William Paterson (April 1658 - 22 January 1719) was a Scottish trader and banker. He was the founder of the Bank of England and was one of the main proponents of the catastrophic Darien scheme. Later he became an advocate of union with England.
William Paterson (April 1658 - 22 January 1719) was a Scottish trader and banker. He was the founder of the Bank of England and was one of the main proponents of the catastrophic Darien scheme. Later he became an advocate of union with England.
William Paterson was born in his parents' farmhouse at Tinwald in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, and lived with them until he was seventeen, when he emigrated first (briefly) to Bristol and then to the Bahamas, although accounts differ as to the duration of his stays. [1] During his time in the West Indies he first conceived the idea of the Darién scheme, his plan to create a colony on the isthmus of Panama, facilitating trade with the Far East. [1] While in the West Indies, it is said that he acted as a merchant, developing a reputation for business acumen and dealings with local buccaneers. [1] Walter Herries claimed that the English privateer William Dampier shared his knowledge of Darién with Paterson. [2]
Paterson returned to Europe by the middle of the 1680s, and attempted to convince the English government under James II to undertake the Darién scheme. [1] When they refused, he tried again to persuade the governments of the Holy Roman Empire, the Dutch Republic and Bradenburg to establish a colony in Panama, but failed in each case. [2]
Paterson then went to London in 1687 and made his fortune with foreign trade (primarily through the slave trade with the West Indies) in the Merchant Taylors' Company. [1] He also helped to found a company for supplying water to North London from the Hampstead Hills, known as the Hampstead Water Company which existed until the late 19th century. [1]
In 1694, he co-founded the Bank of England. [1] It was said that the project originated with him in 1691, as described in his pamphlet A Brief Account of the Intended Bank of England, to act as the English government's banker. He proposed a loan of £1.2m to the government; in return the subscribers would be incorporated as The Governor and Company of the Bank of England with banking privileges including the issue of notes. The Royal Charter was granted on 27 July 1694. On the foundation of the bank in 1694 he became a director. In 1695, owing to a disagreement with his colleagues, he withdrew from the board and devoted himself to the colony of Darien, unsuccessfully planted in 1698. [1]
Paterson relocated to Edinburgh, where he was able to convince the Scottish government to undertake the Darién scheme, a failed attempt to found an independent Scottish Empire in what is today Panama. Paterson personally accompanied the disastrous Scottish expedition to Panama in 1698, where his wife, Hannah Kemp, and their child died, while he himself became seriously ill. [3] [4] On his return to Scotland in December 1699, he became instrumental in the movement for the Union of Scotland and England, culminating in his support of the Act of Union 1707. He spent the last years of his life in Westminster, and died in January 1719. A mystery still surrounds the burial site of Paterson. Many (including officials at the Bank of England), believe he is buried in Sweetheart Abbey, New Abbey, Dumfries and Galloway.
William Paterson is the central character in Eliot Warburton's novel, Darien, or, The Merchant Prince (1852). He also features in Douglas Galbraith's novel, The Rising Sun (2000), and Alistair Beaton's play, Caledonia (2010). [5]
The Acts of Union refer to two Acts of Parliament, one by the Parliament of England in 1706, the other by the Parliament of Scotland in 1707. They put into effect the Treaty of Union agreed on 22 July 1706, which merged the previously separate Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland into a single Kingdom of Great Britain, with Queen Anne as its sovereign. The Acts took effect on 1 May 1707, creating the Parliament of Great Britain, based in the Palace of Westminster.
The Darien scheme was an unsuccessful attempt, backed largely by investors of the Kingdom of Scotland, to gain wealth and influence by establishing New Caledonia, a colony in the Darién Gap on the Isthmus of Panama, in the late 1690s. The plan was for the colony, located on the Gulf of Darién, to establish and manage an overland route to connect the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. The backers knew that the first sighting of the Pacific Ocean by Vasco Núñez de Balboa was after crossing the isthmus through Darién. The expedition also claimed sovereignty over "Crab Isle" in 1698, yet sovereignty was short-lived. The attempt at settling the area did not go well; more than 80 percent of participants died within a year, and the settlement was abandoned twice.
