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LIFE AND TIMES 
 
 OP 
 
 Sir Walter Ralegh. 
 
 BY M. A. THOMSON, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF HEKRT Vm. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 THE ARUNDEL PRINT. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 In submitting to the Public a Life of Sir Walter 
 Ralegh, some brief explanation may be deemed ex- 
 pedient, of the reasons which induced the Author to 
 consider such a work necessary, when the valuable 
 labors of Oldys, Cayley, and Birch, are still in ex- 
 istence. 
 
 Independent of the circumstances, that the efforts of 
 these justly-prized biographers have been far too great- 
 ly actuated by an indiscriminate partiality for the 
 character of Ralegh, it may be alleged, that the narra- 
 tives of the two first of these authors are encumbered 
 with authentic, but heavy documents and dissertations, 
 interspersed within the body of their respective works, 
 rendering them fatiguing ; and, in the case of Oldys, 
 almost revolting to the general reader. The concise 
 compilation of Birch, admirable as far as it goes, is, on 
 the other hand, too limited and cursory a sketch of 
 the life and actions of Ralegh, to afford that satisfac- 
 tory picture of his mind, and disposition, which biog 
 raphy is intended to furnish. 
 
 Endeavoring to steer between these extremes, the 
 Author of the Memoirs, now presented to the Public, 
 entertains a well-grounded hope, that if her attempt to 
 compose a full, and yet connected, narrative of Ra- 
 legh's life be considered inefficient, the additional docu- 
 ments which she has been enabled to supply will re- 
 deem it from being wholly useless. In the Appendix 
 
IV ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 to this work, she presents to the Public fifteen original 
 Letters, now for the first time printed, from the collec- 
 tion in the State Paper Office. These, whilst they 
 throw but little new light upon the participation of Sir 
 Walter Ralegh in certain public affairs, are valuable, 
 as confirming, in a manner satisfactory to the inquirer 
 after historical truth, the impressions previously con- 
 ceived of the share which he took in the political 
 transactions of his times. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Birth and Origin of Ralegh :— His Education and Choice of a Pro- 
 fession— His Services in France and the Low Countries :— Man- 
 time Enterprises:— His Services in Ireland :— His Return to 
 Court:— Characters with whom he had to deal.— Expeditions to 
 Newfoundland-To Virginia— Proofs of Favor from the Queen. 
 —Ralegh's Occupations in Peace :— His Patronage of Hakluyt and 
 Herriot — Charge of Deism against Ralegh from various Writers. 
 1552tol586. .f Pa S e9 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Favor of Ralegh commented upon by Tarleton— Further Under- 
 takings of Ralegh.-VKginia.-Tobacco.-The Spanish Invasion. 
 —Lord Howard of Effingham— Ralegh's Share in repelling the 
 Armada :-His Visit to Ireland— Spenser— Ralegh's Unpopularity 
 with the Clergy— Dr. Godwin— Udall— the Brownists— The 
 Jesuits— Father Parsons— Ralegh's Marriage :— His Disgrace at 
 Court:— His Voyage to Guiana— Services in the Atlantic with 
 Essex 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Island Voyage.— Mortifications sustained by Ralegh :— Failure 
 of the Expedition— State of Affairs at Home— Decline, and sub- 
 sequent Ruin of Essex:— The Share which Ralegh had in that 
 Affair 74 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Accession of James— Intrigues against Ralegh— Mediation of the 
 Earl of Northumberland— Character of Cecil :— Of James :— His 
 First Interview with Ralegh— Causes of Ralegh's Disgrace- 
 Acts of Oppression on the Part of James— Memorial Addressed 
 by Ralegh to the King— Reason assigned by James for his Dis- 
 like to Ralegh— State of Foreign Affairs— Particulars of the Con- 
 spiracy, commonly called » Ralegh's Plot."— Arabella Stuart- 
 Brook— Cobham— Grey— Examinations of Cobham and Kalegn : 
 —Their Committal to the Tower.— Ralegh's attempt at Suicide : 
 —His Trial— Character of Coke— The Trial and Fate of the 
 other Conspirators— Observations upon the Degree of Blame to 
 
 be attached to Ralegh ...laO 
 
 A2 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Trial of Ralegh. — Character of Sir Edward Coke. — Affair of the 
 Lady Arabella. — Conduct and Sentence of the Prisoners 161 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Estimate of Ralegh's Property: — His Estates and Occupations in 
 Ireland. — Ralegh's Companions in Prison : — His Schemes with 
 respect to Guiana. — Death of Cecil and of Prince Henry. — Ra- 
 legh's Release from the Tower 191 
 
 CHAPTER VTI. 
 
 Ralegh's Designs with regard to Guiana: — His last Voyage thither: 
 — Its unfortunate Issue. — His Return: — Apprehension — Trial — 
 Death. — Account of his Literary Works, and Character 213 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Note A. 
 Notices relative to the Potatoe, by Dr. A. T. Thomson, Page 269 
 
 Note B. 
 Notices relative to Tobacco, by Dr. A. T. Thomson 269 
 
 Note C. 
 
 Letter from Sir Robert Cecil from the Tower at Dartmouth, 21st 
 September, 1592, 280 
 
 NoteD. 
 setter from Ralegh to Cobham, 281 
 
 Note E. 
 
 Letter from Ralegh to Cobham, written during the last Progress 
 made by Queen Elizabeth 282 
 
 Note F. 
 Letter from Lord Grey to King James, 282 
 
 Note G. 
 Postscript to a Letter from Ralegh to Cobham, 283 
 
 Note H. 
 
 Letter from the Lieutenant of the Tower to Cecyll. Signed John 
 Peyton, 283 
 
CONTENTS. VU 
 
 Note I. 
 
 Sir W Wade to Cecil. "Endorsed to me" in Cecil's hand 
 writing 284 
 
 Note K. 
 From Sir W. Waad to Lord Cecyll, 284 
 
 Note O. 
 
 Endorsed in Cecil's hand-writing. "My Letter to my Lord 
 Grey," 284 
 
 Note P. 
 
 Letter from Hen. Cobham addressed to the Ryght Ho. my very 
 Good Lord the Erie of Nottingham, Lord High Admiral, the 
 Erie of Suffolk, Lord Chamberlain, y e the lord Cisell, His Ma'tie's 
 principall Secretarie 285 
 
 Letter from George Brooke to Cecyle, 285 
 
 Note Q. 
 Notice relative to a Letter from Wade to Cecil 285 
 
 Note R. 
 Letter of Sir W. Ralegh to King James I. «285 
 
 Note S. 
 To the Queen's most excellent Maiestie, 286 
 
 Note U. 
 
 Document signed. Addressed to Cecil. Endorsed, in Cecil's 
 hand-writing "The Judgment of Sir W. Ralegh's case," .. 287 
 
 Note Y. 
 
 From Q. Elizth. to her Vice Roy in Ireland 1582. By the 
 Queene, 387 
 
LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Birth an d Origin of Ralegh :— His Education and Choice of a Profession : 
 —His Services in France and the Low Countries :— Maritime Enter- 
 prises :— His Services in Ireland :— His Return to Court :— Characters 
 with whom he had to deal.— Expeditions to Newfoundland— to Vir- 
 ginia.— Proofs of Favor from the Queen.— Ralegh's Occupations in 
 Peace :— His Patronage of Hakluyt and Herriot.— Charge of Deism 
 against Ralegh from various Writers. 
 
 1552 to 1586. 
 
 The county of Devon was renowned, in the time of 
 Queen Elizabeth, for the valor of its inhabitants in naval 
 services ; and it is still honored as the birth-place of three 
 celebrated navigators, Sir Francis Drake, Sir John Haw- 
 kins, and Sir Walter Ralegh. Ralegh was born in the year 
 1552, at Hayes, a farm rented by his father, situated in the 
 parish of Budely, near that part of the eastern coast of 
 Devonshire where the Otter discharges itself into the 
 British Channel. 
 
 To the scene of his childhood, Ralegh, in common with 
 many men who have afterwards encountered the cares of a 
 public career, retained an indelible attachment. It is pleas- 
 ing to find him, at a subsequent period of his life, when 
 ambition appears to have engrossed him, endeavoring, 
 though without success, to possess the humble residence 
 of his youth. The patrimonial estate was Fardel, in the 
 parish of Cornwood, near Plymouth ; and Smalridge, near 
 Axminster, is said to have belonged to his ancestors, in the 
 time of Henry the Eighth, but to have been sold, from the 
 prodigality of its owners.* 
 
 The family of Ralegh at the time of his birth was greatly 
 reduced in circumstances, and in the full experience of 
 
 * Oldys, p. 5. 
 
10 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 those privations which attend poverty, encumbered with 
 rank. No title, except that of knighthood, had, indeed, as 
 yet given false splendor to a name which boasted an an- 
 cient connexion with Robert of Gloucester, a natural son 
 of Henry the First ; but the name of Ralegh had been one 
 of some importance, and of great antiquity. Varying in 
 its orthography from Rale, or Ralega, to Ralegh, Raw- 
 leigh, or Raleigh, this designation had been affixed to seve- 
 ral villages and towns in Somersetshire, Devonshire, and 
 Essex ; and his ancestors settled in Devonshire before the 
 Norman conquest.* Allied by marriage to the earls of 
 Devon, and related to various families of their own name 
 in Somersetshire and Warwickshire, the ancestors of Ra- 
 legh had suffered a gradual decrease in their landed pos- 
 sessions; so that Fardel alone, of all their estates, remained 
 as the inheritance of Walter Ralegh, the father of him 
 who was destined again to raise his family to distinction. 
 Some memorials of ancient grandeur were still however 
 preserved from the devastations of time or misfortune ; and 
 Sir Walter received, as an heir-loom, a target, which had 
 been suspended in a chapel at Smalridge consecrated to 
 Saint Leonard, by one of his forefathers, in gratitude for 
 deliverance from the Gaulsf ; and the records of this en- 
 dowment are stated to have been afterwards presented to 
 Sir Walter Ralegh by a priest of Axminster.J That the 
 origin and early piety of this ancient race were little 
 known in the days of Elizabeth, until the fame of their 
 celebrated descendant called them forth from obscurity, is 
 evident from the anecdote . which Lord Bacon relates, in 
 illustration of the popular error which assigned to Ralegh 
 the term " Jack, or upstart." Queen Elizabeth was one 
 day playing upon the virginals, whilst Lord Oxford and 
 other admiring courtiers stood by : it happened that the 
 ledge before the jacks had been taken awav ; upon observ- 
 ing which the two noblemen smiled, and, when questioned 
 by the queen regarding the cause of their mirth, gave as 
 the reason, "that they were amused to see that when jacks 
 went up heads wentdown."§ The Queen, notwithstanding 
 this sarcastic allusion, had not, however, in receiving Ra- 
 legh into her favor, departed from her usual rule of never 
 
 •Cayley, p. 2. t Prince's Worthies of Devonshire, p. 530. 
 
 J Cayley. § Bacon's Apoththegms, No. 182- 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 11 
 
 admitting " a mechanic or new man into her confidence* ; " 
 and Ralegh had, afterwards, the credit, by his deeds, of 
 directing the investigation of antiquaries to the details of 
 his lineao-e. These, as points of curious inquiry, demand 
 some attention ; but are of subordinate interest in the his- 
 tory of one whose very poverty and obscurity became the 
 origin of his fortunes, by being the stimulus to his industry. 
 That Ralegh naturally, and even commendably, prized 
 the advantages of an honorable descent, may be mferred 
 by the solicitude afterwards displayed by his relative 
 Hooker to define, in his dedication to him of the Chroni- 
 cles of Ireland, the claims to distinction which their com- 
 mon ancestry possessed ; since Hooker enjoyed the patron- 
 age and friendship of his kinsman, and sought in his wri- 
 tings to do him honor ; but there is no reason to suppose 
 that he rested his hopes of greatness upon any basis less 
 solid than that of his own merit and exertions. With the 
 inconveniences of a reduced inheritance, the father of Sir 
 Walter Ralegh experienced those attendant upon repeated 
 marriages, and numerous offspring. By his first wife he 
 had two sons, the elder of whom, George, became the pos- 
 sessor, after his death, of Fardel ; which afterwards de- 
 volved, successively, to his two brothers, the younger of 
 whom, Carew, sold his patrimonial property, and it passed 
 for ever from the family of Ralegh. The mother of Ralegh, 
 and the third wife of his father, was the daughter of Sir 
 Philip Champernon of Modbury, and the widow of Otho 
 Gilbert, a gentleman of large property, residing at Comp- 
 ton, in Devon. Three children, Carew, Walter, and Mar- 
 garet Ralegh, were the result of this last union ; after 
 which the father of Sir Walter resided entirely at Hayes, 
 where the younger branches of the family were reared. 
 
 It is singular that no trace is preserved, either in the let- 
 ters, or by the conversation of Ralegh, of the mode and 
 place of his earliest education. 
 
 That species of biography which, by describing the pro- 
 gress of intellect, affords the most important assistance, 
 and, oftentimes, encouragement, to the young and aspiring, 
 appears to have been little enjoyed or understood by our 
 ancestors. It was thought much to preserve the name of 
 the college, or even of the university only, where a cele- 
 
 * Naunton's Fragmenta Regalia, 4to. p. 28. 
 
12 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 brated individual received his last chance of tuition : and 
 the history of his previous early years, in which the bias of 
 the character is generally determined, has scarcely ever 
 been transmitted to us, even by those who have been mi- 
 nute and faithful annalists of the events of mature life. 
 Respecting the portion of instruction which fell to Ralegh's 
 lot, it is merely known, that at sixteen he was sent to Ox- 
 ford, and was entered as a commoner both at Oriel College 
 and at Christ-Church, in compliance with a custom not un- 
 usual in former times, and, probably, intended to secure the 
 privilege of aspiring to a fellowship at one or other of these 
 colleges.* During a residence in the University of three 
 years, he devoted himself with success to the study of 
 philosophy and of letters ; and, though he left Oxford without 
 a degree, yet, he acquired a higher honor in obtaining 
 the good opinion of Bacon, who there foretold his future 
 eminence.! 
 
 In the choice of a profession Ralegh appears to have 
 been divided, for some time, between the bar and the camp. 
 That he actually entered at any of our inns of court is, 
 however, doubtful ; and the prevalent opinion, that he was 
 at one time a student of the Middle Temple, arose either 
 from his display of legal acuteness on his subsequent trial, 
 or from a temporary residence within the walls of that es- 
 tablishment. Queen Elizabeth, with a view, perhaps, to 
 the intellectual culture of her young courtiers, commended 
 our inns of court, and was accustomed to say, " that they 
 fitted young men for the future :" hence it is probable that, 
 in those days of mental slavery, all who aspired to her fa- 
 vor were reported to have pursued the course which she 
 approved ; and that Ralegh was not unwilling, during her 
 reign, to enjoy the credit of having been thus prepared for 
 public life. He is, however, affirmed by one who knew him 
 well, to have been trained, " not part, but wholly gentle- 
 man, wholly soldier ;" and there appears to have been but 
 little time allowed for any other plans of study, since, 
 from the statement of Hooker, he spent in France "good 
 part of his youth in wars and martial services."! In the 
 circumstances of his relations Ralegh found inducements 
 to a military career : his maternal uncle, Henry Champer 
 
 * Fuller's Church History, lib. 4. and 5. fol. 104. f Oldys, p. 5. 
 
 J Ralegh's Ghost, 4to. p. 15. and Hooker, Epist. Ded. See Oldys, 9. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 13 
 
 non, being an officer of some note in our armies.* At the 
 request of this kinsman, Ralegh enlisted into a troop of 
 gentlemen volunteers under Champernon's command, who 
 purposed leading them into France, in order to assist the 
 Protestant princes engaged in the civil wars of that coun- 
 try. This adventurous band went forth on horseback, 
 bearing on their colors the motto, " Finem det mihi virtus.' 1 '' 
 They were sanctioned by the permission of Elizabeth, who 
 had shown her approbation of the cause by accommodating 
 the Queen of Navarre with a sum of money, upon the 
 deposit of certain jewels in the English treasury, f It is 
 doubtful in what service, or with what success, the troop 
 were distinguished in France; but it appears that they 
 were well received by the Queen of Navarre and the Pro- 
 testant princes, and that they remained six years in their 
 employment. 
 
 It is conjectured that, unless on some casual leave of 
 absence in England, Ralegh must have witnessed the mas- 
 sacre of Saint Bartholomew in 1572, and shared in the 
 dangers of the unfortunate Hugonots. Perhaps, from his 
 participation in the horrors of this scene, he imbibed that 
 aversion to religious intolerance which afterwards charac- 
 terized him as a senator, and which was then far less 
 prevalent, even among philosophical and intelligent men, 
 that it has happily proved to be in the present day. What- 
 ever may have been Ralegh's situation on this momentous 
 occasion, no actual traces of its impression on his mind re- 
 main, however, in his writings, nor have been transmitted 
 by his biographers; a circumstance which may seem to 
 imply his absence from the massacre, since he has alluded 
 to many of his services in his works. It is scarcely proba- 
 ble that allusions to such an exhibition of human ven- 
 geance in its most appalling form would have been omitted 
 by one who, in his History of the World, has frequently 
 drawn a parallel between the scenes which he narrates, 
 and those with which he was identified by his own experi- 
 ence. 
 
 In that monument of his genius and industry, he refers 
 to his presence at the battle of Moncontour, in Poitou, and 
 extols Count Lodovic of Nassau, brother to the Prince of 
 Orange, who made the retreat on that occasion, with such 
 
 * Wood, Athen. Oxoniensis, vol. i. col. 435. t Camden, p. 117. 
 
 B 
 
14 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 resolution and prudence that he saved one half of the Pro- 
 testant army, then broken and disbanded : — " of which,' 
 says Ralegh, " myself was an eye-witness, and was one of 
 them that had cause to thank him for it."* It is a fact 
 equally certain, and much more important, that in these 
 tumultuous scenes, Ralegh, then only in his eighteenth 
 year, collected and stored up a portion of those facts and 
 observations with which he afterwards enriched his Histo- 
 ry of the World; a work to which the soldier and the 
 scholar, the courtier and the moralist, may repair both for 
 instruction and delight. 
 
 In 1575 he returned to England for a few years, but soon 
 resumed his military career, under Sir John Norris, in the 
 Netherlands. Here he was, in all probability, engaged in 
 the battle of Rimenant, in which Don John of Austria, then 
 governor of the Netherlands for Philip the Second of 
 1578 ^P am > was defeated ; a disgrace which that com- 
 mander only survived two months. 
 An enterprise of a new description now engaged the 
 energetic mind of Ralegh. Various circumstances con- 
 spired to direct his attention to the progress of maritime 
 discovery ; a subject on which the imaginations of the ar- 
 dent, and the speculations of the busy, were then actively 
 engaged. During the two last centuries, a spirit of daring 
 adventure had been encouraged by the splendid examples 
 of Vasco di Gama and of Columbus, and by the merito- 
 rious, though less fortunate, exertions of Magellan, who 
 lost his life before his undertaking was completed. Spain 
 and Portugal, mutually jealous to obtain the earliest 
 knowledge of the shortest passage to the valuable posses- 
 sions of India, vied with one another in endeavoring to 
 promote, throughout their respective dominions, a thirst 
 for maritime glory. England had borne her part in the 
 emulous contention for colonial superiority, and, in common 
 with her continental rivals, had, latterly, turned her at- 
 tention towards the north-east coast of America. In the 
 reign of Henry the Seventh, the island of Newfoundland 
 was discovered by a Venetian merchant, Sebastian Cabot, 
 who took the command of an English squadron. To extend 
 our knowledge of this territory, and to obtain a more se- 
 cure and acknowledged possession of it than had, hitherto 
 
 * Hirt. X to World, book v. chapter ii. sect. 8. edit. Lond. 1687. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 15 
 
 been effected, became, in the reign of Elizabeth, the ob- 
 ject of general solicitude. 
 
 It was the fortunate lot of Ralegh, not only to possess an 
 enterprising and resolute spirit, but to be connected with 
 those who had the will and the power to encourage his 
 rising genius. His relations on both sides were eminent ; 
 and his mother was, at a later period, authorized to make 
 a boast, rare in those days, of being the parent of five 
 knights. Of these, three were the sons of her former mar- 
 riage, — Sir John, Sir Humphrey, and Sir Adrian Gilbert.* 
 Sir John Gilbert was sheriff and Custos Rotulorum of the 
 county of Devon, and was a kind of oracle in those parts, 
 as well as a liberal country gentleman, and benefactor to 
 the poor. Sir Adrian was scarcely less estimable, and be- 
 came more famous than his pacific brother, for a patent 
 which he took out for the investigation of the north-west 
 passage. With this patent, and under his auspices, the 
 celebrated John Davis discovered the straits which bear 
 his name. But the most admirable, although the most un- 
 fortunate, of the three brothers, was the distinguished 
 mariner, Sir Humphrey Gilbert.! This good and brave 
 man, although a second son, yet received from his father a 
 very ample fortune ; but it was from his mother's judicious 
 care that he derived the still greater advantage of an ex- 
 cellent education, at Eton first, and afterwards at Oxford. 
 Since this lady was, also, the mother of Ralegh, and had, 
 by both her husbands, the credit of giving heroes to the 
 world, it is not extravagant to conclude that she must her- 
 self have been a woman of merit, and that the energetic 
 character of her children might, in a great measure, be 
 attributed to her nurture and example. 
 
 Like Walter Ralegh, his half-brother, Sir Humphrey, 
 after quitting college, had some intention of studying at 
 one of the inns of court, although his favorite pursuits had 
 been cosmography and navigation! : but being introduced 
 to Queen Elizabeth by his aunt, Mrs. Katherine Ashley, 
 one of her majesty's waiting-women, he made so rapid a 
 progress in her favor, as soon to be preferred to a very im- 
 portant command in Ireland. Here, like Ralegh, he passed 
 
 * Note in Biographia Britannica, Life of Sir H. Gilbert, 
 f There was in the reign of Henry the Seventh a famous navigator of 
 Ihe same name, whose maps are still preserved in Whitehall. 
 I Biographia, note from Hooker's Dedication. 
 
16 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 some years in an arduous and bloody service, until he had 
 attained his thirty-third year ; when returning to England, 
 he resolved to add to the glory of his name and country by 
 some important and difficult enterprise, the spirit of which 
 he doubtless imbibed from the examples of the other great 
 navigators of the times. 
 
 Sir Humphrey was thirteen years older than Ralegh, 
 and may be supposed to have possessed a very considerable 
 influence over his mind. — Their characters were, indeed, 
 in many points similar ; their views and pursuits were the 
 same : both were enthusiastic, aspiring, patriotic ; and both 
 were unfortunate. The device which the elder brother 
 adopted early in his career might have been used, also, by 
 his successor in the paths of fame : it represented Mars 
 and Mercury joined by a cross, with this motto, — Quid 
 non ? alluding to the power which is acquired by a strong 
 determination to unite pursuits the most dissimilar, and to 
 conquer difficulties. 
 
 Successful in the field, and bold and impressive in the 
 House of Commons, in which he sat as representative for 
 Plymouth, Sir Humphrey, about the period when Ralegh 
 had made his first essay in military operations, began to 
 revolve in his mind the practicability of making out a 
 north-west voyage to the East Indies. The existence of 
 such a passage was first discovered by him by means of 
 his mathematical knowledge, and a scientific and perspicu- 
 ous treatise written in support of his arguments ;* but he 
 was destined never to enjoy the honor of executing the 
 project which he had conceived : it was, however, com- 
 pleted after his death, as we have seen, by his brother, 
 Adrian Gilbert. 
 
 , p. 7 o Deferring for a time the commencement of this im- 
 portant scheme, Sir Humphrey obtained permission 
 of the queen to plant and inhabit certain parts of North 
 America, which were not occupied by any of her allies, f 
 In this undertaking, which was professedly for the exten- 
 sion of the Christian faith, he was joined by Ralegh, from 
 motives probably mingled, ambition, desire of gain, and 
 ardor for distinction, being, perhaps, his first inducements. 
 
 For this and similar expeditions, not courage only, but 
 capital, was required. Elizabeth, at the beginning of her 
 
 • Hakluyt's Voy. iii. p. 11. t Birch. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 17 
 
 reign, possessed seventeen ships of war only, and the rest 
 of the British navy, which effected afterwards such glorious 
 achievements, was composed either of ships supplied by 
 Bristol, Barnstaple, or other commercial towns, of vessels 
 hired by the queen, or furnished by the company of mer- 
 chant adventurers, by the city of London, or even by pri- 
 vate individuals.* The share which Ralegh had in the 
 risk or profits of his first voyage to Newfoundland, was, 
 probably, confined to his personal participation in its dan- 
 gers ; for, at this early period, he had little to venture 
 in any enterprise. He joined his kinsman with several 
 other gentlemen, but circumstances were adverse to their 
 success. Many who had promised to assist them with men 
 and ships failed in their engagements. They set out with 
 two sail only ; one of which, after various perils, was lost 
 in an unfortunate engagement with the Spaniards; and 
 Raleigh, after encountering dangers which would have 
 disheartened a man of a less sanguine temperament, re- 
 turned to England, not to relax into inaction, but to point 
 his exertions towards other objects. He soon found em- 
 ployment for his active temperament in a school of military 
 science, similar to that in which his brother-in-law had been 
 already trained. The situation of England, with respect to 
 neighboring countries, afforded to her young, half-civilized, 
 and warlike nobility, a constant and yet varied school of mili- 
 tary science, the favorite study as well of a barbarous as of 
 a corrupt age. France, the Netherlands, and especially Ire- 
 land, gave continual occupation to her armies, and prevented 
 the courtiers who thronged around the queen from becoming 
 exclusively the indolent minions of her vanity. The Irishry, 
 as they were vulgarly called, were with difficulty kept 
 even in the semblance of subjection ; and disturbances, 
 succeeded by actual rebellion, were the incessant results 
 of the attempts which Elizabeth made to introduce, by 
 force, the reformed religion into the sister kingdom. In- 
 deed, being, as Camden describes them, " an uncivill peo- 
 ple, and the more prone to superstition," it required a far 
 greater military force than the parsimonious expenditure 
 of the queen allowed, to prevent the frequent recurrence 
 of such broils during the whole of her reign. New troubles 
 bad now arisen ; and a plot, commenced in 1570, at the 
 instigation of Philip the Second, m order to place the natu- 
 
 * Campbell's British Admirals, vol. i. p. 441. 
 
