Editing Gregor MacGregor (section)

===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.{{sfn|The Economist|2012}}{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|p=63}} Amid a general growth in the British economy following the [[Battle of Waterloo]] and the end of the Napoleonic Wars, [[interest rate]]s were dropping and the British [[government bond]], the "[[Consol (bond)|consol]]", offered rates of only 3% per annum on the [[London Stock Exchange]]. Those wanting a higher return invested in more risky foreign debt.{{sfn|The Economist|2012}} 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&nbsp;million loan issued for [[Gran Colombia]] (incorporating both New Granada and Venezuela) in March 1822.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=59–60}} 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.{{sfn|Dawson|2004}}{{sfn|The Economist|2012}}{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=60–63}}
[[File:View of the port of Black River in the Territory of Poyais.jpg|alt=An etching showing a harbour as viewed from the sea, with small boats in the foreground.|left|thumb|An engraving from ''Sketch of the Mosquito Shore'', purporting to depict the "port of [[Black River (settlement)|Black River]] in the Territory of Poyais"{{sfn|Strangeways|1822|pp=8–9}}]]
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. His proclamation to the Poyers was distributed in handbill form.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=64–65}} 

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,{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|p=68}} but actually written either by MacGregor himself or by accomplices.{{sfn|The Economist|2012}}{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=316–318}}{{#tag:ref|It is unclear whether Strangeways was a real person or another of MacGregor's inventions. The 1825 ''[[Army List]]'' records a Thomas Strangeways as a captain in the 9th Royal Veteran Battalion, with rank dating back to 6 April 1809, but it is not clear if there is a connection.{{sfn|Hasbrouck|1927|p=444}} Sinclair proposes that MacGregor may have appropriated the name from a person unrelated to the fraud, or invented the surname "Strangeways" as a joke on his victims.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|p=318}}|group="n"|name="strangeways"}}

The ''Sketch'' mostly comprised long, reprinted tracts from older works on the Mosquito Coast and other parts of the region. The original material ranged from misleading to outright made up.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=316–318}} MacGregor's publicists described the Poyaisian climate as "remarkably healthy&nbsp;... agree[ing] admirably with the constitution of Europeans"—it was supposedly a spa destination for sick colonists from the Caribbean.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=65–66}} The soil was so fertile that a farmer could have three [[maize]] [[harvest]]s 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.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=66, 73}} 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.{{sfn|Hasbrouck|1927|p=444}} The natives were not just co-operative but intensely pro-British.{{sfn|The Economist|2012}} The capital was St Joseph, a flourishing seaside town of wide paved boulevards, [[colonnade]]d buildings and mansions,{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|p=15}} inhabited by as many as 20,000.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|p=40}}{{sfn|Hasbrouck|1927|p=448}} 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.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|p=15}} Reference was made to a "projected [[Jews|Hebrew]] colony".{{sfn|Strangeways|1822|pp=8–9}} The ''Sketch'' went so far as to claim the rivers of Poyais contained "globules of pure gold".{{sfn|The Economist|2012}}{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|p=66}}{{sfn|Strangeways|1822|p=63}}

{{Quote box|align=right|width=29%
|title=The Poyais Emigrant
|quote=
<poem>
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.
</poem>
|source=Chorus of "The Poyais Emigrant", one of the ballads composed to advertise Poyais{{sfn|Logan|1869|pp=204–208}}|quoted = 1}}
This was almost all fiction,{{sfn|Hasbrouck|1927|pp=441, 445}} 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.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=316–318}} Poyaisian land certificates at two [[shilling]]s and threepence per acre,{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|p=74}} roughly equivalent to a working man's daily wage at the time, were perceived by many as an attractive investment opportunity.{{sfn|Taylor|2013|p=2}}{{#tag:ref|Until the [[pound sterling]] was [[Decimal Day|decimalised]] in 1971, each pound was made up of 240 [[Penny (British pre-decimal coin)|pence]], with 12 pence in a [[shilling]] and 20 shillings in a pound.{{sfn|Robens|Jayaweera|Kiefer|2014|p=74}}|group="n"|name="predecimalmoney"}} 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;{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|p=74}} according to MacGregor, about 500 had bought Poyaisian land by early 1823.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|p=247}} The buyers included many who invested their life savings. MacGregor became, to quote one 21st-century financial analyst, the "founding father of [[securities fraud]]".{{sfn|Straney|2011|pp=33-35}}

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, 1st Baronet|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 installments on 17 January and 14 February 1823. The interest rate was 6% per annum.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=78–80}}{{#tag:ref|The bonds were due to [[Maturity (finance)|mature]] in 1852.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=78–80}}|group="n"|name="mature"}} If the Poyaisian issue successfully emulated its Colombian, Peruvian and Chilean counterparts, MacGregor stood to amass a fortune.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=45, 246}}