William Paterson & the Darien Scheme
Born in Tynwald, Dumfriesshire, in 1658, William Paterson moved to
England at a young age and became a merchant and financier, trading
for the most part with the Americas and the West Indies, and living
for a while in the Bahamas where he got a taste of colonial life.
It was Paterson, a Scot, who founded the Bank of England in 1694.
He worked as Director of the bank for one year before resigning in
order to pursue other grand plans. At this point in time Scotland
was an unhappy place economically and politically, it had suffered
seven years of crop failure and the King had dragged them into
England's wars, losing the few overseas colonies that Scotland had,
such as Nova Scotia in Canada, and at the same time had introduced
the Navigation Act, which forbade Scottish merchants to trade with
England unless they used English ships and English companies.