Editing Gregor MacGregor (section)

===Poyais scheme in France===
MacGregor left London shortly before the small party of Poyais survivors arrived home on 12 October 1823—he told Richardson that he was taking Josefa to winter in Italy for the sake of her health, but in fact his destination was Paris.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=240, 248–250}} 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.{{#tag:ref|The commentators included [[Theodore Hook]], who lampooned the affair in ''[[John Bull (magazine)|John Bull]]'' with a song called "The Court of Poyais", supposedly "by the Poyaisian poet laureate". The first verse included the lyrics "A ''Prince'' or ''Cacique''&nbsp;/ Springs up like a leek;&nbsp;/ ''Protectors'' and ''Presidents'' sprout every week." The refrain went: "Then a fig for King George and his old-fashioned sway!&nbsp;/ And hey for MacGregor, Cacique of Poyais!!"{{sfn|Westmacott|1825|pp=69–72}}{{sfn|Barham|1849|pp=29–33}}|group="n"|name="hook"}} Six of the survivors—including Hastie, who had lost two of his children during the ordeal—claimed that they were misquoted in these articles, and on 22 October signed an affidavit insisting that blame lay not with MacGregor but with Hall and other members of the emigrant party.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=240–243}} "[W]e believe that Sir Gregor MacGregor has been worse used by Colonel Hall and his other agents than was ever a man before", they declared, "and that had they have done their duty by Sir Gregor and by us, things would have turned out very differently at Poyais".{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=240–243}} MacGregor asserted that he himself had been defrauded, alleged [[embezzlement]] by some of his agents, and claimed that covetous merchants in British Honduras were deliberately undermining the development of Poyais as it threatened their profits.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=247–248}} Richardson attempted to console the Poyais survivors, vigorously denied the press claims that the country did not exist, and issued [[Defamation|libel]] writs against some of the British newspapers on MacGregor's behalf.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|p=260}}{{#tag:ref|Hastie, who returned to Scotland, went so far in his vociferous defence of MacGregor that he published a memoir of Poyais in which he repeatedly stated that the general was not to blame in any way.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=243–244}}|group="n"|name="hastie"}}

[[File:Carte de la Neustrie dressée, ainsi que la carte générale, d'après les cartes de Jn. Purdy, celles de Th. Jefferys, corrigées, etc., etc. - par Desmadryl jeune - btv1b84922923.jpg|thumb|''Carte de la Neustrie'' showing the (fictional) towns of Sidon, Tyr, Asylum, Refugium, Eden and Sertoria]]
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.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|p=260}} He concurrently intensified his efforts towards [[Ferdinand VII of Spain|King Ferdinand VII of Spain]]—in a November 1823 letter the Cazique proposed to make Poyais a Spanish protectorate. Four months later he offered to lead a Spanish campaign to reconquer Guatemala, using Poyais as a base. Spain took no action.{{sfn|Brown|2006|pp=46–47}} MacGregor's "moment of greatest hubris", Matthew Brown suggests in his biographical portrait, came in December 1824 when, in a letter to the King of Spain, he claimed to be himself "descendent of the ancient Kings of Scotland".{{sfn|Brown|2006|pp=46–47}} Around this time Josefa gave birth to the third and final MacGregor child, Constantino, at their home in the [[Champs-Élysées]].{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|p=276}} Gustavus Butler Hippisley, a friend of Major Richardson and fellow veteran of the British Legions in Latin America, accepted the Poyais fantasy as true and entered MacGregor's employ in March 1825.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|p=259}} Hippisley wrote back to Britain refuting "the bare-faced calumnies of a hireling press"; in particular he admonished a journalist who had called MacGregor a "penniless adventurer".{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=261–262}} With Hippisley's help, MacGregor negotiated with the Nouvelle Neustrie company, whose managing director was a Frenchman called Lehuby, and agreed to sell the French company up to 500,000 acres (781 square miles; 2,023 square kilometres) in Poyais for its own settlement scheme; "a very clever way of distancing himself", Sinclair comments, as this time he would be able to say honestly that others were responsible and that he had merely made the land available.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=264–266}}

Lehuby's company readied a ship at [[Le Havre]] and began to gather French emigrants, of whom about 30 obtained passports to travel to Poyais.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=264–266}} Discarding the idea of co-operation with Spain, MacGregor published a new Poyaisian constitution in Paris in August 1825, this time describing it as a republic — he remained head of state, with the title Cazique—and on 18 August raised a new £300,000 loan through Thomas Jenkins & Company, an obscure London bank, offering 2.5% interest per annum. No evidence survives to suggest that the relevant bonds were issued.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=264–266}} The ''Sketch'' was condensed and republished as a 40-page booklet called ''Some Account of the Poyais Country''.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|p=291}} French government officials became suspicious when an additional 30 people requested passports to travel to this country they had never heard of, and ordered the Nouvelle Neustrie company's ship to be kept in port. Some of the would-be emigrants became concerned themselves and made complaints to the police, which led to the arrest of Hippisley and MacGregor's secretary Thomas Irving in Paris in the early hours on 4 September 1825. Lehuby's ship never left Le Havre, and his colonists gradually dispersed.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=264–266}}