some of us don't perceive Scotland as being much of a Nation or Country! Last time you were, you became jealous that the country next door has started to benefit from international trade and thought you could do the same! Turned out you weren't as good as them! The Darien Expedition bankrupted you and you had to be bailed out and taken under the wing of that country next door, while all the time moaning and groaning that they [England] were to blame!
This kind of sentiment is precisely one of the reasons the independence movement exists. A one-sided 'union' where we are degenerated as a country and subjugated by an elitist (and ill informed) bunch.
Interesting that you should bring-up Darien..... The short lesson in history is this:
The Darien Scheme was to assist (Scottish) international trade. The architect was William Paterson, who was instrumental in founding the Bank of England. His plan was to bring financial prosperity to Scotland, proposing in 1693 that the Scottish Parliament should grant a Scottish monopoly on overseas trade to a trading company, enabling it to harness the lucrative and relatively available Far Eastern market in the same manner as the English had achieved with Africa and the Indies.
The East India Company (who didn't want their monopoly broken) used their influence with King William III and his English Parliament to persuade them to act against the Scottish Darien venture on the grounds that the Scots had no authority from the king to raise funds outside the English realm. Overseas investors in Darien had their money refunded and English investors then also reneged. This left no source of finance but Scotland itself. Such was the resentment of the king and English Parliaments duplicity, that Scots resolved to raise all the capital alone. Thousands (rich and not-so-rich) put their own money into the scheme raising £400,000 in weeks (20% of Scotlands entire wealth and 50% of its liquid capital).
Once the settlers got to Darien (Panama), they built Fort St Andrew and began what was to be 'New Edinburgh'. However, no fleets of merchant ships arrived to use the new trade route, but this was not simple misfortune. The English colonies (W.Indies & N.America) had been forbidden to communicate with the Darien colonists, or offer them any help or assistance, by order of William and his government in London. Without trade, the colony was abandoned after eight months and the settlers began the journey back to Scotland. One ship, desperate for aid, arrived at Port Royal (Jamaica) but was refused assistance in response to the king’s standing orders not to help the settlers. Dejected and betrayed by their own monarch, the settlers continued on, with only 300 of the original 1,200 returning on a single ship to Scotland. Those who survived found themselves regarded as a disgrace to their country, and even disowned by their families.
The disgrace should have fallen on the deceit of the English King and English Parliament.
However, don't let history spoil your little England view of why Scotland can't manage its own affairs. Bailed-out by a more successful neighbour? More like taken over stealthily by a neighbour more accomplished in deceit.
Three hundred years later, the same(?) London parliament colluded to hide the McCrone Report which categorically stated that an independent Scotlands financial position (in the run up to the 1979 independence referendum) would have been so strong as to be embarrassing, rivalling Switzerland as a safe haven for money.
The long and the short of it, is the English Parliamentary track record for deceit when it comes to its neighbour getting on in the world on its own merit.
