Special Guest Blogger: Gregor MacGregor

I was born in 1786 but apart from my parents giving me the same name twice, my life doesn't start getting interesting until i left the British Army, buying myself out with the dowry i received from my wife's family because i got into an argument with a superior who promised to make my life hell but not long after i arrived back home, my wife unexpectantly died.
Deciding that i didn't have anything left to stay in Britain for, i sailed off to Venezuela to join their war for independence against the Spanish and that's where the fun starts because once there i thought this is an opportunity for a new beginning where nobody knows me so i could be anyone i wanted and deciding to be as honest as the day is long, a day on Jupiter that is, i introduced myself as Sir Gregor, a veteran of the British Army and a Knight to boot so they gave me the rank of Colonel and i spent the rest of the war organising and explaining to the Venezuelans how the British did things.
By more luck then judgement, we won and once the fighting in Venezuela ended, i gathered up some troops and continued attacking any surviving Spanish outposts and that's how i discovered Mosquito Coast in Nicaragua, an unwelcoming piece of swampy land and i met with the King and persuaded him to sign the land over to me, a British Knight, Gentleman and war hero of the British and Venezuelan army to build a colony because new colonies were popping up all over the place all the time and as the land was basically just a swamp, he was more than happy to give it to me.
With the land deal under my belt i returned to Britain and graduated from pretending i was a Knight to pretending i was a Prince of the incredibly beautiful land of Poyais in Central America, a paradise with endless summer and fertile ground with vast plantations of sugar, coffee and cotton and for that additional touch, gold in the mountains and to make it even more believable, on the ship journey i had created a guide to Poyais along with a national flag and even an anthem.
It is said that lies spread around the world while the truth is still putting on it's shoes but sometimes the shoes are not even bothered to be taken out of the wardrobe and i set about recruiting wannabe colonists to the paradise and people jumped at the opportunity, paying 4 shillings an acre and exchanging their British pound notes for Poyain currency which i just managed to have 70,000 printed.
The first 50 settlers with a pocketful of useless Poyainian currency set off for the Mosquito Coast on a ship, an uneventful journey until they approached the Mosquito Coast and people noticed how spectacularly Poyais was just not there.
By then i had secured myself a £200,000 loan leveraged against all the gold i owned back in Poyais and i was a Prince so why wouldn't they believe me but knowing that soon there would be a bunch of disgruntled colonists arriving back in the UK and staying there may not be the healthiest option, i buggered off France.
With cartology still in it's infancy, people just assumed they had just sailed slightly off course so the settlers started to unpack while some people went looking for directions to Poyais. Then a bunch of things happened, first a hurricane hit the settlers, scattering and destroying their belongings and stranding them as the ship blew out to sea and without shelter in the humid new land, literally every settler contracted malaria or yellow fever and by the time a rescue mission was launched weeks later, two thirds of the original settlers died but by then another boatload of colonists had arrived only to be told by the Nicaraguan Government that they had been swindled and the new country had been cancelled and to go back home.
I performed the same trick in France and waved off another 50 soon to not be Poyaians and then shot off back to Britain and was immediately arrested due to the whole swindling people and sending them off to a fake land i made up thing but due to a lack of people willing to come forward to admit investing their fortune into a made-up country, and the last thing they wanted was the publicity that they had done their family fortune, i was released for lack of evidence and went back to France where i was arrested and once again released.
Eventually the money ran out so i sailed back to Venezuela, reminded them that i had fought for their independence and they welcomed me like a returning hero and even gave me a pension and i spent the rest of my life living in comfort and reminiscing with my old war buddies about our glory days.
So there you have my life and despite everything, Karma gave me a pass but sometimes you just couldn't make up some peoples greed and stupidity or rather, as i found out, you can and make an absolute fortune from it.