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Poyais: Honduras Packet sailed from London on 10 September 1822 with 70 emigrants bound for Poyais. They arrived at black River, Honduras, in November, only to discover there was no settlement there and conditions were very different than they had been led to expect. Before they could unload all their stores, a storm came up and Honduras Packet sailed off, not to return. A second emigrant ship, Kennersley Castle, arrived in March 1823, having left Leith with some 200 emigrants in October 1822. With the coming of the rainy season insects infested the camp, diseases such as malaria and yellow fever took hold, and the emigrants sank into utter despair. Eventually, the schooner Mexican Eagle, from British Honduras, discovered the settlers in early May, and took them to Belize in three trips. Eventually, of the roughly 250 who had sailed on Honduras Packet and Kennersley Castle, at least 180 perished.
MacGregor said that he had come to London to attend King George IV's coronation on the Poyers' behalf, and to seek investment and immigrants for Poyais. He claimed to have inherited a democratic system of government there, with a basic civil service and military.[97] To those interested MacGregor showed what he said was a copy of a printed proclamation he had issued to the Poyers on 13 April 1821. He therein announced the 1820 land grant, his departure for Europe to seek investors and colonists—"religious and moral instructors ... and persons to guide and assist you"—and the appointment of Brigadier-General George Woodbine to be "Vice-Cazique" during his absence. "POYERS!", the document concluded, "I now bid you farewell for a while ... I trust, that through the kindness of Almighty Providence, I shall be again enabled to return amongst you, and that then it will be my pleasing duty to hail you as affectionate friends, and yours to receive me as your faithful Cazique and Father."[98] There is no evidence that such a statement was ever actually distributed on the Mosquito Coast.[n 9]
So began what has been called one of the most brazen confidence tricks in history—the Poyais scheme.[n 10] MacGregor devised a tricameral parliament and other convoluted constitutional arrangements for Poyais, drew up commercial and banking mechanisms, and designed distinctive uniforms for each regiment of the Poyaisian Army.[101] His imaginary country had an honours system, landed titles, a coat of arms—doubly supported by Poyers and unicorns—and the same Green Cross flag he had used in Florida.[102] By the end of 1821 Major William John Richardson had not only accepted MacGregor's fantasy as true but had become an active ally, providing his attractive estate at Oak Hall, Wanstead to be a British base for the supposed Poyaisian royal family.[97] MacGregor gave Richardson the Order of the Green Cross, commissioned him into the Poyaisian "Royal Regiment of Horse Guards" and appointed him chargé d'affaires of the Poyaisian legation at Dowgate Hill in the City of London—the top representative of Poyais in Britain. Richardson's letter of credence from "Gregor the First, Sovereign Prince of the State of Poyais" was presented to George IV.[103] MacGregor had Poyaisian offices set up in London, Edinburgh and Glasgow to sell impressive-looking land certificates—initially hand-written, but later printed—to the general public, and to co-ordinate prospective emigrants.[104]
Land of opportunity The consensus among MacGregor's biographers is that Britain in the early 1820s could hardly have suited him and his Poyais scheme better.[83][105] Amid a general growth in the British economy following the Battle of Waterloo and the end of the Napoleonic Wars, interest rates were dropping and the British government bond, the "consol", offered rates of only 3% per annum on the London Stock Exchange. Those wanting a higher return invested in more risky foreign debt.[83] After continental European bonds were popular in the immediate post-Waterloo years, the Latin American revolutions brought a raft of new alternatives to the London market, starting with the £2 million loan issued for Gran Colombia (incorporating both New Granada and Venezuela) in March 1822.[106] Bonds from Colombia, Peru, Chile and others, offering interest rates as high as 6% per annum, made Latin American securities extremely popular on the London market—a trend on which a nation like the Poyais described by MacGregor would be ideally positioned to capitalise.[2][83][107]