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, extraordinary sovereign rights and 21 years of exemptions from taxation.
Samuel Vetch was a Scottish soldier and colonial governor of Nova Scotia. He was a leading figure in the Darien scheme, a failed Scottish attempt to colonise the Isthmus of Panama in the late 1690s. During the War of the Spanish Succession he was an early proponent of the idea that Great Britain should take New France, proposing in 1708 that it be conquered and that the residents of Acadia be deported. He was the grandfather of Samuel Bayard.
The Gulf of Darién is the southernmost region of the Caribbean Sea, located north and east of the border between Panama and Colombia. Within the gulf is the Gulf of Urabá, a small lip of sea extending southward, between Caribana Point and Cape Tiburón, Colombia, on the southern shores of which is the port city of Turbo, Colombia. The Atrato River delta extends into the Gulf of Darién.
The Scottish colonization of the Americas comprised a number of Scottish colonial settlements in the Americas during the early modern period. These included the colony of Nova Scotia in 1629, East Jersey in 1683, Stuarts Town, Carolina in 1684 and New Caledonia in 1698.
Lionel Wafer was a Welsh explorer, buccaneer and privateer.
Events from the 1690s in the Kingdom of Scotland.
James Foulis of Colinton, Lord Retfurd or Redford, was a Scottish judge and politician. He was one of the main investors in the Company of Scotland and their Darien Expedition.
The economy of Scotland in the early modern era encompasses all economic activity in Scotland between the early sixteenth century and the mid-eighteenth. The period roughly corresponds to the early modern era in Europe, beginning with the Renaissance and Reformation and ending with the last Jacobite risings and the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution.
Scottish trade in the early modern era includes all forms of economic exchange within Scotland and between the country and locations outwith its boundaries, between the early sixteenth century and the mid-eighteenth. The period roughly corresponds to the early modern era, beginning with the Renaissance and Reformation and ending with the last Jacobite risings and the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution.
The Seven Ill Years, also known as the Seven Lean Years, is the term used for a period of widespread and prolonged famine in Scotland during the 1690s, named after the biblical famine in Egypt predicted by Joseph in the Book of Genesis. Estimates suggest between 5 and 15% of the total Scottish population died of starvation, while in areas like Aberdeenshire death rates may have reached 25%. One reason the shortages of the 1690s are so well remembered is because they were the last of their kind.
George Baillie was a Scottish politician who sat in the Parliament of Scotland from 1691 to 1707 and in the British House of Commons from 1708 to 1734.
Sir John Swinton of Swinton sometimes called John Swinton of that Ilk was a Scottish politician.
The Colombia–Panama border is the 339-kilometer-long (211 mi) international boundary between Colombia and Panama. It also splits the Darién Gap, a break across the North American and South American continents. This large watershed, forest, and mountainous area is in the north-western portion of Colombia's Chocó Department and south-eastern portion of Panama's Darién Province.
Robert Blackwood of Pitreavie (1624–1720) was a 17th century Scottish silk merchant who served as Lord Provost of Edinburgh from 1711 to 1713.
Sir Patrick Johnston (1650–1736) of Edinburgh was a Scottish merchant and politician who sat in the Parliament of Scotland from 1702 to 1707 and as a Whig in the British House of Commons between 1707 and 1713. He was Lord Provost of Edinburgh three times from 1700 to 1702, from 1704 to 1706, and from 1708 to 1710.
Sir Robert Chieslie of Dalry was a Scottish merchant who served as Lord Provost of Edinburgh from 1694 to 1696.
Robert Corseof Corse (1639–1705) was a 17th-century Scottish merchant who traded sugar and tobacco in Glasgow and was a Baillie and Dean of Guild of the City Council. He lost a fortune due to his involvement in the Company of Scotland.
Sir George Home of Kello was Lord Provost of Edinburgh from 1698 to 1700. He then became principal tax collector for the Scottish Borders. He was later accused of not passing the taxes to the government in 1707, the year of the abolition of the Scottish parliament.
