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“At the heart of the history of the Company of Scotland was a group of individuals who never travelled to Darien, who never felt the heat of the Central American jungle or smelled the stench of death in the huts of Caledonia, and as a result have not featured highly in the accounts of historians. These were the men and women who, in very large numbers for the period, became shareholders in the Company and provided the money to fund the venture. They spent the years from 1696 to 1707 on an emotional rollercoaster between ecstacy and despair, waiting expectantly for each crumb of news. An examination of who they were, and why they were willing in such numbers to invest in a joint-stock company in 1696, is of central importance not just to the history of the Company but also to explaining the passage of the Treaty of Union through the Scottish parliament in 1707.” — Douglas Watt