[Harris, Walter]: ["Phil. Scot," pseudonym]:

$1,250 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

A DEFENCE OF THE SCOTS ABDICATING DARIEN: INCLUDING AN ANSWER TO THE DEFENCE OF THE SCOTS SETTLEMENT THERE. An entertaining and acerbic response to supporters of the Scottish colony in Central America. The Scottish attempt to establish a colony in Panama, also known as the Darien scheme, proved to be a spectacular failure. Disease, poor planning, in-fighting, and opposition from Spain and England combined to ruin any hope of the venture's success, and only a few hundred of the 2500 colonists survived. This failure proved difficult for Scots at home as well; an enormous amount of the country's resources were poured into the project, and their financial and political position was greatly weakened, doing much to enable the Acts of Union of 1706 and 1707. The struggles and eventual failure of the colony were the subject of heated debate, and the present work is a viciously satirical response to another anonymously authored text printed the year before.The authorship of many of these works is still somewhat unclear, but most attribute the present work to the perennially prosecuted Walter Harris. Halkett and Laing write: "One Walter Herries (or Harris), surgeon to the first Expedition [to the Darien colony], was supposed by the Scots Parliament to have been the author of this Defence, which was ordered to be burnt by the hands of the hangman; and the Lords of the Treasury were required to offer a reward of £6000 Scots for the arrest of the reputed author." Hill backs up this idea,

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