In the late 17^th century, times were tough in Scotland.  The Stuarts, the Scots’ royal family, had been tossed off the throne of England for a second time, and the country had been excluded from the burgeoning English system of international trade regulated by the Navigation Acts.  Even the climate was more miserable than usual: these were the worst years of northern Europe’s “little ice age.”

In an attempt to try to improve its economy and its international position, the Scottish government formed a trading company like the English had established in the East Indies and North America.  Its purpose was to establish a colony and commercial center in Darien, on the Pacific coast of the isthmus of Panama.  “The idea attracted immense enthusiasm among all classes in Scotland,” wrote T.O. Lloyd, “and led to disaster.”  It was an economic disaster and a strategic failure.  “[T]he Spanish first watched it carefully to see that it showed no sign of succeeding and eventually in 1700 they captured it.”  The loss was “perhaps as much as half the floating capital of Scotland.”