Historian finds ill-fated Darien Venture petition

PART of a lost petition relating to Scotland's ill-fated attempt to establish a colony in Central America has been uncovered by a historian.
By The Newsroom
Published 17th Apr 2010, 21:58 BST
Updated 17th Apr 2010, 22:09 BST

Experts believed there was no record of the National Address, which appealed to King William to lift a ban on English colonies trading with the Scots.

However historian Blair Kerr found the missing papers while researching for a degree.

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The collapse of the Darien Venture in April 1700 played a part in the signing of the Act of Union in 1707.

The National Address was organised as the second of the Company of Scotland's expeditions to the Isthmus of Panama to establish the trading colony began to founder in 1699.

Kerr found the part relating to Angus and Dundee while researching opposition in Scotland to the Darien scheme for his Masters of Research degree.

The single sheet of parchment has signatures gathered by the Earl of Panmure, a leading Jacobite and a member of the Company of Scotland.

Mr Kerr, now the manager at Historic Scotland-owned Edzell Castle in Angus, said: "I couldn't believe what I had found. This is the only part of the National Address to have turned up in more than 300 years."