278

HISTORY OP ENGLAND.

chap.

XXIV.

iiiiia.

persons fit to tie ruling elders of a Christian Church werenot to be found among the twelve or thirteen hundredemigrants. Where the blame lay it is now impossible todecide. All that can with confidence be said is that eitherthe clergymen must have been most unreasonably and mostuncharitably austere, or the laymen must have been mostunfavourable specimens of the nation and class to whichthey belonged.

It may be added that the provision by the General As-semblyfor the spiritual wants of the colony was as defectiveas the provision made for temporal wants by the directorsof the Company. Nearly one third of the emigrants whosailed with the second expedition were Highlanders, whodid not understand a word of English; and not one of thefour chaplains could speak a word of Gaelic. It was onlythrough interpreters that a pastor could communicate witha large portion of the Christian flock of which he hadcharge. Even by the help of interpreters he could not im-part religious instruction to those heathen tribes which theChurch of Scotland had solemnly recommended to his care.In fact, the colonists left behind them no mark thatbaptized men had set foot on Darien, except a few Anglo-Saxon curses, which, having been uttered more frequentlyand with greater energy than any other words in our lan-guage, had caught the ear and been retained in the memoryof the native population of the isthmus.

The months which immediately followed the arrival ofthe new comers were the coolest and most salubrious of the