Darien, Caledonia and the Herald

There's too much of this superficial anti-Scottish comment going on in the media.

LINKS: 

Guardian interview with Beaton

Neil Cooper's review 21st August (wrongly shown as 23rd)

Neil Cooper's review - 23rd August

THE FACTS ABOUT DARIEN

Alistair Beaton’s play ‘Caledonia’ tells the story of the ill-fated Darien project. I have yet to see it but Beaton’s apparent view, quoted in a newspaper interview "A little country deciding to be a big, rich country overnight: what does that remind you of? I hear the word Iceland" seems to indicate an agenda. Whatever the play’s interpretation of Darien, Neil Cooper (Herald 21st August) seems to have adopted a wholly negative one.

“A small country with ideas above its station”, “the foolhardy optimism that in part defines that little nation gets caught up in a swell of pride” and “Even in 1698, it seems, Scotland couldn’t quite get over itself” – these quotes capture the pejorative tone of Cooper’s piece. His ignorance of the facts of Darien perhaps stem from his mistaken belief that Paterson and Darien “might not get much of a mention in the history books these days”.

He should consult distinguished historian Norman Davies’ formidable work, “The Isles – a History”, where some 16 pages are devoted to an in-depth analysis, or Tom Devine’s ‘The Scottish Nation’, which makes ten separate references to the ill-fated Panama expedition. Perhaps then he might understand the complex factors that contributed to this disastrous venture.

William Paterson was one of the most successful entrepreneurs of the late 17th century, and played a fundamental role in the creation of the Bank of England. He was a risk-taker, as all successful entrepreneurs are, and he had a detailed knowledge of Central America. Scotland at that time was reeling from the ruination of her export trade by an English blockade, compounded by a succession of seven failed harvests, and many prominent Scots were desperate to find a way to alleviate the miseries of the Scottish people.

Paterson and his partners made bad decisions, were overly optimistic, and were singularly unlucky, but the Darien projects failure was compounded and intensified by the implacable hostility of England, who were intent on destroying Scotland’s commercial ambitions. When the Darien community were at their lowest ebb from sickness and disease – a humanitarian crisis – the English governor of Jamaica, acting expressly in the name of the King, issued an instruction to abandon the Scots to their fate and to deny them any help or succour, on pain of the wrath of the King.

The Darien disaster enabled the English to exert enormous pressures on Scotland in the lead-up to the Act of Settlement. Let’s give the last word to the Earl of Stair, John Dalrymple, speaking in the debates over the Union.

“The pitiful outcome of that enterprise is too sad a story to be told again. Suffice it to say that the English did not treat us as partners or friends or fellow subjects of a British king but as pirates and enemy aliens. The union of crowns gave us no security ---“

‘Caledonia’ nevertheless presumes to tell the story again, but with what intention?

Peter Curran

© Copyright Peter Curran 2010