Scotland had not a single ship of the line, nor a single dockyard where such a ship could be built.
A marine sufficient to overpower that of Spain must be, not merely equipped and manned, but created.

An armed force sufficient to defend the isthmus against the whole power of the viceroyalties of Mexico and Peru must be sent over five thousand miles of ocean.

What was the charge of such an expedition likely to be?
Oliver had, in the preceding generation, wrested a West Indian island from Spain; but, in order to do this, Oliver, a man who thoroughly understood the administration of war, who wasted nothing, and who was excellently served, had been forced to spend, in a single year, on his navy alone, twenty times the ordinary revenue of Scotland; and, since his days, war had been constantly becoming more and more costly.
It was plain that Scotland could not alone support the charge of a contest with the enemy whom Paterson was bent on provoking.

And what assistance was she likely to have from abroad?
Undoubtedly the vast colonial empire and the narrow colonial policy of Spain were regarded with an evil eye by more than one great maritime power.

But there was no great maritime power which would not far rather have seen the isthmus between the Atlantic and the Pacific in the hands of Spain than in the hands of the Darien Company.