#42 - The Darien Scheme (The Strange Dream of William Paterson)

The 17th century came to an economically ruinous end for Scotland as it attempted to establish a colony on the Darien Isthmus in Panama. The settling of a colony at Darien was the sole obsession of one man, William Paterson. Paterson was a banking visionary who, despite his shady goings on in the Caribbean, had the ear and trust of some of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the country, a kind of 17th century Jeffrey Epstein. William Paterson loved capitalism and his misuse of it would destroy Scotland’s economy and bring us to the brink of economic collapse – it’s enough to bring a tear to Margaret Thatcher’s dead eye. When shareholders in The Company of Scotland became increasingly frustrated with the lack of mercantile colonial progress, they started to give serious consideration to Paterson’s Darien plan, eventually committing one third of the entire liquid capital of Scotland to establishing a colony in Panama. One in five Scots were invested, either directly or indirectly, in the success of the Darien plan. All the nation’s economic interests were now invested in one single entity and the success of one company, it’s like what the Irish do with Google. Darien represented the hopes of an entire nation; and never again would all of Scotland’s hopes and dreams be invested in one single entity until the birth of Andy Murray in the 20th century. Darien would turn out to be a national disaster. Scotland found itself swept up in a scheme peddled by a deluded narcissist who was able to convince a large number of people to part with their money and invest in a false paradise; Darien was Scotland’s Fyre Festival.