An etching showing a harbour as viewed from the sea, with small boats in the foreground. An engraving from Sketch of the Mosquito Shore, purporting to depict the "port of Black River in the Territory of Poyais"[108] MacGregor mounted an aggressive sales campaign. He gave interviews in the national newspapers, engaged publicists to write advertisements and leaflets, and had Poyais-related ballads composed and sung on the streets of London, Edinburgh and Glasgow.[104] His proclamation to the Poyers was distributed in handbill form.[104] In mid-1822 there appeared in Edinburgh and London a 355-page guidebook "chiefly intended for the use of settlers", Sketch of the Mosquito Shore, Including the Territory of Poyais—ostensibly the work of a "Captain Thomas Strangeways", aide-de-camp to the Cazique,[109] but actually written either by MacGregor himself or by accomplices.[83][110][n 11]
The Sketch mostly comprised long, reprinted tracts from older works on the Mosquito Coast and other parts of the region.[110] The original material ranged from misleading to outright made up.[110] MacGregor's publicists described the Poyaisian climate as "remarkably healthy ... agree[ing] admirably with the constitution of Europeans"—it was supposedly a spa destination for sick colonists from the Caribbean.[112] The soil was so fertile that a farmer could have three maize harvests a year, or grow cash crops such as sugar or tobacco without hardship; detailed projections at the Sketch's end forecast profits of millions of dollars.[113] Fish and game were so plentiful that a man could hunt or fish for a single day and bring back enough to feed his family for a week.[111] The natives were not just co-operative but intensely pro-British.[83] The capital was St Joseph, a flourishing seaside town of wide paved boulevards, colonnaded buildings and mansions,[114] inhabited by as many as 20,000.[115][116] St Joseph had a theatre, an opera house and a domed cathedral; there was also the Bank of Poyais, the Poyaisian houses of parliament and a royal palace.[114] Reference was made to a "projected Hebrew colony".[108] The Sketch went so far as to claim the rivers of Poyais contained "globules of pure gold".[83][117][118]
The Poyais Emigrant We'll a' gang to Poyais thegither, We'll a' gang ower the seas thegither, To fairer lands and brighter skies, Nor sigh again for Hieland heather.
Chorus of "The Poyais Emigrant", one of the ballads composed to advertise Poyais[119] This was almost all fiction,[120] but MacGregor's calculation that official-looking documents and the printed word would convince many people proved correct. The meticulous detail in the leather-bound Sketch, and the cost of having it printed, did much to dispel lingering doubts.[110] Poyaisian land certificates at two shillings and threepence per acre,[121] roughly equivalent to a working man's daily wage at the time, were perceived by many as an attractive investment opportunity.[122][n 12] There was enough demand for the certificates that MacGregor was able to raise the price to two shillings and sixpence per acre in July 1822, then gradually to four shillings per acre, without diminishing sales;[121] according to MacGregor, about 500 had bought Poyaisian land by early 1823.[124] The buyers included many who invested their life savings.[125] MacGregor became, to quote one 21st-century financial analyst, the "founding father of securities fraud".[126]
Alongside the land certificate sales, MacGregor spent several months organising the issue of a Poyaisian government loan on the London Stock Exchange. As a precursor to this he registered his 1820 land grant at the Court of Chancery on 14 October 1822. Sir John Perring, Shaw, Barber & Co., a London bank with a fine reputation, underwrote a £200,000 loan—secured on "all the revenues of the Government of Poyais" including the sale of land—and offered provisional certificates or "scrip" for the Poyaisian bonds on 23 October. The bonds were in denominations of £100, £200 and £500, and offered at a marked-down purchase price of 80%. The certificate could be acquired for 15%, with the rest due over two instalments on 17 January and 14 February 1823. The interest rate was 6% per annum.[127][n 13] If the Poyaisian issue successfully emulated its Colombian, Peruvian and Chilean counterparts, MacGregor stood to amass a fortune.[128]
Eager settlers For settlers, MacGregor deliberately targeted his fellow Scots, assuming that as a Scotsman himself they would be more likely to trust him.[83] Their emigration served to reassure potential investors in the Poyaisian bonds and land certificates firstly that the country was real, and secondly that it was being developed and would provide monetary returns.[83] In Sinclair's assessment, this aspect of the scheme "turn[ed] what would have been an inspired hoax into a cruel and deadly one".[129] Tamar Frankel posits in her analysis that, at least to some degree, MacGregor "probably believed his own story" and genuinely hoped to forge these people into a Poyaisian society.