 B2 
 
18 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 ral son of Pope Gregory the Thirteenth on the throne of 
 Ireland, was revived under a more threatening aspect. 
 The invaders, composed partly of Spaniards, partly of Ital- 
 ians, landed under the command of an officer named San 
 Joseph, at Smerwich, in Kerry, where they erected a fort, 
 to which they gave the imposing designation, " Del Oro."* 
 It was at this crisis that Ralegh obtained a commission, 
 under Lord Grey of Wilton, then Lord Deputy of Ireland, 
 a nobleman of considerable abilities, sullied, unhappily, by 
 cruelty. The principal services in which Ralegh joined, 
 were performed under the command of Thomas, earl of 
 Ormond, Governor of Munster, whom he assisted in quell- 
 ing the rebellion in that province. The conduct of the 
 young soldier, although commended for valor, was yet dis- 
 graced by a degree of barbarity scarcely to be excused in 
 earlier times than those in which he lived. Having sur- 
 prised the rebels at Rakele, he observed one of the prison- 
 ers laden with withies. To the inquiry what he meant to 
 have done with these, the undaunted reply was given, " To 
 have hung up the English churls." Ralegh, unmoved by 
 the hardihood of the unfortunate man, caused him to be in- 
 stantly strangled with his own withies, and ordered his 
 companions to be treated in a similar manner.f This con- 
 duct, which presents not the only charge of cruelty with 
 which the memory of Ralegh has been taxed, appears, 
 " however, to have been approved by the Lord Deputy, who, 
 like the other English commanders of the period, regarded 
 the Irish rather as a race of wild and noxious animals that 
 ought to be exterminated, than as human beings, subjects 
 of the same monarch, children of one heavenly Father, and 
 creatures capable of being reclaimed from error and turbu- 
 lence by mild and just, yet vigilant, measures. The dis- 
 position evinced by Ralegh towards this wretched people 
 proves how frequently scenes of bloodshed obliterate, for a 
 time, virtuous dipositions and the convictions of philosophi- 
 cal reasoning. Ralegh was, indeed, brought by adversity 
 and reflection to see the folly, the guilt, and the shame of 
 those pursuits, however skilfully conducted, which en- 
 croach upon the happiness of our fellow-men. Stripping 
 away the false colors in which the prejudices of education 
 
 * Rapin, vol. vii. p. 404. Gordon's Hist. Ireland, vol. i. p. 373. 
 t Birch's Life of Raleigh, from Honker's ^implement c' *£> r'kroaicto 
 •flreUnd in Ho'.inshed fo> J67 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 19 
 
 and the ardor of youth had once arrayed the mighty con- 
 querors of the earth, Ralegh has left his testimony to the 
 great truth, that we shall one day cast off our false notions 
 of glory, separated from virtue, as pernicious and grovel- 
 ling delusions. "And as certainly," says he, "as fame 
 hath often been dangerous to the living, so is it to the dead 
 of no use at all, because separate from knowledge : which 
 were it otherwise, and the extreme ill bargain of buying this 
 lasting discourse understood by them which are dissolved, 
 they themselves would then rather have wished to have stolen 
 out of the world without noise, than to be put in mind that 
 they have purchased the report of their actions in the world 
 by rapine, oppression, and cruelty, — by giving in spoil the 
 innocent and laboring soul to the idle and indolent, and by 
 having emptied the cities of the world of their ancient in- 
 habitants, and filled them again with so many and so variable 
 sorts of sorrows."* Such were the sentiments of Ralegh, 
 when in confinement, old age, and sorrow, he awoke to the 
 feelings of nature, and yielded to the dictates of reason. 
 
 Meanwhile, the season of his youth was occupied in 
 furthering those designs which, in his later days, he justly 
 execrated and contemned. His zeal hi the queen's service 
 was rewarded by an appointment to command in the siege 
 of Del Oro. By this post the Spanish vessels were enabled 
 readily to bring supplies to the insurgents, and it was con- 
 sequently of the utmost importance. It soon fell before the 
 assaults of the English, who, under the command of Admi- 
 ral Winter, invaded it by sea, and, by land, under that of 
 Lord Grey, while Ralegh fought with great valor in the 
 trenches. Such was the barbarous policy of the Lord 
 Deputy that, although the garrison surrendered, yet the 
 greater part were slaughtered ; and to Ralegh, p^ Q 
 and to another officer who first entered within the io!° 7 
 castle, the execution of the iniquitous task was ' " 
 intrusted. 
 
 Unwearied with this terrible service, Ralegh remained 
 at Cork during the winter, and occupied this season of re- 
 pose from military toils, in watching the most conspicuous 
 individuals amongst the rebels, and in harassing those 
 whose wealth rendered them desirable prizes to the Eng- 
 lish government. Cruel, indeed, were the diss( nsions of 
 
 * Hist, of the World. Conclusion. 
 
20 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 that period, when the fear of Ralegh's unrelenting and 
 destructive hand impelled the Lord Barry to hurn his cas- 
 tle at Barrymore rather than leave it in the possession of 
 his bloodthirsty and rapacious enemies. Among the peril- 
 ous services in which Ralegh was engaged, the seizure of 
 Lord Roche, a powerful insurgent nobleman, may be con- 
 sidered as a remarkable instance of his valor and address. 
 To dispel the formidable confederacy in which Roche was 
 engaged, he offered to bring him, with his family, before 
 the Earl of Ormond, at Cork. This design appeared im- 
 practicable, from the numerous partisans of the rebel chief- 
 tain, scouring the country in bands, or infesting it in am- 
 buscades. But Ralegh stole a night march, with great 
 secrecy and alacrity ; and partly by manoeuvre, partly by 
 force, effected an entrance into the very halls of the enemy. 
 Here he was tempted, by the proffered hospitality of the 
 Irish nobleman, to waive the purpose of his visit. He par- 
 took, indeed, of an entertainment, but when it was con- 
 cluded, avowed his resolution to oblige his host to return 
 with him as a prisoner. Lord Roche, finding resistance 
 useless, consented to accompany him, declaring that he 
 would prove himself innocent of the charges brought 
 against him. He found, however, that the young Eng- 
 lishman was resolved on carrying him to Cork by night, 
 notwithstanding the natural perils of the road, and those 
 which were prepared for them by the vigilant and active 
 Irish rebels. Regardless of these sources of danger, Ralegh 
 and his prisoners went forth, sheltered by the obscurity of 
 the night from the attacks of the rebels, but exposed to 
 fatal accidents from the rocks and hills, which, in a country 
 scarcely civilized, presented incessant obstacles to a safe 
 journey. Many of his soldiers were severely hurt, and 
 one of them killed by repeated falls ; but Ralegh forgot his 
 troubles when he presented to the Lord Ormond, on the 
 following day, his important prizes. The most satisfactory 
 result of the affair was, that Lord Roche was honorably 
 acquitted, and that he afterwards conducted himself as a 
 faithful subject.* 
 
 On the departure of Lord Ormond for England, Ralegh 
 was intrusted with the government of Munster, in con- 
 junction with two other officers.! In this situation he con- 
 tinued until the spring of the year 1582, when, upon tne 
 
 * Oldys, 4?. f Spenser's View of the State of Ireland. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 2. 
 
 subjugation of the principal rebels, he returned to England 
 desirous, probably, to walk in the sunshine of that court, 
 the splendor of which, independent of any substantial ad- 
 vantages, attracted an ardent and ambitious mind. 
 
 Ralegh was now in his thirtieth year. Few persons have 
 entered public life with advantages of mind and person equal 
 to those which he possessed. Few sovereigns have known 
 better how to prize both mental and external attributes than 
 the vain but discerning Elizabeth. The features of Sir 
 Walter Ralegh are said to have been moulded with the ut- 
 most symmetry, and the outline of manly beauty to have 
 pervaded the whole countenance. He had a noble and ca 
 pacious forehead, an eye beaming with intelligence, soften- 
 ed with the shadows of profound thought. Such at least 
 is the impression conveyed by the most favorable portraits 
 of this gifted man : these differ, however, greatly, and one 
 may almost imagine to trace the changes that mark the gra- 
 dations from youthful ardor to the cares of maturity, from 
 the cares of his maturity to the sorrows, perplexities, and 
 infirmities of his old age. The person of Ralegh was ad- 
 mirably proportioned, and dignified, his height being nearly 
 six feet.* Thus he united every attribute of grace with 
 strength, and doubtless with expression : for it is impossible 
 that such a mind as his should not have imparted a power 
 of fascination, of which even an ordinary countenance is 
 susceptible when illuminated with genius, and consequently 
 with sensibility. These natural advantages were import- 
 ant circumstances in the eyes of Elizabeth, who frequently 
 selected the objects of her regard from trivial motives, but 
 retained them in her favor only as she found their talents 
 justify her choice. To the attractions of a noble figure 
 Ralegh studied to combine those of a graceful and splendid 
 attire. Many of his garments were adorned with jewels, 
 according to the richest fashions of the day, and his armor 
 was so costly and curious, that it was preserved, for its ra- 
 rity, in the Tower. In one of his portraits he is repre- 
 sented in this armor which was of silver richly ornamented, 
 and his sword and belt studded with diamonds, rubies, and 
 pearls. In another, he chose to be depicted in a white 
 satin pinked vest, surrounded with a brown doublet, flow- 
 fired, and embroidered with pearls ; and on his head a little 
 
 * Oldys, 145. 
 
22 LIFE Or feiK WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 black feather, with a large ruby and pearl drop to confius 
 the loop in place of a button.* These, it may be said, were 
 no extraordinary proofs of costly expenditure in dress, in 
 days when it was th 3 boast of Villiers duke of Bucking- 
 ham, to be " yoked and manacled" in ropes of pearl, and to 
 carry on his cloak and suit alone, diamonds to the value of 
 eighty thousand pounds : but the duke was rather a cour 
 tier than a statesman, and was little else ; whilst Ralegb 
 as a man of science, of letters, and of martial reputation 
 might have been supposed worthy of deriving reputation 
 from higher sources without the necessity of descending to 
 the trivial competitions of dress. It is not to be supposed 
 that any of the fair sex could be insensible to this trait of 
 character in the accomplished Ralegh ; and abundant proofs 
 have shown, that the wise and wary Elizabeth prized these 
 adventitious attributes as highly as the weakest and vainest 
 of her attendants. She received therefore, with compla- 
 cency and surprise, the adroit flattery of Ralegh, who, 
 meeting the queen near a marshy spot, threw off the mag- 
 nificent mantle which he wore, and cast it on the ground. 
 This anecdote, which is generally related of their first 
 meeting, if not true, is at least characteristic. He soon 
 received encouragement even from the pen of the queen. 
 He is related to have written upon a window, which she 
 could not fail to pass, this line : " Fain would I climb, but 
 yet fear I to fall ;" which received from the hand of Eliza- 
 beth this reply, " If thy heart fail thee, climb not at all."f 
 To her masculine shrewdness, the queen united some sen- 
 timents of romance which would have accorded with a 
 gentler nature. She commended poetry, especially when 
 addressed to herself, although she allowed the illustrious 
 Spenser to languish in poverty. Ralegh, like many men 
 of genius, in youth expended the exuberance of a power- 
 ful mind in verses which add but little honor to his great 
 name, except as they show the versatility of his talents, 
 and the enthusiasm of his sentiments. Early in life he 
 wrote commendatory stanzas to Gascoigne's " Steel Glass? 
 dated from the Temple: the "Silent Lover" and the 
 " Excuse" followed at intervals ; but the only masterly 
 
 * Oldya, 145. Note in Ibid, from a MS. in Harleian. B. H. 90. c. ? 
 fol. 672. 
 t Fuller's Worthies of Devon. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 23 
 
 poem " The Farewell," and most of his admirable prose 
 works, were not composed till the beginning of the seven- 
 teenth century. 
 
 But though the graces and accomplishments of Ralegh 
 might amuse the fancy of Elizabeth, they could not win 
 her confidence, which was never thoughtlessly nor indis- 
 criminately bestowed. She soon became sensible of the 
 acuteness of his understanding, in the progress of a dis- 
 pute which was argued between him and Lord Grey, in 
 presence of the council. The grounds of this quarrel have 
 not transpired, and have been variously represented ; but 
 the merits of Ralegh's cause may be implied, from his gain- 
 ing a decision in his favor against the veteran soldier and 
 statesman. 
 
 This circumstance made a great impression upon the 
 public, who probably expected a different result : but merit, 
 at courts, without patronage, resembles a fine plant in an 
 ungenial soil. Yet were there some generous spirits who 
 prized Ralegh's attainments, and sought to make others 
 prize them also ; such was Sir Philip Sidney, the first Eng- 
 lish commoner that ever received the offer of a foreign 
 crown. But that he was calculated to ascend the throne 
 of Poland was scarcely more honorable to him, than tho 
 distinction accorded unanimously by his contemporaries, as 
 the pattern of English gentlemen ; the soldier perfected 
 into a hero by Christian principles, which men in those 
 times, and indeed in latter days, have strangely thought 
 incompatible with warlike pursuits. 
 
 More favored by the circumstances of his birth than Ra- 
 legh, so far as advancement at court was concerned, Sid- 
 ney had received an education somewhat similar to that 
 of his friend, had passed through the same scenes, and had 
 participated in the same interests. There was, however, a 
 wide discrepancy between their fortunes, and the apparent 
 chance which each possessed of being numbered among 
 the fortunate and great of their nation. The father of 
 Sidney, the early companion of Edward VI., and succes- 
 sively the trusted servant of Queen Mary and of Elizabeth, 
 had means of promoting the elevation of his son, of which 
 'he remote situation, and reduced estate, of Ralegh's fa- 
 ther, prohibited the expectation. Brought up from his 
 cradle to anticipate the patronage of sovereigns, and re- 
 ceiving his very Christian name from Philip of Spain, 
 
24 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 young Sidney was sent, after college, to perfect his educa- 
 tion by intercourse with foreign nations ; but with difficulty 
 escaped the horrors of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, 
 by taking refuge in the house of Sir Francis Walsinghanij 
 then our ambassador at the court of Charles IX. It is not 
 improbable, that during this eventful visit to France, hi3 
 intimacy with Ralegh was formed, a tie which was never 
 relinquished until annihilated by the early death of 
 Sidney. 
 
 Entering thus into life with such unequal prospects of 
 success, these highly-gifted youths were, however, en- 
 dowed severally with a proportion of intellectual power, 
 which made the balance even. Much may be allowed for 
 the necessity for arduous exertion, which in the one case 
 might reasonably be supposed to have stimulated a mind 
 capable naturally of strong efforts. But the talents of Sir 
 Philip Sidney were rather elegant than powerful, and the 
 character of his mind that of generous enthusiasm rather 
 than of determined perseverance. He was formed, indeed, 
 more for the ornament and the idol than for the benefit of 
 society, and was more the hero of romance than the bene- 
 factor of his country. Nurtured, also, in the bosom of 
 prosperity, and having his fortunes created by his father, 
 Sidney had not the patience to brook those irritations, nor 
 the art to conceal those natural emotions which are gene- 
 rally suppressed at courts. His romance of the Arcadia 
 was composed, as it is well known, in a season of retirement, 
 occasioned by an affront given to his jealous notions of 
 honor. That very composition, unduly extolled in his own 
 time and too greatly depreciated in ours, bespeaks a mind 
 more replete with poetical associations than strong in origi- 
 nal genius, or polished by sedulous culture. 
 
 Endowed, however, with enough of Ralegh's spirit and 
 attainments to prize and to comprehend him ; and display- 
 ing an exemption from the meaner passions, and a degree 
 of disinterestedness which rendered him, in a moral point 
 of view, far superior to his friend ; Sidney possessed means 
 and opportunities of assisting his young associate in hia 
 progress to fame ; and he is supposed to have generously 
 availed himself of them by introducing him to the Earl of 
 Leicester, uncle, on the maternal side, to Sidney.* The 
 
 * Sir Henry Sidney married Mary, eldest daughter of John Dudley 
 Duke of Northumberland. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 25 
 
 personal credit of Sidney was at this time great with Eliz- 
 abeth, but his influence through Leicester was still mors 
 considerable. Never were there characters so dissimilar, 
 as those of the uncle and nephew, who were united, not 
 only by ties of consanguinity, but by an affectionate confi- 
 dence on the part of Sidney, whose spirited work in de- 
 fence of his relative against the libel entitled Leicester's 
 Commonwealth, was both an acceptable tribute to' the earl, 
 and a proof of Sidney's devotion to that nobleman. 
 
 The empire of Leicester at court was, at this time, gene- 
 rally considered as indisputable. The object rather of 
 Elizabeth's passionate admiration than of her affection, 
 Leicester had long held an imperious sway over the pri- 
 vate regards of that princess. Her attachment to him has 
 been a subject of wonder to contemporaries and to pos- 
 terity. His merits as a statesman and commander were 
 doubtful, his crimes were more than suspected.* Unhap- 
 
 * His guilt, with regard to the death of Amy Robsart, his wife, was 
 so generally believed, that a universal sensation of horror attended the 
 preaching of her funeral sermon at Oxford, by one of Leicester's chap- 
 lains, who, instead of saying as he intended, "this lady so pitifully 
 killed," slipped out the word " murdered," a mistake which confirmed 
 the general opinion, and that her falling down the stairs of Cumnor 
 Hall " without hurting of her hood," was not accidental. — See Osborne's 
 Trad. Memoirs of Queen Elizabeth, vol. 188. note. 
 
 This lady, Amy Robsart, was the daughter of Sir John Robsart, and 
 was a great heiress. Her death happened in 1560, at a period when he 
 was thought likely to aspire to the favor of two queens, Mary of Scots 
 and Elizabeth. By the inquest held upon her body, John Walpole, Esq., 
 ancestor to the earl of Walpole, was found to be the rightful heir to her 
 estate. Those who are curious to know more of her mysterious history 
 should consult Aubrey's Antiquities of Berkshire, vol. i. p. 149, from 
 which Osborne has probably borrowed the foregoing anecdote. 
 
 This unfortunate lady was not, perhaps, the most to be pitied of Lei- 
 cester's victims. Sir Walter Scott has blended into his admirable, but 
 heart-rending, novel of Kenilworth, her story with that of Douglas How- 
 ard, Lady Sheffield, whose first husband died suddenly of a severe cold, 
 called by the scandalous " Leicester's rheum." This lady bore Leicester 
 a son and a daughter, but he sedulously kept their supposed marriage a 
 secret, allowing her, at the same time, to be served as a countess in her 
 chamber, and subscribing himself her "loving husband." After this, 
 when he publicly married the countess dowager of Essex (whose husband 
 it was reported he had also poisoned), these two ladies were styled Lord 
 Leicester's two " testaments," Lady Sheffield being the old, and Lady 
 Essex the new. His first wife still asserting her claims, he had an in- 
 terview with her in an arbor in Greenwich Gardens, where, in the pres- 
 ence cf witnesses, he offered her j£?00 a-year to desist from her attacks ; 
 but she still persisting, he carried his vengeance upon her so far, she 
 was obliged for protection to accept the hand of Sir Edward Stafford; 
 offering as an excuse for this virtual renunciation of her claims, that 
 ehe had had potions given her which took away her hair and nails. 
 (Biographia, art. Dudley.) With all this, Leicester assumed the air of a 
 
26 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 pil\ for his country, his brilliant career had obliterated the 
 impression which his dark deeds had made upon the public 
 mind, and had silenced the imputations of cowardice some- 
 times cast upon him. Yet, in the language of one who 
 personally knew him, Leicester was esteemed to be " more 
 of Mercury than of Mars ;"* and while the partiality of 
 Elizabeth induced her to intrust him with commissions of 
 the greatest importance, he never had the confidence ot 
 the people.f It is doubtful whether he also possessed the 
 respect of Elizabeth in so great a degree as her conduct 
 towards him seemed to imply. Her infatuation for him 
 was devoid of that delicate and confiding attachment 
 which alone can give stability to such ties. This was ap- 
 parent after his death, when, with an avidity natural to 
 her coarse mind, she seized upon a portion of his goods, 
 which were offered to public sale, in order to repay herself 
 for some debt due to her from the deceased nobleman.} 
 While to the world she appeared wholly devoted to Lei- 
 cester, it is probable that the earl, who knew the female 
 character well, may have been conscious of the insecurity 
 of his station in her regard, and of the hollowness of that 
 affection which followed him not to the tomb. This secret 
 perception rendered him peculiarly sensible to the dread 
 of rivalship. When Ralegh first appeared at court, the 
 gleams of royal favor were sometimes supposed to fall 
 abundantly upon the avowed enemy of Leicester, Hunsdon, 
 earl of Sussex, a stout English peer, whose influence over 
 Elizabeth showed how often the same character may be 
 acted upon by qualities totally opposite : for Sussex was 
 honest, and therefore fearless, proud of his relationship to 
 the queen, and of his descent from a long line of illustrious 
 Fitzwalters ; and on that account more acceptable to the 
 people than Leicester, whose lineage recalled the recol- 
 lection of the Dudley, the detested agent of Henry the 
 Seventh. Too unguarded for a courtier, and too unbend- 
 ing for a favorite, Sussex felt all his life the ascendency of 
 
 saint. " I never," says Naunton, " saw letters more seeming religioui 
 than his." 
 
 * Naunton's Regalia, p. 14. 
 
 t The diplomatic corps ought to be much indebted to him, as having 
 been the first to assume, when ambassador in the Low Countries, th» 
 fcighsounding title of" Excellency." — Biographic:, note. 
 
 f Note in Hume, 8vo. vol. v. p. 317. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 21 
 
 ljek ester, and on his death-bed, bade his friends beware 
 of " the Gipsy ;" a name which he had given to the earl, 
 and then esteemed to be one of peculiar opprobrium* : so 
 equally poised, indeed, was the apparent influence which 
 Leicester and Sussex were supposed to possess at court, 
 that the introduction of Ralegh to the especial notice of 
 the queen has been attributed to both these noblemen. It 
 was not, however, long, before Leicester began to dread 
 his advances, and determined to oppose his career by the 
 introduction of a new rival. This was Robert Devereux, 
 earl of Essex, a man far inferior to Ralegh in natural abili 
 ties, and in cultivation of mind ; but gifted with disposi- 
 tions far too generous and noble for the part which he had to 
 perform in life. Various circumstances conspired to estab- 
 lish Essex as the idol of the people, and of his sovereign , 
 and Ralegh found it, perhaps, difficult to forgive the suc- 
 cess which frustrated his own rise to greatness. Yet, 
 whilst the prosperity of Ralegh was less dazzling, it was 
 more secure than that of the unfortunate Essex. Sincere 
 and well-intentioned, yet vain, presumptuous, and self- 
 willed, the faults of Essex operated chiefly to his own in- 
 jury, and even his virtues appeared to add to the dangers 
 by which he was surrounded. His popularity was greater 
 than that of any British nobleman of his time, and was the 
 source of much ill-will towards him, on the part of many 
 of his equals ; Ralegh, on the other hand, either avoided 
 public applause, as dangerous, or disregarded it as unim- 
 portant. " Seek not to be Essex, shun to be Ralegh," was 
 the wise counsel of the elder Lord Burleigh to his son ; 
 thus designating those persons as representing the two ex- 
 tremes of popularity and of public aversion. Yet Essex and 
 Ralegh both died upon a scaffold : so difficult is it to steer 
 clear of the quicksands on which despotism hurries its 
 victims. 
 
 In 1583, Ralegh was employed by Queen Elizabeth to 
 ttend Simier, the agent of the Duke of Anjou, in his ad- 
 dresses to Elizabeth, on his return to France ; and afterwards 
 to attend the duke to Antwerp.f The Queen accompanied 
 her foreign suitor as far as Canterbury, and commanded 
 certain of her nobility to continue their attendance upon 
 the Duke, until they reached the Nether. ands.| It haa 
 
 * Naunton, p. 15. tCayley, i. p. 43. J Camden's Eliz. 342. 
 
28 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 been asserted, in the famous work entitled Leicester's! 
 Commonwealth, that the Earl, to revenge himself on Si ■ 
 mier for the discovery of his marriage to Queen Elizabeth, 
 employed pirates to sink the Frenchman and his compan- 
 ions at sea, but that they were prevented by some English 
 vessels. If this assertion were true, Ralegh must have 
 shared in the perils thus prepared for Simier.* 
 
 Dissatisfied, probably with the routine of a courtier's 
 life, and aware that his real credit was best to be promoted 
 by exertion, Ralegh soon evinced impatience to be again 
 in action ; and resolved to make a second voyage to New- 
 foundland, in conjunction with Sir Humphrey Gilbert, in 
 which his personal services should be employed. With 
 this intention, he built a ship of two hundred tons ; named 
 it the Bark Ralegh ; equipped it for the voyage, in which 
 he purposed acting as vice-admiral ; Sir Humphrey being 
 the general of the expedition. This respected commander 
 was, in fact, the very soul of the undertaking, which, by 
 his credit alone, received contributions of ships, men, and 
 money, from new adventurers in the voyage to Newfound- 
 land. Encouraged by the assistance of his friends, Sir 
 Humphrey was assured also of the Queen's regard, by her 
 presenting him, as a token of her approbation, with a small 
 anchor of beaten gold, with a large pearl at the peak, an 
 ornament which he wore ever afterwards at his breast. In 
 the patent which Her Majesty had granted to him for the 
 discovery of foreign parts, a clause was inserted, by which 
 it was rendered void if, at the end of six years, no new 
 possession were gained.f It was therefore of importance, 
 that no unnecessary delay should impede the departure of 
 Sir Humphrey and his associates for those remote regions, 
 which they fondly hoped to add to the British colonies. 
 
 The fleet assembled, upon this occasion, consisted of 
 five sail, and the united officers and crews amounted to 
 two hundred and sixty men. Among these were artificers 
 of every kind, besides miners and gold refiners ; nor were 
 they, according to the account of Captain Hayes, of all the 
 commanders the only one who returned from Newfound- 
 land to relate the sad disasters of this fatal voyage, desti- 
 tute of " Musike in good variety : not omitting the least 
 toyes, as Morris dancers, hobby-horse, and day-like con- 
 
 * Camd. year 1582. t Biog. art. Gilbert. 
 
LIFE OP SIR WALT ER RALEGH. 29 
 
 ceits, to delight the savage people, whom we intended tc 
 winne by all fair means possible."* 
 
 The Bark Ralegh, which was the largest vessel of the 
 expedition, set sail from Plymouth on the 11th of June, 
 1583, bit had not been many days at sea, before it , - s „ 
 was discovered that a contagious fever had seized 
 the whole crew ; and Ralegh, with its captain and crew, 
 were obliged to return to harbor. Providence appears, 
 however, in this event, to have afforded peculiar protection 
 to the ship, and to its commander. Ralegh had indeed the 
 mortification of leaving Sir Humphrey Gilbert to finish the 
 enterprise without him. That gallant officer reached 
 Newfoundland, of which, by the usual form of digging up 
 a turf, and receiving it with a hazel wand, he took posses- 
 sion, in right of the discovery made by Cabot : planted the 
 first British colony there, discovered a silver mine, divided 
 some portion of the lands among his followers, and began 
 his voyage home, in the joyful expectation of further en- 
 couragement from Queen Elizabeth, f But this brave man 
 was destined never to return to his native country. The 
 ship in which he had stored the silver ore, which he de- 
 signed to show as a specimen, was lost ; and, before he had 
 passed the Azores, tempestuous weather and terrible seas 
 sank the spirits of the sailors, who, in the true spirit of the 
 superstitious fears to which they are prone, reported that 
 they had heard strange voices in the night, scaring them 
 from the helm. Even the principal officers were alarmed 
 for the safety of Sir Humphrey, who had imprudently 
 chosen to sail in the Squirrel, a small frigate. In vain did 
 his friends entreat him to change his vessel, and to come 
 on board the Hinde, the largest ship of the squadron. 
 The honor of the dauntless Sir Gilbert had, unhappily, 
 been touched by the imputation of cowardice, a report 
 false, as it was cruel. He persisted therefore in remaining 
 at his post, saying, " I will not desert my little company, 
 with whom I have passed so many storms and perils ;" nor 
 would he remain on board the Hinde, except for a short 
 time, for the purpose of a convivial meeting with the offi- 
 cers, their last interview ; and they parted, agreeing that 
 all the captains should give orders to hang out lights a* 
 
 * Hikluyt, iii. 149. 
 
 t Hakluyt's Voyages, folio 159 ; also Camden, Elias. 4f i. 
 
