[A1706/10/26]*[print] [email] [cite] [preceding] [following]
To his grace James [Douglas], duke of Queensberry, her majesty's high commissioner, and the honourable estates of parliament, the petition of Captain Colin Campbell, now in [John Murray], marquis of Tullibardine's regiment, Captain Charles Stewart and Lieutenant Robert Turnbull in [Ludovic Grant], laird of Grant's regiment,
Humbly shows,
That we having from the love to our native country in the year 1699 gone aboard the ships belonging to the Indian and African Company, which sailed from the River Clyde to Darien, after our arrival there endured all hardships and misfortunes suffered by those that went along with us in that expedition, where I, the said Colin Campbell, served in the quality of a captain, and I, the said Charles Stewart, though listed a lieutenant outward, on my captain's death, was advanced to his post and command of the company, and I, the said Robert Turnbull, being a lieutenant also outward in the first expedition, suffered all the extraordinary hardships and inconveniences that befell us before we deserted the said colony, yet returned back again when the same was taken possession of the second time, and was wounded in the shoulder in a conflict between the Spaniard and those in the company's service under the command of Fanab, I commanding his vanguard.
After the capitulation and surrender of the said colony, we, the said persons, and about 15 more, being on board The Littlehope in order to our return to Scotland, were by stress of weather shipwrecked on the coast of Cuba, and taken prisoners by the Spaniards, without any respect to the capitulation, and carried prisoners to Havana where we were detained nearly five months; and from there put aboard in the galleons and sent to Cadiz in Spain, where we were detained prisoners in a most miserable and calamitous condition for the space of nearly another five months, during which time we were obliged for our sustenance to sell our very shirts. And at last being dismissed, returned to Scotland without one sixpence in our pockets, which is well known to several of the directors of the said company for the time, who not being then in cash, were not able to repair us of our grievous losses sustained in their services.
Your petitioners do now humbly lay hold on that part of the committee's report to your lords, whereby they were of opinion that a certain part of the company's effects yet remaining ought to be applied for the satisfaction of those who suffered in their persons and goods in the company's services, as their services, losses and sufferings do justly merit. And we humbly beseech your lords to take into your consideration our aforesaid sufferings and losses, all of us having lost any stock we took with us from Scotland, and that we went abroad merely from our zeal for the good of and our affection to our native country, without any prospect of us, the said Colin Campbell or Charles Stewart, our having any property of the joint stock of the company for our services, as the officers of the first expedition had actually transferred to them, and that we suffered also so considerable in our persons as above and that during our imprisonment (though we were in great necessity) we drew not one farthing on the company though credit was offered us by the English consul and several merchants in Cadiz; and that you would have an equitable regard to our reparation by stating us creditors to the said company in such sums as your grace and lords in your wisdom and generosity shall think fit, and for that effect to recommend us to those who shall be intrusted with the payment of the company's debts. And your petitioners shall ever pray.
Charles Stewart
†Edinburgh, 10 March 1707
Her majesty's high commissioner and the estates of parliament, having heard this petition, they declare they will take the same into their consideration when they come to consider the article of the committee's report anent the company's dead stock.
Edinburgh, 10 March 1707
Her majesty's high commissioner and the estates of parliament, having heard this petition, they grant to each one of the three petitioners named within the sum of £100 sterling out of the dead stock belonging to the company, and recommend to the commissioners to be named for disposing of the equivalent that the petitioners be paid of the said sums out of the said fund.
[James Ogilvy, earl of] Seafield, chancellor, in the presence of the lords of parliament