[83][n 14] MacGregor told his would-be colonists that he wished to see Poyais populated with Scots as they possessed the necessary hardiness and character to develop the new country.[83] Alluding to the rivalry with England and the Darien episode—which, he stressed, had involved a direct ancestor of his—MacGregor suggested that in Poyais they might right this historic wrong and salvage Scottish pride.[131] Skilled tradesmen and artisans were promised free passage to Poyais, supplies, and lucrative government contracts.[132] Hundreds, mostly Scots, signed up to emigrate—enough to fill seven ships.[83] They included a City of London banker named Mauger (who was to head the Bank of Poyais), doctors, civil servants, young men whose families had bought them commissions in the Poyaisian Army and Navy, and an Edinburgh cobbler who accepted the post of Official Shoemaker to the Princess of Poyais.[133]
A piece of paper headed with a coat of arms and the words "One Dollar, Bank of Poyais", with smaller writing beneath. A Bank of Poyais "dollar", printed in Scotland. MacGregor bartered these worthless notes to his would-be settlers, taking their real British money in exchange. Leadership of the Cazique's first emigration party was given to an ex-British Army officer, Hector Hall, who was commissioned into the Poyaisian "2nd Native Regiment of Foot" with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and created "Baron Tinto" with a supposed 12,800-acre (20-square-mile; 52-square-kilometre) estate.[134] Hall would sail with 70 emigrants on Honduras Packet, a vessel MacGregor had encountered in South America.[135] MacGregor saw them off from London on 10 September 1822, entrusting to Mauger 5,000 Bank of Poyais dollar notes produced by the Bank of Scotland's official printer.[102] "The new world of their dreams suddenly became a very real world as the men accepted the Cazique's dollar notes," Sinclair writes. "The people who had bought land, and who had planned to take their savings with them in coin, were also delighted to exchange their gold for the legal currency of Poyais."[132] After MacGregor spoke briefly to each of the settlers to wish them luck, he and Hall exchanged salutes and the Honduras Packet set sail, flying the Green Cross flag.[102]
A second emigrant ship—Kennersley Castle, a merchantman docked at Leith, near Edinburgh—was hired by MacGregor in October 1822,[132] and left Leith on 22 January 1823 with almost 200 emigrants aboard.[136] MacGregor again saw the settlers off, coming aboard to see that they were well quartered; to their delight, he announced that since this was the maiden emigrant voyage from Scotland to Poyais, all the women and children would sail free of charge.[136] The Cazique was rowed back to shore to rousing cheers from his colonists. The ship's captain Henry Crouch fired a six-gun broadside salute, hoisted the supposed flag of Poyais, then steered the ship out of port.[136]
While claiming royal status as Cazique, MacGregor attempted to dissociate himself from the Latin American republican movement and his former comrades there, and from late 1822 made discreet overtures towards the Spanish government regarding co-operation in Central America. The Spanish paid him little notice.[137] The Poyaisian bonds' price remained fairly steady until they were crippled by developments elsewhere in the market during November and December 1822. Amid the general instability in South America, the Colombian government suggested that its London agent might have exceeded his authority when he arranged the £2 million loan. When this representative suddenly died, the frantic buying of South American securities was abruptly replaced by equally restless selling.[138] The Cazique's cash flow was all but wiped out when most of those who had bought the Poyaisian scrip did not make the payments due in January.[139] While the price of the Colombian bonds steadied and eventually rose again, the Poyaisian securities never recovered; by late 1823 they were traded for less than 10% of their face value.[83][n 15]
Disappointment Honduras Packet reached the Black River in November 1822. Bemused to find a country rather different from the Sketch's descriptions, and no sign of St Joseph, the emigrants set up camp on the shore, assuming that the Poyaisian authorities would soon contact them. They sent numerous search parties inland; one, guided by natives who recognised the name St Joseph, found some long-forgotten foundations and rubble.[144][n 16] Hall quickly came to the private conclusion that MacGregor must have duped them, but reasoned that announcing such concerns prematurely would only demoralise the party and cause chaos.[145] A few weeks after their arrival, the captain of the Honduras Packet abruptly and unilaterally sailed away amid a fierce storm; the emigrants found themselves alone apart from the natives and two American hermits.[144][n 17] Comforting the settlers with vague assurances that the Poyaisian government would find them if they just stayed where they were, Hall set out for Cape Gracias a Dios, hoping to make contact with the Mosquito king or find another ship.[144] Most of the emigrants found it impossible to believe that the Cazique had deliberately misled them, and posited that blame must lie elsewhere, or that there must have been some terrible misunderstanding.[146]
