Synopsis
Inspired by the Dutch traders in the Caribbean and the exploits of buccaneers and pirates, the young Scottish merchant William Paterson envisaged a new era of world commerce - free trade on the open seas unencumbered by the monopoly trading that, in his view, restricted progress. A bold vision that created powerful enemies for Paterson amongst those who desperately wanted to cling on to the status quo. But he firmly believed in his ideas and during his travels at the end of the 17th century he found what he was looking for. Something that would turn his dream into reality. The "keys to the universe" he called it - the possession and control of the narrow Isthmus of Panama and the establishment of a trading port at Darien. In Paterson's mind, these keys opened the door to a better and more peaceful world. Noble and forward-thinking sentiments today. But at the tail-end of the 17th century, when he embarked on his incredible scheme, they were nothing short of visionary. "The Man Who Saw the Future" charts the story of Paterson's ambitions and the development of his business ideas.
Excerpted from The Man Who Saw the Future: William Paterson's Vision of Free Trade by Andy Forrester. Copyright © 2004. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
December 1679. The day dawn ed with tropical suddenness over the calm waters of Port Royal harbour, the first rays of the sun catching the sails of a little fleet of armed sailing ships, flashes of white against the deep azure sky. The small fleet slid quietly past the harbour fortress and set sail east, tacking into the freshening easterly breeze. There were four ships, two barques and two sloops, carrying a small and irregular force of fighting men, about 300 in all, hardened seadogs and fresh new recruits set on adventure. Few knew exactly where they were going but all expected to come back rich, their purses full of the fruits of piracy.
Port Royal had witnessed scenes like these before. In its twenty-five year history it had grown from a few fishermen’s huts to become capital of the new English colony of Jamaica. Eight thousand people now loved here, making it the largest English-speaking town in the Americas, outgrowing its nearest rival, Boston. The two towns could scarcely have been more different. Boston was a hard-working, god-fearing community, Port Royal notorious as a dissolute and godless place. Writing only a little later, an anonymous visitor to Jamaica memorably summed it up as:
"The dunghill of the universe, the Refuse of the whole Creation… The Place where Pandora filled her box…. The Receptacle of Vagabonds, the Sanctuary of bankrupts, and a [chamber pot] for the Purges of our Prisons. As sickly as a hospital, as dangerous as the Plague, as Hot as Hell, and as wicked as the Devil."
Port Royal seems to have taken pride in its reputation as ‘the Wickedest City in the World.’ Crowded along the waterfront were around a thousand taverns doubling as gambling dens, and innumerable cheap boarding houses offering more than just a bed for the night. Here, it seemed, people lived only for the moment – if life was ‘nasty brutish, and short’ as Thomas Hobbes had written in 1651 – why shouldn’t the seadogs of Port Royal make the most of it while they could?
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