Company of Scotland Totally Explained

The plan

The Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies, also called the Scottish Darien Company, was an overseas trading company created by an act of the Parliament of Scotland in 1695. The Act granted the Company a monopoly of Scottish trade to India, Africa and the Americas, similar to English charter companies' monopolies, and also extraordinary sovereign rights and temporary exemptions from taxation.
   Financial and political troubles plagued its early years. The governors were divided between those residing and meeting in Edinburgh and those in London, amongst whom were both Scots and Englishmen. They were divided also by those by business intentions; some intended to trade in India and on the African coast, as an effective competitor to the English East India Company, while others were drawn to Paterson's Darien scheme, which ultimately prevailed.
   In July 1698 it launched its first expedition, led by William Paterson, who hoped to establish a colony in Darien (on the Isthmus of Panama), which could then be used as a trading point between Europe and the Far East.
   Though five ships and 1,200 Scottish colonists landed successfully in Darien, the settlement was poorly provisioned and eventually abandoned. A second, larger expedition (launched before the fate of the first was known) took up the deserted settlement, but was quickly besieged by the Spanish. More than a thousand succumbed to hunger and disease, and in April 1700, two ships carried the few survivors home.

Consequences of failure

All told, the disastrous venture, dubbed the Darien Scheme, drained Scotland of more than a quarter of its liquid assets and may have played a key role in pushing the country to the eventual 1707 Act of Union which united Scotland and England. The English agreed to cover the Scottish Government's debt to its people, and this was likely one of the main reasons the Acts of Union were not as heavily resisted by the government of Scotland as they'd with other English attempts to amalgamate the two countries, although prevailing public opinion in Scotland was overwhelmingly against it.

Sources

Refer: Papers Relating to the Ships and Voyages of the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies, 1696-1707 edited by George Pratt Insh, M.A., Scottish History Society, Edinburgh University Press, 1924.

External results

Click here for more details on Company Of Scotland

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://company_of_scotland.totallyexplained.com">Company of Scotland Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.