Editing Gregor MacGregor (section)

===Return to Britain; lesser Poyais schemes===
[[File:1827-07-02 Poyaisian-Stock-Certificate.jpg|thumb|upright=0.58|One of the bonds issued for the £800,000 Poyaisian loan in 1827|alt=A long, convoluted-looking stock certificate]]
MacGregor quickly moved his family back to London, where the furore following the Poyais survivors' return had died down. In the midst of a serious economic downturn, some investors had subscribed to the £300,000 Poyais loan issued by Thomas Jenkins & Company — apparently believing the assertion of the Cazique's publicists that the previous loans had [[Default (finance)|defaulted]] only because of embezzlement by one of his agents.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=289–292}} MacGregor was arrested soon after his arrival back in Britain, and held at [[Tothill Fields Bridewell]] in Westminster for about a week before being released without charge.{{#tag:ref|It is unclear on what grounds he was detained; no formal charges were brought. Sinclair suggests that his arrest was probably over outstanding debts, and that his quick release may be simply because was able to pay these off.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=292–294}}|group="n"|name="tothill"}} He initiated a new, less ornate version of the Poyais scheme, describing himself simply as the "Cacique of the Republic of Poyais".{{#tag:ref|"Cacique" was the French spelling of "Cazique". The slight change in nomenclature does not seem to have been significant.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=292–294}}|group="n"|name="cacique"}} The new Poyaisian office at 23 Threadneedle Street made none of the claims to diplomatic status the old Poyaisian legation at Dowgate Hill had done.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|p=294}}

MacGregor persuaded Thomas Jenkins & Company to act as brokers for an £800,000 loan, issued on 20-year bonds at 3% interest, in mid-1827. The bonds, produced at nominal values of £250, £500 and £1,000, did not become popular. An anonymous handbill was circulated in the City of London, describing the previous Poyais loans and warning readers to "Take Care of your Pockets—Another Poyais Humbug". The loan's poor performance compelled MacGregor to pass most of the unsold certificates to a consortium of speculators for a small sum.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=294–297}} Sinclair stresses that the Poyais bonds were perceived as "humbug" not because MacGregor's hoax had been fully unravelled, but simply because the prior securities had failed to deliver profitable returns. "Nobody thought to question the legitimacy of Poyais itself", he elaborates. "Some investors had begun to understand that they were being fleeced, but almost none realised how comprehensively."{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=296–297}}

Other variants on the Poyais scheme were similarly unsuccessful. In 1828, MacGregor began to sell certificates entitling the holders to "land in Poyais Proper" at five shillings per acre. Two years later [[Robert Charles Frederic|King Robert Charles Frederic]], who had succeeded his brother George Frederic Augustus in 1824, issued thousands of certificates covering the same territory and offered them to lumber companies in London, directly competing with MacGregor. When the original investors demanded their long-overdue interest, MacGregor could only pay with more certificates. Other charlatans soon caught on and set up their own rival "Poyaisian offices" in London, offering land debentures in competition with both MacGregor and the Mosquito king.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=297–300}} By 1834 MacGregor was back in Scotland and living in Edinburgh. He paid some unredeemed securities by issuing yet another series of Poyaisian land certificates. Two years later he published a constitution for a smaller Poyaisian republic, centred on the region surrounding the Black River, and headed by himself as president. It was clear, however, that "Poyais had had its day", as Sinclair puts it.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=303–304}} An attempt by MacGregor to sell some land certificates in 1837 marks the last record of any Poyais scheme.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=303–304}}{{#tag:ref|Including all iterations of the Poyais fraud, MacGregor issued certificates covering at least half of the 8&nbsp;million acres covered by the 1820 land grant. King Robert Charles Frederic produced enough documents to sell the same land several times over.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=297–300}}|group="n"|name="samelandseveraltimes"}}