 C2 
 
30 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 night. Meanwhile the dangers thickened; the oldest 
 mariners declared that they had never witnessed such 
 seas ; the winds changing incessantly, the waves, in the 
 simple language of a spectator, " breaking high, and pyra- 
 mid-wise." The hearts of the most courageous were ap- 
 palled by a meteor, common in storms, which the seamen 
 consider to be an apparition of fatal import, and which 
 they call " Castor and Pollux." Once, the anxious com- 
 pany of the Hinde beheld the frigate nearly cast away 
 then again it approached them, and they saw Sir Hum- 
 phrey sitting on the mainmast, with a. book in his hand, ex- 
 claiming, as he regarded his companions in distress, " We 
 are as near heaven by water as by land." Suddenly the 
 lights were extinguished; those who kept watch cried 
 aloud that all was over, and, in the morning, the frigate 
 was beheld no more.* Thus died one, who was a loss, not 
 only to the active service of his country, but to the inter- 
 ests of nautical science. His principal work, " A Discourse 
 to prove the Existence of a Passage by the north-west, to 
 Cathaia and the East Indies," is written, according to the 
 opinion of competent judges, with accuracy, perspicuity, 
 and arrangement. In another treatise, he suggested the 
 invention of a spherical instrument, for the better know- 
 ledge of the longitude, and amended the usual errors of Sca- 
 cards.j But he has been erroneously confounded with his 
 namesake, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who, in the reign of 
 Henry the Seventh, made several voyages of discovery, 
 projected the passage of Cathaia, and made many valuable 
 maps and charts, which were long preserved in White- 
 iall.t 
 
 The pursuits, acquirements, and principles of action of 
 Sir Humphrey, may be presumed to have been imitated by 
 his young relative, Ralegh, who improved upon his schemes, 
 and in many respects seems to have imbibed his sentiments. 
 It was not only the precept of Sir Humphrey, but his rule 
 of conduct, " That he is not worthy to live at all, who, for 
 fear or danger of death, shunneth his country's service, or 
 his own honor ;' for death is inevitable, and fame immortal." 
 In consonance with this noble maxim, but exercising il 
 perhaps too rigidly, he perished. 
 
 * See Mr. Edward Hayes' narrative, Hakluyt, vol. Hi. 143 to J59. 
 t Note in Biographia. J Note in Oldys, p. 22. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 31 
 
 The details of the voyage were brought home by the 
 captain of the Hinde, which reached England in safety ; 
 but Ralegh, though grieved at the loss of his friend and 
 associate, lost no time in forming schemes for a fresh un- 
 dertaking ; and, in consequence of a representation which 
 he laid before the Queen and council, he obtained letters 
 patent, empowering him to " discover such remote, heathen, 
 and barbarous lands as were not actually possessed by any 
 Christian, nor inhabited by any Christian people." So in- 
 distinct were the notions which even the most cultivated 
 minds, in this country, at that time, entertained of geogra- 
 phy, that, in this and in some other patents of that period, 
 there was neither mention of any particular part of the 
 globe, nor of any latitude or longitude fixed for the planta- 
 tion proposed.* 
 
 That the entire merit of this project is due to Ralegh, is 
 a matter of considerable doubt. In conjunction with Sir 
 Humphrey Gilbert, he has the merit of being the first Eng- 
 lish adventurer that took out men as settlers to foreign re- 
 gions ; but it has been supposed, with some appearance of 
 probability, that Sir Humphrey's first expedition was di- 
 rected to that particular territory which received the name 
 of Virginia. For, in the house of Ralegh Gilbert, the son 
 of the unfortunate general, was a picture conjectured to 
 have been intended for Sir Humphrey, holding in one hand 
 a general's staff, and resting the other upon a globe, with 
 the word Virginia inscribed on it, whilst the noted golden 
 anchor is seen suspended from his dress.f It has been 
 also surmised, that the name of Virginia was applied to 
 that country some years previous to the enterprise for 
 which Ralegh oDtained letters patent. It is evident that 
 the plan had been a considerable time in agitation, from 
 the promptitude with which Ralegh began it ; a degree of 
 dispatch which it would have been scarcely possible to 
 have adopted, in a novel and undigested scheme. 
 
 It is said that the favorite studies of Ralegh's youth, 
 were the discoveries of Columbus, and the histories of the 
 conquests of Pizarro, Fernando Cortes, and of other Span- 
 ish adventurers in the reign of Charles V.f_ With this pe- 
 suliar direction of his ideas and hopes, it might almost 
 
 * Anderson's History of Commerce, vol. ii. p. 158. 
 See note Oldys, answered in Biographia, art. Gilbert. J Oldys, 22. 
 
32 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 have been expected, that he would have sought a persona* 
 participation in those exertions which his enthusiastic tem- 
 per might consider as certain to lead to glory. But the 
 recent death of his relation, and the variety of his civil oc- 
 cupations, together with his present want of experience in 
 navigation, account for his intrusting his arduous specula- 
 tions in other hands. 
 
 The project was eminently successful. Ralegh had as- 
 certained from pilots and other seamen who had sailed in 
 Spanish vessels to Mexico, that, on returning, as they 
 usually did, by the Havannah and the Gulf of Florida, a 
 continued coast on the north-west had been observed : and, 
 adding to this information the fact, that the Spaniards had 
 hitherto settled only on the middle and southern parts of 
 America, he formed the natural conclusion that there were 
 yet vast tracts to the north undiscovered. We all know 
 that his conjecture was true to a much greater extent than 
 he probably conceived. 
 
 The risk on this scheme was entirely his own : he fitted 
 out two vessels, and intrusting them to the charge of able 
 commanders, dispatched them by the Canaries and Wesl 
 Indies, then the usual route to North America. The two 
 captains, after a passage of more than two months, reached 
 the Gulf of Florida ; and, landing on the island of Woko 
 ken, took formal possession in the name of their Queen 
 and making acquaintance with the natives of that region 
 brought two of them back to England. On theii return 
 they imparted so favorable a report of the climate and soil 
 that Elizabeth was induced to listen to the plan of settling 
 a colony there ; and Ralegh was commanded to name the 
 new acquisition Virginia, in honor of his sovereign. This 
 appellation was since given to all the coasts of North 
 America upon which the English afterwards colonized. 
 The part discovered by Ralegh is now called Carolina.* 
 
 By various successive voyages under Adrian Gilbert and 
 Sir Richard Grenville, the fame of Ralegh's discovery of 
 Virginia was kept alive in the public mind ; and, at length, 
 a colony of a hundred and seven persons, among whom was 
 Herriot the mathematician, was established at Roanok, in 
 Virginia. Shortly afterwards, Ralegh, having joined the 
 celebrated Davis and other public-spirited persons, in an 
 
 * Steuoison's Historical Sketch of the Progress of Discovery, p. 356. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 3S 
 
 association for the discovery of the north-west passage to 
 China, he had the good fortune to be concerned in the 
 investigation of Davis' Straits ; and Mount Ralegh, near 
 that important channel, was named as a tribute of respect 
 to him.* 
 
 Ralegh was now in the zenith of his prosperity. His first 
 expedition to Virginia was rewarded by knighthood, a dis- 
 tinction which Elizabeth prized so highly, that when im- 
 portuned to raise one of her courtiers from a knight to a 
 baron, she declared that she " thought him above it 
 already."! Rich prizes and important captures were car- 
 ried home in triumph by his privateers ; and had Ralegh's 
 chief desire been wealth, it might have been abundantly 
 gratified. To crown his felicity, he had the gratification 
 of seeing his honors bloom around him in his native soil, 
 whence he had passed into the busy world, to create his 
 own fortunes. He was chosen, in 1584, to represent the 
 county of Devon in parliament ; and subsequently appointed 
 seneschal of the duchies of Cornwall and Devon, and , ,-q fi 
 Lord Warden of the Stannaries. The Queen, also, lt,Sb - 
 granted him the privilege of licensing the vending of wines 
 throughout the kingdom, — a very lucrative office, which it 
 was not thought incompatible with the highest rank to exer- 
 cise. And as riches and honors are apt to take wings and 
 fly away, the Queen gave him a less perishable present in 
 a portion of the land forfeited in Cork and Waterford, 
 during the rebellion recently suppressed in Munster. This 
 estate, extending over twelve thousand acres, was planted 
 by Ralegh ; but not being fitted for his own residence, was 
 sold to Richard Boyle, afterwards Earl of Cork. Thus 
 Ralegh, like most of Elizabeth's favorites, was rewarded 
 without the slightest encroachment either upon the ex- 
 chequer or the queen's privy purse. It is highly to his 
 credit that he subsequently freely bestowed upon his coun- 
 try what he had diligently gained in her service. 
 
 Ralegh had, during this period of his life, intervals of 
 repose}, in which he proved that no patronage was necessary 
 to raise him to fame. Among the most prominent qualities 
 of his mind was application ; by this he was enabled to im- 
 prove the limited portion of time which he could allot to 
 
 * Birch, vol. i. 14. 
 
 f Osborn's Traditional Memoirs of Queen Elizabeth, vol. i. p. 84. 
 
34 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH 
 
 general studies, so as to become one of the most elegant 
 and powerful writers, one of the most philosophical ana 
 diligent historians of his country. To reading, Rulegh 
 assigned four hours only ; to sleep, five ; allowing the re- 
 mainder of his day to business ; reserving, however, two 
 hours for relaxation and discourse, being aware how salu- 
 tary, if not essential to the mind, is that recreation which 
 refreshes without enervating the intellectual system. In 
 this systematic arrangement, he found time to cultivate the 
 fine arts. In music he was a proficient ; and to painting 
 he showed his partiality by a liberal patronage.* In ora- 
 tory Ralegh also excelled ; so that neither the originality 
 of his ideas, nor the depth of his knowledge, were con- 
 cealed by a tame or imperfect mode of conveying them to 
 others. To extend to all, the advantages which he himself 
 enjoyed, was a favorite scheme of this great man ; and 
 with a view to promote the circulation of knowledge, he 
 set up an office of address, to which the industrious and 
 curious might apply for information of every species. Of 
 this institution little has transpired, except a passage from 
 the pen of the celebrated Evelyn. In a letter to the Earl 
 of Clarendon, he remarks upon " that long-dried fountain 
 of communication, which Montaigne first proposed, Sir 
 Walter Ralegh put in practice, and Mr. Heartlib endeavored 
 to revive." The plan suggested by Montaigne was, to 
 have an office of inquiry in every town, in which persons 
 might register the kinds of information which they wished 
 to possess, and their terms for obtaining it. 
 
 Consistent with such labors as these was the laudable 
 determination evinced by Ralegh to encourage and exalt 
 those persons of merit whose station or circumstances 
 precluded their rising, unassisted, to distinction. He sup- 
 ported Morgues, an eminent French painter, during his 
 residence in England for the purpose of making maps and 
 drawings of Florida. He was the friend and coadjutor of 
 Richard Hakluyt. In this industrious compiler Ralegh, in- 
 deed, found one of those indefatigable enthusiasts who, like 
 the astonishing Leland, seem born to perpetuate the la- 
 bors, and to transmit to posterity the fame, of others. It is 
 a well-known fact, that he once rode two hundred miles 
 
 * Oldy's Life of Ralegh, p. 48. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 3S 
 
 to gain from an eye-witness the particulars of an unfortu- 
 nate expedition to Newfoundland, in the time of Henry 
 the Eighth ; an account of which he has published in his 
 collection of voyages. It was the incessant endeavor of 
 Hakiuyt, not only to preserve the histories of recent voyages, 
 but to rescue our naval antiquities from the dilapidations of 
 time : nor could the prospect of rising in the clerical pro- 
 fession, of which he was a member, induce him to desert 
 his favorite topic for those more closelv connected with his 
 spiritual vocation. He spared neither labor nor expense in 
 pursuit of that knowledge which he desired to withdraw 
 from oblivion ; rescued from destruction, and transcribed 
 many ancient manuscripts of patents, privileges, and let- 
 ters ; consulted many libraries, and culled information from 
 every source, both oral and written, which he could possi- 
 bly discover. 
 
 In these erudite investigations Ralegh, in many in- 
 stances, became a liberal and effective assistant. He lent 
 his aid to Hakiuyt, to enable him to publish his collection 
 of English voyages. Hakiuyt, in gratitude, dedicated to 
 Ralegh several of those works, the important value of 
 which consists in their being compiled from letters and 
 other authentic sources, not to mention the constant com- 
 munication which their collector maintained with mari- 
 ners in all quarters. From the last unfortunate voyage to 
 Newfoundland, Hakiuyt, who had some intention "of join- 
 ing it, was, like Ralegh, providentially preserved. In or- 
 der to give his sanction, and a greater degree of credit, to 
 the collection of English voyages, Ralegh appointed Hak- 
 iuyt one of the corporation of counsellors, to whom, in 
 1588, he assigned his patent for the prosecution of the 
 North American discoveries.* These mutual services 
 were of great benefit to the progress of maritime investi- 
 gations, and redounded to the honor of both. The adven- 
 turers in perilous enterprise knew that their daring ex- 
 ploits might be raised into importance, and rescued from 
 obscurity, by the efforts of so faithful and learned a pre- 
 server of their transactions as Hakiuyt ; and thus the de- 
 sire for discovery received a fresh stimulus. Hakiuyt was 
 rewarded in the manner which he best loved, and had a 
 river and a promontory in Greenland named after him, 
 
 * Biog. art Hakiuyt. 
 
36 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGF.. 
 
 which are still called hy his name. Hakluyt was in good 
 circumstances, and required rather the countenance and 
 assistance of Ralegh than pecuniary aid. In Thomas Her- 
 riot, a man of obscure birth and humble fortunes, Ralegh 
 found, however, an object to whom his bounty was impor 
 tant. Herriot was the centre of a little circle of mathe- 
 maticians, ingenious, but at that time speculative men, 
 whose pursuits had, at no very remote period, been not 
 unfrequently confounded with necromancy.* To persons 
 of scientific pursuits, the protection of some liberal patron 
 was, therefore, in those days, peculiarly advantageous. 
 Ralegh received Herriot into his house, paid him a yearly 
 pension, and was instructed by him in the science which 
 he professed, and which, at that time, was not considered 
 as the essential basis of a liberal education, but which was 
 probably, in a great measure, the foundation of Ralegh's 
 acquirements and science. At a subsequent period, Ralegh 
 promoted the interests of his tutor, by introducing him to 
 Henry Earl of Northumberland, who, from his love for 
 mathematics, acquired the name of Henry the Wizardf ; 
 and when that accomplished nobleman was confined in the 
 Tower for life, upon suspicion of being concerned in the 
 gunpowder treason, Herriot shared his imprisonment, in 
 company with two other mathematicians, Warner and 
 Hues. These men had a table at the Earl's charge, and 
 were called his Magi. J Herriot was the inventor of the way 
 of notation, since universally used in algebra, and of many 
 improvements in that science, the honor of which was for 
 many years attributed to Des Cartes. Ralegh availed 
 himself of his learning and assiduity, in employing him to 
 settle the colony at Virginia, whither he sent him in 1584, 
 under Sir Richard Greenville, with instructions to draw 
 up and publish a topography of the country, which was 
 published in 1588. § It has beer, supposed that Herriot 
 implanted in the minds of both his patrons principles of 
 deism ; and the cruel disorder, a cancer of the lip, of which 
 he died, was imputed, by the churchmen of the day, to a 
 judgment of Providence. It is not difficult to defend both 
 Raiegh and his master from this charge. Herriot is said 
 
 * See Monteil des Francaisdes divers Etats, torn, premier, p. 17 
 
 t Fuller's Worthies. — Collins's Peerage, ii. p. 433. 
 
 t Wood, vol. i. p. 459 § Biographja 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 37 
 
 to have doubted the authenticity of the Mosaic account of 
 the creation, and to have rejected many parts of the Old 
 • Testament. From this incredulity, which has, even in 
 more enlightened days, been unhappily observed in learned 
 and pious men, he was inferred to be a Deist* : yet he 
 dilig-ently endeavored to instil the doctrines of Christianity 
 into the minds of the natives of Virginia; and it is far 
 more common for those who profess religious faith to 
 swerve from their tenets in practice, than it is for those 
 who broach sentiments of infidelity to perform actions 
 worthy of Christian motives. We cannot be far wrong, if 
 we allow to those who seek to promote the cause of Reli- 
 gion, some personal knowledge of her benignant influence. 
 With regard to Ralegh, innumerable passages in his 
 works ; his advice to his son, his splendid conclusion to his 
 History of the World, and many other parts of that pro- 
 duction, show a mind chastened and elevated by devotional 
 feelings. It must, however, be granted, that these were 
 the sentiments of his declining age, and it is possible that, 
 in youth, his mind may have been less settled in points of 
 faith. The slightest acknowledgment of a doubt, or even 
 the shadow of an innovation upon the pale of orthodoxy, 
 was, in those days, sufficient to affix a mark of reproach 
 which it was difficult to remove. " Ralegh was the first," 
 remarks a writer of the age, " that ventured to tack about, 
 and to sail aloof from the beaten track of the schools; and 
 who, upon the discovery of so apparent an error as the tor- 
 rid zone, intended to proceed in an inquisition after more 
 solid truths; till the mediation of some, whose hardihood 
 in hammering shrines for this superannuated study, pos- 
 sessed Queen Elizabeth that such doctrine was against 
 God, or her father's honor, whose faith (if he owned any) 
 was grounded upon school divinity : whereupon she chid 
 him, who was (by his own confession) afterwards branded 
 by the title of an Atheist, though a known asserter of God 
 and Providence."! 
 
 * Wood's Athen., fol. p. 459. 
 
 t Osborn's Miscellany of Sunday Essays, 12mo. vol. i. p. 722. 
 
38 LIFE OP SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 chap. n. 
 
 Favor of Ralegh commented upon by Tarlel>n. — Further undertakings of 
 Ralegh. — Virginia. — Tobacco. — The Spanish Invasion. — Lord Howard 
 of Effingham. — Ralegh's share in repelling the Armada. — His visit tc 
 Ireland. — Spenser. — Ralegh's unpopularity with the Clergy. — Dr. God- 
 win. — Udall. — The Brownists.— The Jesuits.— Father Parsons. — Ra- 
 legh's Marriage. — His Disgrace at Court. — His Vuyage to Guiana.- 
 Services in the Atlantic with Essex. 
 
 , rr,r> The favor which Ralegh at this time enjoyed at 
 court soon became the subject of general remark, 
 and was even noticed upon the stage, in such plain and 
 offensive terms, that Tarleton, the most popular actor of 
 the day, when playing before the Queen, pointed towards 
 Ralegh and said, " See how the knave commands the 
 Queen !" Elizabeth reproved him with a frown, and ban- 
 ished him the royal presence, thus sacrificing her amuse- 
 ment to her indignation : yet, the audacious player had the 
 assurance to add, that " Ralegh was of too much and too 
 intolerable a power;" a remark which might, perhaps, 
 have been pardoned, had he not persisted in his observa- 
 tions, and extended them to the Earl of Leicester, his 
 riches and greatness.* No flattering invitations to the in- 
 dolence of a courtier's life could, however, deter Ralegh 
 from prosecuting those important schemes which he con- 
 stantly cherished ; and, considering the circumstances of 
 the times, his ambitious and energetic disposition cannot 
 be a cause of wonder. 
 
 The reign of Elizabeth was not only marked by achieve- 
 ments of the most adventurous and heroic character, but 
 by enterprises which required long and patient endurance 
 of hardships, and a frequent surrender of private interests 
 to the accomplishment of a great design. Preceded in the 
 period of his undertakings by Hawkins and by Drake, 
 Ralegh had every inducement in the examples of these 
 men, both from the love of gain, and the desire of honor, 
 to pursue the course they had followed. The efforts of 
 Sir lohn Hawkins, which were, unhappily, directed to es- 
 tablish the detestable slave trade, had been rewarded by 
 the acquisition of immense wealth ; he and his brother pos- 
 
 • Cayley, 1. note 86 ; from BMiun's Character of Queen Elizabeth. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 39 
 
 sessing, in conjunction, thirty ships of the line ;* yet he 
 was, eventually, unfortunate, and died, soon afterwards, of 
 a broken heart, in consequence of the failure of an enter- 
 prise in which he had hoped to ransom his son, a prisoner. 
 Drake was still in the full enjoyment of a reputation,, 
 which, while the brave mig'ht envy, the virtuous must ap- 
 prove. It was his principle of action, in the expeditions 
 which he conducted, and which were frequently carried 
 on at the expense of individuals, to regard the service of 
 his country first ; next the advantage of his proprietors ; 
 and lastly, his own interests. His benevolence was com- 
 mendable, and led him to assist Hawkins in the institution 
 of the Chest, at Chatham ; a sort of saving bank in which 
 sailors might deposit their earnings, to form a fund for the 
 sick and wounded. 
 
 Incited by the fame of these great men, Ralegh devoted 
 a considerable portion of his fortunes to the increase and 
 maintenance of his colony in Virginia, and sent repeated 
 expeditions to that country, under the command of Sir 
 Richard Greenville. But the schemes which he endeav- 
 ored to promote required more ample funds than he pos- 
 sessed, and a far more liberal patroness than Elizabeth. 
 He found it advisable, however, in 1584, to reinforce the 
 colony by the addition of a governor, and of a hundred and 
 fifteen persons, with instructions to build a fort in the Bay 
 of Chesapeak. The new settlers found that their prede- 
 cessors had been, for the most part, murdered by the na- 
 tives ; yet, notwithstanding this discouraging state of af- 
 fairs, they contrived to re-establish a friendly footing, and 
 resolved to replant themselves upon the vacant territory. 
 They considered it essential, for this purpose, to dispatch 
 one of their party to England for a fresh supply of the ne- 
 cessaries of life ; and the office was undertaken by their 
 governor, who returned with the ships towards the latter 
 end of the same year in which he had set out for Virginia. 
 
 Never was there a more unfortunate juncture, for the 
 formation of a colony, than that in which the governor of 
 Virginia found the affairs of England on his arrival. 
 Elizabeth, was, now, engaged in hostilities against Spain ; 
 and so much risk was hazarded upon the issue of the con- 
 test, that, in the words of the King of Sweden, she seemed 
 
 * Campbell's British Admirals. 
 
40 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 " to have taken the diadem from her head, and to have ad 
 " ventured it upon the doubtful chance of war."* AL 
 lesser considerations were, therefore, disregarded; and 
 Virginia, the first settlement of Great Britain in the New 
 World, was suffered to languish without protection. Ra- 
 legh had prepared several ships to sail from Biddeford, in 
 Devon, under the command of the brave and experienced 
 Sir Richard Greenville ; but they were retained by order 
 of the Queen, and the governor was allowed to sail with 
 se^era^ small vessels only, with which be was attacked by 
 some French ships, and obliged to return to England. It 
 is not surprising that, after spending upon this colony forty 
 thousand pounds, and sending to its relief four fleets, fur- 
 nished at his own expense, unassisted by the Queen, 
 whose glory was also concerned in the undertaking, Ra- 
 legh should have assigned his right and title in the settle- 
 ment to certain merchants and gentlemen of London ; re- 
 serving to himself the fifth part of the gold and silver ore 
 found in the territory, contributing a hundred pounds to- 
 wards the expenses under its new owners, and promising, 
 on all occasions, the further assistance of advice, f But 
 Virginia, after all the sums bestowed upon her, and the 
 valiant lives lost in her behalf, was almost wholly abandon- 
 ed during the remainder of Elizabeth's reign.J One fa- 
 miliar custom recalls the formation of this colony to hourly 
 recollection. It is well known that when Drake, on his 
 return from the conquest of St. Domingo and other West 
 Indian islands, visited Virginia, he brought home Lane, 
 then governor of the infant colony ; and in Lane's ship 
 Tobacco was first conveyed to England. The prevalent 
 usage of this allurement to indolence soon came into 
 vogue ; it was, probably, already familiar by report to the 
 English, the Spaniards having discovered the plant in 
 Yucatan so early as 1520, and the peculiar use of it for 
 smoking being common all over America, at the time of 
 ♦he conquest of that country. In the beginning of the 
 sixteenth century, it was introduced into Portugal from 
 Florida, by Hernandez de Toledo: from Portugal the 
 seeds were sent into France, to Catharine de Medicis, by 
 Jean Nicot, an agent of Francis the Second; on which ac- 
 
 * Hume's reign of Elizabeth. f Oldys, p. 49. 
 
 J Anderson's Hist of Commerce, vol. ii. p. 165. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 41 
 
 count it received its generic name, Nicotiana, the specific 
 appellation being derived from Tabac, the name of an in- 
 strument used in America for smoking it.* It was first 
 grown in England in 1570, and its cultivation was con-" 
 tinued in Yorkshire until prohibited by statutes: it was 
 used both for snuff and for smoking. Even the ladies, who 
 were then so deficient in refinement, that they cannot at 
 least be reproached witli the practice as an inconsistency, 
 indulged in the pleasures of tobacco, being a very proper 
 accompaniment to the general coarseness of their habits. 
 In France, it was patronized by the great and the gay, un- 
 der the name of the " Queen s Herb ;" and in England it 
 was allowed even in the royal presence. Queen Eliza- 
 beth was one day so rash as to enter into a wager with the 
 subtle Ralegh, against the possibility of his ascertaining 
 the weight of the smoke exuding from any given quantity 
 of tobacco. Her Majesty regarding the impracticability 
 of the perfumed vapor being confined within a scale, was 
 confident of her point ; and surmised that Ralegh took a 
 traveller's privilege in affirming to the contrary. Ralegh, 
 however, outwitted her by weighing the ashes, and Eliza- 
 beth was obliged to confess that the difference between 
 them and the original weight of tobacco settled the dis- 
 puted point : upon which she consoled herself with a witti- 
 cism, telling Sir Walter " that she had heard of those who 
 " turned their gold into smoke, but had never before seen 
 " the man who could turn smoke into gold."f In process 
 of time, the use of tobacco was considered likely to debase 
 the manners of the people, and to render them barbarous, 
 as " those barbarians from whom its uses were derived.''^ 
 Elizabeth discouraged its unlimited excess ; and her pom- 
 pous successor showed his usual mixture of sense and folly 
 by his determined and outrageous enmity to it ; and al- 
 though it was not deemed expedient, from political mo- 
 tives, to abolish so great a source of revenue to the crown, 
 he satisfied his prejudices and his conceit, by his famous 
 
 * In Yucatan, it was called Petun or Petema. Humboldt found two 
 species only in South America, the N. laxensis and N. Jindicola, which 
 grow on the Andes, that resemble the N. tabacum. Note in Dr. A. T. 
 Thomson's London Dispensatory, 5th edit. p. 445. 
 
 f Oldys, p. 32. 
 
 t Anglorum corpora in barbarorum naturam degenerasse, quum iidem 
 oc barbari delectentur. Camden, 449. 
 
