aboriginal population of Darien regarded the authority of the Spanish Viceroys and Audiences.  Yet it would surely have been thought an outrageous violation of public law in the King of Spain to take possession of Appin and Lochaber.  And would it be a less outrageous violation of public law in the Scots to seize on a province in the very centre of his possessions, on the plea that this province was in the same state in which Appin and Lochaber had been during centuries?

So grossly unjust was Paterson’s scheme; and yet it was less unjust than impolitic.  Torpid as Spain had become, there was still one point on which she was exquisitely sensitive.  The slightest encroachment of any other European power even on the outskirts of her American dominions sufficed to disturb her repose and to brace her paralysed nerves.  To imagine that she would tamely suffer adventurers from one of the most insignificant kingdoms of the Old World to form a settlement in the midst of her empire, within a day’s sail of Portobello on one side and of Carthagena on the other, was ludicrously absurd.  She would have been just as likely to let them take possession of the Escurial.  It was, therefore, evident that, before the new Company could even begin its commercial operations, there must be a war with Spain and a complete triumph over Spain.  What means had the Company of waging such a war, and what chance of achieving such a triumph?  The ordinary revenue of Scotland in time of peace was between sixty and seventy thousand a year.  The extraordinary supplies granted to the Crown during the war with France had amounted perhaps to as much more.  Spain, it is true, was no longer the Spain of Pavia and Lepanto.  But, even in her decay, she possessed in Europe resources which exceeded thirty fold those of Scotland; and in America, where the struggle must take place, the disproportion was still greater.  The Spanish fleets and arsenals were doubtless in wretched condition.  But there were Spanish fleets; there were Spanish arsenals.  The galleons, which sailed every year from Seville to the neighbourhood of Darien and from the neighbourhood of Darien back to Seville, were in tolerable condition, and formed, by themselves, a considerable armament.  Scotland had not a single ship of the line, nor a single dockyard where such a ship could be built.  A marine sufficient to overpower that of Spain must be, not merely equipped and manned, but created.  An armed force sufficient to defend the isthmus against the whole power of the viceroyalties of Mexico and Peru must be sent over five thousand miles of ocean.  What was the charge of such an expedition likely to be?  Oliver had, in the preceding generation, wrested a West Indian island from Spain; but, in order to do this, Oliver, a man who thoroughly understood the administration of war, who wasted nothing, and who was excellently served, had been forced to spend, in a single year, on his navy alone, twenty times the ordinary revenue of Scotland; and, since his days, war had been constantly becoming more and more costly.