62 Facts About Gregor MacGregor

General Gregor MacGregor was a Scottish soldier, adventurer, and con man who attempted from 1821 to 1837 to draw British and French investors and settlers to "Poyais", a fictional Central American territory that he claimed to rule as "Cazique".

Gregor MacGregor joined the republican side in the Venezuelan War of Independence in 1812, quickly became a general and, over the next four years, operated against the Spanish on behalf of both Venezuela and its neighbour New Granada.

Gregor MacGregor's successes included a difficult month-long fighting retreat through northern Venezuela in 1816.

Gregor MacGregor captured Amelia Island in 1817 under a mandate from revolutionary agents to conquer Florida from the Spanish, and there proclaimed a short-lived "Republic of the Floridas".

Gregor MacGregor then oversaw two calamitous operations in New Granada during 1819 that each ended with his abandoning British volunteer troops under his command.

On his return to Britain in 1821, MacGregor claimed that King George Frederic Augustus of the Mosquito Coast in the Gulf of Honduras had created him Cazique of Poyais, which he described as a developed colony with a community of British settlers.

Acquitted, MacGregor attempted lesser Poyais schemes in London over the next decade.

Gregor MacGregor died in Caracas in 1845, aged 58, and was buried with full military honours in Caracas Cathedral.

Gregor MacGregor was born on Christmas Eve 1786 at his family's ancestral home of Glengyle, on the north shore of Loch Katrine in Stirlingshire, Scotland.

Gregor MacGregor was the son of Daniel MacGregor, an East India Company sea captain, and his wife Ann.

Gregor MacGregor's grandfather, called Gregor MacGregor and nicknamed "the Beautiful", served with distinction in the British Army under the surname Drummond, and subsequently played an important role in the clan's restoration and rehabilitation into society.

Later that year, after MacGregor had spent some months in Guernsey with the regiment's 1st Battalion, the 57th Foot was posted to Gibraltar.

Soon thereafter MacGregor was seconded to the 8th Line Battalion of the Portuguese Army, where he served with the rank of major from October 1809 to April 1810.

At a stroke MacGregor lost his main source of income and the support of the influential Bowater family.

Gregor MacGregor sold the small Scottish estate he had inherited from his father and grandfather and sailed for South America in early 1812.

Gregor MacGregor offered his services directly to Miranda in Caracas.

Gregor MacGregor resolved that they would have to take some time to prepare before returning to the mainland.

Gregor MacGregor escorted Josefa to lodgings in Jamaica, then travelled to Narino's base at Tunja in the eastern Andes.

Sinclair records that MacGregor played an "honourable, though not conspicuous" part in the defence.

The defenders with the aid of the French corsair Louis-Michel Aury resolved to use the dozen gunboats they had to break through the Spanish fleet to the open sea, abandoning the city to the royalists; MacGregor was chosen as one of the three commanders of this operation.

In early October 1816, MacGregor left with Josefa for Margarita Island, about 24 miles off eastern Venezuela, where he hoped to enter the service of General Juan Bautista Arismendi.

Arismendi proposed to MacGregor that capturing one of the ports in East or West Florida, which were then Spanish colonies, might provide an excellent springboard for republican operations elsewhere in Latin America.

On 31 March 1817 in Philadelphia, MacGregor received a document from Lino de Clemente, Pedro Gual, and Martin Thompson, each of whom claimed to speak for one or more of the Latin American republics.

Florida's proposed fate was not specified; MacGregor presumed that the Floridians would seek US annexation, as they were mostly of non-Spanish origin, and that the US would quickly comply.

Gregor MacGregor thus expected at least covert support from the US government.

Gregor MacGregor raised $160,000 by the sale of "scripts" to investors, promising them fertile acres in Florida or their money back with interest.

Gregor MacGregor expected little to no resistance from the tiny Spanish garrison there.

Gregor MacGregor attempted to tax the local pirates' booty at an "admiralty court", and tried to raise money by seizing and selling dozens of slaves found on the island.

Gregor MacGregor's officers clamoured for an invasion of mainland Florida, but he insisted that they did not have enough men, arms, or supplies.

Gregor MacGregor made no attempt to repay those who had funded the Amelia expedition.

Gregor MacGregor drew MacGregor's attention to the British Legions being raised by the Latin American revolutionaries in London, and suggested that he could recruit and command such a force himself.

Gregor MacGregor sailed for home with Josefa and Gregorio and landed in Dublin on 21 September 1818, and from there made his way back to London.

The men came close to mutiny at Aux Cayes in February 1819 when MacGregor failed to produce the 80 silver dollars per man on arrival promised by his recruiters.

Gregor MacGregor devoted most of his attention to the particulars of a new chivalric order of his design, the emblem of which would be a Green Cross.

Awoken by the noise, MacGregor threw his bed and blankets from the window onto the beach below and jumped out after them, then attempted to paddle out to his ships on a log.

Gregor MacGregor passed out and would probably have drowned had he not been picked up and brought aboard the Hero by one of his naval officers.

Gregor MacGregor was briefly delayed in Haiti by a falling-out with his naval commander, an officer called Hudson.

Gregor MacGregor's remaining officers included Lieutenant-Colonel Michael Rafter, who had bought a commission with the hope of rescuing his brother William.

Lieutenant-Colonel William Norcott led the men onto the beach and waited there two hours for MacGregor to arrive, but the general failed to appear.

Gregor MacGregor issued another lofty proclamation, recalled by Rafter as an "aberration of human intellect", at the foot of which MacGregor identified himself as "His Majesty the Inca of New Granada".

Back in London in June 1820, Michael Rafter published his highly censorious account of MacGregor's adventures, Memoirs of Gregor M'Gregor, dedicating the book to his brother Colonel William Rafter and the troops abandoned at Porto Bello and Rio de la Hacha.

Gregor MacGregor claimed to have been created such by the Mosquito king, but in fact both the title and Poyais were of his own invention.

Gregor MacGregor claimed to have inherited a democratic system of government there, with a basic civil service and military.

Gregor MacGregor 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.

Alongside the land certificate sales, MacGregor spent several months organising the issue of a Poyaisian government loan on the London Stock Exchange.

For settlers, MacGregor deliberately targeted his fellow Scots, assuming that they would be more likely to trust him, as a Scotsman himself.

Hall would sail with 70 emigrants on Honduras Packet, a vessel MacGregor had encountered in South America.

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.

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, 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.

Gregor MacGregor advised them to return with him to British Honduras, as they would surely die if they stayed where they were.

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.

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.

Gregor MacGregor 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.

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.

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.

Gregor MacGregor initiated a new, less ornate version of the Poyais scheme, describing himself simply as the "Cacique of the Republic of Poyais".

The loan's poor performance compelled MacGregor to pass most of the unsold certificates to a consortium of speculators for a small sum.

In 1828, MacGregor began to sell certificates entitling the holders to "land in Poyais Proper" at five shillings per acre.

Gregor MacGregor paid some unredeemed securities by issuing yet another series of Poyaisian land certificates.

An attempt by MacGregor to sell some land certificates in 1837 marks the last record of any Poyais scheme.

Josefa MacGregor died at Burghmuirhead, near Edinburgh, on 4 May 1838.

Gregor MacGregor settled in the capital and became a respected member of the local community.