42 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 work, entitled the " Counterblast to Tobacco ,-" but suc- 
 ceeded by his power, rather than his wit, in diminishing 
 its production, notwithstanding his description of it, aa 
 " loathesome to the eye, hatefull to the sight, harrnefull to 
 the orgaine, dangerous to the lungs, and in the blacke 
 stinking fume thereof) nearest resembling the horrible 
 Stygian smoake of the pit that is bottomless."* Such, 
 however, is the attachment of all classes of men to any fa- 
 vorite habit, that, notwithstanding an enactment of Jamea 
 the First, that no Virginian planter should cultivate seve- 
 rally more than a hundred pounds of it, and in the face 
 even of papal edicts, tobacco, prized alike by the noble and 
 the peasant, has maintained its popularity, although with 
 some variations of fashion.f 
 
 ir-qq The assiduous attention which Ralegh, during 
 the course of his life, at intervals, devoted to the 
 colonies, was forcibly arrested at home by the pressing oc- 
 currences of this year. Already had an ostentatious account 
 of the Spanish armada been published at Lisbon ; and every 
 circumstance attending this memorable invasion contributed 
 to excite the emulation and the exertions of the martial 
 portion of the English community. All persons of reflec- 
 tion extolled the fortitude of the Queen upon the approach 
 of dangers so unusual, and her wisdom in preparing for the 
 nation its surest means of defence, in the establishment of 
 the .navy. Elizabeth had selected from the political con- 
 duct of her father one of the worthiest points of imitation, 
 when she declared it to be her intention to preserve the 
 security of the narrow seas ; inquired into the causes of 
 the decay in maritime force ; issued orders for the preserva- 
 tion of timber ; enjoined the cisting of several pieces of 
 ordnance ; and in this country the manufacturing of gun- 
 powder ; which had hitherto been supplied from the Conti- 
 nent. Resolved to afford inducement and importance to 
 the nautical profession, she deviated from her usual parsi- 
 mony, in ordering the wages of seamen and officers to be 
 raised ; she attracted, by rewards and pensions, foreign ar- 
 tisans ; and acquired, by these laudable means, the praise of 
 effecting the restoration of naval power, and of rendering 
 
 * See his Counterblast to Tobacco; and also a Warrant to Lord Trea 
 surer Dorset for laying a heavy imposition on it. Oldys. 
 t Ste Appendix, B. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 43 
 
 herstdf sovereign of the narrow seas. Yet Elizabeth, twenty 
 years before the Spanish invasion, had but fourteen thousand 
 seamen in her service, and was possessed of twenty-four 
 ships of war only ; and to her public-spirited and opulent 
 subjects was she indebted for many of the vessels with 
 which she now prepared to face the enemy* Amongst 
 others, Ralegh was liberal of assistance : whilst, through all 
 parts of the country, such preparations were made to mus- 
 ter and discipline land forcesf, and so noble a spirit was 
 manifested, that some persons even doubted the necessity 
 of a fleet, and maintained that no invaders could make 
 successful inroads into a country thus protected. But 
 Ralegh refutes this opinion, in his History of the World, 
 and proves how much exposed to diversions of the repell- 
 ing forces would the invaded English have been, unless 
 girded round with naval defence.}: Meanwhile, as a mem- 
 ber of the council of war instituted for the occasion, he 
 drew up a well-digested scheme for the security of the na- 
 tion ; and, in his office of lord-lieutenant for Cornwall, he 
 showed his zeal in assembling a militia. § 
 
 The death of the Marquis Santa Croce, who was destined 
 to the command of the Armada, and the subsequent appoint- 
 ment of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, revived the courage 
 of the English, who justly confided in the abilities and valor 
 of their own High Admiral, Lord Howard of Effingham. 
 This brave and successful commander, a Roman Catholic, 
 fighting against those of his own persuasion in behalf of a 
 Protestant Queen, was the son, grandson, and nephew of 
 distinguished naval heroes ; his father, Lord William How- 
 ard, having held the same post with himself, and his uncles, 
 Lord Edmund and Lord Edward Howard, having signal- 
 ized their names in the reign of Henry the Eighth. Open, 
 sincere, and liberal, he presented a noble contrast to the 
 Earl of Leicester, to oppose whose overweening power he 
 had, it is thought, been elevated ; and few of Elizabeth's 
 appointments had been more acceptable to the people than 
 that of Lord Howard to the eminent and perilous station 
 which he now held. This general good opinion he fully 
 
 * Campbell's Brit. Adm., vol. i. p. 424. 
 
 f See Queen Elizabeth's Letter to the Marquess of Winchester and the 
 Ea«J of Sussex, in Ellis',. Letters, 2d series, iii. 137. 
 
 | Old/s, p. 47. 
 
 Ibid. 
 
44 LIKE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 justified. When apprized that the Spanish fleet was abou 
 to sail, he sailed also, and continued cruising for aome time. 
 The English government were meantime informed by a 
 spy, whom they had placed at Madrid, that in May the 
 Spanish fleet was ready, and only waiting for a fair wind 
 to sail ; such being the order and secrecy of the expedition, 
 that the " lyghtnynge and thunderclapp, were intended to 
 arrive bothe in a moment."* An incident at this critical 
 moment shows> how fatally Elizabeth's measures might 
 have operated, had it not been for the disinterested and de- 
 termined character of Howard. The ministry, thinking 
 that there was no chance of any attack from the Spaniards 
 this year, wrote by Walsingham, to tell him that the ships 
 might return into harbor, to save the expense of retain- 
 ing them at sea. To this intimation he replied, " that he 
 thought differently ; and that if his reasons were deemed 
 insufficient, the ships might continue at his own charge." 
 Elizabeth afterwards paid an ample tribute to his merits, 
 when she said that " he was born to save and to serve his 
 country." 
 
 Lord Howard continued at his arduous station until he 
 received intelligence that the Spanish fleet was approach- 
 ing, when, in order to get out of Plymouth with such ships 
 as he could muster, he not only gave orders in person, but 
 worked with his own hands. He sailed the first night with 
 six ships only ; but when, at length, the invincible Armada 
 advanced slowly up the channel, the noble spirits who had 
 remained calmly, yet anxiously, within their respective 
 counties, the flower of all the young, and brave, and loyal 
 gentlemen of England, as if by one glorious impulse, joined 
 as volunteers the brave Howard, with their accumulated 
 aid of men and vessels. The movements of the Spanish 
 fleet were, by a fortunate accident, descried by a Scottish 
 pirate, by whom the news of their progress was brought to 
 Effingham. The dauntless Admiral Drake was playing at 
 bowls upon the Hoe at Plymouth when he heard that the 
 Spanish fleet was approaching, but he coolly declared his 
 resolution to see the game out before he prepared for com- 
 
 * See Ellis's Letters, vol. iii. p. 134. In the letter from which this 
 quotation is made, a curious passage occurs relating to a mysterious 
 child, supposed to be the son of the Earl of Leicester and Queen Eliza 
 beth, and said to have been born at Hampton Court 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 45 
 
 bat. Ralegh, the Cecils, the Earls of Oxford, Northumher 
 land, and Cumberland, Sir Charles Blount, and others, were 
 eoon in the Downs, with their several contributions to the 
 British fleet. Ralegh, with some noblemen on board his 
 vessel, sailed full of ardor and impatience to overtake the 
 squadron, which he succeeded in reaching near Portland , 
 and he annoyed the enemy with ships tacking about in a 
 manner which it was impracticable for the heavy Spanish 
 vessels to imitate. This rencontre was said by Sir Henry 
 Wotton to have resembled a " morris-dance upon the wa- 
 ter." Thus, whilst the Armada advanced slowly up the 
 channel towards Calais, the English fleet followed and in- 
 fested it in the rear, until the enemy cast anchor near Ca- 
 lais, in expectation of being joined and assisted by the 
 Duke of Parma. This opportunity was, immediately, seized 
 by the British admiral for the execution of a stratagem 
 suggested by the queen. He caused eight of his weakest 
 and smallest ships to be filled with combustibles, and sent 
 in the dead of the night among the Spaniards, under the 
 guidance of two seamen. The Spaniards, mistaking them 
 for the same species of fire-ship that had lately done much 
 damage in the Schelde, took to flight with great confusion. 
 Some of the Spanish vessels were dispersed into the wide 
 ocean ; others collected near Gravelines, where they were 
 played upon by ordnance from Drake and Femreo, who 
 were soon joined by Lord Howard, and other of the princi- 
 pal commanders. The Spanish admiral now determined 
 upon returning home ; but to avoid contrary winds, and the 
 risk of again facing the English, he took his course round 
 the island, chased with unabating vigor by the English. It 
 was now that Lord Howard felt the insufficiency of the 
 ammunition with which the vessels had been supplied. 
 From this circumstance, the opportunity which might 
 otherwise have been seized, of capturing the whole Span- 
 sh fleet, was lost. Yet the ill-fated armada escaped not , 
 Dut driven by storms to the western coasts of Scotland and 
 to Ireland, half of its boasted squadron was wrecked, and the 
 surviving crews returned to their native shores only to add 
 terror of the English name to the disappointment and mor- 
 tification already experienced in Spain* The particular 
 share which Ralegh had in the action off Gravelines has 
 
 ♦Camden. 370. Hume, reign Elizabeth. 
 
48 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 not been stated. His general services in the defeat of tj,j 
 armada are collected from various parts of his own works, 
 and from the observations of Von Meteren, in his work 
 upon the Low Countries. From a passage in his History of 
 the World*, it is evident that he had made very close and 
 able observations upon the measures of that memorable 
 day, and that he highly approved, from excellent reasons, 
 the plan pursued by the Lord High Admiral in the choice 
 end management of his vessels.f That he participated in 
 the perils of this battle is, therefore, evident ; it would 
 have been impossible for his valiant spirit to have remained 
 inactive in a war justified on the part of England by the 
 most imperious necessity. By the happy issue of this 
 threatening danger to his country, Ralegh was again at lib- 
 erty to engage in some new adventure ; and few of his un- 
 dertakings were commenced without some wise and patri- 
 otic end in view.' His sword was now unsheathed in as- 
 sisting Don Antonio, king of Portugal, against the usurpa- 
 tions of the king of Spain ; and, to this cause, in which Sir 
 Francis Drake and Sir John Norris were joined, Elizabeth 
 lent her aid both in ships and money. Ralegh probably attend- 
 ed at his own expense, and he reaped the fruit of his exer- 
 tions by the capture of some Spanish vessels laden with 
 , rnq stores and ammunition, intended as supplies for a 
 fresh invasion of England. Historians have, how- 
 ever, been silent on the subject of his services on this oc- 
 casion ; but in conformity with his custom of referring to 
 most of his military expeditions in his works, he has treated 
 of this affair, minutely, in his History of the World. { 
 
 In returning from Portugal, Ralegh visited Ireland ; at- 
 tracted thither partly by a desire of viewing his posses- 
 sions in Munster, but chiefly for the purpose of seeing Ed- 
 mund Spenser, the celebrated author of the Faery Queen. 
 With this great but unfortunate poet Ralegh had become 
 acquainted, during his former services in Ireland, when 
 Spenser had attended Lord Grey of Wilton, then Lord 
 
 * Hist, of the World, b. 5. chap. 1. sect. 6. 
 
 f And in a work which he afterwards published and dedicated to 
 Prince Henry, entitled, Observations on the Sea Service, he remarkt 
 upcn the proportion of ordnance allowed in the sea-battle in 1588. 
 See Kirch's edition of Kalegh's works. 
 
 I Fol. b. 5. c. 1. sect. 9. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 47 
 
 Deputy, as his secretary. Descended, like Ralegh, from 
 an ancient and honorable family, and allied to many of the 
 English nobility from his relationship to the Spensers of 
 Northamptonshire, but born of indigent parents, Edmund 
 Spenser had been far surpassed by Ralegh in the progress 
 to worldly attainments and honors. Whilst Ralegh was 
 cherished and nattered at court, Spenser was deprived of 
 the benefits of royal favor by Lord Burleigh, who, when 
 Elizabeth ordered the poet to receive a hundred pounds, 
 inquired on what account, and being informed that it was 
 as an encouragement to poetical genius, remonstrated with 
 his sovereign mistress for her prodigality in thus rewaidiny 
 " a song." " Give him, then, what is reason," said Eliza- 
 beth, and the poet went for some time unrewarded.* It 
 was not, however, long before Spenser proved the sound- 
 ness of his understanding by completing his View of the 
 State of Ireland, in which, under the name of Irenaeus, he 
 vindicates his patron, Lord Grey, from the arguments of 
 Eudoxus. This production, which he intended to have been 
 followed by a work on the antiquities of Ireland, was not 
 published until 1633, when the writer was no longer alive 
 to enjoy the fame which it deservedly received. He was, 
 however, consoled for this delay, and for the death of his 
 first patron, Sir Philip Sidney, by the gift of three thousand 
 acres of land in Cork, once belonging to the Earl of Des- 
 mond, and forfeited by his rebellion to the crown. Here 
 he lived in the castle of Kilcolman, formerly the abode of 
 the Desmonds, seated upon a fine lake, and commanding a 
 view which presented the varied beauties of mountain and 
 forest scenery, through which the river Mulla wandered, f 
 In this romantic residence Spenser composed that great 
 poem, which, if it delights and fills the imagination, com- 
 mands also from the judgment the tribute of dispassionate 
 approbation. Restrained by the necessity of offering in- 
 cense to the power and vanity of Elizabeth, the unfortu- 
 nate Spenser has shown that even in the most sequestered 
 
 * Until he addressed this well-known remonstrance to the queen : — 
 " I was promised on a time 
 To have reason for my rhime ; 
 From that time until this season 
 I received nor rhime nor reason." 
 Upon receiving these lines, the queen, it is said, ordered the payment oC 
 'be hundred pounds first promised. 
 f See Smith's Hist, of Cork, vol. i. p. 55—333. Also vol. ii. p. 260—264 
 
48 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 retreats worldly desires intrude. But the queen, although 
 constituting the heroine of the piece, and represented, ac- 
 cording to a modern writer, as " sending forth the moral 
 virtues illustrated under the character of different knights,"* 
 proved, that she merited not the praise, by her neglect of 
 the author. Ralegh, on arriving at the retired dwelling 
 of Spenser, found him poor, and almost in obscurity. Al- 
 ready had he tasted of the poet's true portion in the mise- 
 ries of rejected love ; but Rosalinde, or Rosa Lynde, the 
 supposed idol of the bard, had, it may be presumed, been 
 forgotten in the happiness of a subsequent marriage. Ra- 
 legh, although more fortunate than his friend, had also ex- 
 perienced vicissitude; for the source of that displeasure 
 which Elizabeth shortly afterwards evinced towards him, 
 had probably already become obvious to his own mind. The 
 mood in which he visited Spenser was evidently of a 
 melancholy character. Spenser, in his pastoral entitled 
 " Colin Clout 's come home again," describes in Ralegh 
 the shepherd of the ocean, a hopeless mourner for the losi 
 favor of " Cynthia, the lady of the sea," otherwise the 
 queen. 
 
 " His song was all of lamentable lay, 
 
 " Of great unkindness, and of usage hard." 
 
 The imagination would fain linger upon the probable 
 conversation of these two f^reat men, so congenial in feel- 
 ings, so devoted to the same mistress, Fame ; alike so fa- 
 vored, yet so unfortunate in pursuing her tracks. Poetry, 
 the luxury of minds undtoased by worldly ambition, occu- 
 pied a great portion of the meditations in which these gift- 
 ed friends indulged ; Spenser was persuaded by Ralegh to 
 repair to the English court, in order to present to the queen 
 three books of his poem ; and Ralegh was probably at this 
 time preparing the verses, which he afterwards wrote on 
 the " Faery Qaeen."\ They travelled together to Eng- 
 land, and passing the Isle of Lundy, landed in Cornwall, at 
 Saint Michael's Mount, and proceeded to London. Here 
 Ralegh, in vain, endeavored to procure for his friend those 
 substantial advantages, which might enable him to pursue 
 his literary career unshackled by the anxieties of penury. 
 Spenser, although possessed of eminent talents as a politi- 
 cian, and of extensive information in Irish affairs, failed in 
 
 * Lord Lyttleton. t Biog. Britannica, art. Spenser- 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 49 
 
 tiis efforts to perform the task imposed on hirn, of laying 1 
 down a plan for subduing and reforming that country in 
 two years. In dejection and neglect he returned to Ire- 
 land, which he left some years afterwards, in order to pub- 
 lish his poem. During his absence from Kilcolman, his 
 property was plundered by the rebels under Lord Tyrone, 
 and his house, containing one of his children, was burned 
 to the ground. This calamity broke his heart. Reduced 
 to a state of extreme misery and dependence, lie y et re- 
 tained somewhat of that delicacy of feeling, which is, or 
 ought to be, inherent in poets; and when, in declining 
 health, he received twenty pieces of gold from the Earl of 
 Essex, he returned them, saying . " he had no time to 
 spend." 
 
 Upon his remains, as so often happens to men of genius, 
 were lavished the honors which had been withheld from 
 himself. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, according 
 to his own wish, near Chaucer ; and his obsequies were at- 
 tended by poets and other distinguished men of his time, 
 whilst complimentary verses were thrown into his grave. 
 That Ralegh cheered the last sorrowful days of his friend 
 by his bounty is not specified, nor is he known to have 
 shared in the fruitless homage offered to his memory. His 
 envied rival, Essex, provided the funeral of the poet ; and 
 the accomplished Countess of Dorset erected his monu- 
 ment. 
 
 During some time after Ralegh's return to England, he 
 appears to have enjoyed the peculiar favor of the queen. 
 For his services against the Armada, she rewarded him 
 with an augmentation of his office of licenses ; and, for the 
 assistance which he had afforded to Don Antonio, he was 
 repaid by the gift of a gold chain from Elizabeth. 
 
 In the exercise of his license for vending wines, he was 
 not restricted in increasing the number of vintners in any 
 part of the kingdom. Hence a dispute arose between him 
 and the university of Cambridge ; the heads of which es- 
 poused the cause of a vintner whom they had formerly ap- 
 pointed, not only in opposition to a man named Keymere, 
 licensed by Ralegh, but to his personal hindrance and dan- 
 ger in the occupations of his business. Such, indeed, were 
 the oppressions in which that learned body occasionally in- 
 dulged, that notwithstanding repeated and temperate re- 
 monstrances, they finally imprisoned the man for following 
 E 
 
50 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 a calling which had been lawfully permitted to him. The 
 intelligence of this proceeding having reached Ralegh, he 
 was resolved to use more determined measures *han those 
 which he had hitherto adopted ; and, addressing the Vice- 
 Chancellor and Masters of Colleges, he wrote to them in 
 these words : — " As I reverence the place of which you are 
 the governors, so will I not willingly take any disgrace or 
 wrong from you ;" subscribing himself " their friend, as 
 they sl.all give cause." This epistle produced an humble 
 and explanatory reply from the Vice-Chancellor, represent- 
 ing that they had enjoyed the disputed privilege for more 
 than two hundred years ; that they had not neglected any 
 quiet means to procure his permission for their continuance 
 of the office : but that he had used such severe language, 
 that they had entertained but little hopes of conciliating 
 one who must have understood how to receive and to re- 
 turn the language of courtesy : " being by birth a gentle- 
 man, by education trained up to the knowledge of good let- 
 ters ; instructed with the liberal disposition of an univer- 
 sity, the fountain and nursery of all humanity ; and further, 
 by God's good blessing, advanced in court, from which the 
 very name of courtesy is drawn." To this flattering lan- 
 guage Ralegh was, probably, not insensible ; for, in the 
 course of a few months, the altercation was terminated 
 through the mediation of the Lord Treasurer Burleigh, who 
 was at that time Chancellor of Cambridge.* 
 
 Encouraged by the testimonies of approbation which he 
 iiad received from the Queen, and availing himself of a 
 temporary cessation of hostilities with Spain, Ralegh now 
 prepared to execute a design, which he had formed for 
 abolishing the power of that nation in the West Indies. 
 With this intention, he collected, chiefly at his own ex- 
 1 ,-qq pense, thirteen vessels, with which he determined 
 to raise a certain ar d permanent renown. Aided 
 by two of the Queen's men-of-war, and authorized to as- 
 sume the title of General of the Fleet, he set sail from the 
 west of England. Scarcely had lie commenced his voyage, 
 before he was overtaken by Sir Martin Frobisher, with 
 orders from the Queen, who wisely dreaded the absence 
 of one of her bravest defenders, whilst danger still threat- 
 ened the country. But Ralegh, conceiving that his honor 
 
 * Oldys, 27 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 51 
 
 was pledged to proceed, pursued his course, although al- 
 most hopeless of engaging with the Spanish fleet, having 
 received intimation that it would not sail that year. Dis- 
 couraged still further by a storm off Cape Finisterre, and 
 finding his provisions run short, he divided his fleet be- 
 tween Frobisher and Sir John Burgh, with orders, which 
 were diligently obeyed, that one party should terrify the 
 Spaniards on their own coast, whilst the other should re- 
 main at the Azores, to intercept the Caracques on their 
 voyage from the West Indies. This arrangement pro- 
 duced the capture of the Madre de Dios, the largest prize 
 that had ever been brought to the English shores. The 
 Queen, who had contributed so scantily to the expenses 
 of this adventure, engrossed, nevertheless, a considerable 
 share of its profits, which were estimated at five hundred 
 thousand pounds. The jewels and the valuables fell chiefly 
 to the lot of the sailors, so that Hawkins, who had joined 
 Ralegh in the speculation, gained, as well as his associate, 
 a diminished portion of the prize.* 
 
 This was the only occasion, if we except the services 
 against the Spanish Armada, in which Ralegh co-operated 
 with Sir Martin Frobisher. That brave and indefatigable 
 man, the associate of Drake, in the successful expedition 
 to the West Indies, died four years after his joint service 
 with Ralegh, in consequence of a wound received at the 
 siege of Brest ; the injury was not of a dangerous charac- 
 ter, but an ignorant or careless surgeon, after extracting a 
 ball which had entered, omitted to clear out the wadding. 
 Thus perished one of the most meritorious, although not 
 one of the most amiable, of our naval heroes. During a 
 period of fifteen years, Frobisher had, in the early part of 
 his career, cherished the project, which he afterwards at- 
 tempted, of finding a north-west passage to China. For 
 the supplies of ships and money, he vainly solicited several 
 English merchants, a class of men, who are unjustly de- 
 scribed by the indignant Hakluyt, as never regarding vir- 
 tue " without sure, certain, and present gains."f Happily for 
 Frobisher, Elizabeth listened to his schemes, thus securing 
 to herself the fame of being the first sovereign by whom 
 the project of a north-west passage to China was publicly 
 and perseveringly encouraged. 
 
 * Birch, 34. t Hakluyt, vol. 3. p. 28. 
 
52 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 It is a relief to find Ralegh for several years after thia 
 enterprise devoting himself to the civil interests of his 
 country ; and shining in the council and the senate, with 
 a calmer and more benignant lustre than that which at- 
 tended his warlike exploits. As a politician, his leading 
 principles of action seem to have been, religious toleration, 
 determined opposition to amity with Spain, and hatred of 
 her encroachments. For the display of these opinions, he 
 incurred odium, persecution, and death. It is probable 
 that in the turmoil of worldly business, and in a court, 
 where it is difficult to " hold fast one's integrity," he may, 
 in some instances, have forgotten the great ends which he 
 appeared especially qualified to pursue ; and mingled with 
 elevated designs, motives of envy and ambition. But on a 
 general retrospect of his character, he appears to have 
 been a public-spirited and loyal subject to Queen Elizabeth ; 
 and yet an enlightened and liberal defender of the rights 
 and interests of his country. To the established church, 
 Ralegh was frequently adverse ; and from his conduct in 
 various instances, obnoxious. His first offence was an en- 
 croachment upon their temporalities. In his anxiety to 
 obtain a certain manor, he is asserted to have traduced to 
 the Queen, Godwin, Bishop of Bath and Wells, an aged 
 prelate, the father of Dr. Francis Godwin, who wrote the 
 " Catalogue of English Bishops." But although not en- 
 tirely free from blame in this affair, Ralegh escaped the 
 censures of Dr. Francis Godwin, who, in revising his work 
 in the succeeding reign, makes no comments upon the 
 conduct of Sir Walter, but rather regrets that his father 
 should have sought to monopolize livings, to the duties of 
 which his infirmities precluded him from attending.* 
 
 The accusation against Ralegh, which was thus, in 
 some degree, nullified, was adduced by Sir John Harring- 
 ton, in his work entitled a Brief View of the Church of 
 England, which was intended to serve as a continuation of 
 Godwin's Catalogue of Bishops. It was written during 
 the reign of James the First, in the time of Ralegh's sub- 
 sequent confinement ; and was addressed to Henry, Prince 
 of Wales, rather as a story told in his Highness's presence 
 and hearing, than as a grave narration of established facta 
 
 * Oldys, p. 59 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 53 
 
 Yet Harrington relates the circumstance as an anecdote 
 generally known; and annexes to it several particulars 
 which are extremely discreditable to Ralegh. It is ob- 
 servable, however, that he alludes to him not by name, but 
 only as a chief favorite of that time, who, being unable to 
 get the manor of Ban well from the bishop, took advantage 
 of an unsuitable and unseasonable marriage made by the 
 aged prelate, to incense the Queen's mind against him. 
 Persecuted and alarmed, Dr. Godwin was, eventually, con- 
 strained to surrender, for the term of a hundred years, an- 
 other manor belonging to him, in order to save that which 
 Ralegh coveted. The relater of this tale affirms, that he had 
 Himself carried many angry messages on the subject from 
 the Queen to the bishop, which were, in one instance, de- 
 livered to him through the Earl of Leicester ; that favorite 
 at first espousing the cause of the old man, but eventually 
 concurring with Ralegh, " like Pilate and Herod to condemn 
 Christ."* Such is the story, and such are the irregular, 
 yet not contemptible, grounds upon which it rests. _ This 
 charge was not the only one which the able and discern- 
 ing but time-serving Harrington has brought against Ralegh 
 in bis works, although rendering him justice in his familiar 
 letters. 
 
 The protection which Ralegh afforded to Udall was an- 
 other cause of offence to the clergy. Udall, although 
 regularly educated as a minister of the established church, 
 had yet joined the Non-conformists ; and had distinguished 
 himself both for his zeal and eloquence, but still more for 
 his " Demonstration of Discipline ;" a work reflecting 
 upon the church, but construed by the harsh yet fawning 
 spirit of the age, into a libel on the Queen's majesty. 
 Upon this ground he was indicted, was brought to the bar in 
 fetters, and there tried upon the depositions of witnesses, no 
 viva voce testimony being allowed: neither was he permitted 
 to reply, the defence which he might have prepared, being 
 rejected unheard, as libellous. The unhappy man was 
 found guilty of publishing the book, but remained half a 
 year in prison, without receiving his sentence: when, 
 continuing firm in his tenets, he was brought before the 
 Lord Keeper Puckering, to receive judgment of death. 
 
 * Harrington's Brief View, 110, 111. 
 E2 
 
54 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 Immediately after the sentence, a reprieve was sent him 
 from the Queen, at the instance of Ralegh, who advised 
 him to improve this interval of mercy by addressing a let- 
 ter to Elizabeth, explaining the true purport of his writings. 
 Some hopes of liberty were thus afforded to Udall, but his 
 release was deferred from time to time, until he died in 
 prison, having rejected the humane offer of a free passage to 
 Guinea, upon condition that he should revisit England no 
 more. It was in reference to the mediation of Ralegh 
 on this and other occasions, that Elizabeth said to him, 
 " When, Sir Walter, will you cease to be a beggar V 
 " When your gracious Majesty ceases to be a benefactor," 
 was the adroit and courteous reply. 
 
 1 ^02 Consistent with his horror of persecution were 
 the efforts which Ralegh made in parliament, to 
 prevent the expulsion of the Brownists, and other sectari- 
 ans, from this country, upon the score of religious opinions. 
 The Brownists owed their origin and name to one Robert 
 Brown, who afterwards carried his heretical tenets to Zea- 
 land, the hot-bed of extravagant and speculative modes of 
 faith. Although in orders, and afterwards preferred to the 
 rectory of Northampton, yet Brown held that the " church- 
 government was anti-christian ; her sacraments clogged 
 with superstition ; that the Liturgy had a mixture of po- 
 pery and paganism in it, and that the mission of the clergy 
 was no better than that of Baal's priests in the Old Testa- 
 ment."* For the unhesitating display of these opinions, 
 which, unwarranted as they were, had been best answered by 
 that spirit of forbearance which "suffers long," Brown incur- 
 red unwonted persecution, which placed a violent and mis- 
 chievous sectarian almost on the footing of a martyr ; he 
 could boast that he had been confined in thirty-two prisons, 
 in many of which he could not see his hand at noon-day ; 
 and, although upon his promise of conforming to the estab- 
 lished church, he was permitted to enjoy one of its bene- 
 fices, yet he died in Northampton jail, whither he was sent 
 for striking a constable. His opinions, which were derived 
 from those of the Donatists, occasioned, for a time, violent 
 controversies, and his followers gave considerable annoy- 
 ance to the church, so late as the reign of Charles the First. 
 At length, after being associated in public proclamations 
 
 * Biographia. 
 