... disease seized upon them and spread rapidly. Lack of proper food and water, and failure to take the requisite sanitary precautions, brought on intermittent fever and dysentery. ... Whole families were ill. Most of the sufferers lay on the ground without other protection from the sun and rain than a few leaves and branches thrown across some sticks. Many were so weak as to be unable to crawl to the woods for the common offices of nature. The stench arising from the filth they were in was unendurable. The Poyais emigrants' situation, as described by Alfred Hasbrouck in 1927[116] The second set of colonists disembarked from the Kennersley Castle in late March 1823. Their optimism was quickly extinguished.[147] Hall returned in April with disheartening news: he had found no ship that could help and, far from considering them any responsibility of his, King George Frederic Augustus had not even been aware of their presence. The Kennersley Castle having sailed, MacGregor's victims could count on no assistance in the near future.[148] The emigrants had brought ample provisions with them, including medicines, and had two doctors among them, so they were not in a totally hopeless situation,[149] but apart from Hall none of the military officers, government officials or civil servants appointed by MacGregor made any serious attempt to organise the party.[150]
Hall returned to Cape Gracias a Dios several times to seek help, but did not explain his constant absences to the settlers—this exacerbated the general confusion and anger, particularly when he refused to pay the wages promised to those supposedly on Poyaisian government contracts.[151] With the coming of the rainy season insects infested the camp, diseases such as malaria and yellow fever took hold, and the emigrants sank into utter despair.[151] James Hastie, a Scottish sawyer who had brought his wife and three children with him, later wrote: "It seemed to be the will of Providence that every circumstance should combine for our destruction."[152] The would-be royal shoemaker, who had left a family in Edinburgh, shot himself.[153][n 18]
The schooner Mexican Eagle, from British Honduras carrying the Chief Magistrate of Belize, Marshal Bennet, to the Mosquito king's court, discovered the settlers in early May 1823. Seven men and three children had died, and many more were sick. Bennet informed them that Poyais did not exist and that he had never heard of this Cazique they spoke of. He advised them to return with him to British Honduras, as they would surely die if they stayed where they were. The majority preferred to wait for Hall to come back, hopefully with news of passage back to Britain. About half a week later Hall returned with the Mosquito king, who announced that MacGregor's land grant was revoked forthwith. He had never granted MacGregor the title of Cazique, he said, nor given him the right to sell land or raise loans against it; the emigrants were in fact in George Frederic Augustus's territory illegally and would have to leave unless they pledged allegiance to him. All the settlers left except for about 40 who were too weakened by disease to make the journey.[155]
Transported aboard the cramped Mexican Eagle—the lack of space necessitated three trips—the emigrants were in miserable shape when they reached Belize, and in most cases had to be carried from the ship. The weather in British Honduras was even worse than that at the Black River, and the colony's authorities and doctors could do little to help the new arrivals. Disease spread rapidly among the settlers and most of them died. The colony's superintendent, Major-General Edward Codd, opened an official investigation to "lay open the true situation of the imaginary State of Poyais and ... the unfortunate emigrants", and sent word to Britain of the Poyais settlers' fate.[156] By the time the warning reached London, MacGregor had five more emigrant ships on the way; the Royal Navy intercepted them.[156] A third vessel—Skene, carrying 105 more Scottish emigrants—arrived at the Black River, but on seeing the abandoned colony the master Captain John Wilson sailed on to Belize and disembarked his passengers there.[157] The fourth and last ship to arrive was Albion, which arrived at Belize in November 1823, but which was carrying provisions, arms, and stores and not passengers. The cargo was sold locally at auction.[158] The surviving colonists variously settled in the United States, remained in British Honduras, or sailed for home aboard the Ocean, a British vessel that left Belize on 1 August 1823. Some died during the journey back across the Atlantic. Of the roughly 250 who had sailed on Honduras Packet and Kennersley Castle, at least 180 had perished. Fewer than 50 ever returned to Britain.[156]
