if all this can be effected at little more than the cost of the proposed lesser work, with a depth of thirty feet instead of twenty, I think you will agree with me, that it will 128 never, as tlie writer of tlie article assumes, be subsidiary to the Nicaragua route ; and even that, as regards this latter project, there is no fear that English or American capitalists will ever enter on a work so inherently imperfect and in- adequate. Moreover, if the one which can only accommo- date a portion of the traffic will pay, as assumed, it is clear that the other, which will accommodate the whole, must do so in a much higher degree. You will observe that, for the present, all the contem- plated proceedings of the Company proposed to be esta- blished are preliminary only. It is not suggested that it shall enter into costly measures without mature consider- tion and adequate support; but I venture to predict, that the result of further proceedings will be to confirm the conclusion already arrived at; and I am sure that, on the result, no one more than yourself will be rejoiced to find that English capital has not been embarked in an under- taking so unsatisfactory as the Nicaragua Canal, when there exist the means of opening out a passage for the traffic of the world, without let or hindrance, through a way pre- prepared by nature for an operation so entirely effective, and so completely within the power and skill of the human race, already evinced, in a much higher degree, and in works physically much more difficult. I have written this letter in great haste, and must apolo- gise if it betrays intrinsic evidence of this fact, while I must further express my regret at having been thus compelled, contrary to my wishes, to enter upon this comparison. I am, Sir, your obedient humble servant. Charles Fox. 8, New-st., Spring-gardens, Feb. 8. From the Times of lOth Feb. 1853. A letter published to-day from Sir Charles Fox on the projected Darien Canal calls only for limited remark, as its 129 allegations are inaccurate. Instead of the Nicaragua Canal being intended to run from San Juan del Norte to the Gulf of Fonseca, its Pacific terminus ■will be at Brito Bay. Instead of the estimate of its cost, even at 20 feet depth, being 10,000,000;., it is believed to be less than 7,000,000/. (including a most unusual addition for contingencies). Instead of the draught of any considerable number of modern vessels being 28 feet, that of La Plata,, the largest of the West India steamers, when she arrives at Southamp- ton, before baggage and cargo have been landed, is only between 18 and 19 feet. Instead of the work involving 100 miles of canalised river, the surveys of Colonel Childs show only 47 miles. Instead of the country being very unhealthy, it has been demonstrated to be one of the most favorable districts within the tropics. Instead of the transit occupying six days, it is calculated to occupy between two and three days, about 700 miles being at the same time saved in the distance to California beyond what would be saved by a canal at Darien; and, finally, instead of there being " no fear that American capitalists will enter upon such a work" as the Nicaragua Canal, the necessity of hastening every political negotiation that would enable it to be commenced formed one of the prominent topics in the Message of President Fillmore last December, months after the whole details of the Darien scheme had been known and discussed in the United States. It is useless, moreover, to enter here upon arguments which can never have any satisfactory termination. During the past century, whenever the junction of the oceans has been recommended, the public have always been deterred from its accomplishment by the perplexities created from the advocates of rival routes contending each that his own scheme was perfect, and that all the others would prove ruinous or impracticable. The question, therefore, is never likely to be settled by theoret- ical disquisitions. Happily the time is arrived when the undertaking must be carried out somewhere; and inasmuch as the Americans are now every month crossing the isthmus K 130 by thousands, we may rely that the selection of the best line will soon be decided from the test of popular observation and experience. At that period the public — remembering that the New York Company, when they obtained their concession for the Nicaragua Canal, were willing to share it on equitable terms with this countiy — wiU be in a condition to form an opinion whether the general interests of the world were best understood by those who would have urged English capitalists to accept the invitation, or by those who have endeavoured to arouse them to furnish a separate sub- scription for 15,000,000Z. for Darien. Meanwhile it will not be irrational, at all events until the route for which the sum is contemplated has been actually crossed and surveyed, to decline entering into any controversy as to its com- parative merits. If the public can be persuaded that the Nicaragua Canal is not likely to be made, or that, being made, the Darien Canal will not be subsidiary to it either as to date of completion or convenience of traffic, or that after the world has for years been timidly hesitating at the idea of creating one canal it is now expedient to begin with two, they wiU, perhaps, be quite right in subscribing to the project; but as they can inform themselves upon these sub- jects with very little trouble, they will probably not consider the caution suggested yesterday as calculated in the interval to prove damaging in any way to the cause of sound com- mercial enterprise. — Isthmus of Darien. To the Editor of the Times. Sir, — In the letter I wrote to you, which appeared in The Times of yesterday, I stated that it was with regret I felt compelled to notice a paragraph in your City Article of Tuesday last on the subject of the proposed navigation across the Isthmus of Darien. 131 I assure you it is witli feelings of actual pain that I find myself called upon to notice another article, emanating from the same pen, which appears in The Times of to-day, and I ■will leave you to judge, on perusal of this letter, whether I have not good grounds for this feeling. In the article I refer to, the writer endeavours to dispose of my letter on the ground that " its allegations are inac- curate," and he makes, in substance, the following statement, which I shall proceed to answer seriatim : In contradicting my statement, that a draught of 30 feet is not too great for the demands of vessels as they now exist, he states that the draught of La Plata, the largest of the West India steamers, is only between 18 and 19 feet. The fact, which I have ascertained from the office of the owners of the vessel, is that when that ship leaves South- ampton for the West Indies her draught is within two inches of 22 feet, and that of the Orinoco rather more. But the writer does not state a fact important to the real merits of the question between us — viz., that the steam vessels Atlantic and Pacific, of Collins' line, both draw about 25 feet, and he must be well aware, when writing on such a subject for the information of the public, that vessels of war, which it is presumed are not to be excluded from this passage, draw 28 feet. The second statement the writer makes, on the authority of Colonel Childs, the engineer of the Nicaragua scheme (whose able report has been published), is in efiect that the canal with 20 feet of water can be constructed at a cost under 7,000,000/. sterling, " and that instead of the work involving 100 miles of canalised rivers, the surveys of Colonel Childs show only 47 miles." Now, I have at this moment Colonel Childs' report before me, with the promoter's autograph upon it, and at page 137 I find the estimate for the depth of 17 feet to be ^31,538,319, which at the present rate of exchange is equal' to 6,570,483/. sterling, being above the sum stated in my letter. Again, at page 90, Colonel Childs states that in K 2 132 order to attain a depth of 22 feet, wMcli had been con- sidered desirable, the water section would be increased about 45 per cent., " and the expense of the inland portion would also, by reason of the greater depth of excavation, be increased in a still higher ratio." On this statement, I leave you to judge whether I was incorrect in quoting the authority referred to by your writer for the fact that the increase of depth to 20 feet involved an outlay of about 10,000,000/., instead of 6,000,000/. But further, I have reason to know that the English engineers employed in this country by the promoters of the Nicaragua scheme for the satisfaction of the English capitalists, and of whose report it is scarcely to be supposed the writer could be ignorant, came also to the conclusion that the making of the canal 20 feet deep would amount to upwards of ^48,000,000, or 10,000,000/. sterling. In reference to the writer's statement, that the surveys of Colonel Childs show only 47 miles of canalised river, I cannot do better than quote the actual figures from his report at page 88 as follows: — " 47.09 miles of canal navigation. " 90.80 miles of river navigation. " 56.50 miles of lake navigation." In my letter I stated, that out of a length of 195 miles upwards of 100 miles consisted of canalised river. Again, on this point I leave you to judge, upon the writer's own authority, whether I overstated the facts. The writer further states, that, instead of the transit through the suggested Nicaragua canal occupying six days, it will occupy between two and three days. Now, on' turn- ing to page 88 of Colonel Childs' report you will find that he estimates the passage for sailing vessels at 3^ days; but on looking at the calculation you will see that he allows a detention of only half-an-hour at each lock, and assumes the vessels to be in continuous progress of transit, both day and night. This is practically impossible. At least, I am not aware of any analogous case. And I again ask whether I 133 was not within a fair estimate of the practical result when I allowed for it six working days ? Other minor points are advanced in the article — as, for instance, that the Nicaragua Canal is intended to terminate in Brito Bay, instead of the Gulf of Fonseca; and that, instead of the country being unhealthy, the territory of Nicaragua is " one of the most favourable districts in the tropics." As to the first point, I spoke of the Gulf of Fon- seca, because it has some aptitudes for a harbour which are wholly wanting in Brito Bay ; and on the second point, I do not understand the sense in which the writer uses the word " favourable," as it is notorious that the neighbour- hood of Greytown, the Atlantic entrance to the Nicaragua route, is one of the most unhealthy in that part of the world. It is true, that in a voyage from New York to California a distance of something like 700 miles (as stated by the writer) would be saved by the Nicaragua route, but then the gain in time by the short passage through the Isthmus of Darien would more than counterbalance the increase of distance even to that portion of the traffic ; while to the British and general commerce of the world the Darien navi- gation would be decidedly preferable both in time and distance. I have now, I believe, noticed all the positions advanced by the writer in assailing my former statement. It is not for me to offer any opinion upon the correctness of the charges or the sufficiency of the answers ; but I think I may be allowed to ask whether the whole tone of the writer's articles does not evince rather the spirit of a par- tisan advocating the Nicaragua route, than the impartial judgment of a journalist reviewing a question which may perhaps be fairly termed the most important of the present age. I remain. Sir, your most obedient, humble servant, Charles Fox. 8, New-street, Spring-gardens, Feb. 10. From the City Article of The Times, 11th Feb., 1853, 134 It will require forbearance on the Darien question to avoid an interminable altercation. It was stated, with reference to the letter of Sir Charles Fox, inserted on Wednesday, that he had been inaccurate in speaking of the proposed terminus of the Nicaragua Canal as being at the Gulf of Fonseca, whereas it is at Brito Bay. To this Sir Charles replies: — "I spoke of the Gulf of Fonseca because it has some aptitudes for a harbour which are wholly wanting in Brito Bay." The point, however, of the actual position of the terminus, and not of its capabilities, as compared with any other site, was alone under discussion. It was next stated that, instead of the estimate for a '20 feet canal being £10,000,000, it was believed to be under £7,000,000. To meet this it is observed, that Colonel Childs' estimate for one of 17 feet was £6,570,000; that he had spoken of the extended outlay that would be required for one of 22 feet, and that certain English engineers had stated their opinion that one of 20 feet would cost £10,000,000. But it was Colonel Childs' estimates, and not those of any other engineers, English or foreign, that were to be kept in view. There are, doubtless, English engineers who would assert, for instance, that the Darien Canal would cost £30,000,000 instead of 15,000,000, but, imless they could demonstrate that assertion, it would be very unfair to quote it against the results of practical calcu- lations. It is true, that Colonel Childs' first estimates for a 17 feet canal amounted to £6,570,000 (a sum which was created by adding £3,920,000 to what it would cost if it were in a different latitude, and could be executed at New York prices). But it was found also, that his original plans contained some heavy work that might be dispensed with, particulars of which will be seen in the last page of his report ; while it is likewise generally understood that many months back the New York company stated, with his full cognizance, that they could undertake to put the entire canal at 20 feet depth, if such depth were desired, under contract with the most responsible American firms for 135 £6,000,000. It was next stated, that " instead of the draught of any considerable number of modern vessels be- ing 28 feet, that La Plata, the largest of the West India steamers, when she arrives at Southampton, before baggage and cargo have been landed, is only between 18 and 19 feet/' To this it is replied, that her draught when she leaves Southampton is 21 feet 10 inches, and that under similar circumstances the Atlantic and Pacific of Collins's line both draw about 25 feet. But La Plata, when she arrives at San Juan, is in the same condition as when she arrives at Southampton : and, as it would be under such circumstances that she would require to pass the canal, her draught at any other period was not the thing in question. The excep- tional fact that two of Collins's steamships draw about 25 feet, makes nothing against the assertion that " no consider- able number of modern vessels have a draught of 28 feet.'' If the proprietors of the Collins line will subscribe the four or five extra millions of pounds that may be demanded, in order to adapt the proposed canal to their few vessels, there would be no difficulty in their being accommodated ; but^ inasmuch as the question about depth was solely in relation to " the requirements of commerce," and the average burden of the vessels of Great Britain and the United States trading to the Pacific is only about 380 tons, it would be too much to include among these requirements the passage of vessels that would not pay a fraction of interest for the outlay they had occasioned. In the same way, the fact that ships-of-war have been known to draw 28 feet, must be excluded from considerations based simply on mercantile wants, and the return to be obtained for money of private shareholders. If either the Ens;lish or American government desire that a company, which could rely upon large profits for an outlay of £4,000,000 or £6,000,000, should increase their ex- penditure to double or treble that amount to meet their special convenience^ they can at any time commence nego-' tiations for that purpose. It was next stated, that instead of the country being very unhealty, it is one of the most 136 favourable districts within tlie tropics. To this Sir Charles replies, " I do not understand the sense in which the writer uses the word ' favourable,' as it is notorious that the neighbourhood of Greytown, the Atlantic entrance to the Nicaragua route, is one of the most unhealthy in that part of the world." But Greytown does not constitute Nica- ragua, any more than the Pontine Marshes constitute the Roman States. All the Atlantic ports of Central America are unhealthy, but there is no occasion to remain at them, and the interior of Nicaragua^ which in the time of the Spanish dominion was the most thickly peopled of the Central American colonies, is described, by those who have experienced most of it, to be " unsurpassed in salubrity by any equal extent of territory under the tropics." " Both climate and temperature," says Lieutenant Bailey, " appear to be extremely favourable to the general health of natives as well as of foreigners, the exceptions being very few, and of trifling consequence, in the injury which they occasion." The next statement was, that instead of the work involving 100 miles of canalized river, the surveys of Colonel Childs show only 47 miles. Sir Charles points out, however, that the route consists of 47 miles of actual canal, and 90 miles of river navigation; and, although the greater part of this river navigation requires little outlay, it is to be presumed that he is right in speaking of it as canal- ized, since its level is raised by occasional dams and locks. The next statement was, that instead of the transit occupying six days, it is calculated to occupy only between two and three. In reply to this, Sir Charles admits that Colonel Childs estimates the passage of sailing vessels at 3 J days (without any acknowledgment being made that he estimates it for steamers at only two days). At the same time a denial is given of Colonel Childs' correctness; but with the disputes of authorities upon such a point unpro- fessional persons can have nothing to do. The only thing under discussion was Colonel Childs' report as it stood. Finally, the most important statement of all was, that 137 instead of there being " no fear that American capitalists "will enter upon such, a work," the necessity of hastening every political negotiation that would enable it to be com- menced formed one of the prominent topics in the last message of President Fillmore. But with regard to this correction, although the whole question as to whether the Darien would be subsidiary to the Nicaragua Canal is affected by it, no remark or acknowledgment is made. Every one of the statements of which Sir Charles complains has now been gone through, besides that to which he has omitted to refer, and which was the most important of the whole. The public can consequently judge whether they contained a single word that could warrant him in protest- ing that he could not notice without "actual pain" — in speaking of his statements as having been improperly as- sailed — and, finally, in resorting to the personality of ques- tioning the spirit and motives with which the remarks upon them were put forward. If no one is to question Sir Charles Fox's views, or even to speak of inaccuracies in them, without a risk of this sort, when the question^ as he himself admits, is one of the most important of the present age, and when proposals are being issued to the public for a subscription of j615, 000,000, there must be an end of all discussion upon anything in which he is concerned. At all events, those who most admire his splendid energies, and who feel the greatest pleasure in the reputation he has attained, will be careful to do him the justice which in such cases he may neglect to maintain for himself, by declining to continue arguments which cannot, without a resort to imputations, be further carried on upon equal terms. — From the Times of 12th Feb. The Isthmus of Daeien. To the Editor of the Times. Sir, — The tone of the concluding observations of the 138 ■writer of your City article of tbis day is such, as to deprive me alike of the power and the inclination further to pursue a course of observations which appear' to convey to his mind an impression of personality, however contrary to my intention. Allow me, however, in conclusion, simply to state the broad grounds which induced me to decide in favour ol the Parien route, and to ask eminent men to join me in invit- ing the public to raise j675,000 for the preliminary deve- lopment of this project, instead of adopting the previous Nicaragua scheme. The Darien navigation, as proposed, will be 40 miles long, 30 feet deep, without locks, and with an excellent natural harbour at each end. The Nicaragua Canal, as proposed, would be 195 miles long, 17 feet deep, with 28 locks, and between harbours artificially constructed and still altogether inadequate. At equal depths the Darien navigation could be made for less than half the sum which the Nicaragua must cost. But no depth short of 30 feet will accommodate all the shipping which could benefit by the passage. The Darien navigation, therefore, once made, will be a perfect and complete measure; while the Nicaragua Canal, at 17, or even 20 feet, would afford at best imperfect and limited accommodation. Thanking you for the courtesy which has accorded to me so much of your space, I am. Sir, your obedient, humble servant, Charles Fox. 8, New-street, Spring-gardens, Feb. 12. — From the T^mes of 14th Feb. The Most Practical Nation. To the Editor of the Times. Sir, — I have read with much satisfaction a letter signed " Nemo," in which the writer, among many other sound 139 observations^ alludes to tlie great waste of money and valuable energy in the futile attempts to find a north-west passage through the ice of the Polar regions from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, while at the same time our Government has wholly neglected the vastly more important question of a feasible ship-canal route across the narrow barrier which, from Mexico to the terra firma of New Granada, separates the two oceans. So just are his observations, that I cannot avoid mention- ing a fact which I have lately ascertained, and which most powerfully corroborates his assertions of the singular apathy which has hitherto prevailed regarding a country lying within 18 days' direct steaming from England, and four days' of Jamaica. Upon examining the Admiralty charts, with a view to the compilation of a full and accurate map of the whole Isthmus, I found to my amazement that there was a discrepancy of no less than 13 J miles in the longitudes of the isthmus in two consecutive charts, — viz., Nos. 10 and 11 of the West Indies. Lest this most extraordinary error may be doubted, I may make reference to the longitude of Garachine Point, the southern boundary of the mouth of the Gulf of San Miguel which is laid down in sheet 10 as in longitude 78' 10', andin sheet 11 as in longitude 78° 235'. Volumes could not more strongly show the urgent necessity of at least a survey of the coasts, and of the publication of Captain Kellett's chart, which, however, only contains the Pacific coast. The writer proceeds to state his opinion of the probability of the existence of a transverse valley, of low elevation, somewhere across the isthmus, and will no doubt be pleased to learn, not only that a valley has been found, but that in a line across the isthmus of Darien, firom Caledonia Bay and Port Escosces, the site of the Scotch settlement of 1698-99, to the Gulf of San Miguel, the whole country is a plain, with the exception of a single ridge of hills, at two miles distance from the Atlantic, with a base of only two miles in width, and that this ridge is divided by transverse 140 valleys (througi. whlcli the Aglaseniqua, Aglatomate, and other rivers have their course) into almost isolated hills, as has been minutely explained in my paper read before the British Association at their Edinburgh meeting in July 1850, in my report, to Lord Palmerston, dated 15th of January, 1851, and in a pamplet on the " Isthmus of Darien Ship Canal," lately published by me. Not satisfied with crossing the Isthmus once only in 1849, I returned again from the Atlantic to the Pacific, having cut a picadura, or track, for myself through the bush, from Port Escosces to the river Savana, which I navigated always, except on one occasion, alone, paddling myself in a little canoe. In 1850 I again crossed and recrossed this part of the Isthmus, and again in August and September, 1851, I at several times, and in different lines, crossed from the Savana Eiver to the seabeach on the Atlantic. Further, I have resided on several occasions with the Indians who dwell at some distance from the route; and have invariably been kindly treated by them, and more particularly by those who reside on the banks of the Aglaseniqua or Caledonia Eiver, called by the old Scotch colonists Rio del Oro, or Golden Eiver. Thus more has been done in the exploration of the Isthmus than " Nemo" appears to be aware of; though what has been discovered has been the result of personal and private enterprise and adventure, and not of any assistance from Government or any public company. I am. Sir, your most obedient, tumble servant, Edward Cullen, M.D. 302, Strand, Feb. 14. From The Times of 16th February. 