LIFE OF S.'R WALTER RALEGH. 55 
 
 with Anabaptists and Atheists, the Brownists, furious and 
 obnoxious as they were, were softened into Congregational- 
 ists, or Independents, holding a middle course between^ 
 Presbyterianism and Brownism.* 
 
 It was in reference partly to these schismatics that an act 
 was passed for the purpose of " retaining her Majesty's ser- 
 vants in due obedience, specifying further, that any person 
 above sixteen years of age who refused, during the space of 
 a month, to attend public worship, should be committed to 
 prison ; and, if persisting for three months in such deter- 
 mination, be banished the realm under pain of death, if de- 
 tected in returning.! To the enactment of this law, very 
 little opposition was made by the compliant commons then 
 met ; but Ralegh opposed it upon reasons, which have ever 
 been deemed the most conclusive in favor of religious tole- 
 ration : these, he grounded upon the injustice of punish- 
 ment, when the offence consists in those thoughts and 
 cherished notions, which are hidden within the inmost re- 
 cesses of the heart, and of which our fellow-men cannot, 
 on that account, be competent judges. Such were the sen- 
 timents which he expressed upon this occasion : — " In my 
 conceit, the Brownists are worthy to be rooted out of a 
 commonwealth ; but what danger may grow to ourselves 
 if this law pass, were fit to be considered. For it is to be 
 feared that men not guilty will be included in it ; and that 
 law is hard, that taketh life, and sendeth into banishment ; 
 where men's intentions shall be judged by a jury,} and they 
 shall be judges what another means. But the law, which is 
 against a fact, is but just ; and punish the fact as severely 
 as you will. If two or three thousand Brownists meet at 
 the sea, at whose charge shall they be transported, and 
 where shall they be sent ! I am sorry for it, but I am afraid 
 there are near twenty thousand of them in England, and 
 when they are gone, who shall maintain their wives and 
 children ]"§ Such humane and judicious suggestions as 
 these appear to have had their due weight with the House. 
 
 * See note in explanation of their tenets. Biog. art. Brown. 
 
 t Hume, reign Elizabeth, year J591. 
 
 X Recusants were to be tried by civil judges at assizes, in preference 
 to ecclesiastical courts. (Strype's Annals, vol. iv. p. 264.) An enact- 
 ment which Hume attributes to the desire of the clergy to remove the 
 jdium from themselves. See note, reign Eliz. 
 
 S Oldys, 69. from Townshend's Hist. Collections. 
 
56 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 A committee was appointed to revise the bill, and among 
 the list Ralegh's name appears : many amendments and 
 additions were consequently adopted.* 
 
 Although in withstanding so arbitrary and rigid a law as 
 this, Ralegh espoused the cause of the Catholics, as well 
 as that of the Dissenters, his display of liberality, added to 
 his avowed enmity to the Spanish court, drew upon him the 
 satire of Father Parsons, who, under the title of a " Lover 
 of his Country" inveighed bitterly in a libellous publica- 
 tion against some of the most eminent public characters 
 of the time. Ralegh became an object of his invectives, 
 and the cry of Atheist, that established watch-word of cal- 
 umny, was raised against him. He was even stated to have 
 formed a school of Atheism, in which the Old and New 
 Testament were derided, and a spirit of blasphemy infused 
 into the minds of the scholars. But the enemies of Ralegh 
 had, in this instance, a deeper source of hatred towards him 
 than mere party rancor. He had been the avowed patron 
 of every measure which conduced to diffuse information, 
 and to promote tolerance and free inquiry. By no class of 
 persons were proceedings such as these so much dreaded 
 and discountenanced, as by the Jesuits, a learned but de- 
 signing sect, who, by the weakness and ignorance of others, 
 found their own power strengthened, and the influence of 
 their superstitions extended. Among these, the first that 
 established himself in England was Parsons, the son of a 
 blacksmith of Somersetshire ; once a zealous Protestant, 
 and an eminent tutor of Oxford, where he was the first to 
 introduce Protestant authors into the library of Baliol Col- 
 lege. But, becoming bursar of his college, he exercised 
 such a notorious system of peculation, that, upon an in- 
 quiry being made into his conduct, he found it convenient 
 to resign his fellowship. He afterwards travelled on 
 the Continent, and becoming acquainted with the order 
 of the Jesuits, his restless and intriguing temper of mind 
 inclined him to enter eagerly into the spirit of that sect. 
 In process of time, he rose to the dignity of Chief Peni- 
 tentiary ; and was appointed to superintend the English 
 seminary at Rome, whence he was sent into England by 
 the Pope, with instructions to establish his order, to expel 
 Queen Elizabeth, and subvert the Protestant religion. 
 
 * Oldys, 69. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 57 
 
 For such a design, Parsons was admirably qualified, hid 
 character being a compound of duplicity and boldness, 
 of enterprise and of caution. In conjunction with one Fa- 
 ther Campion, he divided England into three parts, each 
 of which was vigilantly, but with the utmost secrecy, 
 watched by one or other of the associated emissaries. 
 Campion remained in the north, while Parsons, who usu- 
 ally continued near London, introduced into Cambridge a 
 young priest as a nobleman. By these agents the minds 
 of the people were allured, inflamed, or intimidated, as op- 
 portunity offered, until the apprehension of Campion dis- 
 concerted all their measures, and drove Parsons into Nor- 
 mandy. There he remained ; and having, before his depar- 
 ture from England, given birth to the noted libel before 
 referred to, containing chiefly appalling, and in some in- 
 stances, incredible relations of the Earl of Leicester's atroci- 
 ties ; he published, under the name of Doleman, a " Con- 
 ference between a Gentleman, a Lawyer, and a Scholar," 
 concerning the Succession to the Crown of England, dedi- 
 cating it to the Earl of Essex v then the rising favorite.* 
 This production was designed to reflect upon the govern- 
 ment, and to subvert the authority of Queen Elizabeth. 
 At her death, the exertions of this reverend father were 
 directed to a fruitless endeavor to prevent the succession 
 of James the First to the throne. f 
 
 It was in the preceding year, that Ralegh, in -icgo 
 conjunction with many other eminent persons, had 
 aided in inflicting a deep wound upon the power of the 
 Jesuits, by advising the Queen to issue a proclamation for 
 the suppression of the Jesuitical seminaries, of which va- 
 rious branches, from the original institution by Philip the 
 Second at Valladolid, had been established in England .J 
 The share which Ralegh had in this proceeding was never 
 forgiven by the advocates of Spain, nor by those who, upon 
 the plea of religion, as they called it, wished to see this 
 
 * See this curious, and certainly ingenious and pointed work, written, 
 like the preceding one, by the same author, with the spirit of a demon. 
 Ed 1641. Printed first without a name. 
 
 f Biog. Britan. art. Parsons. 
 
 X The establishment of Jesuitical seminaries in this country was 
 found impracticable until after the year 1562; although Loyola, who 
 founded the order in 1534, had signified to Cardinal Pole his desire of 
 seeing it introduced into England. Note in Biog. from Carte's Higtcy 
 of England. 
 
58 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 country in some respects constituted like that nation. 
 Happily for England, the power of the Jesuits, an engine 
 of frightful ascendency in all countries where it has been 
 permitted, was thus, from the decision and wisdom of 
 Elizabeth's councils, precluded from the exercise of its in- 
 sinuating, but oppressive operations ; but, unfortunately for 
 Ralegh, the various insinuations thrown out against him 
 were aided in their effect by an event which happened 
 about this time, and which for a season affected his fortunes 
 and his tranquillity. 
 
 Promoted by Elizabeth to be one of the Gentlemen of 
 the Privy Chamber, Ralegh, who had neither the habits 
 nor the soul of an idler, was constrained to come into very 
 frequent communication with the ladies of the bed-cham- 
 ber, but, in general, without producing many proofs of 
 amity on either side : indeed he was often heard to say, 
 that his fair associates " were like witches, who could do 
 no good, but might do harm."* This remark was remem- 
 bered with bitter exaltation, when it was discovered that 
 there existed between Ralegh and the beautiful daughter 
 of Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, an intimacy which would, 
 had it happened in these days, have blasted for ever the 
 reputation of the lady, who was also one of Elizabeth's per- 
 sonal attendants. This conduct was the more inexcusable 
 in Ralegh, because the object of his addresses was unpro- 
 tected by a father's care, Sir Nicholas Throgmorton having 
 died in 1570,f suddenly, and not without some suspicions 
 of his having been poisoned by the Earl of Leicester, in 
 whose house he was at supper when he was attacked by a 
 complaint which proved fatal. Sir Nicholas had ever been 
 an object of dislike to that unprincipled nobleman, partly 
 from his early adherence to the Somerset faction, and more 
 immediately from a close alliance with the elder Cecil. 
 The Earl pretended, however, great friendship towards 
 him, and affecting to be summoned to the royal presence 
 on the sudden return of the Queen to London, bade Sir 
 £ Nicholas take his seat, and be served as he had been. The 
 guest, it is said, obeyed the flattering command, and par- 
 took of a salad, to which he afterwards, on his death-bed, 
 imputed the disease which killed him, but respecting the 
 
 * Bacon's Apophthegms, New and Old, 295. 
 t Camden's Annals, p. 130, year 1570. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 59 
 
 nature of which accounts vary.* By some it was observed 
 that he died of " Leicester's rheum," that nobleman being 
 no mean artist in the faculty of poisoning :f by others, it 
 was asserted to be an imposthume of the lungs, which 
 caused his death. The circumstances of the Throgmorton 
 family were not prosperous, Sir Nicholas, although de- 
 scended from an ancient family, and allied by his mother 
 to tne house of Vaulx, and performing the arduous parts 
 of a statesman and ambassador, having never risen higher 
 than to the offices of Chamberlain of England, and Chief 
 Butler; employments which have been compared to an 
 " empty covered cup, pretending to some state, but afford- 
 ing no considerable profit."! Sir Nicholas, to use the 
 words of Camden, " was a man of great experience, pass- 
 ing sharp wit, and singular diligence ; who busily attempt- 
 ing many things, in Queen Marie's days, hardly saved his 
 life by his eloquent wisdome."§ His sound and energetic 
 mind seems, in some respects, to have descended to his 
 daughter, notwithstanding the error of her early years; 
 and had that indiscretion never occurred, few feminine 
 characters could have appeared more formed, in every 
 sense, to have accorded with the uncommon attributes of 
 Ralegh, than that of Elizabeth Throgmorton. By report 
 of her contemporaries, she is said, in the first place, to 
 have possessed personal attractions in an eminent degree ; 
 and, in her picture, which in the time of Oldys, the diligent 
 biographer of Ralegh, remained in the possession of a de- 
 scendant of Ralegh,|| she is represented as a fair, handsome 
 woman, attired in the fashion of the day, and with the 
 splendor which Ralegh was wont so eminently to display. 
 This circumstance, though comparatively unimportant, 
 was perhaps of consequence in the eyes of Ralegh, who 
 particularly instructed his son not to marry an uncomely 
 woman. IT She was in birth his equal, and, in age, eighteen 
 years his junior. But whilst these adventitious circum- 
 Btances were in favor of their mutual happiness, the quali- 
 
 * See that most iniquitous book, entitled, " Leicester's Common 
 wealth," p. 27. The story is accredited by Camden, and by many other 
 contemporary writers. 
 
 t Fuller's Worthies of Warwickshire. J Camden. 
 
 § Camden, p. 130. || Oldys, 145. 
 
 IT See his Instructions to his son, and to Posterity, in Ralegh's R* 
 mains, duodecimo, 1664, p. 80. 
 
60 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGK. 
 
 ties of which her subsequent history does best vouch, and 
 which the events of a calamitous life drew forth, were 
 singularly adapted to the part which was in life allotted to 
 her. She was capable of a devotion to her husband be- 
 yond the power of absence, persecution, and the ruin of all 
 her temporal prosperity, on his account, to diminish. She 
 had activity and resolution which well became the wife of 
 a hero. She had disinterestedness worthy of the name cf 
 Ralegh. In her exertions for those who were dear to her 
 she evinced the judgment and steadiness of a man ; in hei 
 constancy and disregard of personal comforts and consider 
 ations, the single-heartedness and tenderness of a woman's 
 nature. Her deviation from the delicacy of the feminine 
 character was not, in her own times, viewed with the un 
 relenting, yet wholesome, severity with which the world 
 visits it in the present day. By her family Ralegh seems 
 to have been forgiven, since we afterwards find her brother, 
 Sir Arthur Throgmorton, associated with him in his mari- 
 time enterprises.* By Queen Elizabeth, it is to be feared, 
 the sin was visited, more as a scandal to her court, and an 
 offence to her own paramount charms, than as a dereliction 
 from morality. Soon after the exposure of their fault, Ra- 
 iegh was united to her in marriage, an union pre-eminent- 
 ly marked by vicissitudes, but cheered by their uninter- 
 rupted affection. On every important occurrence of his 
 life, we find Ralegh addressing her as the confidential re- 
 pository of his joys and afflictions ; sometimes in the lan- 
 guage of affectionate consolation in their common bereave- 
 ments, always in that of regard, implicit trust, and respect. 
 For some time, however, during the early days of their 
 married life, their mutual attachment seemed to bring 
 only separation and sorrow. The erring young lady was 
 dismissed from the court, to the contagion of which she 
 probably owed her disgrace ; and Ralegh was imprisoned 
 for some months, as it appears from a letter addressed by 
 Sir Robert Cecil to Sir Arthur Gorges, in the Tower, f 
 Whilst thus confined, he one day, sitting at his window, 
 perceived by a collection of boats and royal barges, near 
 Blackfriars' Bridge, that the Queen was passing. It was 
 soon intimated to him that she was visiting the Lieutenant 
 of the Ordnance, Sir George Carew, in whose custody he 
 
 • Oldys, p. 103. t Birch, 2728. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 61 
 
 was pining away hours of obscurity and inaction. Having 
 3 and sighed a long time, Ralegh, either envying the 
 gay and the free, who passed in busy succession by him, or 
 hoping to make an impression upon the vain heart of the 
 Queen, resolved to disguise himself, and to get mto a boat, 
 to see Her Majesty, declarmg that if he were prevented 
 "it would break his heart." But Sir George Carew would 
 not permit so audacious an attempt; and Ralegh strug- 
 gling to be free, a battle ensued between them which 
 might have proved fatal to one of the parties, had not a 
 timely mediator intervened, who, according to his own ac- 
 count, « played the stickler* between them This occur- 
 rence was, however, conveyed to Lord Burleigh,* and 
 probably wrought somewhat upon the Queen, to whom 
 Ralegh, in common with other favored courtiers, professed 
 that extravagant species of devotion with which few women, 
 except Elizabeth, would have been flattered. What was 
 the duration of Ralegh's imprisonment does not appear; 
 but it is evident, from a letter of Sir Robert Cecil s, writ- 
 ten at Dartmouth, in 1592, and preserved m the State 
 Paper Office, that, even when engaged in public business, 
 Ralegh was attended by a " keeper," and that he felt ail 
 the inconveniences and disgrace of a state criminal. Vy 
 this letter, now for the first time printed (in the Appen- 
 dix,) Cecil speaks of Ralegh's " brutish ofience ; yet it ap- 
 pears, from the pains taken to investigate some matters 
 which are unexplained, that there were other and deeper 
 sources of offence to the Queen than the intrigue with her 
 attendant; and, from the tenor of the epistle, there is con- 
 siderable reason to conclude that the Queen's displeasure 
 had some reference to Ralegh's appropriation of certain 
 prizes, which Cecil, with other commissioners, was ap- 
 pointed to superintend. See Appendix C. 
 
 It was before Ralegh was sentenced to a temporary. du- 
 rance, that he had, in the House of Commons (m lo92), 
 displayed his allegiance to the Queen, m a manner appa- 
 rently hio-hly satisfactory to her, and advantageous to him- 
 self. Elizabeth, impoverished by the wars with Spam, had 
 
 * "Stickler" according to Sir Walter Scott, a kind of second, who 
 with a long stick k%tth g e combatants in a duel at proper distances until 
 the combat began. 
 
 t See Birch, 2733. 
 
02 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 demanded, rather than requested, subsidies from her par- 
 liament. Ralegh entered zealously into her views, and 
 suggested a plan for paying the subsidies ; but he strenu- 
 ously opposed a survey of the wealth of the nation, a 
 scheme proposed by some, but which he deemed likely to 
 diminish the national credit. The question of encouraging 
 foreigners, to the detriment of English merchants, having 
 arisen, he had maintained that denization ought not to cir- 
 cumvent birthright, and that tolerance, as citizens, to for- 
 eigners, rendered us almost strangers at home, destroying 
 that reciprocation of benefits in which social intercourse 
 ought to consist. He represented that, in harboring for- 
 eigners, we maintain those who dislike our church, and 
 give liberty and encouragement to members of a nation 
 which would not, in all probability, return the obligation ; 
 disloyalty, he contended, was thus fostered, and an en- 
 croaching spirit in foreign adventurers, engendered. That 
 Ralegh appears to have carried these notions too far, will 
 readily be allowed, by those who may even reject the more 
 enlightened views of modern policy : for it seems to admit 
 of a doubt that the industrious portion of any community 
 would not, by their presence and exertions, contribute tc 
 the spirit of emulation, upon which advancement in all the 
 arts so materially depends. 
 
 But whilst, by attention to public business, he was now 
 gradually establishing in the mind of Elizabeth a confi- 
 dence in his talents ; yet, as a courtier, Ralegh was still 
 in disgrace. It was not, however, the policy of Elizabeth 
 to allow her able and valiant subjects to remain in inac- 
 tion, whether they were in or out of favor : and it was not 
 long before occasion offered to prove the zeal and bravery 
 of her commanders. 
 
 Early in the spring of the year 1596, the Queen had 
 been apprized that a Spanish fleet was again in prepara- 
 tion, collected from the wrecks and remains of the Armada, 
 in order to begin a fresh invasion of her territories upon 
 the coast of Ireland. Elizabeth, judging that it would, in 
 this instance, be far more glorious to commence the attack, 
 equipped a fleet of one hundred and fifty sail, commanded 
 by Lord Howard of Effingham, at whose charge, in con- 
 junction with Essex, the expenses of the armament were, 
 in a great measure, defrayed. The secret object of the 
 expedition was Cadiz, the situation of which afforded ths 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 63 
 
 enemy great facility in carrying on his designs against the 
 British dominions. The Earl of Essex, to whom the prin- 
 cipal command of the land forces was committed, was a 
 favorite with the people, who are ever ready to prize those 
 qualities which they can most easily comprehend. Ac- 
 cording to the general opinion of him, " no man was more 
 ambitious of glory by virtue, no man more careless of all 
 things else."* Yet he was accounted in few respects a 
 good commander, was headstrong and rash, and was fre- 
 quently unfortunate in his undertakings ; a circumstance 
 imputed by the astrologers of those superstitious times to 
 the " disastrous aspect of Mars, which, in the hour of his 
 nativity, shined most adversely upon him in the eleventh 
 house of Heaven."f By less superstitious reasoners, the 
 failure of most of the enterprises in which Essex had the 
 command, may be attributed to his precipitate temper, 
 which displayed itself even in the ordinary and trivial ac- 
 tions of his life. J The very qualities which occasioned 
 his ruin as a courtier, militated against his success as a 
 general. An indifferent pupil of Lord Leicester, his father- 
 in-law and patrcn, who, it was said, " was wont to put all 
 his passions in his pockety," Essex could neither conceal 
 his emotions, nor, what was far more important, regulate 
 them : so that he not only " carried his love and hatred on 
 his forehead," but manifested either the one or the other 
 upon too slight grounds, intemperately, and often un- 
 justly. || Yet his resentments proceeded rather " from the 
 weakness of his judgment, than from the malice of his na- 
 ture," and whilst he sometimes allowed them to master his 
 better feelings, he was incapable of deliberately consenting 
 to the oppression of an innocent man. IF 
 
 Such were the qualities possessed by the chief in com- 
 mand upon the expedition to Cadiz : to these must be add- 
 ed, dauntless gallantry, and an insatiable thirst for fame ; 
 
 * Camden, 553. t Camden, 552. 
 
 X In the famous parallel between him and the Duke of Buckingham. 
 Esses is described as holding his toilet with his room full of suitors: 
 " his eyes, his ears, his head, and face employed at once ; his eyes to let- 
 ters, his ears to petitioners, his head and face to his gentlemen attend- 
 ants. Throw a cloak over his shoulders, and he was gone." Reliq. 
 Wottoniae, 16. 
 
 § Parallel between the Earl of Essex and the Duke of Buckingham, 
 Reliquiae Wottoniae, p. 31. 
 
 | Ibid. 30. IT Clarendons Characters. 
 
64 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 Essex in these latter respects, alone resembling his coad- 
 jutor, Ralegh. It was, therefore, judged advisable to tem- 
 per the rashness, and generous, dauntless demeanor of Es- 
 sex, with the experience of Lord Howard of Effingham, 
 mature in council, and deliberate in judgment, though 
 prompt and energetic in action. The fleet, the sovereign 
 control of which was placed in the hands of Lord Howard 
 of Effingham, was divided into three squadrons, each of 
 which was allotted to the respective command of Essex, 
 Lord Thomas Howard, and Ralegh. Neither did Ralegh 
 occupy the second post in command, that distinction being 
 assigned to Lord Thomas Howard, probably as a tribute to 
 the merits and services of his father, the High Admiral, 
 who had, already, evinced some jealousy of the ascendency 
 which Essex had gained over the affections of the Queen.* 
 The fleet sailed from Plymouth in the beginning of June, 
 1596, and proceeded without being descried, and conse- 
 quently without interruption, along the coast of Portugal, 
 to Cape Saint Vincent, where every captain was permitted 
 to open his instructions, which had hitherto been sealed, 
 with directions not to examine them, except in case of 
 separation of the vessels from their respective squadrons. 
 Upon the twentieth day of the month, the fleet cast anchor 
 on the west side of the island of St. Leon, which is joined, 
 by a causeway, to the peninsula on which Cadiz stands. 
 Essex was here urgent that the forces should be landed, a 
 proposition which was resisted by the other commanders, 
 and especially by the Lord Admiral. On the ensuing day, 
 it was, however, judged expedient to commence an attack 
 upon the Spanish vessels, a counsel which was received by 
 the impatient Earl with so much delight, that he threw up 
 his hat in a transport of joy. The assault was chiefly 
 committed to Lord Thomas Howard, and to Ralegh, who, 
 in a ship called the Warspight, caused a Spanish vessel tc 
 fall bacK. After being first retained, and then floated in 
 by the fluctuations of the tide, the Spanish fleet was com- 
 pletely defeated, the principal ship, the Saint Philip, 
 burned, and several other vessels. The pitying care of 
 Lord Effingham, an Englishman not only in valor but in 
 humanity, saved, however, several large vessels, and res- 
 cued from drowning many poor and panic-struck sailors, 
 
 * Life of Lord Charles Howard, Biographia Britannica. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 65 
 
 who had cast themselves into the sea, from fear of capture 
 or death at the hands of the besiegers. 
 
 It now remained to prevent all communication between 
 the town and the continent, and to storm the nearest gate. 
 In this service of danger, Essex, full of military ardor and 
 forgetful of personal security, was foremost ; but Sir 
 Francis Vere, one of his council of war, had the good for- 
 tune to break open the gate. Ralegh, in honorable asso- 
 ciation with the two Howards, and the other principal 
 officers, broke in, following several English leaders, who, 
 covered with blood, and expiring from their wounds, were 
 knighted by Essex and Effingham on the spot. In this scene 
 of confusion, victory was announced, the Spaniards retiring 
 to the town-house and castle, both of which they were soon 
 induced to surrender, upon conditions advantageous to their 
 conquerors. 
 
 The next employment assigned to Ralegh was to pass 
 up the Channel, in order to fire certain merchants' ships 
 which had retired to Port Real. To save these vessels, a 
 ransom of eighty thousand ducats was offered, but they 
 were eventually consumed ; the policy of the English gov- 
 ernment, at that time, exacting as a main point the de- 
 struction of the Spanish navy, in preference to the pursuit 
 of plunder.* 
 
 After much consultation, it was determined not to leave 
 an English garrison in Cadiz, although Essex offered to re- 
 main in it with four hundred men. In pursuance of the 
 sad necessity of war, in this instance, as far as related to 
 the Spaniards, alone aggressive as yet on the part of Eliz- 
 abeth, Cadiz was cruelly devastated, the island of St. Leon 
 despoiled, and the forts razed, the triumphant English bear- 
 ing away the pillaged property of those who had once been 
 opulent and secure. Impatient to reach more peaceful 
 scenes, Ralegh, in conjunction with all the other command- 
 ers, except the younger Howard, opposed the desire evinced 
 by Essex still to pursue other detachments of the Spanish 
 fleet towards the Azores ; and, returning to England, left 
 him with a small portion of the troops endeavoring to track 
 the enemy on the Spanish shores. 
 
 The wealth derived from this expedition to most of the 
 land commanders was considerable ; but Ralegh, either from 
 
 * Camden, 463. 
 
 F2 
 
68 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 being chiefly deputed to naval services, or from some other 
 cause, remained unenriched. According to his own account, 
 he " got from a splinter a lame leg, and deformed," and few 
 other trophies of the victory, in which he had a share. His 
 account of his profits was, indeed, far from being encourag- 
 ing, or cheering. " For the rest,'' he says, " either I spoke 
 too late, or it was otherwise resolved : I have not been 
 wanting in good words, or exceeding kind and regardful 
 usage ; but have possession of naught but poverty an 
 pain." Yet every honorable tribute was paid to his valor, 
 even by those who doubted his sincerity, or contemned his 
 political conduct. The Lord High Admiral honored him 
 by an especial mention, and Sir Anthony Standon, an eye- 
 witness, wrote to the Lord High Treasurer, that " no man, 
 in his judgment, did better than Sir Walter Ralegh."* 
 
 It was not, however, long after his return from Cadiz, 
 that Ralegh obtained the consent of the Queen to the pur- 
 suance of a scheme which appeared to his sanguine mind 
 to promise both wealth and fame, but which, subsequently, 
 involved his latter days in perplexity and danger, f 
 
 This plan had for its object, Guiana, a part of South 
 America which had then only been visited by the Span- 
 iards : to anticipate that adventurous nation in the seizure 
 of uncolonized lands, and in the discovery of precious min- 
 erals, was the avowed object of this, and of most similar 
 enterprises of the period. It had long been a subject of 
 meditation to Ralegh, who declares, in his dedication of the 
 History of Guiana, that " many years since he had know- 
 ledge, by relation, of that mighty, rich, and beautiful em- 
 pire of Guiana, and of that great and golden city which the 
 Spaniards call El Dorado, and the naturals Manoa."J To 
 investigate this boasted region, afterwards the source of so 
 much reproach and so much calamity to him, he resolved 
 to set forth, having previously sent his servants, Jacob 
 Whiddon and Captain Parker, who, the year before, had 
 brought home reports that there was such a place as El 
 Dorado, although they found it to be six hundred miles 
 farther than they had anticipated. Whiddon, however, re- 
 turned with so favorable an account of the riches of the 
 country, that Ralegh resolved to investigate it ; — a project 
 in which he was encouraged by the concurrence of Sit 
 
 * Birch, i. 35. t Birch's Memoirs of Queen Elizabeth, ii. 34. 
 
 t See Hakluyt's Voyages, vol. iii. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 67 
 
 Robert Cecil and Lord Howard, both men of profound 
 judgment, and of caution and experience.* 
 
 He prepared, at his own charge, a squadron, composed 
 of five ships, besides barges, wherries, and other requisite 
 aid ; but, either from deficiency of means or of information, 
 he omitted, as it appears from his own account, taking with 
 him such supplies of men and of instruments for mining as 
 seemed essential for his purpose of investigation. Concern- 
 ing this voyage he was assailed with reports of the most 
 malignant character, and little immediate reward was de- 
 rived from the expenses and hazards which he encounter- 
 ed. He describes himself to have set out on this arduous 
 undertaking "in the winter of his life;" to have "under- 
 gone many constructions, to have been accompanied with 
 many sorrows, with labor, hunger, heat, sickness, and 
 peril."f " From myself," he observes, " I have deserved 
 no thanks, for I am returned a beggar, and withered ; but 
 that I might have bettered my poor estate, it shall appear 
 by the following discourse, if I had not only respected her 
 Majesty's future honor and riches. It became not the for- 
 mer fortune in which I lived to go journeys of piccory ; 
 and it had sorted ill with the offices of honor, which, by her 
 Majesty's grace, I hold this day in England, to run from 
 cape to cape, and from place to place, for the pillage of or- 
 dinary prizes."^ 
 
 In 1595 he set sail from Plymouth ; and, after taking in 
 fresh provisions at the Canaries, he was joined by a ship 
 belonging to Lord Charles Howard ; and in the middle of 
 March arrived at Trinidad, where he remained four or five 
 days. Of this island Ralegh has given an account, in the 
 interesting and animated style which characterizes all his 
 writings. He mentions, indeed, but slightly, the celebrat- 
 ed Pitch Lake Brea, which has since been found to cover 
 one hundred and fifty acres ; but expatiates upon the Man- 
 grove oysters, a species of natural production, then proba- 
 bly new to him ; and he appears to have made very minute 
 observations upon the produce of this region. At Trinidad 
 he gained such intelligence as the Spaniards resident there 
 could afford him respecting Guiana : he cherished, never- 
 theless, at that time, a design of revenging himself upon 
 
 * Birch, 29. t See Dedication to his Narrative, 
 
 t See Voyage to Guiana. 
 
