English: This chest was used to store the money and documents of the Company of Scotland, established in 1695. The Company was responsible for the attempt in 1698 to establish a trading colony, named 'New Caledonia', on the isthmus of Darien (modern Panama), which ended in disaster. The failure of the venture, through over-optimistic trading prospects, tropical sickness, Spanish hostility and English indifference, cost 2,000 lives and brought financial ruin to many of the Scottish nobility and the country's burgh corporations. England seized the opportunity to offer a sum of money, known as the 'equivalent', to compensate those affected in return for their votes in the Scottish Parliament for an incorporating union with England.

By virtue of the power and authority to us given by the Court of Directors of the Indian and African Company of Scotland, You are hereby ordered in pursuance of your voyage to make the Crab Island, and if you find it free to take possession thereof in name of the Company; and from thence you are to proceed to the Bay of Darien and make the Isle called the Golden Island, which lies close by the shore some few leagues to the leeward of the mouth of the great River of Darien, in and about eight degrees of north latitude; and there make a settlement on the mainland as well as the said island, if proper (as we believe) and unpossessed by an European nation or state in amity with his Majesty; but if otherways, you are to bear to the leeward. Given under our hands at Edinburgh the twelfth day of July, 1698. -- Sailing Orders For The First Expedition, 1698