See also: List of ships of the Poyais scheme Poyais scheme in France MacGregor left London shortly before the small party of Poyais survivors arrived home on 12 October 1823—he told Richardson that he was taking Josefa to winter in Italy for the sake of her health, but in fact his destination was Paris.[159] The London press reported extensively on the Poyais scandal over the following weeks and months, stressing the colonists' travails and charging that MacGregor had orchestrated a massive fraud.[n 19] Six of the survivors—including Hastie, who had lost two of his children during the ordeal—claimed that they were misquoted in these articles, and on 22 October signed an affidavit insisting that blame lay not with MacGregor but with Hall and other members of the emigrant party.[162] "[W]e believe that Sir Gregor MacGregor has been worse used by Colonel Hall and his other agents than was ever a man before," they declared, "and that had they have done their duty by Sir Gregor and by us, things would have turned out very differently at Poyais".[162] MacGregor asserted that he himself had been defrauded, alleged embezzlement by some of his agents, and claimed that covetous merchants in British Honduras were deliberately undermining the development of Poyais as it threatened their profits.[163] Richardson attempted to console the Poyais survivors, vigorously denied the press claims that the country did not exist, and issued libel writs against some of the British newspapers on MacGregor's behalf.[164][n 20]
In Paris, MacGregor persuaded the Compagnie de la Nouvelle Neustrie, a firm of traders that aspired to prominence in South America, to seek investors and settlers for Poyais in France.[164] He concurrently intensified his efforts towards King Ferdinand VII of Spain—in a November 1823 letter the Cazique proposed to make Poyais a Spanish protectorate.[166] Four months later he offered to lead a Spanish campaign to reconquer Guatemala, using Poyais as a base.[166] Spain took no action.[166] MacGregor's "moment of greatest hubris", Matthew Brown suggests in his biographical portrait, came in December 1824 when, in a letter to the King of Spain, he claimed to be himself "descendent of the ancient Kings of Scotland".[166] Around this time Josefa gave birth to the third and final MacGregor child, Constantino, at their home in the Champs-Élysées.[167] Gustavus Butler Hippisley, a friend of Major Richardson and fellow veteran of the British Legions in Latin America, accepted the Poyais fantasy as true and entered MacGregor's employ in March 1825.[168] Hippisley wrote back to Britain refuting "the bare-faced calumnies of a hireling press"; in particular he admonished a journalist who had called MacGregor a "penniless adventurer".[169] With Hippisley's help, MacGregor negotiated with the Nouvelle Neustrie company, whose managing director was a Frenchman called Lehuby, and agreed to sell the French company up to 500,000 acres (781 square miles; 2,023 square kilometres) in Poyais for its own settlement scheme; "a very clever way of distancing himself", Sinclair comments, as this time he would be able to say honestly that others were responsible and that he had merely made the land available.[170]
Lehuby's company readied a ship at Le Havre and began to gather French emigrants, of whom about 30 obtained passports to travel to Poyais.[170] Discarding the idea of co-operation with Spain, MacGregor published a new Poyaisian constitution in Paris in August 1825, this time describing it as a republic—he remained head of state, with the title Cazique—and on 18 August raised a new £300,000 loan through Thomas Jenkins & Company, an obscure London bank, offering 2.5% interest per annum. No evidence survives to suggest that the relevant bonds were issued.[170] The Sketch was condensed and republished as a 40-page booklet called Some Account of the Poyais Country.[171] French government officials became suspicious when an additional 30 people requested passports to travel to this country they had never heard of, and ordered the Nouvelle Neustrie company's ship to be kept in port. Some of the would-be emigrants became concerned themselves and made complaints to the police, which led to the arrest of Hippisley and MacGregor's secretary Thomas Irving in Paris in the early hours on 4 September 1825.[170] Lehuby's ship never left Le Havre, and his colonists gradually dispersed.[170]
