{{I’m going to buy you a fishing boat Because I’m in love with you}} Yes I am a young man Yes I’ve got no money But I can still get us To Leith by sundown When I first met you I swore a solemn oath That our life together Would accumulate wealth Listen, now for us It’s a settler’s life We’ll be happy when we’re eating We won’t send the money home It’ll take a few years But by the end of this We’ll have stripped the coast bare And it’ll show in our clothes The company of Scotland For us all makes a stand Take our place at Empire’s table And laugh at the rest I’ve it on good authority This land is nowt but plenty We won’t struggle for our penny Start our rich family {{I’m going to build you a fishing boat Because I’m in love with you}} I hope you don’t get seasick It’d be rude to enquire Don’t turn down my gestures Don’t make me a liar I think you should be glad That I’m asking you at all I am male: I make the decisions And I take the fall Your family’s wealth Was greatly exaggerated My lack of patience? Severely exacerbated I think you should stop Right now and pack Forget this happened Darien and never look back Fine, alright I’ll go on my own More wealth for me You cannae sit on my throne Look, I’m leaving Good riddance to this On my way to Edinburgh I willnae write

From on board the 'Rising Sun' in Caledonia Bay, December 25th 1699 Our passage hither was very prosperous for the weather, but in other respects tedious and miserable. Our company very uncomfortable, consisting for the generality, especially the officers and volunteers of the warst of mankind, if yow had scummed the Land and raked to the borders of hell for them, men of lewd practises and venting the wickednesse of principles: for these things God was provoked to smite us very signally and severely with a contagious sickness which went through the the most part and cutt off by death about sixty of us on our ship and near a hundred on the rest of the fleet, the most since our departure from Montserrat. I cannot with this send you a particular list of the dead because I have not gathered them yet but the most lamented by the better part of us were Mr Alexander Dalgleish, minister, the Laird of Dunlop, Capt. Wallace engineer, and several others of the best sort. The means contributing to the encrease of this sickness and mortality were our too great crowds in every ship, straitening and stiffling one another, our chests of medicines ignorantly or knavishly filled and as ill-dispensed by our chirurgeons [surgeons], our water in wooden bound casks very unsavoury and unclean, our beef much of it rotten, many things redundant which were useless and many things needful wanting. It is a wonder of mercy that so many of us escaped and that at length we arrived at our part in safety tho in great sorrow three weeks agone by November 30. We had heard at Montserrat the colony was deserted but did not believe, tho some of us feared it all along. Arriving at this bay, we found the nest was flown. The ground that was cleared was all grown up again with Mangroves. The little fortification standing waste their batteries and huts all burnt doun (which some said was done by a Frenchman, others by an Englishman) and nothing of shipping there but two little sloups from New England and New York . . . They told us the Colony had deserted the 20th of June last for sickness (having destroyed themselves by working excessively on the fortifications) and for fear of want of provisions, that the St Andrew with her men was gone to Jamaica and the Unicorn and Caledonia to New York . . .

It was no great mischief to take us from our homes No great mischief to put us on the boat No great mischief to put us in a place where people were dying in a stagnant pool I have been on the wrong side of atrocity I have slain and I am not worthy Of the meagerest scraps of fish But seriously, mate, this is taking the pish Yous are Jacobean dreamers Empire emulating schemers Just cause they’re daein it down south Doesn’t mean that we need to conquer to Fill mouths of the screaming weans What use is tobacco anyways? All it burns is the mouth and the lungs I canna sing the songs of home ______ I met a girl in Hamnavoe who’d seen it all before She said the same thing to me when I’d went off to war, “Don’t you see that time is a circle? And that we are the circumference?” I never really understood what that meant I’d laughed it off as the ale talking And, Lord, what ale that was That northern scum really can drink Ach, I dragged my weary pack to Leith Promised: gold, riches but most of all adventure I didn’t care much about repentance But maybe I should’ve back then It might’ve came in handy Now I’m facing my maker I could’ve done with some favour with the big man But still sing the songs of back home

I wouldn’t be surprised if one of these days locusts don’t fall from the sky I wouldn’t be surprised if one of these days the putrid river runs red with blood Every day a purgatory, pushing all nature away, piling all the wood from the jungle to a fort I want to know if I’m truly alive or if I’ll see heaven soon None of the ships call in at our port to trade, we’re an isthmus-based pariah 600k raised by the company: they might have well set it all on fire Trading potential irrelevant in torrential rain much like our ministers You don’t have to be ordained to see the punishment in the bounty of the land, in the corpses piled high The palour in the faces palpable, resignation in the eyes inevitable The boats have cannibalised, veracity shot: all we tell are lies Walk with leaden feet, collect more scraps of pity: the natives aren’t all that bad The same can’t be said for the Spanish or the English: both are our tormentors, both are our nightmares. Sunshine ray hope another expedition soon, they will augment our effort, our Sisyphean task I hope they bring some ale, some respite from this world. I hope it’s the northern stuff: strong and hearty If I can just manage one day more of struggle, effort and denial they will sail into shore I hope this is the real life, even if this is purgatory, Lord, I can’t take any more

Take a back seat and put your feet up baby You’ve deserved it after the work we’ve done We’ve given this isthmus the best year of our life But now it’s time to pack up and flee It’s time to trust ourselves to the sea The next bastards who come will just have to cope with the mess we’ve left Oh Lord I hope poseidon will be kind I hope the company won’t mind the supplies we’ve left behind I’ve spent a year scrabbling for air amend the dirt This great vessel has become a dinghy We should have left it in shape So we can sail up the east coast Through villages and towns So let’s talk about greed for a second and let’s talk about what we learnt Henryson would have called this as the Moralitas of this fable Empire build like a child with deathly legos It all comes tumbling down, especially if you take the toys for yourself And don’t share them around We’ve had 300 years on the wrong side of history: Aggressor, oppressor and worse Independence again means nothing if we carry on as we were Nothing if we carry on as we are It is there, a chance to change what we can be The potential for love, courage and empathy Let’s grasp the thistle with both hands Let’s sail this dinghy