141 Convention between Her Majesty and the United States of America, relative to the Establishment of a Com- munication by Ship-Canal between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Signed at Washington, April 19, 1850. [Ratifications exchanged at Washington, July 4, 1850.] Presented to both Homes of Parliament, hy command of Her Majesty, August, 1850. Her Britannic Majesty and the United States of Ame- rica being desirous of consolidating the relations of amity •which so happily subsist between them, by setting forth and fixing in a Convention their views and intentions with reference to any means of communication by Ship-Canal, which may be constructed between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, by the way of the River St. Juan de Nicaragua, and either or both of the Lakes of Nicaragua or Managua, to any port or place on the Pacific Ocean ; Her Britannic Majesty has conferred full powers on the Eight I'lonourable Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, a Member of Her Majesty's Privy Council, Knight Commander of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, and Envoy Extraor- dinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of Her Britannic Majesty to the United States; and the President of the United States, on John M. Clayton, Secretary of State of the United States, for the aforesaid purpose; and the said Plenipotentiaries having exchanged their full powers, which were found to be in proper form, have agreed to the follow- ing Articles. Article I. The Governments of Great Britain and the United States hereby declare that neither the one nor the other will ever obtain or maintain for itself an exclusive control over the 142 said Ship-Canal; agreeing that neither will ever erect or maintain any fortifications commanding the same, or in the vicinity thereof, or occupy, or fortify, or colonise, or assume or exercise any dominion over Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mosquito Coast, or any part of Central America; nor -will either make use of any protection which either affords, or may afford^ or any alliance which either has, or may have, to or with any State of people, for the purpose of erecting or maintaining any such fortifications, or of occupying, for- tifying, or colonising Nicaragua, Costa Rica, or the Mos- quito Coast, or any part of Central America, or of assuming or exercising dominion over the same. Nor will Great Britain or the United States take advantage of any intimacy or use any alliance, connection, or influence that either may possess with any State or Government through whose terri- tory the said canal may pass, for the purpose of acquiring or holding, directly or indirectly, for the subjects or citizens of the one, any rights or advantages in regard to commerce or navigation through the said canal, which shall not be offered, on the same terms, to the subjects or citizens of the other. Article II. Vessels of Great Britain or the United States traversing the said canal shall, in case of war between the Contracting Parties, be exempted from blockade, detention, or capture by either of the belligerents ; and this provision shall extend to such a distance from the two ends of the said canal as may hereafter be found expedient to establish. Article III. In order to secure the construction of the said canal, the Contracting Parties engage that if any such canal shall be undertaken upon fair and equitable terms by any parties having the authority of the Local Government or Govern- ments through whose territory the same may pass, then the persons employed in making the said canal, and their pro- perty used or to be used for that object, shall be protected,^ 143 from tlie commencement of the said canal to its completion, by tlie Governments of Great Britain and the United States, from unjust detention, confiscation, seizure, or any violence ■whatsoever. Article IV. The Contracting Parties will use whatever influence they respectively exercise with any State, States, or Governments possessing, or claiming to possess, any jurisdiction or right over the territory which the said canal shall traverse, or which shall be near the waters applicable thereto, in order to induce such States or Governments to facilitate the con- struction of the said canal by every means in their power ; and furthermore. Great Britain and the United States agree to use their good offices, wherever or however tt may be most expedient, in order to procure the establishment of two free ports, one at each end of the said canal. Article V. The Contracting Parties further engage that when the said canal shall have been completed, they will protect it &om interruption, seizure, or unjust confiscation, and that they will guarantee the neutrality thereof, so that the said canal may for ever be open and free, and the capital invested therein secure. Nevertheless, the Governments of Great Britain and the United States, in according their protection to the construction of the said canal, and guaranteeing its neutrality and security when completed, always understand that this protection and guarantee are granted conditionally, and may be withdrawn by both Governments, or either Government, if both Governments or either Government should deem that the persons or company undertaking or managing the same adopt or establish such regulations con- cerning the traffic thereupon, as are contrary to the spirit and intention of this Convention : either by making unfair discriminations in favour of the commerce of one of the Contracting Parties over the commerce of the other, or by imposing oppressive exactions, or unreasonable tolls upon. 144 passengers, vessels, goods, wares^ merchandize, or other articles. Neither party, however, shall withdraw the afore- said protection and guarantee, without first giving six months' notice to the other. Article VI. The Contracting Parties in this Convention engage to invite every State with which both or either have friendly intercourse, to enter into stipulations with them similar to those which they have entered into with each other, to the end that all other States may share in the honour and ad- vantage of having contributed to a work of such general interest and importance as the canal herein contemplated; and the Contracting Parties likewise agree that each shall enter into treaty stipulations with such of the Central American States as they may deem advisable, for the pur- pose of more effectually carrying out the great design of this Convention; namely, that of constructing and main- taining the said canal as a ship communication between the two Oceans for the benefit of mankind, on equal terms to all, and of protecting the same; and they also agree that the good offices of either shall be employed, when requested by the other, in aiding and assisting the negotiation of such treaty stipulations; and should any differences arise as to right or property over the territory through which the said canal shall pass, between the States or Governments of Central America, and such differences should in any way impede or obstruct the execution of the said canal, the Governments of Great Britain and the United States will use their good offices to settle such differences in the manner best suited to promote the interests of the said canal, and to strengthen the bonds of friendship and alliance which exist between the Contracting Parties. Article VII. It being desirable that no time should be unnecessarily lost in commencing and constructing the said canal, the 145 Governments of Great Britain and the United States deter- mine to give their support and encouragement to such persons or company as may first offer to commence the same ■with the necessary capital, the consent of the local autho- rities, and on such principles as accord with the spirit and intention of this Convention; and if any persons or com- pany should already have, with any State ' through which the proposed Ship-canal may pass, a contract for the con- struction of such a canal as that specified in this Convention, to the stipulations of which contract neither of the Con- tracting Parties in this Convention have any just cause to object, and the said persons or Company shall, moreover, have made preparations and expended time, money, and trouble on the faith of such contract, it is hereby agreed, that such persons or company shall have a priority of claim over every other person, persons, or company, to the pro- tection of the Governments of Great Britain and the United States, and be allowed a year, from the date of the exchange of the ratifications of this 'conv'?ation, for concluding their arrangements, and presenting evidence of sufficient capital subscribed to accomplish the contemplated undertaking; it being understood that if, at the expiration of the afore- said period, such persons or company be not able to com- mence and carry out the proposed enterprise, then the Governments of Great Britain and the United States shall be free to afford their protection to any otlier persons or company that shall be prepared to commence and proceed with the construction of the canal in question. Article VIII. The Governments of Great Britain and the United States having not only desired, in entering into this Convention, to accomplish a particular object, but also to establish a general principle, they hereby agree* to extend their pro- tection by treaty stipulations to any other practicable com- * This extends the provisos of the Treaty to the Darien Ship- Canal Company, E.G. L, 146 munications, whether by canal or railway, across the isthmus which connects North and South America; and especially to the inter-oceanic communications, should the same prove to be practicable, whether by canal or railway, which are now proposed to be established by the way of Tehuantepec or Panama. In granting, however, their joint protection to any such canals or railways as are by this Article specified, it is always understood by Great Britain and the United States, that the parties constructing or owning the same shall impose no other charges or con- ditions of traffic thereupon than the aforesaid Governments shall approve of as just and equitable; and that the same canals or railways, being open to the subjects and citizens of Great Britain and the United States on equal terms, shall also be open on like terms to the subjects and citizens of every other State which is willing to grant thereto such protection as Great Britain and the United States engage to afford. Article IX. The Katifications of this Gonv-ention shall be exchanged at Washington within six months from this day, or sooner if possible. In faith whereof we, the respective Plenipotentiaries, have signed this Convention, and have hereunto aifixed our seals. Done at Washington, the nineteenth day of April, Anno Domini, One thousand eight hundred and fifty. (Signed) HENRY LYTTON BULWEE, (L.S.) JOHN M. CLAYTON, (L.S.) 147 VI. THE SCOTCH COLONY OF. DARIEN. " Eighteen years had elapsed from the first discovery of San Salvador, one of the Bahama group, by the adven- turous Columbus,* before Spain attempted to form a settle- ment on the shores of Terra Fir ma; and it was only in the year 510 that Vasco Nunez de Balboa first attempted the establish- ment of a colony, somewhere in the marshy and insalubrious district which constitutes the delta embraced within the mouths of the great river of Choc6, best known by the name of the Atrato, which pours its accumulated waters into the south-western angle of the Gulf of Darien. This settle- ment, which was named by its founder Santa Maria el Antigua, being found, in its swampy and uncleared condi- tion, little favourable to the health of the European residents, was abandoned by its population after a calamitous trial of not more than eight years, and the settlement transferred to the site of the present city of Panama :t while not a vestige remains to mark the spot where Balboa first pitched his tents. " After an interval of nearly two centuries, during which the arms of Spain had been unable to subjugate the warlike Indians, who claimed the territory as their ancient and rightful inheritance, nearly the same spot was selectedj by our enlightened and enterprising countryman, Paterson, for the site of his colony, New Caledonia, which — had not the blindness of commercial jealousy, and the total ignorance of those fundamental principles which form the surest foundation of commercial prosperity, blighted it in the bud — would have proved itself, in the course of time, one of the brightest and the richest of the jewels which adorn the British crown. * October, 1492. + a.d. 1518. % a.d. 1699. L 2 148 " Of this bold, but unfortunate undertaking, Dalrjonple, in the second volume of his valuable ' Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland,' lias given an interesting and instruc- tive account, from which, as it is not in the hands of every reader, I shall extract such particulars as are requisite for the illustration of my subject. " Paterson, as Dalrymple acquaints us, was a Scotch clergy- man, who made" his profession subservient to a strong desire to explore distant regions, and visit foreign lands. With this view, he visited the continent of South America, in the capacity of a missionary for the civilisation of the Indians, and their conversion to Christianity. "In the prosecution of these laudable designs, it was his fortune to fall in with two individuals, of considerable celebrity and no small amount of observation ; these were Captain Dampier and Mr. Wafer, both of whom afterwards gave to the world the result of their experience, the one in an account of his voyages, and the other of his travels through the narrowest parts of that ridge of partition which has for ages prevented the waters of the tropical Atlantic from mingling with those of the Pacific. But the greatest amount of his information was derived from the buccaneers,, whose contraband occupations brought them practically acquainted with the most intricate parts of the country in- terposed between the two seas. From these sources Pater- son was enabled to gather an amount of information, the exactness of which he resolved to verify by personal obser- vation ; the result of which was, that he ascertained the existence, in the Isthmus of Darien, of a tract of country, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, of which the Spaniards never had been able to obtain possession, and with the Indian inhabitants of which they carried on per- petual hostilities; that there lay a chain of uninhabited islands along the Atlantic side of the coast, clothed with perennial forests, and possessing great natural strength, the ■seas adjoining which abounded in turtle and the sea-cow or manatee. 149 ' " He furtlier learned that, between Porto Bello and Cartlia- gena, at the distance of about fifty leagues from each, there was a place called Acta,§ near the mouth of the river of Darien, or Atrato, where there was a natural harbour, sufficiently spacious to admit the largest fleet, sheltered from the wind by a number of islands, which broke the force of the sea, and protected from the assaults of enemies by a promontory which commanded the entrance, as well as by sunken rocks in the passage itself; that on the Pacific side of this tract of country, there were other harbours, equally commodious and secure ; while an elevated ridge traversed the interme- diate space, on which the temperature was at all times deliciously cool, covered with forests unencumbered with underwood, and affording a free passage to the wind, so as to prevent the accumulation of moisture beneath their shade. And he ascertained also, that the soil of this elevated region was rich and productive, yielding spontaneously tropical fruits, plants, and roots, in the greatest profusion; that the whole of this tract was well adapted for the construction of loads, by which a passage might be effected between the two seas within the compass of a day. " Such is the substance of the information collected by this enterprising Scotchman in the course of his peregrinations, and out of which sprang the idea which suggested itself to his active mind, of rendering this favoured spot conducive to the prosperity of his native land. " He was well aware that ships going free and pursuing a course nearly direct, were navigated by fewer bands, en- countered fewer dangers, and reached their port of destina- tion in less time than those which required greater diversity of winds; which were more exposed to detention by calms, and had to seek their port by a more tortuous course. Vessels of the largest tonnage, he well knew, were to be met with in the South Sea, navigated by a very reduced number of hands, who had little other labour to perform than § This is Agla, or Aglaseniqua in Caledonia Bay, e.c. 150 adjusting their sails in a proper trim to suit the direction of the wind, at the commencenient of their voyage, and taking their turn at the helm to keep their vessel to her course. He likewise knew, that vessels bound to Darien, after gaining the latitude of the trade-winds, glided along to their destination with even greater ease and security than when floating down the placid stream of the gentlest river. "By taking, therefore, the direction of Darien, and forming a ship-canal, or other line of communication, between it and such a point on the coast of the Pacific as would allow a vessel departing from it to clear the Punta Mariata, at the extreme south-western extremity of the -deep bay of Panama, the voyage to India must, he conceived, not only be abridged of much of its duration by the accustomed route, but be disarmed of more than a moiety of its hazards; while the whole distance being accomplished within one hemisphere, the harassing and often injurious calms which prevail in the vicinity of the equinoctial, would be escaped. "He was equally aware that vessels, on their return from India, by proceeding as far north as the 40th parallel, fell in with the winds invariably blowing in that latitude from the westward, and, by availing themselves of these to reach the coast of Mexico, they were enabled to take ad- vantage of the land-winds which blow with almost equal regularity from north to south, propelling them with a flowing sheet to the entrance of the Bay of Panama, whence, by trimming their sails to suit the direction of the trade- winds, a slightly oblique course would conduct them back to the point of the coast of Darien from which they ori- ginally departed ; after which the dangers of their homeward navigation would be those only which are incidental to every homeward-bound voyage from the West Indies. " Such were the considerations which influenced Paterson in the selection of a site for his projected colony, the success of which wouM have conferred incalculable advantages, not only upon the land of his nativity, but upon the distant 151 shores of India and China, and have broken down that iron barrier which has so long excluded the populous empire of Japan from the blessings of Christianity and civilisation. " But the mind of Paterson we may well imagine to have been, in some degree, likewise influenced by the discovery of gold in some parts of the Isthmus, and the expectation of meeting it in still greater profusion, from