The Scot who became the world’s biggest conman

Gregor Macgregor ran an audacious scheme to attract investors to a fictitous land of plenty in Central America, writes Alison Campsie

Asmall story printed in The Scotsman almost 200 years ago reveals the human cost of an elaborate emigration scheme to a fictional promised land in Central America that led to the deaths of almost 200 Scots.

The scheme was mounted by Gregor Macgregor, a soldier and adventurer from The Trossachs whose antics – which included claims he was a Prince of the phoney country of Poyais – have earned him the reputation as the most audacious con man of all time.

The article, published on 18 October 1823, lists a number of people, many from Edinburgh, who died after venturing to so-called Poyais amid claims of friendly locals, a settled community, abundant maize harvests and rivers of pure, clean water that sometimes ran with globules of gold.

It took around 320 investors, the majority of them Scots, to travel for more than two months over thousands of miles to discover that such a country did not actually exist.

Instead of a country rich in resources, they discovered miles of dense jungle, a scattering of deserted huts and natives who were, at best, largely ambivalent to the new arrivals.

Although well equipped with medicines and supplies, the conditions on the stretch of coast, which is now split between Nicaragua and Honduras, were to weaken the new arrivals. Diseases, including typhoid and yellow fever, rapidly spread. The Scotsman story recorded accounts of two young men and a woman recovering in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary after returning to Scotland from Poyais “following their rescue by merchants from Belize”.

It was one of the first insights into the reality of Macgregor’s scheme which was still being ferociously marketed to potential investors through offices in London, Glasgow and Edinburgh and frequent letters in the press. Even ballads were written to entice new recruits.

A great fanfare surrounded the departure of ships to Macgregor’s Poyais with the Kennersley Castle, which set sail from Leith on 22 January 1823, one of seven boats loaded with investors.

But the three survivors in hospital in the Scottish capital shared a list of their fellow passengers who had died after reaching Central America.

They included Thomas Burgess, a boatbuilder from Slateford, Malcolm Macdougall and his wife from The Canongate and Peter Smith, a blacksmith from Dundee, and his wife. William Horn, a baker, also died.

The story also notes how William Law, a cabinet maker, and George Davis, a labourer, both from Edinburgh, drowned after they hired a large canoe to take them from Poyais to Belize but were thrown overboard by natives. Around 180 people died as a result of Macgregor’s scheme, it is understood.

Macgregor, originally from Glengyle on Loch Katrine, sold bonds in this new land, roughly the size of Wales, for up to 4 shillings an acre.

He secured the land through a deal with King George Frederic Augustus, who ruled over the Mosquito Coast, with the Scot then claiming to be Cazique, a type of regal figure of this far flung territory.

As more emigrants showed up on the Mosquito Coast searching for their new paradise, the King was to deny that Macgregor had been given any prince-like title or had permitted him to sell the land. Sickness set in.

Meanwhile, Macgregor raised around £200,000 from the venture with loans secured on the back of the land sales. According to accounts, his 0 Gregor Macgregor (top), reportedly a descendant of outlaw Rob Roy (above),created a fictitious territory of Poyais - illustrated right - to attract investors. PICS: Creative Commons. bond-market frauds ran to £1.3m – around £3.6 billion in today’s money.

As small groups of surviving emigrants started to make their way home, Macgregor disappeared to Paris where he was arrested after trying to mount another round of investment. Charges were dropped in the first case, with the Scot acquit- ted at a second trial. In London, warnings were issued over his “humbug” schemes.

Macgregor, who ultimately went unpunished for the Poyais scandal, saw out his days in relative luxury in Venezeula.