68 LIFE OP SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 Antonio de Berreo, the governor of San Joseph, the capitai 
 of the Spanish settlement there, for the destruction of eight 
 men, whom De Berreo had betrayed into the woods, in the 
 ©receding year, under amicable pretences. In the execu- 
 tion of his purpose, Ralegh manifested an indifference tc 
 human suffering, which, however disregarded by conquer- 
 ors in general, might have claimed some consideration from 
 a philosophical warrior. Justifying his conduct to his own 
 mind, with the pretence of revenging the cruelty shown 
 by De Berreo to the native princes of the soil, and explain- 
 ing it to his country, by the expediency of not leaving a 
 hostile colony to annoy him on his return from Guiana, 
 Ralegh stormed and burned the city, taking De Berreo 
 prisoner, and carrying him to his own vessel. 
 
 To this commander he made, however, every reparation 
 in his power for the injury done him, by treating him in 
 such a manner as his rank required, and his character 
 merited, De Berreo as Ralegh affirms, "being both very 
 valiant and liberal, a gentleman of great assuredness, and 
 of a great heart." From him Ralegh learned that Guiana 
 was six hundred miles farther from the sea than he had 
 been before informed ; but this fact he sedulously concealed 
 from his companions, who would have been dismayed by 
 the intelligence. He then proceeded four hundred miles 
 of this journey, leaving his ships at anchor, and taking 
 with him the small barges and an old galley, in which he 
 contrived with great inconvenience to stow one hundred 
 persons ; but the lateness of the season, and the overflow- 
 ing of the rivers, prevented them from reaching what he 
 expected to prove the vicinity of El Dorado, the object of 
 the enterprise. The effect of Ralegh's labors was, in fact, 
 little else than a more extensive investigation of the coun- 
 try than had hitherto been made ; and the surrender into 
 his hands of several petty princes, to whom he extolled the 
 name of Elizabeth, and showed her picture, which, he de- 
 clares, " they so admired and honoitid, as it had been easy 
 to have made them idolatrous thereof." Such was the 
 flattery with which even Ralegh did not disdain to season 
 his works.* 
 
 Of the country through which he passed, and of its pro- 
 duce, both mineral and vegetable, he has given a long and 
 
 * Voyage to Guiana 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 69 
 
 minute account ; the fidelity of which, from some appear- 
 ances of exaggeration, has been generally doubted. 
 
 To the advocates of Ralegh the description of his pro- 
 gress through Guiana has appeared, from internal evi- 
 dence, to be written in good faith ; and to be a genuine nar- 
 rative, coming from the pen of an ingenuous but lively 
 writer : by others, less credulous, it has been thought that 
 the imagination of Ralegh, heightened by a sanguine tem- 
 per, gave splendor to that scenery, and especially to those 
 hills which he describes to be sparkling " with stones of 
 the color of gold and silver;" and that it was his object, as 
 it undoubtedly seemed to be his interest, to heighten the 
 representation of these appearances. Respecting these 
 accounts, the veracity of Ralegh \\Pas, at a subsequent pe- 
 riod of his life, strictly called to account, and mercilessly 
 weighed ; and posterity has, in this point, been scarcely 
 more favorable to him than his contemporaries. 
 
 The results of his enterprise were found to be rather 
 surmises than facts, dreams of splendor instead of realiza- 
 tions of value. It is scarcely too harsh a judgment to af- 
 firm, that the credit of Ralegh was considerably shaken 
 by the narrative which he penned, upon his return to Eng- 
 land. 
 
 His statements respecting the mineral productions of 
 Guiana were, in the first place, rash and unqualified, and, 
 to say the least, threw some degree of doubt upon his dis- 
 crimination in such matters. In alluding to them, he thus 
 expresses himself: — " For the rest, which myself have 
 seen, I will promise these things that follow, and know 
 to be true. Those who are desirous to discover and to 
 see many nations may be satisfied within this river 
 (Oronooko,) which bringeth forth so many arms and 
 branches, leading to several counties and provinces, about 
 2000 miles east and west, and 800 miles north and south, 
 and of these the most rich either in gold or in other mer- 
 chandises. The common soldier shall here fight for 
 gold, and pay himself, instead of pence, with plates of 
 half a foot broad, whereas he breaketh his bones in other 
 wars for provant and penury."* Assertions such as these, 
 and promises of the most dazzling and alluring nature, 
 abound in the narrative of his first voyage to Guiana ; a 
 
 * Voyage to Guiana. 
 
70 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 work calculated in the highest degree to ensnare the fancy 
 of the adventurous and speculative part of the community, 
 and obviously written with that intention. Every circum- 
 stance which he relates is touched with the coloring of 
 fancy or of artifice; every stone which the travellers 
 picked up is said to promise " gold or silver by its com- 
 plexion ;" the hills, too, abound with that description of ore 
 " called by the Spaniards madre del oro ;" in short, the 
 narrative reminds the reader of the well-known description 
 of Calypso's island, where all was allurement, and seeming 
 luxuriance of goodness. And the notion of fiction becomes 
 irresistible, and is confirmed, when the author proceeds 
 to tell us of a tribe in Guiana " having their eyes in their 
 shoulders, and their mouths in the middle of their breasts, 
 and a long train of hair growing backward between their 
 shoulders ;" which, he continues, " though it may be thought 
 a mere fable, yet for mine own part I am resolved it is true, 
 because every child in the provinces of Arromaia and Ca- 
 nuri affirm the same."* After such a specimen of fabulous 
 composition as this, it is almost needless to remark, that 
 Ralegh's accounts of the climate, even allowing for varia- 
 tions of time, are wholly at variance with truth, and are 
 evidently tinged with partiality. According to his account, 
 the country is so healthful, that, notwithstanding every 
 possible imprudence on the part of his companions, they 
 found no calentura,f nor other of those pestilent diseases 
 v/hich dwell in all hot regions." A very different de- 
 scription is, nevertheless, afforded by the intelligent Doctor 
 Bancroft, who visited it in 1796 : by him, we are informed, 
 that the natives were liable to a frightful and contagious 
 species of leprosy, and that intermitting fevers were ende- 
 mial near the sea.J Subsequent travellers have also de- 
 nounced the climate as aguish, and likely to engender 
 malignant fevers; circumstances which are easily to be 
 accounted for by the inundations, and by the masses of 
 animal and vegetable matter which settle and putrefy in 
 the waters, occasioned by the heavy rains. J 
 
 This discrepancy between the accounts given by Ralegh 
 and those furnished by other travellers is the more remarka- 
 
 * Voyage to Guiana. f Intermittent fever, or ague. 
 
 J Bancroft's Essay on the Natural History of Guiana, p. 397. 
 
 § Malte Brun vol. v. part 2. p. 554., from Leblond de la Fievre Jaune. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 71 
 
 ble in this instance, because, wherever a favorable report 
 of the soil or produce could be conveyed, the details which 
 Ralegh's pen affords correspond almost exactly with those 
 of other writers on Guiana. In his representations of the 
 variety and occasional grandeur of the scenery, of the 
 luxuriance and nature of the timber, and of the variations 
 of the seasons, he is borne out by the testimony of less in- 
 terested authors;* and he appears to have studied and 
 described the manners, and religious superstitions of the 
 natives, with great accuracy, f 
 
 In mitigation of the strong charges of exaggeration 
 brought against Ralegh, it must be observed, that extrava- 
 gant notions at that time prevailed in Europe respecting 
 the treasures of Guiana ; not, as Dr. Bancroft, at a much 
 later period, remarks, " perhaps wholly chimerical ;" in his 
 opinion, Guiana, contained " undoubtedly mines of gold 
 and silver, since the Spaniards have discovered some near 
 the river Oronooko."| In reply to this assertion, it may 
 be observed, that little importance ought to. be attached to 
 the popular notions of the times, this region being then al- 
 most unexplored. Of Guiana, Ralegh remarks, that it 
 was in his time " unsacked, unwrought," her surface un- 
 torn by the spoiler, her graves unopened for gold," and it 
 remained, during the lapse of two successive centuries, 
 almost equally unknown, until Bancroft, a traveller un- 
 versed, as he avows himself, in scientific lore, visited it 
 in 1796. This ingenious and pleasing writer ascribes the 
 uncertainty which prevailed respecting the mineral pro- 
 duce of Guiana to the policy of the Dutch, to whom it was 
 ceded in 1674, by the English, in exchange for New- 
 York. 5 By the Dutch it was planted with canes ; and the 
 discovery and working of mines prohibited, from tha expe- 
 rience of those ill effects which accrued to Spain from her 
 acquisitions of Peru and Chili. || The account of Bancroft, 
 which is somewhat in favor of Ralegh's veracity, must, 
 however, yield to that of later and more able observers of 
 the region in question. No precious metals have, to this 
 day, been discovered in Guiana, few of the minerals being 
 
 * See Oldys, p. 88. 
 
 f See Bancroft, pp. 13. ]7. 22. Also, account of Guiana in Churchill's 
 collection, vol. v. p. 548. 
 I Baaarad,-*. 22. § Ibid. p. 13. J Ibid. p 22. 
 
72 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 metalliferous ; and the medicinal plants of Guiana constx 
 tuting its most valuable produce.* 
 
 The credulity, or rather, as it has been considered by 
 the world, the falsehood of Ralegh, may be extenuated by 
 the fact, that he was neither the first traveller nor the last 
 that extolled the treasures of Guiana upon his personal ob- 
 servation. In 1541, Philip de Hutten, a German knight, 
 had described the houses of a certain town there which he 
 had visited " to shine as if they had been overlaid with 
 gold." It has since been conjectured, that he may have 
 mistaken talc for gold, an error which may also have been 
 committed by Ralegh, f Subsequently to Ralegh's first 
 expedition in 1609, Robert Harcourt, of Stanton Harcourt, 
 again investigated Guiana, with a design of planting it, 
 and with a patent from James I. to that effect. This gen- 
 tleman, both from his own observation, and from intelli- 
 gence afforded him by the inhabitants of Trinidad, con- 
 firmed, in most particulars, the account of Ralegh, and 
 evinced a degree of faith scarcely less than that displayed 
 by his predecessor, in the existence of remote treasures 
 within the bosom of Guiana; he extolled, in high terms, 
 Ralegh's narrative, which he calls an " effectual and faith- 
 ful account;" praising, at the same time, the hardihood 
 with which Ralegh had pursued an enterprise which was 
 only to be frustrated by grievous and unforeseen acci- 
 dents.! 
 
 This tribute, proceeding from a rival navigator, and so 
 shortly after the first voyage to Guiana, might be consider- 
 ed as affording material evidence in favor of Ralegh's vera- 
 city, were it borne out by the investigations of later times. 
 But the notions of Guiana which prevailed in Ralegh's day, 
 have, by modern research, been proved to resemble the 
 wildest and most improbable dreams of romance. By many, 
 even intelligent persons, of the 16th and 17th centuries, 
 the story of the Lake Panama, the sands of which were 
 said to be of gold, was not discredited, and a belief was en- 
 tertained in the existence of the fabulous city of Manoa, or 
 El Dorado, near the river Oronooko. The popular desig- 
 nation of the country was indeed, "El Dorado," or in some 
 
 * Malte Brun's Geography, vol. v. part 2. p. 555. 
 | Malte Brun, vol. v. part 2. p. 563. 
 J Harleian Miscellany, vol. iii. p. 174. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 73 
 
 parts, the country of the Amazons ; Guiana being a name 
 applied to it by the Indians.* Little, in short, was known 
 of it; even the celebrated Camden adopted Ralegh's highly 
 colored descriptions without a doubt, referring the reader of 
 his own pages to an "elegant book " of Sir Walter Ralegh, 
 wherein he most accurately describeth the countries, "as- 
 if he had been born and bred there." f 
 
 No sooner had Ralegh returned to England, than he felt 
 the full extent of those annoyances and inconveniences 
 which a sanguine disposition experiences from the in- 
 credulous, or perhaps slanderous portion of the community. 
 He brought home, it is true, a quantity of ore, which was 
 proved by the comptroller of the Mint, and in Goldsmith's 
 Hall, and was found to contain 26.900 pounds a ton. J 
 By some persons, the quality of this gold was disputed ; by 
 others, it was asserted that it had been purchased in Bar- 
 bary, carried on to Guiana, and afterwards conveyed to this 
 country. It is possible that Queen Elizabeth was some- 
 what influenced by these rumors ; for although she received 
 Ralegh again into her favor, she gave him no assurance of 
 assistance in any future voyage to Guiana. He represented, 
 indeed, the capability of retaining the whole empire of 
 Guiana by the erection of one large fort or town ; and the 
 facility of reuniting companies, scattered over the coun- 
 try, by the great river Oronooko. This territory had been 
 already offered to Henry the Seventh by Columbus, whose 
 representations of its riches were thought to be incredible ; 
 and Elizabeth appears to have adopted, in this instance, the 
 cautious policy of her grandfather, whom, in many points, 
 she resembled. Ralegh concludes his work by declaring 
 that it would " ill sort with the favors that he had received 
 to abuse her Highness the Queen with fables or imagina- 
 tions ," and, recommending her to employ all those soldiers 
 and officers who are younger brethren in the enterprise, he 
 also expresses his conviction, that if his counsels were fol- 
 lowed, " there would soon be a house of contractation of more 
 receipt for Guiana than there is now in Seville for the West 
 Indies." § But neither this scheme nor any other, for the 
 colonization of Guiana, was pursued by Elizabeth, who was 
 
 * Bancroft, p. 281. t Camden, p. 444. 
 
 J Note in Cayley, to Narrative of Discovery of Guiana, vol. ii. p. 165. 
 J Discov. Guiana, Birch, vol. ii. p. 234. 
 
 a 
 
74 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 either deterred by the expense of such a project, or doubt 
 ful of the truth of Ralegh's statements. Yet, in the follow- 
 ing year, he again sent out two ships at his own expense, 
 under the command of Captain Keymis, with the aid of 
 500Z. advanced to him by the Lord Treasurer, and a new 
 ship, the very hull of which stood its owner, Sir Robert 
 Cecil, 800Z.* Keymis, on his return, published an account 
 of further discoveries, and dedicated the work to Ralegh.f 
 The voyage to Guiana, with its acquisition of great 
 riches in perspective, tended greatly to reinstate Ralegh in 
 the favor of Elizabeth, who justly testified her approbation 
 of exertions which tended to improve nautical skill, to ex- 
 , rq fi tend the British power, and to increase the contents 
 ' of her treasury. 
 
 CHAPTER IE. 
 
 The Island Voyage : — Mortifications sustained by Raleigh : — Failure of 
 the Expedition. — State of Affairs at Home. — Decline and subsequen 
 Ruin of Essex : — The Share which Ralegh had in that Affair. 
 
 i r.m The siege of Cadiz, justly called by Lord Clar- 
 ' endon "Essex fortunatest piece,!" was shortly fol- 
 lowed by an enterprise similar in its object and arrange- 
 ment, but far less brilliant in the success of its operations. 
 Of this expedition, which, from the nature of its destina- 
 tion, was called the Island Voyage, Ralegh would probably 
 have had the command, had not the superior influence of 
 Essex intervened. The Queen was now entirely recon- 
 ciled to him who had explored Guiana, and assisted in the 
 reduction of Cadiz ; and, although she continued for some 
 time to suspend Ralegh from his post as captain of the 
 guard, she suffered him, early in the spring, to entertain 
 hopes of being allowed to resume that office. In June, Ra- 
 legh being presented to her by Sir Robert Cecil, he was 
 received with great affability, rode in her majesty's train 
 the same evening, and was permitted entrance into her 
 privy chamber, with the advantage of holding conferences 
 
 * Cayley, from Sydney Papers, 284. t Birch, vol. i. p. 30. 
 
 \ Parallel between Essex and Buckingham. Reliquis Wottonioe, p. 3L 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 75 
 
 with her, in the same manner as before his banishment 
 from court.* 
 
 Under these favorable circumstances, and seconded by 
 the interest of the two Cecils, who were at that time his 
 powerful friends, Ralegh appeared to hold a station in the 
 queen's favor, which might justify expectations of being 
 henceforward the chief in command on any maritime un- 
 dertaking of danger and responsibility ; for he was at this 
 time undoubtedly the most approved and experienced naval 
 officer that Elizabeth could appoint. Effingham was ill, 
 and declined service ; and Hawkins and Drake were no 
 more, those great men having died during the preceding 
 year, within two months of each other, from the effects of 
 disappointment and anxiety in an unsuccessful expedition 
 against the Spaniards. To Ralegh, therefore, might the 
 most important trusts appear naturally to belong, by right 
 of age and character. 
 
 But Elizabeth never, until Essex rose to manhood, dis- 
 mayed her feminine weakness in its utmost extent ; nor did 
 she, during the sad and almost degrading residue of her 
 days, ever cease to act from impulses, which were stimu- 
 lated either by the hopes of a passionate attachment, or by 
 the stings of unrequited affection. To gratify the ambition 
 of her favorite, she placed him, therefore, without one con- 
 sideration of justice, at the head of an expedition which he 
 was but partially qualified to direct. There are, probably, 
 few situations which require more patient endurance, than 
 that of a man who is conscious of his own powers ; who is 
 confident, not from arrogance, but experience, of his abili- 
 ties ; and thirsting for an honorable distinction, and who 
 finds himself, with unmerited partiality, placed beneath the 
 level of one who has neither equal claims to distinction, 
 nor strength of intellect sufficient to create such claims 
 by future services. Such was the situation, and such may 
 have been the sentiments, of Ralegh on seeing Essex pro- 
 moted to a principal post ; whilst he, far more advanced in 
 knowledge, as well as in years, was required to play a sub- 
 ordinate part to a man in mental capacity greatly his in- 
 ferior. From these feelings, secret, but doubtless strong, 
 it is probable that much of Ralegh's subsequent aversion to 
 the unfortunate Essex proceeded ; and it i? also probable, that 
 
 * Sydney Papers, vol. ii. 24. 27. 42. 44 54. 
 
76 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 from this irritating source, and from a consciousness of in • 
 feriority on the part of the Earl, some of the disasters, and 
 many of the annoyances of their common undertaking, 
 arose. 
 
 Essex was, however, at this time intoxicated with suc- 
 cess; and well has he been described as having been 
 " drawn into the fatal circle" of a public career, for which 
 he was by nature but indifferently calculated. This island 
 voyage was, indeed, the beginning of his decline in public 
 estimation, and consequently in the confidence of his royal 
 mistress, who was ever attentive to the indications of popu- 
 lar opinion.* 
 
 The purpose of Queen Elizabeth, in this her last under- 
 taking against the Spaniards, was to destroy their fleet at 
 Ferrol, or any of their vessels containing treasures from 
 the West Indies ; and to conquer and garrison the Azore 
 islands, that of Terceira, the most important, although not 
 the largest, being especially marked out as an object of 
 attack.f 
 
 The fleet was divided into three squadrons, commanded 
 by Essex, Lord Thomas Howard, and, lastly, Ralegh. Un- 
 der Essex, Sir Charles Blount, afterwards Lord Mountjoy, 
 commanded the land forces, an appointment which gave 
 great offence to Sir Francis Vere, who was marshal of the 
 army. It appears, also, that Ralegh had a concern in 
 some quarrel with Vere ; for Essex, on arriving at Wey- 
 mouth, deemed it expedient to insist upon the two knights 
 shaking hands, an act of reconciliation which was per- 
 formed, according to Sir Francis Vere, " the more will- 
 ingly, because there had nothing passed between us to 
 blemish reputation."J 
 
 Between De Vere and Ralegh there was, however, a 
 great degree of enmity ; a circumstance which the former, 
 in his commentaries, attributes to envy of the notice taken 
 of him by the Earl of Essex. It was arranged that Ralegh 
 should take precedence of De Vere by sea ; and that De 
 Vere, in his capacity as marshal, should have the prece- 
 dence by land, § It was an additional cause of mortifica- 
 tion to Ralegh in this voyage, that the principal officers 
 were mostly either his personal foes, or, what amounted 
 nearly to the same, the peculiar friends of Essex. Even 
 
 * Parallel between Essex and Bucks, 3. t Oldys, m. 
 
 X Camden, p. 471. § Biog. Brittan. Art. Vere. 
 
LIFE OP SIR WALTER RALEGH. 77 
 
 Sir Charles Blount, recently the rival of the Ear, was 
 now his sworn ally, becoming afterwards, indeed, his rela- 
 tion, by his scandalous marriage with Penelope Devereux, 
 the sister of the Earl, and even at the time of her union 
 with Mountjoy the wife of Lord Rich. Trifling and hasty 
 disputes become to generous minds, in some cases, induce- 
 ments to good-will and motives to good actions. Such 
 was the nature of Essex, that he could not only forgive but 
 cherish those who manfully and honorably opposed him. 
 It was still fresh in the memory of the people, that Blount 
 had excited the jealousy of the Earl by wearing round his 
 arm a queen of chess enamelled, which had been given 
 him by Elizabeth, as a reward for his success in the tilt- 
 yard. Some unguarded expressions, implying that " every 
 fool had now his favor," were repeated from Essex to 
 Blount, who immediately challenged him. They fought 
 in Marybone Park, and Essex was wounded in the thigh. 
 The affair came to the ears of the Queen, who swore her 
 hereditary oath (by God's death) that she "would have 
 some one take Essex down, and teach him manners."* 
 This discipline restored peace, and the rivals became 
 friends.f Sir George Carew was appointed lieutenant of 
 the ordnance, and Sir Christopher Blount chief colonel. 
 These men were principally adherents or friends of Essex, 
 and were joined by his partisan, and subsequently fellow- 
 sufferer, the Earl of Southampton, and by various other 
 noblemen and knights, all with " their feathers waving and 
 gay clothes," a vanity peculiar to the English in war, ac- 
 cording to the opinion of Camden. The important charge 
 of victualling the forces having been assigned to Ralegh, 
 he undertook to find provisions during three months for 
 6,000 men, at the rate of nine-pence per diem. Bridewell, 
 Winchester House, and Durham House, were given to 
 him as magazines. Ralegh protesting that he ^lould be a 
 loser by this agreement, it was remarked, that " few peo- 
 ple were of that opinion except himself." J After the fleet 
 had been two days at sea, directions were given to each 
 squadron to proceed severally to Ferrol and to the Groyne 
 (Corunna), in order to surprise a portion of the Spanish 
 fleet in their harbors, and to intercept other of its squad- 
 rons, on their passage from India, at the Azores. By tliis 
 
 * Camden, p. 552. t Naunton's Regalia Fragmenta, p. 19. 
 
 1 Collins'8 Sydney Papers, vol. ii. 37 — 44. 
 
 G2 
 
78 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH 
 
 plan the English expected to gain the sole sovereignty 01 
 the ocean ; and Essex gave out openly, that he intended 
 either to defeat the Spanish fleet, or to sacrifice himself 
 for his country. Scarcely were the squadrons forty leagues 
 from Plymouth, when a tempest assailed them. A thick 
 mist enveloped every object ; and the thunder was only 
 surpassed in horror by the agitated waves, upon which the 
 vessels rode powerless. This warfare of the elements 
 lasted four days, and completely subdued the courage of 
 the stoutest hearts, so that all were rejoiced to hail the 
 friendly harbor of Plymouth, and of other towns on that 
 coast. The ship of Lord Howard of Effingham, the High 
 Admiral, was shattered, and the sailors were so intimidated, 
 that some of them, to the disgrace of Englishmen, with- 
 drew to their peaceful homes on shore.* After some re- 
 cruiting, the fleet again set sail, but were again detained 
 a whole month by weather in the Downs, and their provi- 
 sions all spent. At that time there were no means of 
 quickly replenishing such diminished stores. It became 
 necessary to disband all the land forces, to send away 
 many of the smaller ships, and to abandon all thoughts of 
 going either to Ferrol or the Groyne. The chief officers 
 then deliberated as to the propriety of proceeding to the 
 Azores, and were all in favor of that undertaking except 
 Vere, who maintained the hazard, and positive dishonor, of 
 such an enterprise. Upon this dilemma, Essex and Ralegh 
 hastened to the Queen, who, after listening to the extrava- 
 gant scheme of Essex, to attack the Spanish fleet at all 
 hazards, left it to her commanders to determine their own 
 course. 
 
 After the two officers had returned to Plymouth, the 
 armament was at length put to sea again, but was again 
 separated when within sight of Spain ; and the cross-yard 
 of Ralegh's ship being broken, he was left behind the rest. 
 In this situation, he in vain endeavored to assist the de- 
 signs of Essex, by sending a pinnace after him with the 
 information that the Spanish fleet had left Ferrol for the 
 Azores. Meanwhile Essex and his companions had re- 
 solved to sail directly for the Azores, having seen the im- 
 practicability of attempting to fire the Spaniards in their 
 own harbor. f Ralegh had endeavored to take the same 
 
 * Camden. t Camden, p. 473. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 79 
 
 course, but, having lost his track, he rejoined not the fleet 
 until it had reached the island of Flores, where he found 
 Essex filled with rage and suspicion against him. Essex, 
 however, received him with apparent kindness, and apolo- 
 gized that he had previously sent dispatches to England, 
 branding Ralegh as a deserter of the fleet ; a course to 
 which the natural impetuosity of Essex, and the officious 
 suggestions of the base spirits that often throng around the 
 rash and thoughtless, had impelled him. 
 
 Whilst the fleet lay at anchor before Flores, a council 
 of war was held to discuss the expediency of conquering 
 and laying waste, or of garrisoning these islands, which 
 afforded places of refreshment to the Spanish ships trading 
 to the Indies. It was decided that Terceira should not be 
 attempted until after the smaller islands had been subdued. 
 To Essex and to Ralegh were assigned the capture of 
 Fayall; to the Lord Thomas Howard and Sir Francis 
 Vere, that of Gratiosa ; to Lord Mountjoy and Sir Christo- 
 pher Blount, St. Michael's ; and Pitie, most fruitful in 
 vines, was assigned to the Netherland squadron. 
 