its constituting a continuation of the auriferous and platiniferous soil of the Choc6. " Amid, however, the dazzling temptations of all these brilliant advantages, Paterson never once lost sight of the claims of others, in the eager pursuit of his own views. Treading in the worthy steps of the illustrious founder of the State of Pennsylvania, instead of imbruing his hands in the blood of the Indians, and taking by brute force that to which he had no honest claim, he entered into a negociation with them for the purchase of the territory required for his colony, upon equitable terms; and having thus obtained an unquestionable right to the soil, named his acquisition New Caledonia, and fixed upon the ancient Acta as the site of his first town, to which he gave the appellation of Saint Andrew. " This town was situated on a harbour, inclosed on one side by a narrow tongue of land, which divided it from the sea; and on the other, by a mountain, which rose, as was estimated, to the altitude of a mile, crowned with a signal- station, commanding a rich and extensive prospect, where persons were constantly stationed to keep a vigilant look- out, and give prompt notice of any impending danger. The settlement was further protected by a fort, mounting fifty pieces of ordnance. Besides attending to the security of his infant colony against external assault, Paterson provided for its commercial prosperity, with the far-seeing eye of a liberal and enlightened statesman; not only freeing com- merce from all those unwise obstructions which the igno- rance of our forefathers foolishly introduced, but liberating the mind from all those shackles of human creeds, which, 152 borrowing their tenets from sources at variance with the Scripture, exalt sectarianism above Christianity. Paterson presented the rare example of a clergyman devoid of bigotry, and holding out the right hand of Christian fellowship to all who chose to enrol themselves in his colony, without distinction of complexion, of country, or of creed — recollect- ing the important truth propounded by the apostle, that ' of one blood hath God made all the nations of the earth.' " The failure of this attempt to divert the tide of commerce with the countries bordering on the Pacific from the long' established routes hitherto pursued to the central isthmus of America, arose from causes which are little likely to recur at the present day, and none from any real impractica- bility in the scheme, or from the malaria arising from the swampy and feverish character uf the uncleared and undrained locality:'* The William Paterson here mentioned was the founder of the Bank of England, a plan from which he derived no advantages, it having been taken out of his hands by larger capitalists, who went to the extent of even denying his right at the time, either to remuneration or original property in the conception. Bishop Burnett, indeed, who stopped at nothing in behalf of his hero, King William III., readily discredits Paterson's claims, as may be seen by a reference to his history, or to the Gentlemans Magazine, vol. Ixii. p. 990, where some curious passages are collected on this point. Posterity, however, has done him justice ; and in Mr. Francis's History of the Bank of England, an elaborate memoir of William Paterson- appears, as the acknowledged first Governor, and originator of that admirable institution. Into the early details of the difficulties Paterson met with * I am indebted for the above to the first of a series of exceed- ingly interesting and beautiful " Letters on the advantages and practicability of forming a junction between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans," from the learned Dr. Hamilton, of Plymouth, to S. Banister, Esq., in Colbiirn'a New Monthly Magazine, from July to December, 1850. 153 in forming liis company for colonising Darien, it is not my purpose to enter. It may, however, be interesting to give the names of the original parties and promoters, as they appear in the " Act for the Company trading to Africa and the Indies," 1695:— 1 John, Lord Belhaven. Adam Cockburn, of Ormestown. Lord Justice Clerk. Mr. Francis Montgomery, of Giffen. Sir John Maxwell, of Pollock. Sir Robert Chiesly. John Swinton, present Provost of Edinburgh, of that ilk. Mr. Eobert Blackwood, | j^^^^j^^^^^ .^ Edinburgh. Mr. James Balfour, ) Mr. John Corss, Merchant in Glasgow. William Paterson, James Fowlis, David Nairn, Thomas Deans, James Chiesly, James Smith, Thomas Couts, Hugh Frazer, Joseph Cohen D'Azevedo, Walter Stewart, The original subscription list is preserved amongst a mass of papers in the Advocate's Library, Edinburgh, which were found some years ago, with the books and accounts of the Company, locked up in an old oak chest. The following names occur amongst those who signed the Company's deed: —Elizabeth Lady Southhouse, for William FuUerton, son of John FuUertoUj of Kinaven, her grandchild : for herself, and failing of her, her grandchildren, j6100; George Nisbett, convener for the Trades of Glasgow, £400; Eobert Stevenson, for the wrights of Glasgow, i/'lOO; William Cumming, visitor of the maltmen of Glas Merchants in London. 154 gow, iff200; John Bryce, deacon of the cordwainers of Glasgow, jflOO; Eoderick Pedison, in the name of the cordwainers of Aberdeen, £100;- James Pringle, of Tor- woodlie, curator to George Pringle, of Greenknow, his nephew, by his desire, and with the consent of the remaining curators, and in his name, £400. " It was Paterson's original and ostensible design," says Malcolm Lalng, a Scottish historian, one of whose ancestors was a subscriber to the Company, " to establish an East Indian trade with Scotland, to which foreign merchants, impatient of the exclusive companies in England and Hol- land, might subscribe. But a secret and magnificent plan was engrafted by Paterson on his original designs. During his voyages with the buccaneers, he had probably visited the Isthmus of Darien, of which a considerable part was unoccu- pied, or, as he conceived, unappropriated, by the Spaniards, and inhabited by tribes of independent Indians, hostUe to their name. On each side of the Isthmus he prepared to establish an emporium for the trade of the opposite con- tinents; that the manufactures of Europe and the slaves of Africa, when transported to the Gulf of Darien, and con- veyed by land across the ridge of mountains that intersect the Isthmus, might be exchanged for the produce of Spanish America, and for the rich merchandise of Asia, imported to the Gulf of St. Michael, or to the river Sambu, in the Bay of Panama.* The same trade- winds that wafted the European commodities across the Atlantic, would carry them across the Pacific Ocean to Asia; the ships from each continent would return loaded with the produce of the others, while the ships fi:om Europe would return with the produce of both the Indies. To unite the commerce of the two Indies, by a colony planted in the Isthmus of Darien, or, in his own language, to wrest the ' keys of the world' from Spain, was certainly the conception of no vulgar mind. It may be compared with the noblest and the most successful of * The Sambii is in the Bay of Garachine (see Map). 155 Alexander's designs — to establisli a mart in Egypt, through which the commerce of India might flow for ages — and was worthy of Spain to execute. But the schemes of Paterson were addressed to one of the poorest nations in Europe, and recommended by advantages more immediate, and to the Scots more attractive. He represented the natural fertility of the soil as adapted to the most valuable productions of the tropical climates; and to the mines of gold, with which the Isthmus abounded, as sufficient to gratify their most insatiate desires. With a wiser policy, he proposed to render the colony a free port, where no dis- tinction of party, religion, or nation, should prevail. His schemes wore communicated to a select number; and as they were gradually suspected or suffered to transpire, the commercial ideas of the Scots were expanded, and they began to grasp at the riches of both the Indies." I now take up the story from an excellent precis given by poor Eliot Warburton, in his novel entitled " Darien." I have followed him carefully through all the authorities and writers upon that subject, and found him invariably (except in one instance) correct. " So far all went well — the subscription-lists were full and closed. Scotland had contributed ^6400,000, half of all the circulating capital in the country; England added £300,000; Hamburgh and Holland made up £200,000 more. With this vast sum, considering the time, Paterson and his associates went to work with energy, drawing freely on their supposed capital for the equipment of the first expedition on a scale commensurate with its importance. Its proposed magnitude surprised even the London mer- chants. A panic suddenly seized the East India Company ; for the East Indies (to be traded with from the opposite side of the Isthmus) had been unhappily inserted in the Charter to Paterson's Company, as being within the limits of their power to trade. The East India Company remon- strated by petition to the king. The English Parliament then met; and the Darien scheme was too popular a subject 156 not to be made a matter of eager debate. The feeling of the Parliament was hostile. It even impeached some of its members for joining in a scheme ' so injurious to English commerce.' The king saw fit to yield to the altered tone of public feeling : he actually made a sort of apology for the encouragement he had bestowed upon the scheme : he confessed 'that he had been ill-advised in Scotland'; and he at once revoked all his favourable dispositions towards the Company. The English subscriptions were withdrawn ; and, under a threat of England's displeasure, Hamburgh and Holland, after some squabbling (and deprecating any fear of England as their motive for doing so), likewise withdrew. •j! o Sf! S|t Sf! S|C " The hope and faith of the Scottish people soared all the higher for the desertion of their allies. The prepara- tions for the expedition were pressed forward. Diminished by more than half as were their resources, the equipment lost nothing of its pretensions. The consequence was, that five ships sailed with a stinted and miserable provision, scarcely sufficient to have carried them in comfort on a cruising voyage among Christian lands ; much less across the wide Atlantic, through hostile regions, along savage shores. ****** " The members of the expedition were as ill fitted for their purpose as the ships themselves. The difficulty of collecting subscriptions was great, notwithstanding the enthusiasm of the subscribers. It was a period of severe scarcity moreover, and provisions were enormously dear: hence the temptation to adulterate them was greater than usual, and it was extensively done. Scotland was dis- honoured by the promoters of her first and last attempt to found a colony: "William III. did not do more to cause the ruin of the expedition, than these earnest yet dishonour- able men. " At length the expedition was pronounced ready to set 157 sail. The rotten ships, gaily painted and bedecked with flaunting flags, were filled with rotten provisions most carefully made up, in order to conceal the imposture. Certain bales of goods and merchandise, also of a very inferior description, were placed in the ships, in order to traffic with the natives of the Land of Promise, as well as with the Christian inhabitants of the West India Islands, for provisions. With these goods invoices were sent, fixing an exorbitant value upon every article. " To crown all, these ill-fated ships were commanded by coarse, brutal, and ignorant captains, haters of and hostile to one another. The ' Council ' which accompanied them had no decisive authority. There was no chief, and every one aspired to command : the ingenuity of men could not have devised a plan more evidently anarchical. Paterson had been allowed no voice in any of the proposed arrange- ments; through jealousy, he had not even been named as one of the Council: he entered his ship as ignorant of her equipment as any seaman on board. He proposed, even then, to hold an inspection of the stores before the ships weighed anchor; but this was angrily forbidden, for reasons which are not difficult to divine." I find in some of the papers of the Scotch Colony, that he was pursued by bailifis when he was about to embark. ****** " No less than three hundred, it is said, of the best blood in Scotland were among the emigrants (1,200 in all). With them went many of their servants and husbandmen, deter- mined, with clanman loyalty, to follow the fortunes of their young masters, for good or ill, whithersoever they might lead. These poor fellows also left behind them all their household ties; for the heart of Scotland, high and low, went with the Darien expedition." ****** The papers published by the Bannatyne Club contain some remarkable particulars of this voyage, and narrate the vain eflfbrts-of Paterson to prevail upon the searcaptains to 158 purchase provisions from a Captain Moore, whom they met on the voyage. The Akeival. — Isla Del Oko. — " Thus in high hopes and spirits the adventurers traversed the Atlantic with favouring bireezeSj and on the 30th of October they came n sight of the New World. A wide and vague extent of islands, and bold cliffs, and swampy shores, was there ; along these the mariners groped their way cautiously, until, on the 1st of November, they came in sight of the long-desired Golden Island. Gloriously beautiful it seemed to the longing eyes of the emigrants, with its rich foliage and graceful undulations of bright green sward ; and lofty trees bending over the calm crystalline sea, in which their abounding fruit and plumy foliage was reflected. The isle was only three miles in circumference, but it stood forth like a beautiful specimen of the vast regions that lay beyond. All that was visible seemed as fair; the same wild luxuriance of vegetation, the same promise of fertility, the same loveliness of feature, to which the distant mountains gave a deeper interest in Scottish eyes." ****** Port Escosces. — " On the 27th of October," says the writer of " A Defence of the Scots' Colony, with a Description of Darien," published at Edinburgh in 1799, " our ships came to anchor in a fair sandy bay, three leagues west off the Gulf of Darien We have an excellent harbour, surrounded with high mountains, capable of holding one thousand sail, land-locked, and safe from all winds and tempests. The mouth of the harbour is about a random cannon-shot over, formed by a peninsula on the one side and a point of land on the other. In the middle of the entrance there is a rock three feet above water, upon which the sea beats most terribly when the wind blows hard; and within the points there is a small rock, that lies a little under water. On both sides of these rocks there is a very good wide channel for ships to come in; that on the south side is three cables long and 159 seven fathoms deep, and that on the north side two cables long. From the two outermost points the harhour runs away east a mile and a half; and near the middle, on the right hand, a point of land shoots out into the bay The bay within is, for the most part, six fathom water, and till you come within a cable's length of the shore, three fathoms and a half, so that a quay might be built, to which great ships may lay their sides and unload. The peninsula lies on the left hand, is a mile and a half in length, very steep, and high towards the sea, so that it would be difficult for anybody to land tiU you come to the Isthmus, where there is a small sandy bay, that little ships may put into. There are several rivers of very good water that fall into the bay ; and it abounds so with excellent fish, that we can with ease take more than it is possible for us to destroy, having sometimes caught a hundred and forty at a draught. Amongst others there are tortoises, which are excellent meat, and some of them above six cwt." Future Pkospects. — Desceiption of Caledonian Hakbouk. — " Before him (Paterson), at the mouth of the harbour, lay the Golden Island ; within among the forests gleamed the Golden River (Rio Del Oro) ; high up in the mountains, his eye could trace where lay the Golden Mines of Cana. " But it was not gold he then sought, for nobler visions occupied his mind. No greater idea than his had been formed since the time of Columbus: the connection of the two great oceans ; the abolition of distance and danger ; the saving of time — so important to man, whose schemes are so far extended, and whose life is so short ! " On that lovely and neglected shore his imagination pictured the cities of a great colony, founded, as never colony before was founded, on principles of perfect freedom of religion and trade. ' This union of the two great oceans, this door of the seas and key of the imiverse,' as the pro- jector described it, ' was to form a nucleus for a new system of beneficent wealth and benignant power.' " 160 The authenticity of this description is proved by various passages I have quoted in the notes to the body of this work. Poet Escosces. — " And now behold the little fleet of Scottish ships entering the fine harbpur Acta, slowly and cautiously. The entrance is not only narrow, but guarded by diagonal shelves of rocks, between which you can alone steer with safety. Thus vessels entering this harbour appear as if they were sailing for the opposite shore ; or as if, even with a leading wind, they were tacking to their destination. Once within the harbour's mouth, however, the basin is all that a seaman can desire : almost land-locked, and of capacity to hold five hundred ships, deep, sand at bottom, and the water so clear, that five fathom deep you can see the shells and coral fragments as through the purest glass. A wide bay, fringed with a yellow shore, which seemed to the eager eyes of the emigrants like golden sands, spread round. Mangroves dropped into the water in many places, and were laden with oysters as with fruit. Above this leafy shore, arose stately and graceful trees, opening at intervals in pleasant glades ; then hills succeeded, bounded by mountains, whence flowed many streams, flashing in cascades among the rocks, or gleaning in tranquil rivers along the plain." — Warburton. Caledonian Bay. — " About a cannon-shot to the southward, a peninsula, with a deep harbour at its ex- tremity, ran out into the sea. The outer arm of the harbour was level, and as well fitted for artificial defence as the opposite part was formidable by nature. But within these defences, and their protected harbour, lay a wide, calm, sheltered bay; capable of containing all the fleets of Europe. From its western shore, two fine rivers discharged themselves into the bay; and rich savannahs, and orange, and palm-tree groves, bordered the sea-board round." In the first letter sent from New Caledonia by the • Council of the Colony — which I find given at p. 10 of " An Enquiry into the Cause of the Miscarriage of the Scots' 161 Colony at Darlen," Glasgow, 1700 — a pamphlet for wHcli King William issued a proclamation against its author, offering a reward for 'his arrest — the following passages occur : — " The wealth, fruitfulness, health, and good situation of the country proves far the better, much above our greatest expectation, which God Almighty seems to have wonder- fully reserved for this occasion, and even to have prepared our way, and wonderfully disposed the Indies to that purpose. "As to the country, we find it very healthful; (oi although we arrived here in the rainy season, from which we had little or no shelter for several weeks together, and many sick amongst us, yet tRey are so far recovered, and in so good a state of health, as could hardly anywhere be expected among such a number of meti together; nor know we anything of those several dangerous and mortal distempers so prevalent in the English and other Atnerican Islands. " In fruitfulness this country seems not to give place to any in the world, for we have seen several of the fruits, as cocoa nuts, whereof chocolate is made, bonellos, sugar-cane, maize, oranges, plantains, mango, yams, and several others, all of them the best of their kind anywhere found. " Nay, there is hardly a spot of ground here but what may be cultivated ; for even upon the very tops and sides of the hills and mountains, there is commonly three or four foot deep of rich earth, without so much as a stone to be foimd therein. Here is good hunting and fowling, and excellent fishing in the bays and creeks of the coast, so that, could we improve the year, just now begun, we should be able to subsist of ourselves. "Signed, Egbert Jolley. j. montgomerey. Dan. Mackay. RobT. Pennicook. EOBT. PiNCARTON. Wm. Patebson. M 162 "We intreat you to send us a good engineer, who is extremely wanted here, this place being capable of being strongly fortified. You -will understand by ours from Maderas, the dangers as well as the tediousness of our passage north-about, so that, if the ships can conveniently be fitted out from Clyde, it wiU save a great deal of time in their passage^ and be far less hazardous." In the meanwhile, no time had been lost by the Dutch and English East India Companies, in bringing every engine to bear upon the King for the ruin of the colony. A Captain Long, whose dispatch was found in the papers of the Company, was cruising on the coast, and endeavoured to set the Indians upon them, but failed. He, however, proceeded to the West Indies, and did his best to cut off" all supplies, as well as to seduce some of their best men — carpenters and others. The Spanish Ambassador addressed a protest to the King of England, which we find fiiUy repeated in a pamphlet distributed by him at the time, entitled, " Information concernant I'AfiTaire de Darien." In this, after reciting the bull of the Pope, by which America was given to Ferdinand and Isabella, he goes on as follows: — XL As regards the province of Darien, in particular, it is notorious that it was discovered at the same time (1500); and, as a proof of this, when the above-mentioned King Ferdinand, having sent Alonzo Ojeda and Diego de Nicuesa, as governors of the country, they quarrelled about Darien, and each pretended that it was in his portion of terra firma. Now, the province given to Ojeda, was from Cape de la Vela to the half of the Gulf of Uraba, under the name of New Andalusia, and that of Diego de Nicuesa, from the other half of the same Gulf, up to Cape Gracias a Dios, so that Darien was equally divided between the two— one half being in one, and the other half in the other, Government. But at last they were brought, by Juan de la Cosa, the pilot, to agree that the Rio Grande 163 del Darien* sKould serve as their boundary, and tliat one should take its eastern bank, and the other the western. XII. Upon the settlement of this division, Alonzo Ojeda landed at Carthagena, and laid, in 1510, the foundation of the town of St. Sebastian, at the end of the Gulf of Uraba: and Nicuesa went to Veragua, where Christopher Columbus had already founded a town. This same Nicuesa peopled and built, afterwards, that of Nombre de Dios. X. As for Ojeda, he was killed the same year, in a combat against the Indians, and the Bachelor Enciso, who came with Vasco Nunez, as governor, in his place, built in the same year (1510) in the Province of Darien, the town of Santa Maria el Antigua del Darien, in accordance with a vow which he had made to the Spaniards in a battle. XIV. This town became thenceforth the capital of New Andalusia, and the residence of its governors, the first of whom, after the Bachelor Enciso, was Vasco Nunez, the same who sent to Europe three hundred " marcs" of gold found in this place, and under whom the kingdom of Terra Firma commenced to be called Golden Castile. He it was also, in 1513, who discovered the South Sea. Predarias d'Avila, surnamed El Justador, succeeded him in the month of July, 1514, and, at the same time, the king sent Juan de Quevedo as bishop to Darien, Pope Leo X. having given the necessary rules to that effect; so that Santa Maria el Antigua del Darien was not only the fourth Christian town built on the continent of the West Indies, but the first, also, which was made an episcopal city. XV. In the same year. King Ferdinand issued special regulations for the government of this province, and gave it greater privileges, especially to the town of Santa Maria el Antigua, to which, in 1515, he accorded the right of bearing as its arms — " Gules, a golden castle, surmounted by a sun of the same, supported on the right by a tiger, and on the left by a crocodile, with these words as a legend, ' La Imagen de Nuestra Signora del Antigua.' '' * Atrato. 