Jump to full article: Daily Record and Sunday Mail (uk), 2003-06-30
Author: Magnus Gardham
Intro: half of Scotland's cash was ploughed into the ill-fated Darien venture.
Just like the internet companies, there was no return on the 1698 investment.
Four thousand volunteers sailed to Darien - a peninsula in Panama - to cash in on its riches and set up a trading centre.
But their disastrous failure effectively bankrupted the country and paved the way for the Act of Union with England.
Up until now, it's been claimed disease did for the jungle colonists. . .
Dr Mark Horton led the 12-strong dig team. He said: "We discovered pipes for tobacco along with empty brandy bottles, and it is obvious that the soldiers enjoyed themselves too much.
"If they had concentrated on getting themselves better fed, and if they could have held out against the Spanish for a month until the rainy season, then the colony could have survived.
"As it was, they were all so weak that the Spanish actually had to help tow them away."
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