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Albuquerque had already founded a Portuguese Maritime empire in the Indian Ocean when Henry VIII. ascended the throne, and Spain was established in the West Indies. In 1513, Balboa sighted the Pacific from the Isthmus of Darien.
The other grievance was of a different nature. About 1695, William Paterson, the founder of the Bank of England, suggested the formation of a Scottish company to trade to Africa and the Indies. It was originally known as the African Company, but it was destined to be popularly remembered by the name of its most notable failure the Darien Company.
When my visitors had left me, I took the refreshment of a row over to Darien; and as we had the tide against us coming back, the process was not so refreshing for the rowers.
He first touched at Jamaica, where he refreshed his men, and took on board a body of troops and some pilots, as well as provisions; and, on the 5th of November, sailed for the Spanish town of Porto Bello, which lies on the north side of the Isthmus of Darien.
Captain Davis accepted one, but Captain Swan had one already from the Duke of York. Learning from these men that Captain Townley was coming across the isthmus of Darien with 180 Englishmen, we set sail on the 2d March for the gulf of San Miguel to meet Townley.
These towns of Darien are destroyed; some ruins scattered on the hills of Uraba, the fruit-trees of Europe mixed with native trees, are all that mark to the traveller the spots on which those towns once stood.
Has not the failure of that unhappy expedition to Darien raised a sufficiently bitter feeling against us throughout that kingdom? Every wise and honest man is desirous to soothe the angry passions of our neighbours. And shall we, just at this moment, exasperate those passions by proclaiming that to be born on the north of the Tweed is a disqualification for all honourable trust?"
They find that the Spanish races of Central America have learned bitter lessons from the loss of Texas. They know of the brutal conquest of California. The cry of "Muerte los Americanos!" rings from Tucson to Darien. The labors of conquest are harder now for the self-elected generalissimos of these robber bands.
After this, the General paid a visit to the Highlanders, at their settlement called "the Darien," a distance of sixteen miles on the northern branch of the Alatamaha. He found them under arms, in their uniform of plaid, equipped with broad swords, targets, and muskets; in which they made a fine appearance.
Culwin had fished him out of a thick fog of family dulness, and pulled him up to a peak in Darien; and the adventure hadn't hurt him a bit. Indeed, the skill with which Culwin had contrived to stimulate his curiosities without robbing them of their young bloom of awe seemed to me a sufficient answer to Murchard's ogreish metaphor.
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