2 M 164 X"VI. In 1516, Ada was built, in the same province, five leagues from the shore (riveau*) of the North Sea. After mentioning the removal of the capital from Santa Maria el Antigua to Panama, on account of the insalubrity of the spotj the writer goes on to argue against the assumption of the ScotSj that Darien had either been abandoned or never possessed, and singularly observes — " No one has a right to argue that a country has passed out of the hands of its original and legitimate possessors, because they have neg- lected it. That the western part of Ireland — from Sligo to Limerick — can scarcely be called inhabited, is a thing that all the world knows; but, nevertheless, does it not belong to the crown of England ? And with what colourable pretence could any one take possession of it?" The writer then refers to the actual possession by the Spaniards, of the towns of " Santa Maria de las Minas" (Cana), Scuchaderos,t and " if Darien is to be regarded as of Ihe extent now given it," the towns of Cheapo, Con- cepcion,J the castle of St. Jago, and many others. Eeference is also made to the coimtry being mapped out exactly, especially in Oexmelin's and Dampier's works; and it is asserted that there are not more than a thousand Indians in the whole Isthmus who do not speak Spanish, XXIII. Nor is it to be doubted that the King of England will use his power to punish these Scotch encroachers severely, after the fashion in which his royal predecessors, * This is doubtful, as most accounts agree that Ada was on the sea coast; the year 1516 was the date of its being fortified, but it was founded two years before, by Gabriel de Rojas. t This place was situated on the north bank of the Tuyra, just above the east point of the Savana mouth. It has been abandoned long ago. I This passage in the Spanish Ambassador's protest proves the distinction that the old Spaniards made between Darien and Panama ; and also that the boundary line between them was from Concepcion in San Bias Bay to Chepo, as he does not refer to the possession by the Spaniards of Panama, PortobeUo, or any place westward of Chepo and Concepcion, but strictly confines himself to, Darien. 165 kings and queens, and, in particular, James I., whose signal justice I shall give here in a few words. XXIV. " A certain English knight, named Walter Ealeigh, obtained from this prince, in 1617, a commission to occupy himself (negocier) in these parts of the New World, which had not yet been discovered. He abused these powers by making incursions into Guyana, along the river Orinoco, and into Golden Castile. His son was killed here ; and those he thought to surprise defended them- selves so valiantly, that he was obliged to retreat to his ships. But he did not get oiF quite in this way ; for on his return to England, Count Gondomar, the ambassador from Spaiuj complained to the king, Raleigh was arrested, sent to the Tower, and condemned by the Court of King's Bench to be beheaded." XXV. Forty years afterwards two Captains, named Oxenham and Drake, entered upon a similar design; but the first was taken by Orega, a Spanish captain, and con- ducted to Lima, where he received the punishment he deserved; and as for Drake, though it turned out different with him, for he came back freighted with a rich booty, yet it availed him not a whit the more, for Queen Elizabeth, who then reigned in England, made him restore it in the bulk (!) to Mendoza, the Spanish Embassador, and ex- pressly prohibited Drake from all such enterprises for the future ( !) XXVI. " It is quite clear then, that his Britannic Majesty will follow these excellent examples, and give full satis- faction and reparation for any damage committed." This memorial was not without its effects, for King William III., to his eternal disgrace, directed that all supplies, or assistance, or correspondence between the Scotch colonists and the West Indies and the British possessions in America, should be stopped, and thus prepared to starve out the colony. Had it not been for England's fatal jealousy, says Mr. Warburton, and her King's unworthy prejudice, there is little doubt that a city would there have been founded, to 166 which all the commercial capital of the world must finally have yielded precedence. Climate. — "It was in the very spring time of that climate ; a genial sunshine poured its glory on the stately forests, the green valleys, and the crystal waters that sur- rounded them- " Sweet balmy odours floated on the breeze; the woods resounded with the melody of brilliant birds." (Here Mr. Warburton is mistaken, the colonists arrived in the rainy season, as is shewn by " Mr. Rose's Journal," and the subsequent letter of Adam Cleghorn, of Boston. Weathee. — " The rains begin in May, and last four or five months, but are very gentle at first, like April showers; but after are more violent, inasmuch that sometimes they make a kind of deluge, covering the ground in some places seven or eight foot all on asuddain, and carrying down trees with great impetuosity ; but those that are acquainted with the country know how to avoid the danger. But these rains, even in the wettest months, are not so continued, but there are many fair days, and sometimes a week toge- ther, with small thunder showers, and refreshing breezes of air. The pleasant dry months are December, Janiiary, February, March, and April. The sky is then very serene, and not so much as a cloud to be seen, and methinks, con- sidering the warm situation of the climate, it is extremely pleasant, everything having a fresh verdure and odour; the air gently fanning the inhabitants, so that the heat is so far from being troublesome that it is delectable." — History of Caledonia, by a gentleman lately arrived, London, 1699. Hunting and Fishing. — "By universal consent the emigrants made holiday afi;er landing. They hunted the wild boar; they fished in the abounding streams and swarm, ing seas; they explored the woods, where almost every bough was bending with fruit, and in the soft calm evenings they would climb to the summit of a lofty hill, that reached far out upon the sea with all its wooded islands; there they would gaze long and earnestly towards their distant home, and with mute lips, but sympathising eyes, 167 communicate each to the other pleasant yet mournful thoughts of Scotland. w S|£ SfC S{! "The magnificent forests of the Isthmuswere full of charms, inexhaustible in their variety of scenery and of game. The iguana and the young monkeys, up to the wild boar and the jaguar, there was a wide range for the sportsman. Among birds, the partridge, the scarlet curry, the sweet- voiced corroson, or wild turkey, the' beautiful chicaly of the woodpecker tribe ; . parrots and macaws of every colour ; swan-white pelicans, and blue doves, made a brilliant 'bag.' "The waters, too, abounded in fish, from the mullet up to the gigantic manatee, or sea-cow, which struggled under the harpoon like a whale of the fresh water. Then, in the bay, the Indians used to glide along in their canoes as softly as a wave, and transfix the sleeping turtle with their spears. They would also leister the paracoods, as they feed on a crispy sea-weed that grows like a fungus at the root of the mangrove tree. Sometimes they would shoot with poisoned arrows from the blowpipe, the large cavally and the gar-fish,;]; as they rose out of the water at the manchineel apples that overhung the sea, waiting for each wave to lift them towards the fruit-laden bough, and then springing from its crest." In " The History of Caledonia, or the New Scots' Colony of Darien," Edinburgh, 1699, I find an enumeration of the birds seen in the woods by the settlers (p. 67). " Their birds are the chicaly-chicaly, which makes a noise somewhat like a cuckoo, is a large bird, has feathers * The paracood is an excellent fish at some seasons of the year ; at others it is poisonous, and its only antidote is said to be its backbone burned, pulverised, and drank in rmslam, a liquor made of the plantain. t The gar-fish has a long sharp bony snout; it swims so fast and recklessly that ic sometimes transpierces the natives' canoes with its proboscis. 168 of divers colours, very beautiful and lively, whereof the natives sometimes make aprons. This bird keeps mostly on the trees, feeds on fruit, and is pretty good meat. The quara feeds in the same manner, his wings are thin, his tail dark and short, and upright. He is much preferable to the other for meat. There is a russet-coloured bird, resembling a partridge, runs fast on the ground, and is excellent meat. The corroson is a large fowl as big as a turkey, and of a black colour. The cock has a fine crown of yellow feathers on his head, and gills like a turkey. They live on trees and eat fruit. They sing very delightfully, and are so well imitated by the Indians that they discover their haunts by it. They are very good meat; but their bones make the dogs run mad, and are therefore hid from them by the Indians. They have abundance of parrots, for size and shape much like those of Jamaica ; they are very good meat. Their parrakites are most of them green, and go in large flights by themselves. They have macaw birds, which are as big again as parrots, and resemble them in shape ; they have a bill like a hawk, and a bristly tail, with two or three long straggling feathers, either red or blue; but those of the body are of a lively blue, green, and red. The Indians tame these birds and then let them go into the woods amongst the wild ones; they will return of their own accord to the houses. They exactly imitate the voices and singing of the Indians, and call the chicaly in its own note. It is one of the pleasantest birds in the world, and its flesh sweet and well tasted. They have also woodpeckers, which are pied like our magpies, and have claws that they climb up trees with ; they are not pleasant to eat. They have plenty of dunghill fowls, resembling those of Europe, and their flesh and eggs as well tasted as ours. They have flying insects too, and among others bees, which form their hives on trees, and it is observed that they never sting anybody. The natives mix the honey with water and so drink it; but know not the use of the wax. They have shining flies, which in the night time resemble glow-worms." 169 The Town Built. — "At length the holiday, as if by general consent, was ended, and the emigrants set themselves resolutely to work. The peninsula was first fortified, and sixty guns, brought from the ships, were mounted on the battlements. They then, with manful labour, cut a canal across the little isthmus, and rendered their peninsula an island. The heart and thought of home were in, all they did. The new fort was called St. Andrews, and the sur- rounding region that it was to defend, received the name of Caledonia. Huts were hastily built of precious woods, that were there mere lumber; woods, that by European skill, produce- rich dyes and drugs, and shine polished as the chief ornaments of palaces." — JVarburton. Neglect op future Pkovision. — "While thus employed, the settlers were, of course, unable to attend to the cultivation of the land. But this, gave them little concern, for the ships were supposed to contain provisions for many months to come ; supplies were expected soon to follow them from Edinburgh, and, at all events, the West Indies abounded in all that man could desire for food." — Warhurton. Visit to the Indians. — "Paterson," having previously despatched deputies to the nearest Spanish settlements to ask for welcome, " undertook a journey into the interior, in order to make treaties with the natives, and to obtain from them a righteous title to the land. He set out to seek the savage king of Darien, who lived among the hills, ten days journey from St. Andrews." On this journey went the writer of " A Letter describing Darien," London, 1699, which, indeed, appears to have been contributed by " Mr. Eose," in whose journal in the old oak chest, the greater portion of the passages I quote — as well as those which Mr. Warburton makes use of — appear. " I shall further give you an account of our going up the country to their king, or chief captain, we marching from our fort with Captain Andreas, and other of their princes. We began our march toward their head place, where the 170 kino- resided, first through a small skirt of wood,- and then over a bay almost three miles, or a league in length, and after that we went about six or seven miles up a woody valley, and we saw here and there some old plantations, and had a very good path to march in. Then we came to the side- of a river, which in most places was dry, and built us houses, or rather huts, to lodge in. " The Indians forbad us to lie upon the grass, for fear of venomous adders, which are very frequent in these places. ^^ Breaking some of the stones that lay in the liver, we found them shine with sparks of gold ; these stones were driven down from the neighbouring mountains in time of floods. The next day of our march we mounted a very steep hill, and on the other side, at the foot thereof, we rested on the bank of a river, which Captain Andreas told us, ran into the South Sea, being the same river on which the town of Santa Maria was situated. Hence we continued our march till about noon, and then ascended another mountain, far higher than the former; here we were often, and in many places, in great danger, the mountains being so nigh to a per- pendicular, and the path so narrow, that but one man at a time could pass. We arrived in the evening on the other side of the mountain, and lodged again by the side of the same river. "Next morning, we marched all along the river before- mentioned, crossing it often, almost at every half mile, sometimes up to the knee, and other times, up to the middle, in a very rapid current. About noon we came to a place where we found some Indian houses. " They found," says the writer of "the Defence," "the country through which they passed of an exceedingly rich soil, but much covered with wood ; only here and there they met with some places which the Indians called in their language ' savannahs,' where they plant their ' mari,' a kind of corn, something like wheat, upon little hillocks, at a little distance one from another. These savannahs are not level, but consist of small hills and valleys, with pleasant 171 spots of wood intermixed, which serve both for pleasure and profit, of which more hereafter. "The Indians were so secure, -that they saw several of them sleeping in hammocks tied to the trees, and had no other covering or canopy but large plantain leaves ; for they were told by their priests, or rather magicians (who went a conjuring, which they called ' panawing,' as soon as our fleet arrived), that the people newly arrived would be a great assistance to them against the Spaniards, and would never molest them in any matter of religion, but live in good correspondence with them, if they failed not on their part." Desckiption of Intekioe from Caledonia Bat, AND Habits of the Indians. — " At first," says Mr. Warburton, "Paterson found the country devoid of inhabit- ants, though it was pleasantly diversified with green savan- nahs" (level plains) "and cool forests, beneath whose shade he travelled for many miles As the ambassadors proceeded, they found the country cultivated in the simple manner of the Indians. Maize, bananas, cocoa-nuts, and pine-apples were found in profusion. The dwellings of the native people were very slight, and only roofed with pal- meta leaves; but they appeared to want for nothing that conduces to the simple luxuries of savage life. Among their magnificent cedar forests they passed a joyous and com- paratively innocent existence, with merely enough of labour to fulfil man's destiny of exertion. When the hour of rest from their light labours came, they lay down in houses made of cocoa fibre, and suspended from two boughs ; and in these they rocked themselves, children of nature as they were, into calm and careless slumber. Paterson, who had made himself acquainted with their language, was everywhere received with kindness and attention. ' After a splendid reception,' in a lofty isolated grove, ' from whose covert groups of beautiful women bounded forth, glittering with ornaments, and their heads wreathed with garlands of flowers,' by the king, ' a swarthy potentate, seated on a 172 cliaracteristic throne of mahogany logs, which were covered partially with Spanish crimson cloth,' and who ' wore a diadem of gold, ten inches high, besides a light cotton robe,' and ear-rings, and more ornaments, a treaty was forthwith made and ratified. Full freedom was given to the Scots to settle in the land, and enjoy it. Between them and the native Dariens there was declared to be ' Peace, as long as rivers ran, and gold was found in Dariert.' " Food of the Indians. — " Then a banqnet was held in honour of the strangers. The flesh of the peccary (or wild pig), the fish from the mountain streams, and the fruit from the trees that over-arched them, found favour with the Scots; but when a huge lizard, called iguana in that country, was served up with tomata sauce, the ambassadors found their appetites not diplomatic enough to enjoy it. The reptile, however, was soon consumed by the royal family, and a dessert of figs, peaches, and bastard cinnamon soon replaced it. Three calabashes, filled with fruity drinks, cooled in the neighbouring springs, were handed round Minstrels all the while, seated on boughs overhead, sang the glories of the savage king, and women danced on the moonlit sward around the favoured guests. " Other native chiefs pledged themselves to the alliance and support of the colony; and if the colonists had not been, for the most part, composed of the most unworthy and re- bellious spirits, their savage allies would, doubtless, have remained faithful to the last. As it was, though wronged and disgusted, they were more constant in their friendship and services than most European nations would have been."