Lachlan McGillivray was one of several Scottish Highlanders recruited by James Oglethorpe to act as settler-soldiers protecting the frontiers of Georgia from the Spanish in Florida, the French in the Alabama basin, and the Indian allies of the Spanish and the French. On January 10, 1736, Lachlan and 176 emigrants, including women and children, arrived on board the "Prince of Wales" to establish the town of Darien, Georgia, originally known as New Inverness. The town was founded in January 1736 and named after the Darien scheme, a former Scottish colony in Panama.