1826 acquittal of fraud MacGregor went into hiding in the French provinces, while Lehuby fled to the southern Netherlands. Hippisley and Irving were informed on 6 September that they were being investigated for conspiracy to defraud and sell titles to land they did not own. Both insisted that they were innocent. They were taken that evening to La Force Prison.[172] MacGregor was arrested after three months and brought to La Force on 7 December 1825. He speculated to his confederates that the charges against them must be the result of some abrupt change of policy by France, or of some Spanish intrigue calculated to undermine Poyaisian independence.[173] The three men remained imprisoned without trial while the French attempted to extradite Lehuby from the Netherlands.[174] Attempting to re-associate himself and Poyais with the republican movement in Latin America, MacGregor issued a French-language declaration from his prison cell on 10 January 1826, claiming that he was "contrary to human rights, held prisoner ... for reasons of which he is not aware" and "suffering as one of the founders of independence in the New World".[175][n 21] This attempt to convince the French that he might have some kind of diplomatic immunity did not work.[175] The French government and police ignored the announcement.[175]
A large, austere-looking stone building. La Force Prison in Paris, where MacGregor was detained from December 1825 to July 1826, before his trial and acquittal The three Britons were brought to trial on 6 April 1826. Lehuby, still in the Netherlands, was tried in absentia.[176] The Crown prosecution's case was seriously hampered by his absence, particularly because many key documents were with him in the Netherlands. The prosecutor alleged a complex conspiracy between MacGregor, Lehuby and their associates to profit personally from a fraudulent land concession and loan prospectus.[176] MacGregor's lawyer, a Frenchman called Merilhou, asserted that if anything untoward had occurred, the missing managing director should be held culpable; there was no proof of a conspiracy, he said, and MacGregor could have been himself defrauded by Lehuby.[176] The prosecutor conceded that there was insufficient evidence to prove his case, complimented MacGregor for co-operating with the investigation fairly and openly, and withdrew the charges.[176] The three judges confirmed the defendants' release—"a full and perfect acquittal", Hippisley would write—but days later the French authorities succeeded in having Lehuby extradited, and the three men learned they would have to stand trial again.[177]
The fresh trial, scheduled for 20 May, was postponed when the prosecutor announced that he was not ready. The delay gave MacGregor and Merilhou time to prepare an elaborate, largely fictional 5,000-word statement purporting to describe the Scotsman's background, activities in the Americas, and total innocence of any endeavour to defraud.[178] When the trial finally began on 10 July 1826, Merilhou was present not as MacGregor's defence counsel but as a witness for the prosecution, having been called as such because of his links with the Nouvelle Neustrie company.[179] Merilhou entrusted MacGregor's defence to a colleague called Berville, who read the 5,000-word submission in full before the court. "Maître Merilhou, as the author of the address the court had heard, and Maître Berville, as the actor who read the script, had done their work extremely well," Sinclair writes; Lehuby was convicted of making false representations regarding the sale of shares, and sentenced to 13 months' imprisonment, but the Cazique was found not guilty on all charges, while the imputations against Hippisley and Irving were stricken from the record.[179]
Return to Britain; lesser Poyais schemes A long, convoluted-looking stock certificate One of the bonds issued for the £800,000 Poyaisian loan in 1827 MacGregor quickly moved his family back to London, where the furore following the Poyais survivors' return had died down. In the midst of a serious economic downturn, some investors had subscribed to the £300,000 Poyais loan issued by Thomas Jenkins & Company—apparently believing the assertion of the Cazique's publicists that the previous loans had defaulted only because of embezzlement by one of his agents.[180] MacGregor was arrested soon after his arrival back in Britain, and held at Tothill Fields Bridewell in Westminster for about a week before being released without charge.[n 22] He initiated a new, less ornate version of the Poyais scheme, describing himself simply as the "Cacique of the Republic of Poyais".[n 23] The new Poyaisian office at 23 Threadneedle Street made none of the claims to diplomatic status the old Poyaisian legation at Dowgate Hill had done.[182]