* Of the all-important subject, gold — for here they had got very nearly upon El Dorado, that Raleigh missed — we begin to catch a glimpse, as one of the parties to this ex- pedition tells us in the letter describing Darien : — " Captain Diego commands from the bottom of the Gulf of Uraba on this side to Caret Bay, and has about three * Darien, by Eliot Warburton, vol. iii. 173 thousand men under his command. He is esteemed the most powerful amongst them, and has been at war with the Spaniards about a twelvemonth. The occasion was this — the Indians having found three gold mines within his juris- diction, being two sma,ll ones and a very great vein, consulted- with themselves what to do; and being sensible that they did not understand how to work them, concluded to dis- cover them to the Spaniards, provided they would allow them such a share of the profit. This was agreed to and faithfully promised; but no sooner had the Indians shewed the mines, than they shut up two of them, put strong guards upon ih&va.,. and fell to work upon the third, of which the Indians demanding their share, they beat and abused them, and threatened to exterminate them, which provoked them so, that a little time after they seized twenty Spaniards and three priests, and cut them all to pieces. " Captain Ambrosio (an Indian), who has the adjoining command, forced them to enter into the common con- federacy, and cut off ten Spaniards^ who lived on the main of the Golden Island. I distinguish it thus, by reason the natives call all the main opposite to our island by the same name that it bears. About a league from the wrter-side there is a high mountain, wherein they assure MS are several mines of excellent gold. The Spaniards are very sensible of this, and from time to time have taken great care, by fair or foul means, never to let them be opened, well knowing that (being so near the North Sea) they should have the least share of them to themselves. " Captain Pombigo, of Caret Bay, told us of several gold mines within ten miles of us, and shewed us a sample of the gold, which was extraordinary fine." Dissensions in the Colony. — " When Paterson re- turned to St. Andrew's, after only six days' absence, he found an alarming change in the colony. A spirit of dis- content and mutiny had broken out. The men who worked hard at the new city were dissatisfied that others should remain idle and unpunished. There was, as yet, no law in 174 the colony. Many of the colonists were men who had escaped from the consequence of crime in their own country, and all their evil passions now broke out, ripened by the warm climate, by long idleness, and by the absence of all settled, acknowledged government. Then it was found necessary to make laws, but none would submit to a supreme chief. " The Presbyterian ministers preached three times a day to no avail." — Warburtons Darien, vol. iii. I find an account of this in a letter in the collection in the Advocate's Library, from Adam Cleghorn to Baillie Blackwood, August 14th, New York, 1699. Sent per Newfoundland. " I am informed also that there was some divisions among y° first-elected CouncellorSj some of them being too bote headed, and oy" of y™ no wayes train'd up to soe great affaires, their agreement on this head was not soe greatt ap was requisite. Many young men of them being swelled w' the expectationes of their future and present preferments, forgett all oy' things but some punctilios of honour, which was alltogether extrinsick to the great trust committed to them. And Mr. William Paterson, who has this generall applause, that he was commandin this affaire to the outermost degree of diligence, was very uneasy w* these young gentlemen's misbehaviours. The tragicaU period of our Scotts' African affaires, ' which can never be replaced,' exclaims the worthy merchant, ' excepting only the Rising Sun be arrived at Darien, and keept possession of the place until further reinforcements be made.' " Famine. — " Provisions began to fall short, and, to their grievous disappointment, the emigrants soon found that more than half the meat and biscuits were so bad that they were obliged to be cast into the sea. Famine now threatened the infant colony. Disappointment began to tell upon them. They had been four months in the promised land, and as yet had seen no gold They had expected, like the conquering Spaniards, at once to seize upon the 175 country's wealth. Paterson's humane conciliation of the natives .was objected to — "murmur and mntiny began to break out" Want began to be severely felt. The labourers were unable to work on their short allowance of food — starvation stared the colony in the face. They had exhausted all the neighbourhood of game, and it might be long before their ship returned from Jamaica." The Indians come to theik Assistance. — "Then it was that the humane policy of Paterson was rewarded. The King of Darien sent a large body of Indian hunters to the assistance of the white men Their knowledge of the country, and experience, enabled them to procure game and fish where the Scotchmen had ceased to find it. The friendly natives encamped in the neighbourhood of their proteges, and were indefatigable in their service." Anakcht. — " To such an extent did anarchy prevail, that the very mutineers at length proposed to elect a president; but their jealousy limited his rule to one week's duration. It followed, that all those pretending to any influence, hated their fellows ; each president occupied his week in undoing the work of his predecessor. Hence, the work of defence advanced but slowly; cultivation of the soil was neglected; the scanty supplies were unjustly doled out; some of the sturdiest labourers were half starved, because unpopular w^ith the sea-captains. To crown all, THE Preachers' Fanaticism, who considered themselves the chiefs of a theocracy, inflamed the minds of those who listened, with uncharitableness, and denounced, in awful language, all those who turned a deaf ear to them. " These infatuated men insisted on the whole colony at- tending their service for six hours on every Sunday, hemmed up in a dark and narrow building, called a chapel, the best of which sent many to their graves, and filled the hospital. Even on week days, they required all those who called themselves Christians, to listen to their * out-pourings' for three mortal hours — mortal often in more senses than one. " Thus ambition, ignorance, and selfishness, with their 176 concomitants, mutiny and discontent, contrived to destroy the infant colony. Amongst all those combustible ingre- dients, was finally flung the torch of fanaticism ; and thus the destruction, which neither English King nor Parliament could have eifected, was rendered inevitable." Disease and Death. — " Every day the little band of adventurers was reduced: the men who were still able to work, strove faintly to complete the fortifications, and to tiU the ground for crops, which they were destined not to reap. Many of these pale and worn, but still resolute labourers, passed rapidly from the trenches to the crowded hospital, and thence, still more hurriedly, to their graves. Already, the burial ground was better tenanted than the fort." Bad TiDiNas. — "At length, the long expected ship returned from Jamaica; she brought the astounding intelli- gence of King's William's edict against the Scottish colony, already struggling with every ill that affects brave men. That monarch, having first approved of and encouraged the expedition, had the unparalleled cruelty to condemn it to destruction. On the remonstrance of the meanly jealous English Parliament, the King sent an order (dated on Sunday, which still more shocked its victims) to all the English colonies in America and the West Indian Islands, forbidding them, on any pretence whatever, to supply either provisions or other stores to the Scottish colony at Darien. Yet he knew there was elsewhere no sustenance to be obtained by them on their side the Atlantic. These orders were acted upon to the very letter; and the necessaries of life that were freely granted to the buccaneers, the enemies of mankind, was withheld from the gallant and loyal Scots now perishing at Darien. The news of this edict filled the doomed colonists with despair." — Warbvrton's Darien, vol.lii. 177 This edict was as follows : — " By the Honourable Sir William Beeston, Kt., His Majesty's Lieutenant-Governor and Commandant-in-Chief in and over this his Island of Jamaica, and over the territories depending thereon in America, and Vice-Admiral of the same. " A Proclamation, " Whereas I have received commands from His Majesty, by the Right Honourable James Surman, Esq., one of His Majesty's principal Secretaries of State, signifying to me that His Majesty is unacquainted with the intentions and designs of the Scots' settling at Darien; and that it is con- trary to the peace entered into with His Majesty's allies, and therefore has commanded me that no assistance be given them. These are therefore, in His Majesty's name and by commandj strictly to command His Majesty's subjects, what- soever, they do not presume, on any pretence whatsoever, to hold any correspondence with the said Scots, nor to give them any assistance of arms, ammunition, provisions, or any other necessaries whatsoever, either by themselves or any other for them ; or by any of their vessels, or of the English nation, as they will answer the contempt of His Majesty's command to the contrary at their peril. Given under my hand and seal of arms this 8th day of April, 1699, and in the eleventh year of our Sovereign Lord William the Third of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, King, and of Jamaica, Lord Defender of the Faith, etc. " William Beeston." A similar proclamation was issued by E. Grey, Governor of Barbadoes, and the like by Lord Bellorant, Governor of New York. The above is from " A full and exact collection of all the considerable addresses, memorials, petitions, answers, pro- clamations, letters, and other public matters relating to the company of Scotland trading to Africa and the Indies from J695 to 1699. Printed in 1700." N 178 Disease. — "Amid sucli scenes even tlie stout Scottish hearts began to fail Misery is the sharpest ally of pestilence. When the soul sinks, the poor clay that encloses it will soon also yield. The fort of St. Andrew's became one great infirmary." . New Hopes. — " Paterson, alone, sustained by unquench- able hope, preserved a calm and serene dignity among these sorrows. He knew that a ship with stores and provisions should soon arrive from Scotland; he knew that the climate would be changed by cultivation ; that hardships would be obviated by better shelter." New DiSArpoiNTMENT. — " The expected vessel did not arrive; she had foundered on her way; two of the Darien vessels had already been despatched to England. There were not healthy men enough to man the rest. " The bury ing-ground was the only part of the settlement that thrived. Even when the fiae season set in — and a finer season is not seen on earth — the heavens seemed only to smile in mockery of aU hope. The ghastly remnant of the Scottish settlers were unable to work, and passed the day in dreary languor; and only roused themselves to exer- tion when their miserable pittance of bad food was doled out amongst them." * * * * The Departure. — "At length they resolved to depart from the fatal soil ........ The remnant of the stores, and the pitiable relics of provisions cleared out, with such fresh fruits as the early season yielded, were put on board. The helpless emigrants had not wherewithal to take them to Europe ; the West Indian Isles were closed against them either by the Spaniards or by William's barbarous decree. They fixed their destination for New York. Paterson was the last to leave the shore." * * * * The Voyage Home. — " Even the wind, with all other aid, seemed to fail them, for they lay in a waveless calm for days close to the fatal shores of Darien. The fatality pur- 179 sued them still, and many a wan and wasted form lay gasping in the sultry air, which poisoned the lungs that drank it in. ..... . The ships, with one exception, reached Charlestown^ in North America; thence, after long delay, about thirty of the emigrants returned to Scotland, the sole remnant of 1,200 lusty adventurers, who, burning with high hope, had left their country twelve months before. The fatal truth concerning Darien soon spread throughout Scotland; the nation reeled under the blow; every family suffered in the great calamity. Their scanty wealth had perished, as well as those for whom it had been first hoarded, then expended."— fFarfiwr^OB's Darien, vol. iii. The news reached Scotland in the following letters to the Company ; they are in the chest of the Dari6n Papers in the Advocate's Library: — " The reason of their comeing away. Captain Drummond advises, was want of proVisions and Hquors, being forced to eat yams, etc., which broght sickness amongst y", that had not healthfull people to watch and ward, and dyeing 10 or 12 in a day, not through any unhealthfulnesse of the climate, but meerly want of wholsome dyet and liquors ; the climate is acknowledged to be healthfull by y° generality of all y" persons come from thence as doe understand. You now see the effects of the prohibitions published in all y° plantations, it may be reckoned the intended effects. Mr. Paterson, at New York, is in a worse condition as to health; had a line from him last post." — Letter of Mr. Balard to Mr. Machay, Boston, 1th September, 1699. It adds " that Mr. Paterson has lost his senses, and does not meddle with any- thing." Again, " Meantime the grief has broken Mr. Paterson^s heart and brains, and now hee's a child; they may doe what they will for him." In a letter from Adam Cleghorn to Balllie Blackwood, dated August 14th, New York, 1699, sent per Newfound- land (Bannatyne Papers, 147), the writer, in giving an ac- count of the miserable condition of the colonists who returned on board the Caledonian, says — " The cause of N 2 180 their leaving Darlen was, as they say, for want of provi- tions and fresh supplies from Scotland. Besides," they add, that " they never had see much as one letter or scratch of a penn from the Company all the tyme they were a standing colony. Thus, despairing of supplies, and a great sickness and mortality befalling their men, they thought fit ray' to commit ymselves to the mercy of the seas with their re- maining provitions, than to dye upon the spott without hope. This sickness was no wayes occationed by the unhealthiness of the climate, which all of y^ say was very wholesome, only mere want starved y"* out of the place" Once Moke. — " Paterson had scarcely landed in Scot- land when he hastened to the Council, to account for the defeat of the expedition, and to counsel them to new enter- prises.' Once more his sanguine spirit communicated itself to the Company. They prepared a new expedition, and made a new appeal to the justice df King William." New Proposals. — " Paterson now proposed that the Company should assume an English character, two-thirds of its members to belong to that nation, and one-third only to Scotland. He wrote an eloquent letter in praise of the spot that had been so fatal to his happiness, and laid down plans for the conduct of the future colony in the most lucid and statesman-like language. He based all his hopes on that freedom of trade and freedom of commerce, which was only destined to obtain a consummation in later times." — War- burton's Darien. A portion of these "proposals" ran as follows: — "Darien lies between the golden regions of Jlexico and Peru; it is within six weeks' sail of Europe, India, and China; it is in the heart of the West Indies, close to the rising colonies of North America. The expense and danger of navigation to Japan, the Spice Islands, and all the Eastern world, will be lessened one-half; the consumption of European commodities and manufactures will soon be doubled. Trade will increase trade; money will beget 181 money; and the trading world will need no more to want work for its hands, but hands for its work. "Darien possesses great tracts of country as yet unclaimed by any Europeans. The Indians, original proprietors of the soil, will welcome to their fertile shores the honest honourable settler. Their soil is rich to a fault, producing spontaneously the most delicious fruits, and requiring the hand of labour to chasten rather than to stimulate its capabilities. Their crystal rivers sparkle over sands of gold ; there the traveller may wander for days under a natural canopy formed by the fruit-laden branches of treeSj whose wood is of inestimable value. The very waters abound in wealth; innumerable shoals of fish disport themselves among coral rocks, and the bottom of the sea is strewn with pearls. From the first dawn of creation this enchanted land had lain secluded from mortal eyes; to the present generation, to Scottish enter- prise it was now revealed ; let us enter and take possession of the promised land. There anew city, a new Edinburgh, shall arise; the Alexandria of old, which was seated in a barren Isthmus, and grew suddenly into prodigious wealth and power, by the mere commerce of Arabia and Ind, shall soon yield in fame to the new emporium of the wokld." The Proposals Eejected. — "Lord Basil Hamilton was requested to lay this new proposal and petition before the king. That high-hearted and young nobleman accepted the unpopular mission, though he had always held aloof from the court since the revolution. He repaired at once to London; an audience was refused him, but his zeal was not to be extinguished by the cold ceremony that surrounds a throne. He had the wrongs of his country committed to his charge, and at the risk of the then easy persecution for treason, he was determined to acquit himself of the task. He watched the going out and the coming in of the mag- nanimous but politic king. At length he caught his eye ; he pressed forward thi-ough the crowd of courtiers as William was mounting his horse; he laid the petition .on his saddle 182 bow; the king's eagle-eyes flashed fire, and his stern brow; was fiercely bent. " Now, by heaven, this young man is too bold/' he ex- claimed wrathfully ; but the same moment his noble nature reminded him how he had himself risked all things for what he considered to be his country's cause, and his royal brow relaxed; " That is to say," he added with almost a gracious smile, " if a man can be too bold in the service of his country." But with these words all magnanimity appeared to cease. He rode on; and thenceforth his countenance towards the Scottish scheme was as cold as ever. So great was the interest excited throughout Scotland, so numerous the petitions from shires and burghs, that the king found himself compelled (1699) to issue " a proclama- tion against petitioning,^' which, and the reasons assigned for it, will be found in " the collection of papers" above quoted. The' Last Efforts. — Again the Scots sent forth a colony as ill-officered and ill-ministered as before. Fanati- cism assisted all other baleful agencies in counteracting the bold design ; again a reinforcement was sent out under the conduct of the gallant Campbell of Finab. He withstood the Spaniards, but he was conquered at length by circum- stances. Pestilence and famine once more invaded the colony. Besieged by the Spaniards, they were at length forced to capitulate, with all the honours of war. So weak were they as they departed, that their brave enemies were obliged to heave up their anchors for them, and to set their sails. The Abandonment. — Thus Darien was abandoned, ■and with it the noblest scheme of civilisation that was ever planned. We are told by historians, that the indignation of the Scots remained fervent and enduring. Their indignation would not be pacified; nor in the reign of William's 183 successor would tliey consent to the union, until full com-: pensation had been made to the Scots Company. Chambers, of Edinburgh, in an article on the Darien scheme in his " Speculative Manias," says: — " It was long before the Scotch forgot or forgave the ruin of their favourite project. At the union of the two kingdoms in 1707, some compensation was made to the losers by government, not nearly sufficient, however, to cover the national losses ; and for more than eighty years the memory of William's conduct in the Darien Scheme rankled in the heart of the Scotch. Besides impeding the union itself, it contributed greatly to strengthen the Jacobite feeling which broke out in the rebellions of 1715 and 1745. Even so late as the year 1788, when some gentlemen in Edinburgh proposed to erect a monument to commemorate King William and- the Kevolution of 1688, the aiFair was remembered, and an anonymous letter, which appeared in the newspapers, pro- posing that the site of the intended monument should be the valley of Glencoe, and that there should be executed on one side of the base a representation in relievo of the massacre, and on the other a view of the Scottish colony on the Isthmus of Darien, produced such an impression that the gentlemen were obliged to abandon their scheme." Queen Anne, in 1702, soon after her accession, recog- nised the Company in a royal letter, and was graciously pleased " to regret our Company's said losses and. disap- pointments as being a great prejudice and loss to the whole kingdom," and promised to concur cheerfully in anything that could be reasonably proposed for the Company's reparation and assistance. By the 15 th Article of the Union, the sum ■ of jS398,085 10s., was to be advanced by England as com- pensation. The Eepakation. — " Years rolled on," says Warburton, " and the wrongs of Scotland, at length, made themselves .heard. A compensation for the sufferers by England's 184 policy in the Darien scheme, was decreed. Paterson, alone, obtained no share in the tardy justice." Sir John Dalrymple writes — "After the Union, he claimed reparation for his losses from the equivalent money given by the English to the Darien Company, but got nothing, because," he adds bitterly, 'j a grant to him from a public fund, would have been only an act of honesty, and not a political job." I have been fortunately enabled to find, in the British Museum, a pamphlet entitled, " Paterson's Amendment," which concludes as follows : — Paterson's Amendment. — " Upon consideration of the whole matter, the Committee come to the following resolutions : — " Eesolved, That the petitioner, WiUiam Paterson, Esq., hath been at great expence and pains, and sustained con- siderable losses in the service of the late African and Indian Company of Scotland, and ought to be remembered, and have a recompense for the same. "Eesolved, That the sum of £18,421 10s. lO^d. ought to be conveyed and made good to the petitioner." The note appended, says — " Agreed to by the House, the 10th of July, 1713."' I find, however, in an article in the " Retrospective Review" for this month (February), that he did not get the money, as " this bill was thrown out in the House of Lords, upon no grounds that are intelligible at the present day.'* Sir John Sinclair tells us, that Paterson subsequently represented the district of Burghs, in his native country, in the House of Commons. Memoirs of Darien. — I shall now proceed to give the substance of the " Memoirs of- Darien," Glasgow, 1715, an exceedingly rare book (not to be found in the British Museum), which contains the most precise detail I have met with of the proceedings of the colony, and of the several successive expeditions which went out from Scot- 185 land; the author was one of the Presbyterian ministers (either Alexander Dalgleish, or Archibald Stobo), who went out with the third expedition in the Rising Sun. First fortifying himself for his work by a few quotations from Job, Jeremiah, and the elder prophets, he proceeds to narrate, in a clear and precise manner, the progress of events and the causes of failure, and concludes with thanks- givings for his escape (in which the reader will join), and further quotations from Job, etc. First Expedition. — " Soon after their arrival," which was on 2nd November, 1698, " the chief Indians here being friendly to them, welcomed them to settle in the country, and consented to a grant Unto them of that Place and Lands adjacent, our Counsellors satisfying them there- • fore to their full content." The author proceeds to relate, that Captain Pincarton, on his passage from Caledonia to Carthagena to seek pro- visions, got wrecked, and was made prisoner by the Spaniards; but afterwards '' released upon the capitulation made with the Spaniards, March 31, 1700." He then details a slight skirmish with Spaniards, near the settle- ment. " All the time of their abode here, which was upwards of seven months, they say they never had so much as one letter or vessel from Scotland, xhich was a great dis- couragement to them, and no good Politick in our Directors at home; and it was an awfull frown upon this Design, the Shipwrack of that vessel which was sent from the Clyde, about January 1699, in order to go for the Colony, and its miscarrying in the undertaking." Its Failure, and why it Failed.