 Before quitting Flores, Ralegh, with several companions, 
 ventured to ramble into the island, enjoying probably the 
 freshness and delicious change which that beautiful island, 
 deriving its name from its flowers, afforded to the mind, 
 after a long voyage on the inclement ocean. Whilst thus 
 indulging, and availing himself of the opportunity of allow- 
 ing his mariners to get supplies of water, Ralegh was 
 hastily summoned to follow Essex to Fayall, whither that 
 commander, impatient of delay, had sailed before this ap- 
 prizal. 
 
 On their arrival at Fayall, they cast anchor near the 
 principal town, Hocta, but nowhere descried Essex, or any 
 part of his squadron. Delighted with the aspect and im- 
 portance of the town, Ralegh called together a council of 
 the officers, to determine whether they should attack it, or 
 wait until the arrival of their chief. It was determined to 
 delay proceedings for a few days, a plan which was pur- 
 sued until the fourth day, when, Essex not appearing, 
 Ralegh resolved to take in water, guarding his ships for 
 that purpose, though without any expectation of annoyance 
 from the enemy's forts. In this idea he was, howe\er, 
 mistaken ; and, meeting with undoubted signs of resistance 
 from the Spanish garrison, the high spirit of Ralegh, and 
 
80 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 the eagerness of his sailors, would not permit him to recede 
 in his undertaking. With two hundred and sixty men, 
 therefore, he resolved to attack a force double that number ; 
 and, placing his ordnance as near the shore as possible, he 
 rowed into a species of harbor which was guarded by high 
 rocks. In the course of this exploit, the courage of Ra- 
 legh's crew failing under a heavy fire, he reproached them 
 in vehement language, ordering his own barge to be 
 rowed down full upon the rocks, and bidding those 
 who were not panic-struck to follow him. Upon this 
 there was an instant revival of hope and of valor ; and 
 Ralegh, landing among fire and shot, was followed by 
 many officers of distinction to the narrow entrance, having, 
 as it seemed, about him a spell which secured him from 
 danger and intimidated the enemy. The Spaniards, see- 
 ing his force thicken, retreated to the woods ; and Ralegh, 
 recruited from the Netherland squadron, was soon able to 
 prepare the town to receive Essex on his arrival.* On the 
 following day that commander, who had been tracking the 
 ocean in search of the Spanish fleet, came to Fayall. Sir 
 Gilly Merrick, one of his creatures, who had opposed the 
 storming of the town, represented to him that Ralegh had 
 merely seized an opportunity of signalizing himself with- 
 out the co-operation of his colleague. This account was 
 eagerly received and believed by Essex, who had long 
 suspected ill-will on the part of Ralegh towards himself; 
 yet he disdained to take an ungenerous advantage of his 
 authority to oppress one so much his superior in age and 
 experience. He rejected, therefore, the counsels of some 
 of his officers to put Ralegh to death, and of others to 
 cashier him ; although the latter punishment was inflicted 
 on some of his companions. Ralegh was, however, sum- 
 moned to appear before the commander-in-chief, and se- 
 verely reprimanded by him for having broken the disci- 
 pline of war, and landed his troops without being authorized 
 by the command of the general. This act of insubordina- 
 tion had, he observed, been forbidden under pain of death. 
 To this address Ralegh replied by affirming, that the three 
 principal commanders, of whom he was one, were exempt- 
 ed from this prohibition, which he had only been induced 
 to infringe from the necessity of taking in water. He 
 
 * Oldys, p. 117. 
 
LIFE OP SIR WALTER RALEGH. 81 
 
 was then exhorted by Lord Thomas Howard to acknow- 
 ledge his error, an injunction with which he complied; 
 and* after which, he, and the captains who had been cash- 
 iered, were received into favor. 
 
 Essex appeared to be so far reconciled to Ralegh, that 
 he consented to rest in the temporary residence in which 
 Ralegh had taken up his abode in the town. Ralegh also 
 invited him to supper ; a request with which Essex, who 
 is said to have preferred the society and conversation of 
 his rival to that of many others whom he appeared to favor, 
 seemed evidently disposed to comply. 
 
 Upon being apprized of this arrangement, Sir Christopher 
 Blount remarked, that " he thought my lord would not sup 
 at all ;" an observation which called forth from Ralegh the 
 remark, that "as for Sir Christopher's own appetite, he 
 might, when he was invited, disable it at pleasure ; but if 
 the Earl would stay, he should be glad of his company."* 
 By the mediation of Lord Thomas Howard, who, in the 
 most becoming manner, acted as umpire between them, 
 the generous Essex and his comrade were, however, 
 effectually reconciled for the present time, notwithstanding 
 the endeavors of base spirits to sever them. 
 
 From Fayall, Essex and his squadron sailed for Gratiosa, 
 which submitted itself to the English arms. On landing 
 at this island, the generous yet imprudent temper of Essex 
 displayed itself, in his declining to face the enemy's forts 
 with a greater proportion of arms and armor than the 
 poor sailors who rowed his barge to shore ;f and here he 
 again experienced that ill fortune which his warm admirer 
 Camden attributed to the evil influence of his horoscope, 
 but which may here be ascribed to a deficiency in caution, 
 and a too great facility in following the advice of others. 
 For some reasons, of little moment, he tarried not long 
 enough at Gratiosa to look out for the Spanish fleet, gen- 
 erally returning at this season from the Indies. He sailed 
 to St. Michael's, and had the mortification of learning, 
 that about an hour or two afterwards those very ships had 
 touched at Gratiosa.J 
 
 After many vain attempts to return to Gratiosa, and to 
 attack the enemy, the fleet set sail for England, meeting 
 on their passage with heavy storms, which in the mean- 
 
 * Oldys, 122 t "bid J Camden, p. 47 
 
S2 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 time annihilated a Spanish armament, which was in prepa- 
 ration to sail against England from the Ferrol ; Heaven 
 thus seeming to interpose its aid where the strength of 
 man was ineffectual to destroy. By the total loss of the 
 Spanish fleet, a great slaughter between the two nations 
 was thus prevented ; and the English warriors, after some 
 distress, came safely to their native shores. Ralegh was 
 in great necessity for water, and, whilst suffering from 
 that greatest of all deficiencies, beheld the Earl of Essex 
 at a distance, deprived in a recent storm of every compan- 
 ion vessel, except two little barks. This vicissitude to him 
 who had but lately left England, followed by a numerous 
 fleet, appeared to an eye-witness* almost typical of the 
 varying destiny by which the eventful tenor of the Earl's 
 life was, in no ordinary degree, chequered. On his return 
 to the court, the impatient indignation of the Queen, and 
 the murmurs of the people, awaited him ; and Sir Francis 
 Vere, formerly his warm partisan, and still attached to 
 him, could with some difficulty assuage the anger of Eliza- 
 beth, balancing her interests as a sovereign with her pri- 
 vate inclinations.! 
 
 The island voyage, comprising a scheme so admirably 
 concerted, that it might have almost wholly annihilated 
 the Spanish navy, was totally unsuccessful, as far as the 
 public interests were concerned ; some prizes were obtain- 
 ed by Ralegh, and much plunder by Essex \ ; yet the result 
 of this expedition was injurious to the reputation of each 
 of these gallant commanders. The people were unanimous 
 in their censures of Ralegh, whose usual unpopularity was 
 increased by the circumstances of his variance with Essex, 
 although his exploits were generally more commended 
 than those of the Earl. Essex, on the other hand, the idol 
 of the lower classes, was blamed by intelligent persons for 
 his violence and rashness, and was thought to have acted 
 with injustice towards Ralegh, in exposing so experienced 
 %nd approved a navigator to public inquiry into his con- 
 duct. § Confidence between these two individuals had long 
 been suspended by a very slender thread of regard : it had 
 been shaken in the Cadiz expedition, in which Ralegh felt 
 
 * Sir Arthur Gorges. Oldys, 125. 
 
 f Note from Vere's Commentaries in Biog. { Camden, p. 475. 
 
 § Sydney Tapers, vol. ii. p. 68. 74. 
 
LIFE OP SIR WALT ER RALEGH. 83 
 
 that he had been unduly kept back from services of dis- 
 tinction ; and the events of the recent enterprise had con- 
 firmed these impressions. This state of feeling between 
 the two parties was discreditable to both, and to Essex fa- 
 tally injurious. On his part, this rivalship was maintained 
 with a spirit of honor, which was nobly displayed in the 
 affair of Flores, when asked to put Ralegh upon his trial : 
 " That," he replied, " would I do, were he my friend." 
 But Ralegh possessed not a disposition so generous as that 
 of his unfortunate enemy; and aided by others more subtle 
 than himself, if he did not accelerate the ruin of the im- 
 prudent Essex, he lent no benevolent aid to arrest the pro- 
 gress of his destruction. Whilst distrust on the one hand, 
 and dislike on the other, rankled in the minds of both par- 
 ties, a close observer of each individual gave this account 
 of the deportment of Sir Walter towards the Earl : — " Sir 
 Walter Ralegh's carriage to my Lord of Essex, is with 
 the cunningest respect, and deepest humility, that ever I* 
 saw or have trowed."* 
 
 But no machinations on the part of Ralegh, could have 
 ruined Essex had he retained the friendship of the Lord 
 Treasurer Burleigh, the guardian and adviser of his youth. 
 This veteran statesman, who is said to have controlled the 
 court at pleasure for thirty years, was now in the decline 
 of life, but in the full vigor of his faculties, and in the height 
 of his influence. Designated by Queen Elizabeth with 
 the name of " her spirit," from the celerity with which he 
 dispatched public business, Burleigh was unable to allot 
 any portion of his time to his own private recreations; 
 serving a mistress, who was scarcely induced by any apol- 
 ogy less than a last illness to give up the closest attendance 
 on the part of her ministers, and executing her commands 
 with a degree of zeal and regularity proportionate to the 
 demands made upon those requisite qualities. Yet, whilst 
 permitting himself only one indulgence, that of building 
 2freat houses, which he called " his vanity," the lord 
 treasurer had ' found leisure carefully to superintend the 
 education of Essex, and even to write him counsels con- 
 cerning the nature of true nobility, to which there is a 
 Latin reply extant, from the Earl, showing how well he 
 
 * Cayley, p. 283., from Birch's Memoirs of Queen Elizabeth, vol. ii. 
 p. 10. 
 
34 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 had profited by the care of his guardian.* Notwithstanding 
 these early obligations, dissensions and jealousies had 
 arisen between both the Cecils and Lord Essex, Ralegh 
 acting a conspicuous part in the management of that ma- 
 chinery of which these court cabals were composed. 
 
 It had been the lot of Burleigh, to live to see his chil- 
 dren's children to the third generation.! It was his still 
 happier fate to behold those children not only walking in 
 the shadow of his greatness, but pursuing the same course 
 which had raised him to eminence. Of his two sons, the 
 elder succeeded him in his title and estates ; the younger, 
 bred up to business, inherited his application, his integrity, 
 and, in some measure, his talents, but he displayed not that 
 scope of mind which had enabled the elder Burleigh to 
 comprehend the true interests of his nation, to extend the 
 views of Elizabeth, and to direct them to useful and glo- 
 rious ends. 
 
 Robert Cecil, afterwards the first Peer created by Eliza- 
 beth's successor, was, at this period of Ralegh's life, his 
 close ally ; and, with some variations, the opponent, and 
 as Essex conceived, the rival of that impetuous Earl. The 
 original cause of this aversion on the part of Essex, was 
 his disgust at what he considered to be the low and dis- 
 honorable machinations of Cecil, who has been aptly de- 
 scribed as a courtier from the cradle. The immediate 
 source of their mutual ill-will was the appointment of Sir 
 Robert Cecil to the office of secretary of state, during the 
 absence of Essex at Cadiz. Previous to his departure, the 
 earl had entreated the queen to bestow that place upon 
 Sir Thomas Bodley, recently ambassador at the Hague, 
 and the munificent founder of" that library which bears his 
 name at Oxford ; a fabric which drew from the pedantic 
 James the First the exclamation, that, " were he not a 
 king, he would be a University man ; were he a prisoner, 
 he would wish no other prison than that library, and to be 
 chained together with so many good authors." But Bodley, 
 although an eminent man, and one of a family who had 
 suffered greatly for the Protestant cause, was judged by 
 the queen to be less adapted for the management of affairs 
 than Cecil, who had imbibed notions of state policy in his 
 
 * Ellis's Original Letters, vol. ii. p. 77. and 181. 
 f Ellis, 2d series, vol. iii. p. 190. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 85 
 
 very infancy. Elizabeth was, also, disgusted by the ex- 
 travagant invectives of Essex against Cecil, and by his ill- 
 timed and ill-judging panegyric of his friend. The place 
 was, accordingly, bestowed upon Cecil.* 
 
 During the interval which elapsed between the expedi- 
 tion to Cadiz and the island voyage, Ralegh, from what 
 motive does not appear, endeavored to tranquillize the lre- 
 quent dissensions which arose between the belligerent fac- 
 tions ; and, on one occasion, prevailed so far as to bring 
 them together at the house of the secretary, where they 
 all three dined, f For the diligence with which Ralegh 
 pursued this endeavor at reconciliation, various reasons 
 were assigned by the watchful observers about the court, 
 who appear, from the documents extant, to have made the 
 office of investigating into the concerns of others the busi- 
 ness of their lives. By some it was thought, that Ralegh 
 wished to avail himself of the joint interest of Cecil and 
 Essex, in order to obtain the post of vice-chamberlam, for 
 which he applied; and this conjecture seems probable, 
 from the circumstance that he proffered to Essex a third 
 part of the profits derived from prizes in the island voyage, 
 to assist in the payment of the earl's debts, for the import- 
 ant consideration of his influence. Whatever may have 
 been the immediate spring of his actions, these debasing 
 intrigues had their effect in sullying the purity of Ralegh's 
 integrity, and in subjecting his fine genius to the profana- 
 tion of selfishness and duplicity. It is a matter of specu- 
 lation, whether continued manoeuvres, and the habit of 
 deception, are not calculated to debase and weaken the 
 mind more than the commission of one actual crime ; for 
 we are reluctant to allow the necessity of repentance for a 
 series of daily, and apparently trifling faults, and are, there- 
 fore, led on to a dangerous repetition. Meanwhile, Ralegh 
 was assiduous in courting the friendship of the Lord Treas- 
 urer Burleigh, not merely from regard for the virtues, or 
 respect for the talents, of that great man, but from the 
 pitiful desire that something might be effected in his favor 
 before Sir Robert Cecil went to France, as an ambassador 
 to Henry the Fourth. It was, indeed, at the time reported, 
 that both Ralegh and the younger Cecil ardently desired 
 
 * Camden, 1596. 
 
 t Rowland White's Letters in Sydney Papers, vol. ii. p. 37—44. 
 
 H 
 
£6 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 to be made Barons, and had, says Rowland White, "a 
 purpose to be called unto it, although there be no parlia- 
 ment."* Accordingly, with the dreams of greatness in his 
 head, Ralegh attended the great man to Dover, entertained 
 him with a banquet and a play, and devoted to him those 
 attentions which ambition offers as a tribute to success. 
 The result of all these manoeuvres was of a mingled na- 
 ture. The office of vice-chamberlain had been promised 
 to Sir Robert Sidney, and was probably never thought of 
 for Ralegh ; Queen Elizabeth not liking men who were 
 fit for military exploits, to be, in her own language, " too 
 much addicted to the presence-chamber, "f For this dis- 
 appointment, Ralegh obtained, through the interest of 
 Cecil, and the concession of Essex, the honor of becoming 
 a privy-councillor.! 
 
 Whilst we deprecate servility and intrigue, it must be 
 remembered, that there were some parts of Ralegh's con- 
 duct, as a courtier, more creditable to his character than 
 the furtherance of his own selfish designs. With his usual 
 wisdom, he saw that the frequent broils between the cour- 
 tiers impeded the due performance of public business ; oc- 
 casioned, to use his own words, "continual unquietness" 
 in the mind of the Queen ; and tended to give an advan- 
 tage to the enemies of the sovereign. Impressed by these 
 considerations, Ralegh sought, and procured, a reconcilia- 
 tion between Essex and Lord Howard, recently created 
 Earl of Nottingham, upon the score of his services in the 
 Spanish invasion, and at Cadiz. Essex had resented the 
 elevation of Lord Howard to the title of earl, which, added 
 to his office of lord chamberlain, gave him precedency. 
 But Elizabeth soothed the vanity of her favorite, by bestow- 
 ing upon him the dignity of lord marshal, which, by a 
 statute of the reign of Henry the Eighth, enabled all of the 
 rank of earl who had that dignity to take precedency be- 
 fore their peers of the same degree.^ 
 •j cq~ Ralegh was now again actively engaged in the 
 ' military services of his country. Reports which pre- 
 vailed respecting the approach of a Spanish fleet again drew 
 him into Cornwall, to assist in the preparations of defence 
 
 * Sydney Papers, vol. ii. 120. 
 
 f Ibid, p. 21.— An observation which she afterwards applied to this very 
 Sir Robert Sidney. 
 J Camden, p. 476. § Camden. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 87 
 
 in that county.— Shortly afterwards he was ordered hy the 
 privy-council to give his opinion of the affairs of Ireland, 
 und some rumors prevailed of his being appointed lord 
 deputy in that country; but, to the acceptance of thia 
 office, Ralegh, who had early witnessed its dangers and 
 anxieties, expressed a decided reluctance. 
 
 Ireland afforded at this time almost the only chance of 
 mingling in those warlike occupations, in which English- 
 men were indulged by their monarchs of the Tudor line. 
 Already had negotiations for a peace with Spain been 
 laid before Henry the Fourth of France, and proposed, by 
 that monarch, to Elizabeth. The lord treasurer, almost 
 expiring with age and infirmities, seconded the proposition, 
 upon reasons connected with his intimate knowledge of 
 the resources of England ; his observation of the temper of 
 the people, prone to sedition when heavily burdened ; and 
 his fears of the uncertainties of war.* Of the sentiments 
 entertained by Ralegh on this discussion we have no me- 
 morial ; but it is probable that he coincided with Burleigh. 
 The popular faction, headed by Essex, and emboldened by 
 the manifest inclinations of the Queen, lifted up then- 
 voices for a continuance of the struggle which had, al- 
 ready, proved so triumphant. Essex, who, like most of the 
 highly-born men of the day, deemed no pursuit in life glo- 
 rious "but that of war, breathed, as Burleigh expresses it, 
 nothing but " war, slaughter, and blood." After a vehe- 
 ment dispute upon the subject, that veteran statesman, 
 become almost prophetic from experience, gave his senti- 
 ments to Essex in a manner which might have silenced a 
 less impetuous reasoner. "I know not," says Camden, 
 speaking of this argument between Cecil and Essex, 
 with wnat presaging mind he (Lord Burleigh) reached 
 forth a psalm-book, and silently pointed to this verse: 
 ' Men of blood shall not live out half their days.' " Per- 
 haps that veteran observer of life and manners saw that 
 the generous but impetuous spirit of Essex would ulti- 
 mately effect his destruction: perhaps he reviewed the 
 picture, doubtless often, in the course of his long life, pre- 
 sented to his observation, of feminine devotedness changing 
 its nature, like chemical substances, from sweet to bitter, 
 from the admixture of the pungent ingredients of suspicion 
 
 * Camden, p. 492. 
 
88 LUE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 and jealousy. But Essex was destined soon to lose tliia 
 stern monitor yet faithful friend ; Lord Eurleigh dying this 
 year, worn out with the gout, and still more with the la- 
 bors and anxieties of a public career, and, as his son the 
 Earl of Salisbury, likewise, afterwards in his own case ex- 
 pressed himself, longing for death. Whilst Burleigh lived, 
 the life of Essex would have been secure from the scaffold, 
 even if his indiscretion had ruined his prospects as a cour- 
 tier. Queen Elizabeth, disturbed by the frequent conten- 
 tions of her courtiers, and still more by the alternate inso- 
 lence and submission of Essex, may perhaps almost have 
 envied the tranquil end of her dying minister, whom she 
 frequently visited after his retirement from office. Having 
 arranged every temporal concern which might draw him 
 back to life, Burleigh eagerly courted the approach of his 
 dissolution ; and, " perceiving," as an eye-witness expresses 
 it, " that his vital spirits wrestled with the power of death,"' 
 cried out in an agony, ' Oh, what a heart have I that I will 
 not die !' and when his breath was almost spent, and, by 
 infusion of hot waters into his mouth he had recovered 
 sense again, he gently reproved those that were about him, 
 saying they did him wrong to call him back." Thus, with 
 the last faltering motions of his lips employed in prayers and 
 exhortations, died this truly great man,* whose bitterest 
 adversary, as Camden affirms, " said that he envied him in 
 nothing so much as for such a death in so great glorie." 
 With Burleigh, the small portion of prudence which Essex 
 possessed died also ; and as for Elizabeth, her support in 
 difficulties, and her counsellor in peace, was gone. To 
 the friends of Essex his death seemed, in regard to th* 
 earl, as the harbinger of that ruin which follows in the 
 train of thoughtless and confident security. Such was the 
 dread which he entertained respecting his contest with 
 Ralegh, that Puckering, the lord-keeper, prevailed upon 
 him to give his promise, that no further rivalship should be 
 displayed between them : yet this timely caution availed 
 but little. One of the last festivities of Elizabeth's reign 
 which she may be said to have enjoyed, gave rise, how- 
 ever, to fresh contentions. On the celebration of the 
 Queen's birth-day, Ralegh appeared in the tilt-yard at 
 Westminster, with a degree of splendor which roused the 
 
 * Ellis, iii. note, p. 189. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 8S 
 
 jealousy of Essex, and stimulated him, as it is said, to aim 
 at the deadly injury of the knight in the usual combats- 
 Ralegh possessed a suit of armor so costly as to excite the 
 envy of all those who wearied themselves in a vain show, 
 or were the slaves of that " vexation of spirit" which has 
 wittily been described as the successor of vanity. In this 
 gorgeous encasement Ralegh so much delighted, that his 
 portrait was painted while wearing it ; and he is supposed 
 to have figured in it on this occasion, for, in the portrait, 
 his arm was decorated with a riband which tradition as- 
 serts he received from the Queen as a reward in this very 
 tilt-yard, and which he carried to her majesty one morn- 
 ing, to show that he had ridden a hundred and twenty 
 miles the night before, in order to return to her presence.* 
 The shoes of this accomplished courtier were valued at six 
 thousand pieces of gold ; his sword and belt were adorned 
 with jewels ; and about his person he wore jewels to the 
 value of three-score thousand pounds, one diamond alone 
 being worth a hundred pounds.f Yet Ralegh, now in the 
 forty-seventh year of his age, and disfigured, according to 
 his own account, with a "lame leg, and deformed," could 
 not, in all this splendor of appearance, cope with the gay 
 and gallant bearing of Essex, whose very foibles were of a 
 description to sort with the turbulence and mimic wars of 
 a tournament. That which in Ralegh was design, appeared 
 in Essex the overflow of an ardent and valiant heart, sac- 
 rificing, at the shrine of the Queen's vanity, the tribute 
 which the young and beautiful might envy. Nothing, 
 however, could be more childish than the mode in which 
 their rivalry was carried on, as the well-known story of the 
 tawny feathers sufficiently exemplifies. Whilst Essex was 
 in disgrace with the Queen, after the celebrated inter- 
 view in which he, with more natural feeling than gallantry, 
 resented the royal blow on the ear, so renowned in all the 
 annals of those times, he learned that Ralegh intended to 
 appear on the following day in the tilt-yard with a gallant 
 train, all splendidly accoutred in orange-colored feathers. 
 Upon gaining this intelligence, Essex mustered a far more 
 numerous company, all of whom he adorned with feathers 
 similar to those worn by the Ralegh party ; and so lavish 
 was he of these ensigns, that he caused two thousand of 
 
 * Oldys, p. 145. | Ibid. 
 
 H2 
 
90 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 them to be worn in the tilt-yard.* He then appeared as 
 the leader of this radiant band, himself in a complete suit 
 of orange color, and thus, being mistaken as the chief of 
 the whole of those in orange, confounded all distinction 
 between himself and Ralegh. This "feather triumph," 
 as Lord Clarendon calls it, affords a specimen of the taste 
 in which civil contentions were carried on during the 
 strange alternations of frivolity and wisdom by which 
 Elizabeth's reign was characterized. Yet the victory of 
 Essex in this petty contest was incomplete ; and on the 
 following day a knight being observed in green in lieu of 
 him who had figured in orange, it was remarked, that " he 
 had changed his color, because he had run so ill." This 
 disguised and disgraced knight is conjectured to have been 
 Essex.f 
 
 , rqa The disturbances in Ireland recalled the attention 
 of the military portion of Elizabeth's court to affairs 
 of serious moment, and consultations began to be held as 
 to the person most adapted to quell the furious rebellions by 
 which that unhappy country was agitated. Of Elizabeth 
 it has been said, and the common popular feeling of the 
 time confirmed the observation, " that her dispensations 
 were so poised as though justice and discretion had both 
 stood at the beam, and seen them weighed together in due 
 proportion ;J" yet her choice on this occasion implied a 
 total absence of those principles of action. That Ralegh 
 was the most effective man of the court, in operations of 
 difficulty or in deeds of danger, appears to have been the 
 prevailing opinion ; each power of his mind having been 
 tried by the severe test of experience, and improved by 
 the habit of constant exertion ; a habit by the aid of which 
 ordinary abilities often resemble in their effects the most 
 remarkable indications of genius: but Ralegh's distaste 
 for the arduous office of lord deputy, accounts in some 
 measure for his not being appointed to that important 
 f .rust. 
 
 The next person upon whom the public eye rested was 
 Charles Blount, J who had succeeded, in 1594, to his bro- 
 
 * Clarendon's Disparity between Essex and Bucks. Reliquaj Wot- 
 toniffi, p. 180. 
 
 t Oldys, 132. f Naunton's Fragmenta Regalia. 
 
 § Blount, a name originally Norman, deriving it from Le Blound, or 
 modern Le Blond ; this family being remarked for their yellow**hair. Brit 
 Biog. from Camden 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 91 
 
 ther's title of Lord Mountjoy, and of whom the queen 
 prophesied, that " he would end her troubles in Ireland ;" 
 a national benefit which he partly accomplished in her 
 reign, and effectually in that of her successor. Descended 
 from an ancient race, and allied to three families of peers, 
 Lord Mountjoy had been distinguished from his earliest in- 
 troduction by the peculiar favor of the queen. At first his 
 youthful and handsome appearance engaged the attention 
 of Elizabeth, who said, " she knew there was some noble 
 blood in him." The bashfulness with which he, a youth 
 of twenty, sustained the unfeminine rudeness with which 
 she fixed her dauntless gaze upon him, was found to con- 
 ceal the attributes both of wit and courage, and the acqui- 
 sition of scholastic learning.* Hence he had been employ- 
 ed in most of the military enterprises of his time, varying 
 occasionally the distinctions of warlike prowess with those 
 accorded in the academic retirements of Oxford, being 
 created a master of arts in that university almost whilst 
 actively engaged in pursuit of the Annada.f Thus en- 
 dowed, and possessed of the entire confidence of the queen, 
 the expectations of the political part of the nation were 
 in favor of Mountjoy's nomination to the government of 
 Ireland. Unhappily for Essex, his own presumption, and 
 the intrigues of his enemies, who desired his absence 
 from the court, intimidated Mountjoy from advancing those 
 pretensions to the appointment which would have been 
 seconded by the universal suffrage of public opinion. 
 
