of Charles Edward, and admitting the propriety of placing a guàrd on a house so obnoxious to the feelings of the Highland army, and to those of his own clan in particular, he demanded, as a matter of right rather than favour, that the protecting guard should be supplied by the MacDonalds of Glencoe. If this request were not granted, he announced his purpose to return home with his people, and prosecute the enterprise no further. "The MacDonalds of Glencoe," he said, "would be dishonoured by remaining in a service where others than their own men were employed to restrain them, under whatsoever circumstances of provocation, within the line of their military duty." The royal Adventurer granted the request of the high-spirited chieftain, and the MacDonalds of Glencoe guarded from the slightest injury the house of the cruel and crafty statesman who had devised and directed the massacre of their ancestors. Considering how natural the thirst of vengeance becomes to men in a primitive state of society, and how

closely it was interwoven with the character of the Scottish Highlander, Glencoe's conduct on this occasion is a noble instance of a high and heroic preference of duty to the gratification of revenge.

We must now turn from this terrible story to one, which, though it does not seize on the imagination with the same force in the narrative, yet embraces a far wider and more extensive field of death and disaster.

CHAP. VII.

The Darien Scheme-Death of William, and Accession of Queen Anne.

HUMAN character, whether national or individual, presents often to our calm consideration the strangest inconsistencies; but there are few more striking than that which the Scots exhibit in their private conduct, contrasted with their views when united together for any general or national purpose. In his own personal affairs the Scotsman is remarked as cautious, frugal, and prudent, in an extreme degree, not generally aiming at enjoyment or relaxation till he has realized the means of indulgence, and studiously avoiding those temptations of pleasure, to which men of other countries most readily give way. But when a number of

the natives of Scotland associate for any speculative project, it would seem that their natural caution becomes thawed and dissolved by the union of their joint hopes, and that their imaginations are liable in a peculiar degree to be heated and influenced by any splendid prospect held out to them. They appear, in particular, to lose the power of calculating and adapting their means to the end which they desire to accomplish, and are readily induced to aim at objects magnificent in themselves, but which they have not, unhappily, the wealth or strength necessary to attain. Thus the Scots are often found to attempt splendid designs, which, shipwrecked for want of the necessary expenditure, give foreigners occasion to smile at the great error and equally great misfortune of the nation,-I mean their pride and their poverty. There is no greater instance of this tendency to daring speculation, which rests at the bottom of the coldness and caution of the Scottish character, than the disastrous history of the Darien colony.

Paterson, a man of comprehensive views and great sagacity, was the parent and inventor of this memorable scheme. In youth he had been an adventurer in the West In dies, and it was said a buccaneer, that is, one of a species of adventurers nearly allied to pirates, who, consisting of different nations, and divided into various bands, made war on the Spanish commerce and settlements in the South Seas, and among the West Indian islands. In this roving course of life, Paterson had made himself intimately acquainted with the geography of South America, the produce of the country, the nature of its commerce, and the manner in which the Spaniards governed that extensive region.

On his return to Europe, however, the schemes which he had formed respecting the New World, were laid aside for another project, fraught with the most mighty and important consequences. This was the plan of that great national establishment, the Bank of England, of which he had the ho