— " On the 20th day of June,- 1699, they all dislodged and left Darien." The causes of the failure of the colony he states, to be, scarcity and want of provisions, sickness, the king's pro- clamation prohibiting trade, alarms of preparations by the Spaniards to. dislodge them, the number of heads, a selfish spirit, and the seeking of private interests, jealousies and 186 dissensions among themselves, and " janings, divisions, bitterness, and misunderstandings among the counsellors and leading men." " When they took farewell and sailed from Darien, they were in all four ships together, viz., the Caledonia, the St. Andrew, the Unicorn, and a Pink"; the latter, became leaky, and had to be abandoned ; the St. Andrew (Captain Pennycook) got to Jamaica, having lost one hundred men on the passage, whilst the Caledonia and Unicorn got to New York, with the loss of three hundred men at sea; finally the Caledonia reached Scotland. " This desertion did lay the ground of the miscarriage and defeating of whatever following recruits and supplies • the Company of Scotland sent unto this place." Second Expedition — A Ship on Fike. — " Eight weeks after" their departure from Darien, " there arrived two ships from Scotland upon the place thus forsaken, with Recruits of men and provisions for the Colony, which were Captain Jamison and Captain Stark, with over 300 men. .... " Within a few days after their arrival, Captain Jamison's ship being loaded with Provisions and Brandie, while some were drawing Brandie in the Hould of the ship, having alighted candle with them, accidentally the fire of the candle catched hold of the Brandie, which forth- with flamed so terribly that it set the ship on fire, and in a little time destroyed both ship and provisions." This second expedition was then obliged to abandon the place, and sail for Jamaica in Captain Stark's ship, all the provisions having been on board Jamison's vessel. Six only of the party determined to remain behind and live with the Indians; and these men were subsequently found by the next expedition in good health and spirits, having ])een most hospitably treated by the Indians. Immorality of the Colonists. — The author then gives a most gloomy account of the sadly immoral and profane character of the colonists, and calls them " a sad reproach to the nation." 187 " When the Elslng Sun and her party came up, they found the first colony, and Jamison's and Stark's party, removed and gone; and they never knew of it until they got thither. When Captain Baillie, with a small vessel, arrived there from Scotland, though they found the Eising Sun's party upon the place, yet the capitulation with the Spaniards was concluded near two days before his arrivaL When Captain M'= Dowall, in a ship from Dundee, had come to Caledonia with provisions, he found the place possessed by the Spaniards, our men having removed to Jamaica." These results of bungling mismanagement, and want of concerted arrangement on the part of the Company, the author attributes to Divine wrath, and imp'oves them by a long sermon, plentifully interlarded with texts of scripture. , Third Expedition. — " The next adventurers for Cale- donia were the Rising Sun and her party" [whom the author accompanied], "who had no better success in the expedition than their countrymen who went before them. They were in all four ships: the Eising Sun, Captain Gibson com- mander; the Companies' Hope, Captain Miller; the Hamil- ton, Captain Duncan; and the Hope of Burroughstoness, Captain Dalling. They had in all about 1,200 men aboard their several bottoms.'' Passage Out. — "At length the wind presenting fair, we all set sail together from Eothesay, in Boot [Bute], on September the 24th, 1699, being the Lord's Day." Effects of the Kin&'s Peoclamation. — "But the Goyernour of Montserat was so inhuman, that he denyed us the liberty of having any water or provisions there, pretending his orders from the Court of England for so doing. Here our counsellors heard some flying reports about the desertion of our colony, but they would not believe it." Arrival. — " All arrived safe in Caledonia Bay on the 30th of November." On their passage out, one hundred and sixty persons, amongst whom was Mr. Alexander Dal- gleish, one of the ministers, died. This excessive mortality 188 must have arisen from close crowding and bad provisions. Upon tlieir arrival, they found the place abandoned ; but Captain Thomas Drummond, from New York, and Mr. Fulton, from New England, had just arrived in the bay with two sloops and some provisions. Short Allowance, MuTiNr, and an Execution. — On account of the shortness of provisions, it was decided to send five hundred men In the two sloops to Jamaica, " so that the number being fewer, the provisions might last the longer," and to put the remainder on short allowance, which caused much grumbling and discontent, and finally a mutiny, which was suppressed by the execution of Alexandei Camp- bell on the 20th of December. Peesbyteky or Caledonia. — The author gives a copy of a document, drawn up on the 19th of July, 1699, by the Commissioner of the General Assembly at Glasgow, appointing Alexander Shields, Minister of the Gospel at St. Andrew; Francis Borland, Minister of the Gospel at Gla^foord; Alexander Dalgleish, and Archibald Stobo, as the Presbytery of Caledonia. This document Is signed by George Hamilton, Moderator, and James Bannatyne, Cler. Syn. Nat. and Comm''. Solemn Thanksgiving. — In consequence of the great suiFerings of the colonists, " thd 3rd of January, 1700, was set apart for solemn thanksgiving, prayer, and humiliation,' as stated in the report to the Moderator of the General Assembly, drawn up " at a conference of the ministers aboard the ship, the Hope of Burroughstoness, Dec. 5, 1699." In this report, the colonists are accused of the most profligate and immoral conduct. The people were chiefly employed in building huts and store-houses, and bringing great guns on shore for the de- fence of the place : the ministers complain greatly that they had no huts to reside in, that their commanders were " un- comfortable," and that the people would not come to hear them preach. Captain Dkummond Imprisoned. — The next occur- 189 rencc recorded by the author is, that Captain Drummond, having been suspected of ill conduct in the first colony, •was, after an investigation, kept prisoner on board Captain Duncan's ship until the arrival of Captain Campbell, of Finab. Then follows a letter on the state of irreligion in the colony, from Shields, Borland, and Stobo, to the Moderator of the Commission of the General Assembly of Scotland, dated " from the Woods of Caledonia, Feb. 2, 1700." " The government and management of affairs of this colony was in the hands of four Commissioners, Captain Gibson, James Byars, Captain Veatch, and Major Lindsay." Captain Campbell, op Finab, arrives. — " On the 11th of February, arrived here, in a sloop from Bar- badoes, Captain Campbell, of Finab, having orders from our Directors at home to be one of our Counsellors." Spakish Hostilities. — On the 13th of February they received intelligence of hostile movements on the part of the Spaniards. They go into Action. — February 15. A skirmish took place at Yaratuba, about twenty miles S.W. of the fort. Several spies came to the settlement on pretence of selling tortoise-shell and provisions ; the colonists com- menced erecting batteries. Between the 23rd and 25th of February, eleven sail of Spanish vessels anchored in the bay; and the Spaniards came over land with negroes, mulattos, and Indians, from Panama and Santa Maria, under the command of General Don Juan Pimienta : some skirmishes occurred, in one of which Captain M'^Intosh was killed. After this, " the Spanish general sent a drummer with a demand or chal- lenge to our Counsellors, which our men, for want of an interpreter, did not well understand, but declared that they were gentlemen of honour, and would, to their utmost, defend themselves and the place." They won't sueeendee. — Captain Ker was then sent to treat with the Spanish general about articles ojf 190 capitulation, but " the treaty broke up without effect on the 22nd March"; and the Spaniards hemmed them in on all sides. Capitulation. — On the 28th and 29th the Spaniards opened fire from the woods, and cut them off from their watering place. Spoiled provisions, bad water, and sickness, were fast reducing the colony, when, " on the 30th and 31st March, General Don Pimienta himself offered to capi- tulate with our Counsellors, all of whom agreed except Captain Campbell, of Finab, who was always against any treating with the Spaniards otherwise than by the sword." " The Articles of Capitulation agreed upon between His Excellency Don John Pimienta, Captain of His Catho- lick Majesty's Forces both by sea and land, and Governor of Carthagena, and the Commissioners of Fort St. Andrew, in the Bay of Caledonia, about the surrendering of the said Fort St. Andrew, March 31, 1700," were drawn up in Latin by Mr. James Main, and are subscribed by Pimienta, Gibson, and Veatch, Captain Lindsay having died, and Byars having gone to Jamaica. A Strong Smell of Gunpowder. — Here the author thinks it necessary to vindicate the honour of the colonists, and to give the reasons which decided them to surrender; from which it appears, that famine, rotten provisions, putrid water, sickness and mortality, internal dissensions, a fleet of eleven armed Spanish vessels in, the harbour, and an army of Spanish negroes, mulattos, and Indians hemming them in on all sides by land, were not the imme- diate and sufficing inducements, but " the want of bullets," the officers having melted up all the pewter vessels, and " the dampness of the gunpowder." Surely the author, for a religious professor, was of a strangely pugnacious tempe- rament. Departure from Darien.— 11th April, 1700. All the survivors, having been most generously treated by the Spaniards, " embarked and sailed next day; the four ships that came from Scotland, Baillie's vessel, Captain Campbell's sloop, and an old sloop." 191 Ship Fever. — On tie passage " they were sadly crowded together, like so many hogs in a sty, or sheep in a fold, so that their breath ahd noisome srnell infected and poisoned one another .... their best food was a little spoiled oatmeal and water," so that great mortality en- sued. AUTHOK AKRIVES IN SCOTLAND SAFE AND SOUND, BUT WITH A Caution not to go again. — On the 7th of May, they arrived at Blewfields, Jamaica, whence the author, with the more fortunate, made his way home to Glasgow, and subsequently wrote his exceedingly interesting book. And now I shall take leave of his reverence, and of the subject. 192 Vll. TEANSLATIONS OF DOCUMENTS, RELATING TO DAETEN, EXISTING IN THE ARCHIVES OF BOGOTA. No.]. OFFICIAL REPORT OF THE ABANDONMENT OF FUERTE DEL PRINCIPE. To His Excellency the Viceroy and Captain-General of those Kingdoms. The Governor of Most excellent Sir, — I have deferred redge™\he''reoe°pt answering your Excellency's dispatch of of the order in tlie 23rd of July, upon the destruction which yo^- E^cel- p ^jj establishment of Principe of lency commanaea ... . the establishment Darien, until it had been accomplished denwlished'^- he also ^^ *^^ Governor, ad interim, of that pro- relates the mode in vince, Don Francisco de Ayala, with which the evacda. ^^^ ^^^^ ^o save your Excellency the tion of that post , •' ■' was eflected. trouble of two dispatches on the same subject; I now reply, and enclose the ad- joined dispatch, in which that officer reports the withdrawal of the troops, inhabitants, and everything that existed in that post. The militiamen who served in that province have returned to their homes, and there only remain* in it 150 men in garrison, composed of two light companies of forty men each, and a stationary company of Natives of the province, according to your Excellency's instructions. The only thing wanting is the construction of a fort on the Island of Boca Grande, and two boats to cruise off it and Chiman. That town does not belong to the government of Darien, being in mine; wherefore I have withdwrawn irom Ayala 50 men of the 200 that your Excellency appointed for his force, upon the supposition that Chiman 193 was dependant on Darlen and not on Panama; and upon this reduction has resulted another of 13 soldiers, the 37 which that town now has, being sufficient for its defence. This is all I have to communicate to your Excellency on the subject, and I wait to obey your further orders. God keep your Excellency many years. Joseph Dom^s t Vallez. Panama, 27th Oct., 1790. No. 2. OFFICIAL EEPOET OF MILLA S JOURNEY IN MARCH, 1788. [Translation]. Diary and Relation of the Route that I followed in crossing the Isthmus of Darien, from North to South. Sunday, the 2nd of the present month, I left Carolina, at six, a.m, accompanied by the Indian Suspani, Captain of the Tillage of Sucubti, and two of his comrades, with the linguist, Pius the fifth, commencing thejourney by following up the waters of the Aglatomate, with many and repeated crossings, until we arrived close to the Cordillera, where the Indians of Chueti have a small house, which is the same as that mentioned in my first despatch of the 22nd of January, and serves as a hostelry to the above-mentioned Indians, and those of Sucubti, who are the usual traders to Carolina, by this road. From Carolina to this place, the distance is two and a half leagues, little more or less; upon arriving at a place they call the two mouths, it is necessary to follow that on the right hand, which, in the dry season, is quite dried up, and the better to know this place, one will meet an Indian shed covered with plantain leaves, and at a little distance from this, in the line of the Cordillera, will be seen a smaller hill than those to the right; up to this o 194 there will be foimd water in this branch of the river, which has in some places a bottom of sand, and in others of shells, whilst higher up there are stones and pebbles. Taking care, after recognising those marks, to keep to the right of the river, the path or trail leading to the above-mentioned hostelry, which, is from sixteen to twenty yards from the river, will be found; from thence the road over the Cor- dillera, from north and south, cannot be missed, since, after crossing three or four small rivulets, or rather, crossing the same one three or four times, with a little care a broken bank will be found on the right hand ; this is where the path over the Cordillera commences, and it is as wide and trodden as if it were made by our people (Spaniards); the whole ascent is rather steep, and half way up a fallen trunk of a tree stops the path. From this place may be seen the Sea, and Carolina. Following the path to the right, and avoiding that on the left which leads to Chueti, the mountain is crossed ; the descent of which, on the other side, is more gradual and sloping; at its foot the river Forti unites with the Sucubti. Following the Sucubti down, to the south, after two or three hours of a good road, a plantain ground and a very small hut will be found ; in half an hour another, both on the right hand ; and in other hour a third, on the left hand side. A quarter of a league lower down on the left hand will be met another, larger than the rest, which is that of Ignacio, the elder brother of Urruchurchu, and the same in which they received me when I started on my first journey in January. In this house I stopped to rest, having arrived about two o' clock in the evening ; and after resting awhile, I proceeded by a road which is at the back of it; and ascending a mountain, the path over which can- not be missed, it is so beaten, I descended again to the river, which has here many rocks. Taking care not to lose sight of the river, there will be seen— first, an Indian hut, then another, and then the village of Sucubti, where Urruchurchu lives. This village consists of six houses 195 together, those above-mentioned, and two or three lower down ; and it may have about 30 Indians capable of bear- ing arms, a few more women, and sixty children. Monday, the 3d. — I stopped at this village all day, as Urruchurchu was making preparations for the continuance of our journey. Tuesday, the 4th. — I started at daybreak, accompanied by the captain and two of his Indians, and followed down the river over level ground and through an open forest ; and about 10 A.M., after having proceeded about two leagues, we left the river altogether, following a path to the left. All the rest of this day we walked through a forest exceed- ingly level and open ; here the Indians of Sucubti hunt, on account of the abimdance of all kinds of ^game — at about 5J P.M., we halted at a rivulet which had scarcely water enough to satisfy our thirst. Wednesday, the 5th. — We pursued our journey through the same forest, and at ten o'clock we again fell in with the Sucubti at the place where the Indians attacked the Lieu- tenant of the Stationary BataUion of Panama, and wounded his guide. As soon as we arrived at this place, Urruchurchu told me, that we could not proceed until some Indians should come with their canoes, to carry us down a short distance to the road that the Spaniards had opened.* We were waiting for those canoes until Thursday, the 6th, when four arrived with eight Indians, who, as I under- stood, were allied with the rebel Chucunas ; and I found they were not of those who had entered into the peace with us, but were always watching to attack any of our people, who might stray into the bush from the establishment of Port Principe. The above-mentioned Indians put many questions to me, aU fiiU of malignity, and expressed themselves opposed to the opening of the road — saying, that they would not allow * This was Ansa's road. O 2 196 troops to march tlirougK their territory, and that, as for the communication we desired with Puerto Principe, it would be sufficient that they themselves should carry our des- patches, and anything else we wanted ; and that they wished to be at peace with us, but on condition that we should keep in our country, and they in theirs ; to all which I assented, in order that they might let me continue my journey ; whereupon they were satisfied, and Urruchurchu made them a present of some yards of stuff that your Ex- cellency gave him in Garth agena, and that he prudently brought with him for the purpose. This day at 10 a.m., we embarked on the river, and about two leagues lower down, we halted, at the road that they call Arisa's. Friday the 7th. — At daybreak we proceeded along the road opened by the Spaniards, and after three hours' walk we crossed the Chucuna river by a bridge, and arrived at the island where Don Luis de la Carrara was encamped : here we found tracks and lately erected sheds (rancherias) of the Chucunas, whereat Urruchurchu became alarmed; and to conduct me the more safely, he went before with the other Indians, I following a good distance behind, until we passed the other branch of this river^ lately named La Paz (Peace river). At this place the other Indians left us, considering us out of danger, but, notwithstanding, taking the precaution to efface the footsteps that I left in the sand, and to warn us not to return by the same way, lest we might fall in with the Chucunas. I proceeded then with Urruchurchu, and about five in the evening had the felicity to arrive at Puerto Principe, where the said Suspani {alias Urruchurchu) advised that we should return by the river Savanas,* Chuounaqua and Jubganti, coming out at the village of Chueti, a short day's distance from Carolina, which plan appeared the best to Don Andres de Arlsa, who considered it attentively. * This is the only place in which I have ever seen the river Savana named. 197 The lOth. — 1 proceeded on my return back by the route above mentioned, and was two days on my way to Yavisa, as we only went wben tbe tide permitted. In this town I stopped all the 12th to get ready a canoe to continue my journey, and at nine o'clock at night we started, but having informed Urruchurchu that the governor had written to me to say that two Indians had come close to Puerto Principe in pursuit of rae, he became much troubled and said that those were Chucunas who were tracking us, and that he was sure that when they saw we did not return the way we had come, they were so malignant they would go to meet us at the mouth of Jubganti ; upon this, foreseeing the danger, I determined to go back and send Captain Suspani to Carolina with the dispatches that I carried, which arrangement satisfied him, as he did not wish that any misfortune should occur to one of us, lest the blame might be thrown upon him, notwithstanding his good intentions. Manuel de Milla Santa Ella. Yavisa, 13th March, 1788. To His Excellency the Viceroy, Don Antonio Caballero y Gongora. The 2nd Com- Your Excellency, — Under date, Ya- mandant General of • ,i i o ,i j? .i , , i ,i the establishments ^i^a, the 13th of the present month, the forwards to your adjutant Don Manuel Milla writes me paTcW^ adjutant the following : Don Manuel Milla, "Signer Don Francisco Fersen, — By transmits the origi- ^^^ adjoined diary you will know all nal diary of that ^ •' ■' officer, and recom- that has been done, as well as the mends to your Ex- motives of my taking this step,* since cellenoy's conside- . ■> • c t -c c \ ration the singular it would be very pamtul it, alter havmg merit that he de- accomplished my purpose, some fatality- serves from his dis- , , , t i ■ in charge of his im- should occur, i cannot explain mysell portant commis- jngre fully, lest I may detain Suspani and his Indians, but as soon as I arrive * That is, returning to Carolina by way of Panama and Porto- bello, instead of by the Chuquanaqua. 