MacGregor persuaded Thomas Jenkins & Company to act as brokers for an £800,000 loan, issued on 20-year bonds at 3% interest, in mid-1827. The bonds, produced at nominal values of £250, £500 and £1,000, did not become popular.[183] An anonymous handbill was circulated in the City of London, describing the previous Poyais loans and warning readers to "Take Care of your Pockets—Another Poyais Humbug".[183] The loan's poor performance compelled MacGregor to pass most of the unsold certificates to a consortium of speculators for a small sum.[184] Sinclair stresses that the Poyais bonds were perceived as "humbug" not because MacGregor's hoax had been fully unravelled, but simply because the prior securities had failed to deliver profitable returns. "Nobody thought to question the legitimacy of Poyais itself", he elaborates. "Some investors had begun to understand that they were being fleeced, but almost none realised how comprehensively."[184]
Other variants on the Poyais scheme were similarly unsuccessful. In 1828 MacGregor began to sell certificates entitling the holders to "land in Poyais Proper" at five shillings per acre. Two years later King Robert Charles Frederic, who had succeeded his brother George Frederic Augustus in 1824, issued thousands of certificates covering the same territory and offered them to lumber companies in London, directly competing with MacGregor. When the original investors demanded their long-overdue interest, MacGregor could only pay with more certificates. Other charlatans soon caught on and set up their own rival "Poyaisian offices" in London, offering land debentures in competition with both MacGregor and the Mosquito king.[185] By 1834 MacGregor was back in Scotland and living in Edinburgh. He paid some unredeemed securities by issuing yet another series of Poyaisian land certificates.[186] Two years later he published a constitution for a smaller Poyaisian republic, centred on the region surrounding the Black River, and headed by himself as President.[186] It was clear, however, that "Poyais had had its day," as Sinclair puts it.[186] An attempt by MacGregor to sell some land certificates in 1837 marks the last record of any Poyais scheme.[186][n 24]
Return to Venezuela and death An exotic New World city, viewed from atop a nearby hill Caracas, where MacGregor spent his last years, as painted by Joseph Thomas in 1839 Josefa MacGregor died at Burghmuirhead, near Edinburgh, on 4 May 1838.[187] MacGregor almost immediately left for Venezuela, where he resettled in Caracas and in October 1838 applied for citizenship and restoration to his former rank in the Venezuelan Army, with back pay and a pension.[2][187] He stressed his travails on Venezuela's behalf two decades earlier and asserted that Bolívar, who had died in 1830, had effectively deported him; he described several unsuccessful requests to return and being "[forced to] remain outside the Republic ... by causes and obstacles out of my control" while losing his wife, two children and "the best years of my life and all my fortune".[187][n 25]
The Defence Minister Rafael Urdaneta, who had served alongside MacGregor during the Aux Cayes expedition of 1816, asked the Senate to look upon the Scotsman's application favourably as he had "enlisted in our ranks from the very start of the War of Independence, and ran the same risks as all the patriots of that disastrous time, meriting promotions and respect because of his excellent personal conduct"—MacGregor's contributions had been "heroic with immense results".[187] President José Antonio Páez, another former revolutionary comrade, approved the application in March 1839.[187]
MacGregor was duly confirmed as a Venezuelan citizen and divisional general in the Venezuelan Army, with a pension of one-third of his salary.[2] He settled in the capital and became a respected member of the local community.[2] After his death at home in Caracas on 4 December 1845, he was buried with full military honours in Caracas Cathedral,[2] with President Carlos Soublette, Cabinet ministers and the military chiefs of Venezuela marching behind his coffin.[189] Obituaries in the Caracas press extolled General MacGregor's "heroic and triumphant retreat" to Barcelona in 1816 and described him as "a valiant champion of independence".[189] "There was not a word about Amelia Island, Porto Bello or Rio de la Hacha, and there was no reference to the Cazique of Poyais," Sinclair concludes.[189] The part of today's Honduras that was supposedly called Poyais remains undeveloped in the 21st century. Back in Scotland, at the MacGregor graveyard near Loch Katrine, the clan memorial stones make no mention of Gregor MacGregor or the country he invented.[83]