Originally Posted by
Oddquine
You appear to have bought in wholeheartedly to the rewriting of the Darien Scheme as promulgated by Unionists, and pretty much as I was taught at school. Darien was not so much a story of incompetence and failure by the Scots, but one of betrayal, power,and military and political might used against Scotland to the benefit of England. I won't go into all the background of the events which led from the "Union of the Crowns" until the Treaty of Union, but do want to talk about "the busted flush".
The Bank of Scotland (Governor and Company of the Bank of Scotland) was established by special Acts of Parliament, and founded the year after the Bank of England, but was not founded to deal with Scotland's debt, which did not exist until it joined the Union in 1707. In fact, it was specifically forbidden from lending to or otherwise financially assisting the Crown, except where "a Credit of Loan shall happen to be granted by Act of Parliament allenarly." which never happened. The Bank of England, (Governor and Company of the Bank of England), was, on the other hand set up specifically, by William Paterson and Charles Montagu to loan money (at profit) in an effort to provide a solution to England's debt crisis, which did exist.
Darien hit the wealth of individuals not that of the country as a whole. Individuals in Scotland, after Darien, were poorer, particularly in the Lowlands, but Scotland itself was not "a busted flush", unless you are going to apply the rules of a modern economy in which everything is measured by the money washing around in it, to a time in which the norm was for countries to live within their means, because banks and the printing and manipulation of money was not then the main, even the only, point of existence, as it has become today.
As Darien was a privately funded enterprise, Scotland had no National Debt to pay interest on and no need to have one, as it didn't, on its own behalf, undertake foreign wars which had to be funded by people paying taxes. However by 1704, around the time of the Battle of Blenheim, so much bullion had been abstracted from the Scottish economy, in order to help fund the English wars against the French, that it resulted in a scarcity of coin, and the rumour that the Privy Council was about to raise the face value of the coinage, caused a run on the bank at the end of 1704....but it was the private stockholders who bore the cost of refinancing.....not the Scottish people..... and there was still no National Debt.
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So how can a country be "a busted flush" when it does not owe anybody anything? If the Scots people were so desperate to get the "strength and money of the Union around them", and thought they needed financial support from England........how was it that even staunch supporters of the Union in the negotiating team said that the treaty was “contrary to the inclinations of at least three-fourths of the Kingdom”. The one anti-Union member of the negotiating team, went further saying “The whole nation appears against the Union”.
How come there were petitions against the Union from the Convention of Royal Burghs, the shires, burghs, presbyteries and parishes...and not one single petition in favour of it? How come, if the people were so enthusiastic, the Act of Union was signed in secret for fear of reprisals because the ordinary people of Scotland were rioting in the streets in protest. How come, if Scotland was so keen on the Union, that it took the effects/threats of the English Alien Act to force the Parliament, most of whom were being financially damaged by it, to appoint commissioners to discuss a Treaty.
Scotland, in those days, can only be considered a "busted flush" by looking at the situation from this point, three hundred plus years in the future, when National Debt has become the norm to create private profit for the few at the expense of the many, and balancing budgets has become very much the exception rather than the rule it once was. That is almost as ridiculous an assertion as the referendum claim that Scotland cannot manage to be independent because, using the figures drawn from the spending in Scotland as part of the Union, 70% of which is done by Westminster as a share of Westminster priorities, not by Scotland on Scottish priorities, unionists blithely assume that an independent Scottish Government would change nothing at all.... but continue emulating the profligacy of Westminster and wasting money hand over fist. There is a difference which few people on the Unionist side appear to get...that it isn't how much money you have which is important, it is how you use that money to best effect.
Let's face it, regardless of whether you think that the Union was a good or a bad thing for Scotland, and whether it is a good thing or a bad thing for Scotland today, the fact remains that Scotland’s nobles were bullied and bribed into signing the treaty.....and when they did, it certainly wasn’t for the benefit of the people of Scotland, but for the benefit of their own pockets and lifestyles. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
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