198 at Puerto Principe, 1 shall write you a more detailed account, and beg to acquaint you tliat my return to my post (at Carolina) will te with all possible haste. God keep you many years. Manuel de Milla Santa Ella." Yavisa, March 13, 1788. The which I transmit to your Excellency with the original diary of the journey of that officer, whose singular merit and love of the service have been manifested, in so distin- guished a manner, on this important occasion, that I doubt not that your Excellency, who knows so weU how to appreciate merit, will consider him worthy of being intro- duced to the notice of the Sovereign, that he may receive from the royal bounty a reward corresponding to so distin- guished a service, and I make the present known to your Excellency in fidfilment of my duty. God keep yoixr Excellency many years. Feancisco de Feksen. Carolina, March 24th, 1788. No. 3. DIARY OF TRANSACTIONS AT THE FOET OF SAN FEKNANDO DE CAROLINA. To His Excellency Don Antonio CahaUero y Gottgora, Santa Fe de Bogota. Most Excellent Sir, — By the adjoined diaries. No. 24, of the last sixteen days of tlie month of December last, and No. 1 of the first fifteen days of the present month, your excellency will be put in possession of the occurrences of tlie said period, and also of the state of the troops who garrison this establishment, of the promotions that have 199 taken place, and of the present strength of the force. God keep your excellency many years. Antokio Velasquez. Carolina, 16th January, 1788. Diary, No. 24. Dec. 17th, 1787. Luis Sanchez, spldier of the stationary regiment of Carthagena, died in the hospital of the island. 21st. Anchored at dayhreak, in this bay, the merchant schooner Nuestra Senora de la Candelaria, captain Don Domingo Garcia, with provisions for sale for the estahlish- ments of Darien and Porto Bello. At 9 A.M. arrived captain Urruchurchu, alias Suspani, with his brother, son and daughter, and four of his com- rades ; they stopped all night at the establishment, which is the first time that such a thing has happened ; he said that it was now time for the rivers to fall, and that when we wished to open the roads, the Indians would all be willing to give their consent; that he had not brought his wife because she was ill of fever, but would bring her next month, to be cured, and to live near the settlement. At 7 P.M. sailed for Carthagena His Majesty's brigantine El Goro, with dispatches on the royal service. 23d. Captain Urruchurchu departed. Anchored the merchant sloop La Altisidora, captain Don Francisco Alonzo, with dispatches on the royal service, from Concepcion. 24th. The convict Antonio Ruiz died this day. 25th. Anchored the felucca Santa Ana, captain Don Juan de Acosta, from the Sinu, with provisions to sell at these establishments. 27th. Anchored the schooner Nuestra Senora de los Dolores (our Lady of Sorrows), Capt. Silvestre Niiios, from Concepcion. 28th. Anchored His Majesty's brigantine Fachin, capt. Don Vicente Soli^r, with the relief of the regiment of the Princess, 16 artillerymen, vfeteransand militiamen, a lieuten- 200 ant, 2 Serjeants, and a militiaman of tte companies of Choco, and 4 soldiers of all colours ; she brings provisions for those establishments, and money for Concepcion and Mandinsra. 29th. Sailed for Sapote * the schooner Nuestra Senora de los Dolores ; and for Carthagena the schooner San Josef, alias El Atrevido (the Intrepid). 30th. Arrived capt. Hill, of Putrigandi, with- his son, to receive payment for the palm leaves brought by the schooner, and which amounted to 20 dollars and 3 reals ; having asked him if there was anything new, and if the Indians of Captain Hill, John'sj and those of the Chuquanaqua were still rebellious, he replied that they were all willing to enter into the peace, and that there was nothing new amongst them ; the same account was given me by Capt. Urruchurchu on the day that he visited the establishment. 31st. Sailed for Cayman the sloop Altisidora. Antonio Velasquez. Carolina, 31st Dec. 1787. [Then follows a list of the troops and inhabitants amount- ing in all to 650 individuals; to this list the following notes are appended : Notes. — The promotions which took place last month were in consequence of the detachment of artillery, and La Princesa not having been relieved. Of the e.'iO individuals composing the whole population, 151 are colonists and others employed at this establisment, and forty-two sick ; so that there only remain for service, 457 men. Of the 457 remaining for service, there are employed dally, two officers, eight Serjeants, one drummer, ten cor- porals, thirteen artillerymen, and ninety-eight soldiers, be- sides those employed in the works, and the company of * In Cispata Bay, near the mouth of the Sinu. — E. C. 201 volunteers at work on the island ; remaining off duty in this fort, 276 men. Joseph de Guekka t Vaos. Antonio Velasquez. Carolina of Darien, 1st January, 1788. Diary, No. 1 , Containing the transactions of the first 15 days of January, 1788. 2d. — Captain Hall went away with his son, his brother, and three Indians that he brought ; he said, that when he sent for the Palm-leaves that he had cut, he would bring his wife, who wanted to see the Spaniards, and their settle- ments ; and that the reason he had not brought her, was, that his canoes (piraguas) were small, and the Indian women were afraid to embark on them, as they did not know how to swim. 4th. — Sailed for Concepcion, Mandinga, and Portobello, the schooner, Nuestra Sefiora de la Candelaria, Captain Don Domingo Garcia. 9th. — Anchored at daybreak, His Majesty's Gun Sloop, La Mehsendraj Captain Don Manuel de Echandia, from Carthagena and Zapote ; she brings despatches on the royal service, and is to remain in command of the Bay, in place of the sloop Pentiquinestra, which is to preceed to Concepcion. 7th. — Anchored ; Don Bartolome Camilo's sloop, with letters from him, communicating to me His Excellency's orders to him, to send the uprights, palni-leaveSj beams, and other things necessary for the house and settlements that are to be built : he forwarded eighteen labourers, and advised me that in the boats which would bring the above materials, he would send the remainder of the labourers. Also anchored, the sloop Dona Eodriguez from Concep- cion and Mandinga, to which establishments she conveyed provisions on account of His Majesty. 202 Sailed, His Majesty's brigantine, San Joaquin, for Con- ception and Mandinga, witli stores and provisions ; and also. Don Bartolome Camilo's sloop, for the mouths of the Atrato. 8th. Sailed for Cayman, Gandi, and the mouth of the Atrato, His Majesty's schooner Dulcinea ; she convoys the Choco Indians, who go in five canoes to the mouth of the Atrato, and is to leave the lay-brother, Frai Pedro from Concepcion at Gandi, with an Indian of that town lately baptised, who has a commission from His Excellency the Viceroy ; she proceeds to Cayman, for the purpose of seeking a Choco Indian who lives in that settlement. Sailed for Concepcion and Mandinga, the sloops Virgin of Monserrate, Captain Don Joseph Doyle, and the sloop, Dona Kodriguez for Zapote, with letters on the royal ser- vice for Captain Don Bartolome Camilo, and for Don Diego Vellojon, who was commissioned to seek after the sloop Mariana, which left for cattle two months and eleven days ago, and has not appeared since. Fernando Lecadio, captain and owner of the Dona Rodriguez, having informed me that he had learned from the Indian Pita that the Lele (Indian priest), of Carti, had told him that there was an English ship, with many people on board, and fourteen guns, on the coast, at the same place where last year and the year before there appeared another, which escaped our vessels, I immediately sent this infor- mation, through an officer, to Don Manuel de Echandia, the commandant of the bay, in order that he might, if he deemed it proper, set sail with his gun-sloop, the Milisendra, and the Pentiquinestra, Capt. Don Francisco Echeno, in search of the said ship, and that he might call upon me for every assistance that he required. 9th. The said Echandia replied, that he would sail at once with the two vessels, and tliat he required no assistance, since he would be able, with his vessels, to defeat the English ship; at two o'clock in the evening he sailed. Commenced, to-day, to clear the ground for the house for the new settlers. 203 10th. — 'Anchored off the point of Golden Island His Majesty's brigantine, San Joaquin; she comes from above, ■with loss of her mainsail, which the Captain reported to me, with a request for assistance, whieh I immediately afforded. Nine a.m. anchored the gunboat, Don Antonio, from Concepcion, with dispatches on the royal service. The two gun-sloops which sailed yesterday were sighted to-day. 12th. — Anchored the sloop Altisidora, frotn Cayman; arrived from up the coast, the sloop' Nuestra Senora de Monserrate. 13th. — Anchored at eight, a.m., his Majesty's brigantine, Don Belianis, from Zapote, with letters from Don Bartolome Camilo, a cargo of upright posts, laths, bushrope, beams, and yards, and thirteen labourers. This day the banks of the river Aglaseniquia were ex- amined, from its mouth to its head, in order to select the best place for the new settlements that are to be established according to superior orders. The convict, Manuel Molina, died in the hospital of the Island. 14th. — The Don Belianis began to discharge cargo. Francisco Gonzales, militiaman of the 2nd company of Nata, died suddenly. At four p.m., arrived Captain Urruchurchu, his brother, and three comrades ; he said, that when the road was to be opened, and the troops were to go to commence it, I should let him know, since the weather was now fine. I told him that I was waiting until his Excellency sent orders to commence opening the road. Having asked me when a boat should sail for Carthagena, because he wished to go there to see his Excellency, I replied that one would sail soon, and that I should notify to him the date of her departure. Antonio Velasquez. Carolina, 15th January, 1788. 204 I certify that the above documents are faithful copies of the originals existing in these archives. John Oscar Levt. Keeper of the Archives of the Government. Bogota, June 3, 1852. The signature of John Oscar Levy, appended to these documents is that of the Archivero. P. Wilson. Bogota, 4th June, 1852. 1852 Qlatalcrigue oi Useful &ooks PHELISHEB BY EFFINGHAM WILSOJf, 11, ROYAL EXCHANGE, LONDON. In addition to the Works enumerated in this Catalogue, thb Books op all OTHER Publishers may be had at this Establishment immediately on their Publication. The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Gresham, FOUNDER OP THE ROYAL EXCHANGE; Including Notices of many of his contemporaries, hy John Williasi Burgon, Esq. JJow offered,^or a limited time, at the very reduced price of 15s. In twp handsome large octavo volumes, embellished with a fine portrait, and twenty-nine other engravings, elegantly bound in cloth. Recently published at £1 10s. Sir Thomas Gebsham lived in the reigns of Hsnry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, and Elizalietli — Reigns not exceeded in interest by any period of our tiistory; and never was a man's life more actively and usefully spent in benefiting the land of his birth, and enrich- ing its metropolis. Commerce, in particular, then made a gigantic stride, of which he was by no means an inactive spectator ; and he has been not inaptly styled tlie " Great Patriarch of Commerce and Commercial Finance." With a liberality ti-nly patriotic, he erected for the convenience of Merchants, the Royal Exchange; and in addition to his other extensive charities, founded and endowed Seven Lectureships, for the gratuitous instruction of the Citizens op London in the seven liberal sciences. It is therefore confidently presumed, that few Mercliants, Bankers, or Members of the Corporation of the City of London, will be without it. Fery/fiw copies remain for sale of the large paper in 2 vols, royal 8vo. with proof impres- sions of the plates, price £\ 5s., published at ^3. These are two magnificent volumes in regard to size, illustration and tj'pography; nor are their literary contents unworthy of their external splendour, or the fame of the distinguished merchant to whose biogi'aphy they are devoted.— United Service Gazette. g^ Notice. — Any Volume not exceeding lib. in weight, may be sent, post-free^ to any part of the United Kingdom, for Sixpence in addition to the price. EFFINGHAM WILSOIT, 11, ROYAL EXCHANGE. (D(DEI111^IE(D]1AIL W(DmKI Mr. Boubleday's Financial and Monetary History. A rinancial, Monetary, and Statistical Hisiort of England, fiom the Eevolu- tion of 1688 to the present time; derived pi-incipally fi-om Official Docu- ments. By Thomas Doublecay, Esq., Author of "The True Law of Population," &c. &c. _ A work of absorbing interest and uncommon research. We have tested it minutelvj and believe it Btnctlj true, as it is unquestionably clear in its itatements.— Black"Wood's Edjkburgh Magazine. In 1 vol. 8vo., price 12*. cloth. Gumersall's Tables of Interest, etc. Interest and Discount Tables, computed at 2^, 3, 3i, 4, 4J, and 5 per cent., from 1 to 365 days, and from £l to £20,000; that the Interest or Discount on any sum, for any number of days, at any of the above rates, may be obtained by the inspection of one page only. Each Rate occupies eighty pages: the last five of which are devoted to the same number of pounds from 1 to 11 months, and from 1 to 10 yeai-s. They are also accompanied with Tables of Time and Brokerage, being altogether a vast improvement on Thompson and others. By T. B. Gumersall, Accountant, London. This work is pre-eminently distinguipheo from all others on the same subject by facility of reference, distinctness of type, and accuracy of calculation. Seventh Edition, in 1 vol. 8vo. (pp. 500), price 10s. 6d., bound in cloth. Tate's Modern Cambist. The Modern Cambist: fonning a Manual of Exchanges in the various operations of Bills of Exchange and Bullion ; with Tables of Foreign Weights and Mea- sures, with their Equivalents in English, according to the practice of all Trading Nations. By William Tate. A work of great excellence Times. Seventh Edition, just Published, 12s. cloth. Chinese Duties. Schedule Tariff of Duties on the Foreign Trade with China, in Chinese and Mercantile Currency, Reduced into the Equivalent English Rates in Sterling Money. By W. Tate, Author of "The Modern Cambist." Qn a large Sheet, Price Is. Information about the British Funds: Being an accurate Account of the different Funds and Stocks; the Days of Trans- fer; and Tune of Payment of the Di^'idellds of each. Small, for tlic Pocket. Price 6rf., or post-fi-eo for 8 Queen's Heads. Fenn's Guide to the Funds, A Compendium of the English and Foreign Funds, and the principal Joint-Stock Companies; forming sin Epitome of tho vai-ious Objects of Investment negotiable in London; with some Account of the Internal Debts and Revenues iiC the Foreign States, and Tables for calculating the Value of tho different Stocks, &c. By Ciiakles Fenn, of the Stock Excliange. Third Edition. Price 5s., bound in cloth. This little volume rontnins a variety of wcll-nrrRnped information, irdisiirnsable to even capitalist, i > banker, merchant, trader, and nijrlcnUurisl.- Moknikg HtRALn, ' J^ So much useful matter In so small a coinitass is seldom to be met with.— Times. EFFINGHAM WILSON, 11, ROYAL EXCHANGE. money and its Vicissitudes in Value ; As they effect National Industry and pecuniary contracts; witli a postscript on Joint Stock Banks. By Samddl Bailey, Esq., Author of "Essays on the Foi-mation of PubUo opinion," &c. 224 pp. 8vo. Price 6s. boards. Tuck's Eailway Shareholders' Manual; Or Practical Guide to all the Railways in the World completed and in progress; containing Abstracts of the Railway Acts; Advice to Shareholders; the Laws relating to Shareholders and Speculators; Brokers' Rates of Commission for buying and selling Shares; Table to estimate Railway Dividends; Gross Earnings of all the principal Railways; Table showing the Price of Shares;, Railways open; Railways in course of Construction; Railways which received the Royal Assent last Session; Foreign Railways; Railway Offices and Officers, alphabetically arranged. The Accounts and Traffic corrected to the present time; forming the most complete Railway Synopsis ever compiled. By Hbnet Tuck. Tenth Edition, greatly enlarged. Price «. bound in cloth, The Railway Returns, 1819, 1851, Made to the Special Orders of the House of Lords; prefaced with the results of previous returns, with a view to a complete comprehension of the nature of Railway Investments, and the restoration of confidence, by the adoption of a sound policy of management. By Akthur Smith, Author of " Railways as they really are," etc. Price 2s. 6d. Mining, on the Cost Book System. A Treatise on British Mining; with a Digest of the Cost Book System, Stannai-ie, and General Mining Laws. By Thomas Baktlett. In 8vo., cloth, Price 4s. Fynn's British Consul's Handbook, British Consuls abroad; their Origin, Rank, and Privileges, Duties, Jurisdiction, and Emoluments; including the Laws, Orders in Council, and Instructions by which they are governed, as well as those relating to Shipowners and Merchants in their connexion with Consuls. By Robert Fynn, Esc[., Barrister-at-Law. This work 13 written with manifest care and judjjraent; its contents aie not only of «ital importance to Ooiisnls, but to Merchants, Shipowners, Captains, and Travellers.-MaamiiO CHROHICLIS. New Edition, with the new Act of Parliament for facilitating Marriages Abroad. Price 6>., neatly bound, dedicatetl (by permission) to the General Shipowners' Society. Natal, Gape of Good Hope^ A Grazing, Agricultural, and Cotton-growing Country; comprisrag Descriptions of this well-endowed Colony, from the year 157.5 to the present time, by Government Officials and Travellers; with a Vocabulary of the Zulu Language, a Map of the Colony, and Engravings. By J. S. Christopher, of NataL 4s. bound, with Views and Coloured Map. The National Debt & Public Funds Simplified. By Justin Bbenan, Author of " Composition and Punctuation famiharly explained." This is the cleverest exposition of these otherwise complicated matters ever published — THE Cmric Second Edition, with additions, Is. cloth, or Post free on receipt of 16 Queen's Heads. EFFINGHAM WILSON, 11, ROYAL EXCHANGE. Coins of the Romans relating to Britain Described and Illustrated. Br John Yonge Akekman, P.S.A., Corresponding Member of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Factum abilt, monumenta manent. — Ovid. Fast. In small 8vo., with numerous Engravings on steel and wood, and neatly bound, price 7s. 6d. Tate's Bankers' Glearing-House. The System of -the London Bankers' Clearances, and their Effects upon the Cur- rency, explained and exemplified by EonnuliE of the Clearing-house Accounts. By W. Tate, Author of " The Modem Cambist," etc. 2s. 6d. Jackson's Book-keeping. A New Check- Journal ; combining the advantages of the Day -Book, Journal and Cash-Book; forming a complete System of Book-keeping by Double Entry: with copious illustrations of Interest Accounts, and Joint Adventures; and a New Method of Book-keeping, or Double Entry by Single. By George Jackson, Accountant, London. Seventh Edition, with the most effectual means of preventing Fraud, Error, and Embezzlement, in Cash Transactions, and in the Receipt and Delivery of Goods, etc. Price 6s. cloth. We can conscientiously add our ineed of approval to that of tlie many who have already preceded us ia the same task, and strongly recommend it to general adoption. — ATH1.K.XVM. Walton's Calculator's Guide. Calculator's Sure Guide; or, the most comprehensive Eeckoner ever published: applicable to all business transactions. By William Walton, Accountant. 1 large voliune 8vo. (600 pages), bound in cloth. Scarce. Railway Share and Stock Calculator. Tables for calculating Shares in Railway, Canal, Gas, Mining, Insurance, and other Companies, at any Price from l-16th of a Pound sterling, or Is. 3d. per Shai'e, up to £310 in value; and from 1 Share to 500. Applicable also to Foreign or English Stocks, or Bonds, and for other purposes; to wliich is annexed a Comprdiensive Table of Income Tax. By R. Edwin Robinson, Stock Exchange. Third Edition, with Scale of Commissiohs, as agreed by authority of the Committee of the Stock Exchange, London. Piice 7s. 6rf. cloth. Dr. Fraser Halle's Philosophy. Exact Philosophy. Books Fii'st and Second. By Hughes Eraser Halle, Ph. LL. D., Author of "Critical Letters,'' and of the Ai-ticles on "Hume's Esspy," " Schism," in the Britannic Censor of European Philosophi/, ^c. In 1 vol. post 8vo. Price 6s. cloth. Ward's Safe Guide to the Investment of Money. Second Edition with Additions. IDs. 6d. A TREATISE on INVESTMENTS; being a Popular Exposition of the Ad- vantages and Disadvantages of each kind of Investment, and of the liability to Depreciation and loss. By Robert Arthur Ward, Solicitor, Maidenhead, Berkshire. Both capitalist and lawyer will find the most uscl\il hints In this voUinie.— Legai Olis£llV£n. EFFINGHAM WILSON, 11, ROYAL EXCHANGE. « Wool and Woollen Manufactures. THE RISE, PROGKESS, and PRESENT STATE of BRITISH and COLONIAL SHEEP and WOOLS, with Remarks on the use of Alpaca, Angora, and Cashmere Goat's Wool, with Statistics of the Wool-producing Colonies, and Illustrated Maps. By Thomas Sotithet, Esq. In One "Volume, 8vo., with an APPENDIX, brought down to the Present Time. Price 12s., in cloth. The APPENDIX may be had separate, price 4s., in cloth. The Preparation of Long Line, Flax Cotton, and Flax Wool, By The CLAUSSEN PROCESS; with a Description of the Chemical and Mechanical Means employed. By John Rtan, L.L.D., etc., etc. Illustrated by Engravings. Price 5s. cloth. Partnership "en Gommandite." Partnership with Limited Liabilities (according to the commercial practice of the Continent of Europe and the United States of America) for the Employment of Capital, the Circulation of Wages, and the Revival of our Home and Colonial Trade. The United States are chiefly indebted for her rapid and prodigious rise to tliis system of commercial association, especially in the extraordinary growth of her manufactures, in which 6,000,0002. is now invested, giving employment to more than ] 00,000 persons, exclusive of those engaged in the cultivation of cotton. — OUGLAS JEBBOLD. In 1 vol. 8vo., Price 9s. in cloth. Drabwell's Coal Tables. Improved Coal-Market Tables, for ascertaining the Value of any quantity of Coals at any price; also. Discount and Scorage Tables. Sy William Deabwell, Accountant. 