William Paterson (banker)

William Paterson was born in his parents' farmhouse at Tinwald in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, and lived with them until he was seventeen, when he emigrated first (briefly) to Bristol and then to the Bahamas, although accounts differ as to the duration of his stays.

[1] During his time in the West Indies he first conceived the idea of the Darién scheme, his plan to create a colony on the isthmus of Panama, facilitating trade with the Far East.

[1] Walter Herries claimed that the English privateer William Dampier shared his knowledge of Darién with Paterson.

[2] Paterson returned to Europe by the middle of the 1680s, and attempted to convince the English government under James II to undertake the Darién scheme.

[1] When they refused, he tried again to persuade the governments of the Holy Roman Empire, the Dutch Republic and Bradenburg to establish a colony in Panama, but failed in each case.

William Paterson, from a wash drawing in the British Museum
’A New Map of the Isthmus of Darien in America, The Bay of Panama ’, in A letter giving a description of the Isthmus of Darian , Edinburgh: 1699. The Scottish settlement of New Edinburgh can be seen on the coast above right, west of the Gulf of Darien.