The company had a vessel,
the 'Annandale,' which was seized in the Thames, at the instance of
the East India Company, and condemned for a breach of that company's
privileges.
This capture awakened the sleeping fury among my fiery countrymen
(1704). An English ship, connected with either the English East India
Company or the rival Million Company, put into Leith Road to repair.
Here was a chance; for the charter of the Scots company authorised
them 'to make reprisals and to seek and take reparation of damage done
by sea and land.' On the strength of this clause, which was never
meant to apply to Englishmen in Scottish waters, but to foreigners of
all kinds on the Spanish Main, the Scottish Admiralty took no steps.
But the company had a Celtic secretary, Mr. Roderick Mackenzie, and
the English Parliament, in 1695, had summoned Mr. Mackenzie before
them, and asked him many questions of an impertinent and disagreeable
nature. This outrageous proceeding he resented, for he was no more an
English than he was a Japanese subject. The situation of the
'Worcester' in Scottish waters gave Roderick his chance. His chief
difficulty, as he informed his directors, was 'to get together a
sufficient number of such genteel, pretty fellows as would, of their
own free accord, on a sudden advertisement, be willing to accompany me
on this adventure' (namely, the capture of the 'Worcester'), 'and
whose dress and behaviour would not render them suspected of any
uncommon design in going aboard.
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