12mo. boards, 5s. Importance of Life Assurance. LIFE ASSURANCE; an Historical and Statistical Account of the Population, the Law of Mortality, and the different systems of Life Assurance, including the validity and non- validity of Life Policies, with observations on Friendly Societies and Savings' Banks; to which is added a review of Life Assu- rance, explanatory of the nature, advantages, and various purposes to which it may be applied. By Ali-red Burt, Esq. In 1 8vo. volume. Price 7s. 6d. in cloth. Anderson's Mercantile Letters. A Collection of Modem Letters of Business; with Notes, Critical and Explanatory; an Analytical Index; and an Appendix, containing pro-forma Invoices, Account Sales, Bills of Lading, and Bills of Exchange, Also, an Explanation of the German Chain-Rule, as applicable to the Calculations of Exchanges: with a Nomenclature of Technicalities not to be found in any Dictionary. By , W. Anderson. The New Edition is not merely valuable as examples of commercial style, but as introducing the reader and student, in the moat familiar and intelligible manner, to the system of commercial dealings in all its branches, as carried on between this and other countries j in fact, it is a book which should be found in every counting-house and school, as the general mercantile information which it communicates and familiarises cannot fail to render it interestmg to all classes of readers. — EXAMINEK. Fourth Edition, in a neat 12mo. volume, bound in cloth. Price 5s. *,* In addition to the foregoing, every Commbboial Work of keputk is constantly on Sale. EFFINGHAM WILSON, 11, EOYAL EXCHANGE. TViih full allowance to Schools and Private Teachers. Tate's Elements of Commercial Arithmetic. Containing a Minute Investigation of the Principles of the Science, and their General Application to Commercial Calculations, and in accordance with the present Monetary System of the world. By W. Taxe^ Its execution equals anj. The rules are clear and more precise than usual. The Exercises are neatlj composed, and have a greater relation to the actual business of the world than is customary with elementary books; whilst, to every branch that will admit of it, rules for mental calculations or shortcuts to answers are added — Spectatok. Fifth Edition, improved and corrected, in 1 yol. 12mo. neatly bound. Price 2s. 6d- Recently Published, A Key to the Elements of Commercial Arithmetic. Continuing the exposition of the principles of the Science, and of the more intricate portions of their application; exhibiting variations in the modes of performing arithmetical operations; and conveying still further information respecting those commercial regulations, by which the pupU must hereafter be guided in his Commercial calculations. By W. Tate. Neatly bound. Price 3s. &d. Just Published, Tate's Counting-House Guide to the Higher Branches of Calculations. Part the First. Forming an Appendix to the Elements of Commercial Arithmetic. By "W. Tate. A new and enlaa-ged Edition, in 1 vol. 12mo. bound in cloth, 4s. Tate's Gounting-Eouse Guide to the Higher Branches of Calculations. Fart the Second. Forming a Supplement and Key to the new and enlarged Edition of the Appen- dix to the Elements of Commercial Aiithmetic By W. Tate. In 1 vol. 12mo. cloth, bound in cloth, 6s. The two Parts, bound in one, 9s. 6d. n?*': '■'«•" l""' spared no pains to n>mlsh himself with the hestpracUcal data. The Ronil Mint, the Bank ot lungland, Lloyd s, the Stock Exchange, e£ well as the leading Mercantile Establishments, have been had j recourse to. The wk may lie safely refcft cd to, as a standard authority on the -various matters treated 1 upon, — JuoRKiifQ Post, EFFINGHAM WILSON, 11, ROYAL BXCHANGB. Schonberg's Chain Eule. A Manual of brief Commercial Aiithmetic, being an easy, simple, and efficient aiixiliary in the working of difficult and complicated Problems; applied to Proportion, simple and compound, direct and Inverse ; Discount ; Barter ; Interest, simple or compound ; Profit and Loss; Fractional Numbers; Exchange^ Tare, &c. Por the use of Schools, Counting-houses, and Self- Tuition, By Charles LO01S Sohonbebg. The Chaiu-Rule Is a simple, easy, antt clever system of arithmetical computation, only requiring to he kDown to be generally adopted, to the total exclusion of Ready Recltoners and the Rule of Thumb. Thereis a fascination in the very arrangement of the figures; in fact, it is an amusing as well as a most useful study and we strongly recommend the Chaln-Rule as arranged and applied by Mr. Sch'inberg. — LIT. Gaz. Pourth Edition Neatly bound in cloth, price 1 s. 6d. The Story without an End. The Story without an End. Prom the German of P. G. Carote, by Mrs.- AustiiI. This is a delightful fairy tale j we are all indebted to Mrs. Austin for one literary worit or another, but our children's children will thank her for this. The book altogether is a literary gem.— ATHEMiEUM. Appropriately embellished with 13 Wood Engravings, in the first style of the art, from the pencil of Harvey, price 2s. 6d., neatly bound in -cloth; or in watered silk, gilt edges, 4s, The Author's Guide. A Guide to Authors; showing how to correct the press, according to the mode adopted and understood by Printers. Price 6d, New English Grammar. An Elementai-y English Grammar, upon an entirely new principle, especially adapt- ed by its simplieity and its numerous exercises, for the junior classes in schools, for private tution, 01: for self-instruction. By W. H. PiNNOCK, B. C. L. New Edition. Price Is. bound in cloth. Pinnock's Grammar as issuedinto the world by Effingham Wilson, is the best and, clearest that has ever appeared, and ought at once to supersede every other book of its class — United Sbhtice Maoazise. History in Rhymes. Rhymes for YouthM Historians: designed to assist the Memory in retaining the most important Events in the History of England, etc. How many are there of the commonaffairs of hnman life, which have been taught in eaily years by the helDOfrhymef and have been like nails fastened In a sure place. » • • It isfrom this principle that moral Ss have bSn cast into a poeUc mould from all antiquity.-UR. Watt's Imp»oyeme»i ou the Mind. You must not lau-h at this, for chronologists do not pique themselves on their poetry ; they make use of numbers and rhymes merely as assistants to memory, being so easily learned — MRS. Chapone. Sixth Edition, brought doivn to the Reign of Queen Victoria, with 37 Portraits of Sovereigns, price Is. sewed, or neatly bound in cloth Is. 6d. miss Iselin's Poems. My Dream Book: Poems. By Sophia Iselin. Price 3s. 6d. in cloth, or 5s. in silk, -with gut edges. Instinct and Reason definitively Separated, And consequently including an Answer to " The Vexata Qusestio of Brute Reasoning," -which has so long perplexed the ablest writers on that important point. By Gokdonius. An able little treatise on the dlsttoction between the reason of man and the instinct of the lower animals MoitKJNG Post. In 18mo., price Is. 6d., in cloth. EFFINGHAM WILSON, 11, KOYAL EXCHANGE. A COMPLETE COURSE OF INSTRUCTION Which obviates entirely all necessity for leaving England to acquire the Parisian Accent. New French School by M. Le Page. PROFESSOR OF FRENCH IN LONDON. " The sale of manv thousands, and the almost universal adoption of these clever little Books, by Mons. LB PAGE, sufficiently prove the public approbation of his plan of teaching French, which is in accordance with the natural operation of a child learning its native lan^age." The French School— Part I. L'ECHO DB PARIS; being a selection of PamUiar Phrases which a person would hear daily if living in Prance. With a Vocabulary of the Words and Idioms. Mons. Le Pace's excellent work has, we are happy to perceivej run through several editions with all the celerity it deserved. His book is decidedly the best we have seen for aiding the instruction of Bnglish children in the rudiments of the French language ; inasmuch as it approaches nearest to that best of all methods, fami- liar conversation. — MoaNING POST. Nineteenth Edition, with Additions, and numerous Woodcuts. In 12mo. neatly bound in cloth, price 4s. The French School.— Part II. GIFT OP PLTJENCY IN PRENCH CONVERSATION: a Set of Exercises for the Learner of the Prench Language, calculated to enable him, by means of practice, to express himself fluently on the ordinary Topics of Life. With Notes. Eighth Edition, improved. 12mo. neatly bound in cloth, price reduced to 3s. Mons. Le Page's Elementary works are already well known and highly appreciated, no books are better adapted to give the pupil a complete command of words and phrases, and a correct knowledge of the language, the arrangement is natural and Judicious. — Atlas. The French School.— Part III. THE LAST STEP TO PRENCH; or the Piinciples of French Grammar dis- played in a series of Short Lessons, each of which is followed by Questions and Exercises : with the Versification. Seventh Edition. 12mo. neatly bound in cloth, price reduced to 3s. The Theee Pasts bound in One VonraiE, price reduced to 9s. M. Le Page's tabulation of the verbs is as complete as it is good : his syntax is lucid and scholarlike, and his Exercises are well graduated, and likely to exercise the student's mind with his mcmoiy. — Gent's Mag. To schools and private teachers these volumes must be invaluable.— MONTHLy REVIE'W. *»* Mons. Le Page, encouraged by a liberal pubhc, has. also published for the use of Junior Classes The French Master for the Nursery: lasy Lessons in Fi-encb for Young Beginners. New and Improved Edition> Or Easy with additions, Royal 18mo. neatly bound; price reduced to 3s. Le Petit Causeur; Or, First Chattorings in Fi'ench, being A KEY TO THE GIFT OF PRENCH CONVERSATION, By Mons. LE PAGE, author of "L'Echo de Paris," &c The key gives the correct translation of the French, thereby showing which is the proper expression for every topic of life. New and improved Edition. Price Is. 6d. EFFINGHAM WILSON, 11, ROYAL EXCHANGE. Mons. Le Page's French Prompter : HANDBOOK FOE TRAVELLING on the Continent and Students in Fbenoh. a complete Manual of Conversation, arranged in Alphabetical order, so as to obviate ail difficulty of reference, each EngHsh word is followed by the phrases and idiomatic French in constant use, forming a perfect English and French dictionary, and a sure Hand-Book of Conversation, as it gives at each word all the phrases relating to it which are heard daily in polite families. Third Edition. In a neat Pocket Volume, pp. 380, price 5s. Petit Musee de Litterature Francaise. ELEGANT EXTRACTS from the most Eminent "Writers of Fi-ance,in Prose and Verse; with chronological and critical Notices of French Literature, from the 14th to the 19th Centuries. By M. Le Page, Author of "L'Echo de Paris," &c. The selections have been carefully made, and show at once the style and the power of the writer. Wc strongly recommend the ' Petit Mus.!-e ' to all those desinou^ of becoming acquainted with the literature of France.— Abcus. In One Volume, 12nio., handsomely bound, price 5s. 6rf. This Work is kept in Elegant Binding, suitable for Presents, at 85. %d. Ready Guide to French Composition. FRENC-x GRAMMAR BY EXAMPLES; giving Models as Leading Strings throughout Accidence and Syntax; and presenting a Comparative View of tli'e Eiigliaii and French Idioms in their principal Differences. By MoNS. Le Page. Professor of the French Language, Author of " L'Echo de Paris," " The French Prompter," &c. We should not think of describing an obj ect to make it known, when we can show it at once. Why should we thi ftk ot teaching by precepts and rules when a model can he set forth? Tlil«wol* will be found a ready Guide lo French composition ; each model in the accidence is followed by questions and e\ercise6, the object of which is to bring the young learner to shape a rule himtelf and prac- tise It. We can conscientiously recommend it lo general adoption.— SUNDAY TIMES. Second Edition. In 12mo., neatly bound in cloth, price 4s. Cherville's First Step to French; Indispensable to, and in harmony with, aU French Grammars; being a collection of Progressive Familiar Conversations, in French and in EngUsh, showing a parallel between the Pronunciation, Etymology, Accidence, and Idioms of the Parts of Speech in both Languages, with Grammatical Observations on a New Plan. By F. M, Db Chertille. Nbw and Imcroved Edition, with Additions, 12mo., 3s. cloth. M. de Cherville's method of teaching interferes with no existing grammar, but is applicable to any. The conversations are written in a familiar style (very easy at first, and advancing with the progress of the stu- dent!, in which no word is isolated, and thus the rules of grammar are made clear;— one page is French the opposite English, thus showing a parallel between the pronunciation, etymology, accidence, and idioms of both languages.— MOKNING Post. A narrative of the Treatment Experienced by a Gentleman; during a state of Mental Derangement ; Designed to explain the causes and the nature of Insanity, and to expose the injudi- cious conduct pursued towards many unfortunate sufferers under that calamity. By John Percivai,, Esq. In 1 vol. 8vo., 8s.; ditto vol. 2, 10s. dd. EFFINGHAM WILSON, 11, ROYAI. EXCHANGE. Consumption Curable. Consumption of the Lungs and Asthma an-ested and cm-ed in the majority of cases, by Inhalation and other rational means. By Daniel Carr, M.IJ. In one volume, 12mo., price 3s. 6d., bound in cloth. The Importance of Punctuality enforced, " Xime and Xi<1e wait for no mmi," With an Emblematical Border on wood. For the use of Counting-hodses, Warehouses, Shops, &c. Price 6d. Composition and Punctuation Familiarly explained, for those who have neglected the study of Grammar; and wherein FOREIGNERS, WHO MAY BE LEARNING ENGLISH, will also find information ealculated to facilitate their progress in the understand- ing pf the Language. By Justin Buenan. Sixth Edition, considerably augmented, price 2s. 6d. hound in cloth. We have read this little book with much satisfaction, something of the kind has been long wanted and the want is now very ingtniously supplied, * My object, says the author. • is to instruct those who know how to read and wnte, but who are unacquainted with grammar. I propose strange as it may appear, to show sucti persons how they may compose sentences of which they may not, at least, be ashamed, and how they may ejtpressmeanmginielligibly, without exciting a laugh at their expense.' ThU object Mr. Brenan has attam«l m a simple and agreeable maimer; and we, therefore, confidentlj recommend his hook to thast whose early education has been neglected, and who are now afraid to enter upon all the difficulUes of erammar. We shall ourselves present copies of it to several mechanics and others, in whose progress we take ao interest.- iDiKBURGH Literary Journal. Moschzisker's New Guide to the German Language. A Guide to the German Language; or Manual for the Acquirement of a Gram- matical and Conversational Knowledge of German, ore tiie admirable plan of M. Le Page's " L'Echo de Paris:' By F. A. Moschzisker, St. PhL of the Umversity of Leipzig; Author of " The Guide to German Literature." ' This day, neatly cloth-lettered, price Is. Tuck's Map of the Railways ; Distinguishing the Lines for Traffic, the Lines In course of Construction, and the Lmes projected, their Tei-mini, Length, Capital, &c.; With Tables op Re- ference. Showing the Lines leased and amalgamated; the whole forming The Most Complete Map ever published. New Edition, Price 5s., mounted on canvass, bound, cloth. Howitt's Priestcraft. New and Improved Edition, of the Popular History of Priestcraft, in all Ages and Nations, with lai-ge Additions. By William Howitt. Eighth Edition, l2mo., cloth. Price 5s. Hampden's Aristocracy. The Aristocracy of England; a Histoiy for tlie People. By John Hampden J UN. Second Edition, price 5s., hound in cloth. ' C noMWELr,. WHiat, then, is the great root of all our firievances ? raenl"' '° '^"«">«™«J ' 0'™ -" 'h<^l"- t">o histotj. and ,o» u-riddle thcsectel of every national embarrass- De Stain's Phonography. Phonography; or Writing of Sounds, divided into Two Pai-ts, viz., Logography, or Universal Writing of Speech; and Musicography, or Symbolical WriS of s.:siKf Ai:°'-"'""^ ^°^- '^-•^- ^^ ^- ^ - STrNs, GiSe« Second Edition, in 1 vol. 8vo., 10s. cloth. EFFINGHAM WILSON, 11, ROYAL EXCHANGE. Unreformed Abuses in Church and State ; With a preliminary Tractate on the CONTINENTAL KEVOLUTIONS. By John Wade, Author of " History and Political Philosophy of the Productive Classes," etc. Mr. Wade has produced a vade-mecum— a complete hand-boolc— of the corruption^ extravagance, and iacompetence that beset this nat!on.-^THB MORNIira ^DVBRIISEB. (300 pp.) 2s. 6d., or Post-free, to any part of the kingdom, on receipt of 36 Queen's Heads. Dr. Yeoman on Consumption and Diseases of the Chest. ASTHMA, INFLXJENZA, BRONCHITIS, AND CATAEEH. The Cause, Symptoms, and Rational Treatment. By T. H. Yeoman, M.D. Also, by the same Author, CONSUMPTION OF THE LUNGS. The Causes, Symptoms, and Eational Treatment, with the Means of Prevention. We most cordially recommend these works to the heads of families.— Bell's Weekly Messenger. Price 2s. each ; or. Post free on receipt of 30 Queen's Heads. Wilson's Description of the New Royal Exchange, Including an Historical Sketch of the former Edifices; and a brief Memoir of Sir THOMAS GRESHAM, Knt. Founder of the original Burse in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. In 1 vol. 12mo. with 18 Embellishments, in cloth, 2s. 6rf " We are glad to welcome this Publisher hack to his old place of business. His house has issued many valuable commercial works. His first publication in his new establishment is botli well-timed and well calculated to secui'e public favour." — Beitannia. The Mahogany Tree ; Its botanical characters, qualities, and uses, with practical instructions for selecting and cutting it in the West Indies and Central America, with notices of the projected inter-oceanic communications of Panama, Nicaragua, and Tehuan- tepec, in relation to their productions, and the supply of fine timber for ship- building and all other purposes. This work contains much valuable information, which only persons connected with the trade can supply. — Economist. IMce 5s., with a Map and Illustrations. A Complete Gazetteer of the Australian Colonies, Containing an Account of all the Mines, Elvers, and Bays, with Height of all the Mountains, and Number of Population, and other Statistics— Correct Views of Sydney and other Towns — A List of every Estate and Squatters' Stations, with the Proprietor's Name, and full Information concerning every Important Spot where Gold has recently been discovered. By "W. H. "Wells, Surveyor, Sydney. In One Volume, 8vo., with Numerous Maps and Plates, price £l. Is. Contains numerous Maps and Plates — its topographical references are much more full and precise than might have been expected. The work will prove very serviceable for the numerous persons interested in that region.— The Times. EFFINGHAM WILSON, 11, ROYAL EXCHANGE. Pearce's Poems. POEMS. Bt a Prisoner in Bethlehem, Edited by John Perceval, Esq., and published for the benefit of the Author. We hope we have said enough of our author's verses to induce our readers to purchase the hook. It ahounds TTith evidences of good feeiing — The Examinee. In foolscap, cloth elegant, price 3s. The London Distance Map. The Cikcuiteer, a Distance Map of London, to serve as a guide for ascertaining Cab Pares, Porterage, etc., etc., with explanations in English, Prench, and Geelian. Price 2s. 6d. coloured, or Is. 6d. plain. Recollections of Military Service In 1813, 1814, and 1815, through Germany, Holland, Belgium, and Prance; in- cluding some details of the battles of Quatre Bras and Waterloo. By Thomas Morris, ex Sergeant of the 73rd Regiment of Poot, Pourth Edition, 18mo. Price 2.?. 6rf., cloth. Assurance and Annuity Tables, According to the Carlisle rate of mortality, at three per cent. By Peter Gray, P.E.A.S., A.I.A., Author of " Tables and Pormulee for the computation of Life Contingencies. Henry Ambrose Smith, P.I.A., and William Orchard, F.I. A., Author of " Single and Annual Assurance Premiums at Eight Kates of Interest." These tables afford the means of readily solving any problem in which either one or two lives are concerned. The single life values tabulated are those of the annuities and the single and annual assurance premiums, for every age ; and the two life values are those of the single and annual survivorship assurance premiums, for every possible combination of two ages. The single premiums for every other kind of assurance on two Uves, and the annual premiums for an assurance on their joint continuance, are hence deducible by the mere addition or substraction of tabulated values ; while, by the aid of a new auxiliaiy table, we pass at once, with the utmost facility, from any assurance value to its corresponding annuity value, the latter being in all cases true, within narrow limits, to four decimal places. The work comprises also the requisite auxiliaiy tables, for the formation of the values of temporary and deferred benefits. Royal 8vo. Price 10s. 6d., cloth. A SUITABLE PRESENT POR YOUNG HOUSEKEEPERS. New and Improved Edition op Home Truths for Home Peace. A practical inquiiy into what chiefly mars or makes the comfort of domestic life. Especially addressed to young housewifes. 12mo., neatly bound in gilt cloth. Price Ss. 6rf. A workwhlch Isralciilated toafToTd an amovint of good for ■which young men and maideiw will ever be gratelbl."— Bell;s Weekly Messekger. This volume dl.'cuises, in deUil, truths Uktly to contribute to the judicious government of home, We have rarely met with a work that is better calculated to nlve rise to a cheerftjl and healthy moral tone in many a family..— Observer. LONDON: EFFINGHAM WILSON, 11, ROYAL EXCHANGE, Depot for Commercial Stationery and Account Books of the best quality.