 Reckless of his own inability to conduct the affairs of the 
 sister kingdom, the infatuated Essex interposed his plea to 
 the charge, which he grounded upon the inexperience of 
 Blount in warlike affairs, and the smallness of his estate ; 
 alleging that he was strengthened with few followers, and 
 too much drowned in the study of learning. Although 
 pretending, after the fashion of the day, to disqualify him- 
 self, as it was called, for the office, unfortunately for him- 
 self the Earl gained the object of his wishes, and left Eng- 
 land, confident of victory over the rebels. " I have beaten 
 Ralegh and Knollys in the council," such was his boast, 
 " and I will beat Tir Owen in the field ; for nothing worthy 
 her majesty's honor has yet been achieved.":): The result 
 •*z these sanguine expectations, and of the operations of 
 
 * Naunton, xii. p. 73, f Biog. \ Nugffi Antiqure, vol. i o. 246. 
 
frZ LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 the largest army that Ireland had ever seen ; the neglect 
 of instructions which he had received ; and the ill-advised 
 return of Essex, might have effected his ruin, independent 
 of the evil offices of his enemies. Ireland was justly said 
 to have been " the sepulchre of his father, and the grave 
 of his own fortunes."* Yet Essex with common prudence 
 might have retrieved his condition, possessing as he did an 
 interest in the affections of the queen, from which even all 
 his ingratitude and his follies could not wean her. 
 
 Nevertheless, even before his return to England, his 
 friends dreaded, and he meditated, the prosecution of some 
 audacious scheme which might involve the succession to 
 the crown in difficulty, and the Queen herself in danger, f 
 Such were the rumors of his rash designs, that the last 
 maritime military service in which Ralegh was employed 
 by Elizabeth was thought to refer to an apprehension of 
 his treasonable attempt. In the month of August there 
 were great and general fears of an invasion from some 
 quarter ; troops to the number of six thousand were mus- 
 tered to guard the city and attend the Queen's person ; 
 chains were drawn across the streets ; additional watches 
 were provided, and lights hung out from every house for 
 a fortnight. J Sixteen or eighteen vessels were hastily fit- 
 ted out, Lord Thomas Howard, and Ralegh as vice-admiral, 
 being appointed to command them. On the fifth day of 
 the month Ralegh took leave of the ladies of the court and 
 of his friends, and joined the fleet. \ After being a month 
 at sea, he was permitted, with the rest of the armament, 
 to return home. The popular surmise which attributed 
 this preparation to a dread of Essex was, however, in all 
 possibility, deceived. It was the Queen's policy, admira- 
 ble in times of so much danger, to accustom her people to 
 prompt and sudden motions of defence ; to alarm her ene- 
 mies as much by her readiness to repel as by her deeds in 
 actual warfare ; fulfilling thus the duties of a legislator, 
 whose truest interest it is to prevent bloodshed and promote 
 in her subjects the happy feeling of security. 
 
 Upon the unexpected return of Essex in September, ca- 
 bals ran high, and the anxiety and perturbation experienced 
 
 * Parallel in Reliquiie Wottoniae. f Camden, anno 1599. 
 
 \ Oldys, 133. from Stowe's Annals. § Sydney Papers, p. 117- 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 93 
 
 by those persons who were most interested could omy bo 
 exceeded by the chagrin and irresolution of the Queen. 
 
 When Essex was consigned to custody, popular clamors 
 were more virulent than court factions, and even the pulpit 
 lent its aid to fan the flames of dissension. Extravagant 
 praises of the earl were uttered by the preachers, and 
 libels were propagated throughout the country, reflecting 
 on the privy-council and on the Queen for detaining in 
 durance him whom they considered to be innocent.* Of 
 these domestic broils, a narrative, perhaps the most minute 
 that ever was penned, is preserved in the letters of Rowland 
 White to his patron Sir Robert Sydney, recently promoted 
 to the honor of chamberlain.f In the details given by this 
 industrious observer of men and manners, the alternations 
 of hope and fear, both in the friends and enemies of Essex ; 
 the irresolution of the Queen's mind ; the strength of her 
 affection, counteracted by her jealous concern for the safety 
 of her crown and sceptre ; all are portrayed so as to pre- 
 sent these vicissitudes of passion before us in lively colors. 
 In respect to the libels, this writer asserts Sir Walter Ra- 
 legh to have been regarded as the author. After observing, 
 "that between Lord Cobham and Sir Walter Rauley is 
 grow en a deepe unkindness, but that he cannot yet lea me 
 the cause," he adds, " Sir Walter Rauley has an ague : all 
 the world suspects him about the libels."J The design of 
 these publications must, therefore, have been to inflame 
 the mind of the Queen against Essex, since the mutual 
 aversion of the Earl and Ralegh was well known to all 
 parties at this time. " Some shynynge of pace and pitye 
 appears in her majesty towards Essex, for besides her yes- 
 terday's favor she is pleased he shall have the liberty of 
 the garden ; but Sir Walter Rauley^ is fallen sicke upon it, 
 and her majesty very graciously sent to see him."|| The 
 libels were inveighed against by Lord Treasurer Buck- 
 hurst in the council, and the wisdom of the Queen's mea- 
 sures defended by her ministers severally. This was fol- 
 lowed by an harangue on the part of the lord keeper in the 
 
 * Camden, p. 571. 
 
 t Published by Arthur Collins, E3q., in the Sydney Papers. 
 I Sydney Papers, p. 141. 
 
 § His name is written in ciphers, 24 being the Dumber assigned to nun 
 in these documents. 
 | Sydney Papers, p. 139. 
 
94 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 star chamber, exposing the errors of the Earl of Essex, and 
 magnifying the endeavors of tne Queen to secure the peace 
 of Ireland.* Whilst Essex remained in custody in the 
 house of the lord keeper, devoting, as he wrote to his 
 friends, his " meditations to God,f" Ralegh was sent into 
 Flanders with Lord Cobham, with a commission to treat 
 with the United States concerning the peace now in agita- 
 tion between England and the Continental powers. ;J Their 
 embassy was conducted with the greatest secrecy ; yet it 
 excited suspicions in the mind of the Archduke Albert, 
 Governor of the Netherlands in right of his wife, to whom 
 that portion of his dominions had been ceded by her father, 
 Philip the Second of Spain. Queen Elizabeth having been 
 charged by Albert with supplying the Hollanders with 
 ammunition and victuals, it was thought necessary to em- 
 power the commissioners for peace at Boulogne to refute 
 this notion, and accordingly an ingenious and subtle excuse 
 for the embassy was supplied by the able pen of the secre- 
 tary Cecil, in case that the journey of Lord Cobham and 
 Ralegh should be mentioned as a source of umbrage. 
 Prince Maurice was at this time engaged in the siege of 
 Isabella, a fort near Ostend, and the pretext of seeing 
 his camp, and the arrangement of his army, was the plea 
 upon which the journey of the two English courtiers was 
 laid : " of whom, if they speak (but not otherwise)," says 
 the cautious Cecil, " you may use this argument : ' that 
 they have no charge, nor carried either horse or man but 
 some half a dozen of their owne ; but finding the Queen is 
 so resolved to have peace (if good conditions could be had), 
 they obtained leave with importunitie to see this one action 
 before they should become desperate of seeing any more 
 of that kynde in her majesty's time,' which God long con- 
 tinue." § The postscript of this letter, which is dated July 
 14th, 1600, mentions the return of Cobham and Ralegh, 
 adding these words, " so as that matter will be quickly an- 
 swered." Their mission nevertheless appears to have 
 excited some surmise and alarm among the commissioners 
 at Boulogne,|| and it was afterwards found to be not "alto- 
 gether idle, nor upon curiosity only ; but that they carried 
 some message which did no harm." IT 
 
 * Camden, p. 571. f Ibid, p. 571. J Oldys, p. 134. 
 
 § letter of Cecil to the Commissioners for the Treaty of Bulloigne 
 j I lid. p. 130. IT Ibid. p. 131. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 95 
 
 On the return of Ralegh to the English court, he tcqq 
 found his credit good with the Queen, and soon re- 
 ceived a substantial proof of her favor.* One great object 
 of his desires was the situation of Governor of Jersey, a 
 post which had recently become vacant by the death of Sir 
 Ani'-hony Paulet.f In his solicitations for this office, Ra- 
 legh was opposed by Sir William Russell, to whom he 
 offered to give up the wardenship of the stannaries and 
 lieutenancy of Cornwall, to induce him to relinquish his 
 suit. Ralegh gamed the appointment, however, with a 
 grant of the manor or lordship of St. Germain in Jersey, 
 without these sacrifices; but 3001. a year was deducted 
 from the usual revenues, Lord Henry Seymour claiming 
 that sum as a regular grant from the Queen during the 
 life of the former governor. A commission was sent to 
 survey the island, and to estimate the expense of building 
 a new fort,:); which it was thought Sir Walter would con- 
 sent to erect at his own charge. This appointment was one 
 of considerable trust and importance. Ralegh, as it appears 
 from his trial, did not subsequently escape suspicion from 
 the nature of a situation in which intrigues might easily be 
 carried on with foreign courts^ ; but the strict confidence 
 placed in him by the discerning Elizabeth may be implied 
 from this appointment. Vigilance, next to fidelity, was the 
 quality which the Queen most highly prized in Ralegh, 
 and with which she seldom or never dispensed. To him 
 she could not in justice apply her favorite saying, that 
 " state officers were like garments, which at the first putting 
 on were strait, but by and by did wear loose enough|| ;" 
 since whatever may have been his faults, his alacrity, zeal, 
 and disinterestedness in the conduct of his public employ- 
 ments, was never even by his enemies made the subject of 
 doubt or invective. IT 
 
 Whilst Ralegh was thus reaping the reward of long and 
 laborious exertions, we find him able to snatch a few inter- 
 vals from the perpetual services of a courtier's life to de- 
 vote to retirement, or at least to relaxation, in his country- 
 seat at Sherborne, in Devonshire. When disappointment 
 assailed him in his worldly career, he passed to this beloved 
 
 * Sydney Papers, vol. ii. p. 212. t Winwood's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 215. 
 X Sydney Papers, vol. ii. p. 210—212. § See Trial, in Oldys. 
 
 U Bacon's Apophthegms, p. 332. IT Oldys, p. 14. 
 
96 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 retreat, whither he had secluded himself early in the year, 
 when the Queen, either influenced by others, or with 
 feminine inconsistency, had refused to the man whom she 
 placed as governor over an important island, the office of 
 commissioner for the treaty of peace at Boulogne. De- 
 jected, and probably disgusted, Ralegh took refuge from 
 the harassing cares of ambition in the bosom of his family ; 
 a retreat which no man of virtue and intelligence will ever 
 repent of adopting as a resource, if he have modelled that 
 family with good sense, elevated by principles of religion. 
 In his first journey to his native country during this year, 
 Ralegh carried down with him the son of secretary Ce- 
 cil, a youth of great promise, to reside as an inmate*; 
 probably for the purpose of receiving a similar course of 
 instruction with the young Walter Ralegh. On their road 
 they rested and dined at Sion House, the seat of the Earl 
 of Northumberland ; and in Devonshire Sir Walter on this 
 occasion remained more than five months. In September, 
 he received as a guest the secretary Cecil, who, to use ex- 
 pressions which well denote the cares of a statesman's life, 
 " had picked out this time to be away, and to take some 
 time to be abroad from the infinite time and pains he takes 
 in the dispatch of her majesty's service when he is in 
 court. f" Cobham, whose selfish, base, and weak character 
 was either not at this time unfolded to Ralegh, or was over- 
 looked by him from motives of interest, was also among the 
 visitants at Sherborne, and, as is shown by one of Ralegh's 
 familiar letters to him, upon the most intimate terms.! The 
 repose which Ralegh may be presumed to have enjoyed in 
 domestic society was not of long continuance, circum- 
 stances unhappily arising which not only for a time de- 
 stroyed his tranquillity, but which have left, with no faint 
 traces, in the opinion of many authors, stains of an indelible 
 character upon his memory. 
 
 The Earl of Essex had been imprisoned during six 
 months, a period in which the agitations of the Queen's 
 mind were unparalleled by any previous excess of passion, 
 however momentous the circumstances of her life on sun- 
 dry occasions had proved. The tragical close of the Earl's 
 career, afterwards cut short by her sovereign power, 
 
 * Sydney Papers, vol. ii. p. 159 
 X See Appendix. 
 
 t Ibid. p. 210—212. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 97 
 
 might even justify the sympathy of one, who had loved 
 him less fondly and less foolishly than his royal mistress. 
 Already had she spared him the ignominy of a star-cham- 
 ber trial for treason, suffering him to be summoned before 
 a private tribunal in the house of the lord keeper ; a grace 
 for which Essex, on his trial, thanked God Almighty, ap- 
 plying to his " most gracious princess" the warmest epi- 
 thets of mercy, " that she had suffered this cup to pass."* 
 Such was the language of the day, and such the adula- 
 tions of the times, that the relentings of earthly resent- 
 ments were, with a grossness of feeling little short of pro- 
 fanity, confounded with the benignant and long-suffering 
 compassion of the Supreme Being. 
 
 Lord Clarendon, who displays in this observation an in- 
 timate knowledge of the female heart, remarks, " that if 
 ever that uncouth speech fell from Essex of the Queen, 
 which is delivered to us by one who is much conversant 
 in the affairs of the court, that she was as crooked in her 
 disposition as in her carcass, all my wonder at his destruc- 
 tion is taken from me."f It is, indeed, too true, not in re- 
 lation to this speech of the Earl's, but with regard to his 
 whole conduct, that he was sufficiently his own enemy not 
 to render it necessary even to inquire by what instruments 
 of malice his ruin was effected. In one of his acts of im- 
 prudence, he inflicted, however, upon Ralegh, an injury, 
 which, if Sir Walter had any considerable share in his 
 condemnation, proved, eventually, the cause of a heavy 
 retribution. After some alternations of repentance and of 
 violence, Essex entered into a correspondence with James 
 the Sixth, King of Scotland, and failed not to impress him 
 with formidable notions of Ralegh's power and influence, 
 and with most pernicious ones of his designing temper. 
 Nothing could be more indiscreet than this act, and 
 nothing more certain to irritate the Queen, than to pay 
 any deference to James in anticipation of his succession. 
 Even to name that event in her presence, was, as she was 
 wont to say, " to pin up her winding-sheet before her 
 face.|" It was, however, a measure both rash in Essex, 
 a' <d fatal to any chance of estimation towards Ralegh, in 
 the favor of James I. 
 
 * Camden, p. 530. -f Parallel in Reliquite WottonifB. 
 
 t NugB Antique, vol. ii. p. 257. 
 
98 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 Well might Elizabeth declare " that her father would 
 not have endured such perverseness" as that which Essex, 
 the honored object of her affections, displayed.* But not- 
 withstanding her devotion to him, prudence, and perhaps 
 avarice, induced her to refuse the renewal of his farm of 
 sweet wines (a term applied to all but French and Rhenish 
 wines), the lease of which was nearly expired. Upon this 
 denial, Essex, whose debts had been, at an early period of 
 his life, considerable, rushed into the vortex prepared for 
 him by false advisers, and rendered fatal by the violence 
 of his own passions. The result was long remembered 
 with pain, by those who admired his virtues and compas- 
 sionated his errors ; it was viewed with indignation by all 
 who were justly scandalized at the ingratitude and perfidy 
 of Essex to his sovereign, now in the decline of life, and 
 erring only towards him hitherto in a blind partiality. On 
 the evening of the 7th of February 1601, messengers were 
 dispatched from Essex House about the town, to raise re 
 ports that Cobham and Ralegh lay in wait for the Earl's 
 life. Meanwhile Essex had formed a plot to enter the 
 city on the following morning, which was Sunday, and to 
 present himself to the aldermen and the people, craving 
 their aid against his enemies, and their present help in as- 
 sisting him to make his way to the Queen's presence.f 
 On that very morning, Sir Ferdinand Gorges, one of the 
 Earl's adherents, received a message from Ralegh, urging 
 him to come with all possible speed to Durham House, and 
 by water, as being the most private way. This intimation 
 was mentioned by Gorges to Essex, who consented to his 
 hastening to the interview, but directed him to meet Ra- 
 legh on the water, on no account to land at Durham 
 House, and to take a guard with him in order to secure his 
 return. | The object of this conference was a kind en- 
 deavor to save from inevitable destruction an old compan- 
 ion in battle, Sir Ferdinand having been with him at the 
 siege of Cadiz, of which he wrote a relation highly credita- 
 ble to Ralegh. According to the testimony of Gorges, Ra- 
 legh came to the interview alone, whilst Gorges was attend- 
 ed by two gentlemen. On their meeting, Ralegh told Gor- 
 ges that he had sent for him to admonish him to make all 
 
 * Camden, p. 533. t Ibid, p. 538. % Mdy8, p. 136 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 99 
 
 haste out of town down to his charge,* there being a warrant 
 out for sending him to the Fleet. For this kind advertise- 
 ment, Gorges gave him thanks, but told him that the pres- 
 ent occasion would soon discover itself; that it came toe 
 late, for that he had engaged himself in another matter. 
 Ralegh further inquiring of him what it was, Gorges told 
 him that " there were two thousand gentlemen who had 
 resolved that day to die, or live free men." Ralegh pro- 
 tested that he had never heard of the plot until that morn- 
 ing, observing, that he did not know what they were to dc 
 against the Queen's authority ; to which Gorges replied, 
 " that it was by the abuse of him and others which made 
 so many honest men resolve to seek a reformation." The 
 natural and temperate answer which Ralegh made to this 
 avowal, was, that " no man is without a color to his in- 
 tent :" upon which, after some protestations of loyalty on 
 the part of Gorges, they separated, Ralegh returning home, 
 and Gorges to Essex House.f 
 
 Meanwhile the Earls of Rutland and Southampton, the 
 Lord Sands, Lord Parker, Lord Monteagle, and about three 
 hundred disaffected gentlemen had assembled around the 
 Earl of Essex, whose house was sedulously guarded by his 
 own orders from intruders. To some of his infatuated 
 party, Essex, who, perhaps, scarcely knew his own inten- 
 tions, declared his resolution to go to the Queen, and in- 
 form her of the snares laid for his life : and to others, he 
 protested, that, with the help of the city of London, he 
 would revenge the injuries done by his adversaries. Eliza- 
 beth, apprized of these rash proceedings, had lost no time 
 in enjoining the mayor and citizens to be upon their guard, 
 and to do their duty. To Essex she sent a deputation of 
 four privy-councillors, headed by the lord keeper and the 
 lord chief justice, to inquire the cause of these disturbances. 
 These persons were with difficulty allowed entrance, and 
 all their servants were excluded. They found the Earl in 
 the court-yard, in the midst of a confused multitude ; but 
 their presence on this occasion appeared only to irritate 
 his passions and to incense the misguided persons around 
 him.J Stimulated by their outcries, Essex consented that 
 the deputation should be taken into custody, and in this 
 
 * The Government of Plymouth. f Oldys, p. 136. 
 
 JCamdeii,p. 589. 
 
100 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 perilous situation he left them, consigning the defence of 
 his house to Sir Gilly Merrick, and issuing from it, to pur- 
 sue his first project of raising the city. Few instances 
 are to be found in history, of a life more needlessly cast 
 away by folly and insane violence than that of Essex. 
 When, on sallying into the streets, he perceived the citi- 
 zens uniformly tranquil, and refusing, with one accord, to 
 take up arms, to which, at that period, all classes of men 
 were regularly trained, ho yet pursued his course to the 
 sheriff's house, although much agitated by perplexity, and 
 overcome with fatigue. 
 
 It was now that Thomas Lord Burleigh, the brother of 
 Cecil, and the Garter King at Arms, entering the city, 
 proclaimed Essex a traitor. It was at the same time an 
 nounced, that the Lord Admiral was approaching with a 
 vast body of men. Upon this intelligence, the hopes of 
 the unfortunate Essex expired within him. He prepared, 
 therefore, to return to his house ; he revolved in his mind 
 the expediency of conciliating the Queen by the release of 
 her counsellors ; and Gorges, who had been stopped by the 
 Queen's troops at Ludgate, was fortunate enough to per- 
 form that prudent, but tardy act. 
 
 Essex now resolved to hasten home, a determination in 
 which he was checked near the west gate of St. Paul's 
 church, by a chain, defended with pikes and shot. This 
 precaution had been devised by the Bishop of London, and 
 Sir John Levison. And now Essex first drew his sword, 
 and after seeing a young and beloved friend killed by his 
 side, and having his own hat shot through, he was com- 
 pelled to turn aside to Queen Hythe, with a few devoted 
 followers. Hence they took boats, and arrived at Essex 
 House.* 
 
 Of this eventful day, Ralegh was, doubtless, a busy wit- 
 ness ; his post, as captain of the Queen's guard, requiring 
 his personal attendance in scenes of such immediate dan- 
 ger. He was not, however, brought into contact with the 
 Earl, nor with any of his accomplices ; nor was it until 
 Essex was obliged to take refuge in his own house, that 
 Ralegh's services were required near that erring, and ill- 
 fated nobleman. The last act of madness committed by 
 the Earl on this memorable day, was the fortifying of his 
 
 * Camden, p. 451. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 10l 
 
 ouse. He first cast papers into the fire, lest, as he said, 
 '■the j should tell tales." He was buoyed up with expect- 
 ations of relief from the citizens, until the Lord Admiral, 
 his former associate at Cadiz, besieged his house : among 
 the officers who were employed in this melancholy and 
 unpopular service was Ralegh.* The building was care- 
 fully barricadoed on all sides; and the Lord Admiral, with 
 his son, Lord Effingham, with Lord Cobham, Sir John 
 Stanhope, Sir Robert Sidney, and Sir Fulk Grevil, planted 
 themselves on the Thames side, in the garden ; whilst an 
 adequate force, headed by several noblemen, guarded the 
 house, near the town. The particular post assigned to 
 Ralegh has not been specified. 
 
 It was ten o'clock before Essex was prevailed on to sur- 
 render ; and in a gloomy night he was conveyed to Lam- 
 beth Palace, London Bridge being impassable by water ; 
 but, on the following day, the Earl and his associates were 
 carried in boats to the Tower ; an abode from which few, 
 in the reign of the Tudors, were emancipated, except to 
 meet with that final doom which gives liberty and repose 
 to the innocent. 
 
 And now the trial of Ralegh's forbearance, and the test 
 of his generosity and elevation of mind, began. It was un 
 derstood, even by the adherents of Essex, that " Sir Walter 
 Ralegh might get himself eternal honor and love, more 
 than ever he could otherwise, if he would procure her 
 Majesty's warrant to free the lords, which he might com- 
 pass, by undertaking it in person, f" Yet we hear of no at- 
 tempt of this charitable nature, on the part of Ralegh, who 
 would surely have avowed it at his own death, when he 
 touched, in self-justification, upon the popular charges made 
 against him of malignity towards Essex. For omissions of 
 a virtuous act no public man, in those days of peril, could, 
 however, with propriety, be censured. Every favored cour- 
 tier had his foes, who might give an invidious coloring to any 
 behest, however innocent. Elizabeth was arbitrary, almost 
 despotic ; and, in her seasons of irritation, neutrality was 
 the only safe course. " Blessed are they," said an eye-wit- 
 ness of her court, " that can be away, and live contented."}: 
 Such, probably, was the pervading sentiment of all who 
 
 * Oldys, p. 136. J Ibid. p. 137. 
 
 J I letter of Rowland White in Sydney Papers, vol. ii. p. 126. 
 
102 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 viewed closely the cares and heart-rending vicissitudes of 
 that chequered scene. 
 
 If, however, Ralegh had the moderation to preserve, in 
 his conduct tow ards Essex, an honorahle neutrality, it was 
 more than the world believed. The spirit of the age per- 
 mitted, on all public occasions where party feeling was en- 
 gaged on the side of power, a vehemence of invective 
 against a delinquent, and a violence of proceeding, which 
 would now be regarded with disgust, and repaid with 
 shame. The truth of this observation was fully experi- 
 enced by Ralegh, at a subsequent period of his life ; and 
 if he, by any secret machinations, aggravated the misfor- 
 tunes of Essex, he was severely but justly punished in the 
 events of his own ruin. 
 
 On the nineteenth day of the month, Essex and South- 
 ampton were arraigned in Westminster Hall, the lord trea- 
 surer Buckhurst acting as lord steward on the occasion. 
 The Queen's sergeant-at-law, Yelverton, in an opening 
 speech, compared Essex to Catiline, and made a similitude 
 between the Earl's ambition and the growth of the croco- 
 dile, which ceaseth not " as long as he liveth."* Coke, the 
 Queen's attorney, followed on the same side, too well 
 adapted for the office of adding abuse to proof, by a nature 
 as inflexible and unrelenting to the unfortunate, as it was 
 subservient and cringing to the powerful and prosperous. 
 He concluded an enumeration of the Queen's benefits to 
 Essex, by wishing that '' this Robert might be the last of 
 this name Earl of Essex, who affected to be Robert first of 
 that name, King of England." 
 
 To these harangues, Essex, with a cheerful voice, and 
 composed manner, replied, by asserting his innocence of 
 any other intention than that of prostrating himself at the 
 feet of the Queen, and declaring to her the dangers which 
 threatened his country. He protested that his fidelity to his 
 sovereign and to his country was untainted.f 
 
 Ralegh, with forty of the Queen's guard, was present 
 during the trial, and in the course of its progress was called 
 upon to give his evidence relative to the. conference held 
 with Gorges. He deposed, that Gorges told him on the 
 water, that Essex had put himself into a strong guard at 
 nis house, and this would be the bloodiest day's work that 
 
 * Camden, p. 543. t Camden, p. 544. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 103 
 
 aver was ; wishing he would speed to court for the preven- 
 tion of it ; that for his own share in the transaction, he al- 
 leged he " wished Gorges to refuse their company, or else 
 he would be undone.*" This testimony was confirmed by 
 Gorges, then in court ; and was answered by Essex only 
 with this observation, that it was totally different to what 
 Gorges had mentioned to him, on returning to Essex House. 
 These particulars constituted the sole evidence which Ra- 
 legh was required to give ; and it may be hence naturally 
 asked, why his name was so mixed up with this affair by 
 the partisans of Essex? It appears, however, from a tract 
 not usually referred to by our historians, that Essex, in his 
 examination before the trial, in order to give a color of jus- 
 tice to his proceedings, affirmed that he pursued the violent 
 measures to which he had recourse chiefly to defeat the 
 machinations of Ralegh, and of his partisan Lord Cobham, 
 against his own honor and safety. He asserted, that when 
 he was desired, on the seventh of February, to attend the 
 council, he had declined because he was apprized that Ra- 
 legh and Cobham had prepared an ambuscade of mus- 
 keteers upon the water, to murder him as he possed.f This 
 pretext, supported only by the assertions of a man infuriated 
 to desperation, is deprived of every shade of justice by the 
 fact that Essex practised against the life of Ralegh, by 
 means of his agents, a circumstance which was admitted 
 by Sir Christopher Elount, one of the Earl's adherents, 
 when put upon his trial ; and from this confession, backed by 
 the testimony of Sir Ferdinand Gorges, whom Blount sought 
 to persuade into the bloody deed, no doubt remained but that 
 Blount had aimed at the person of Ralegh, from a boat 
 four deadly shots.} On the other hand, it was generally 
 supposed Ralegh was the individual who first apprized the 
 government of the conspiracy, the particulars of which had 
 been imparted to him from Gorges, who, doubtless, proved 
 treacherous to his own party, and deceived them as to what 
 had passed between him and Ralegh in the conference ; and 
 who, for that reason, combined with suspicions of further 
 machinations against Essex, was never forgiven by the 
 
 * Oldys, p. 139. 
 
 f Oldys, p. 137. Biographia, from Lord Bacon's Declarations of E» 
 ■<ex's Treasons. 
 t Oldys, p. 138. also Birch, vol. i. p. 45. 
 
104 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 populace. The unfortunate Earl endeavored, on his trial 
 to turn even the admonitions of Ralegh to Gorges into 
 proofs of a conspiracy against his life ; which was evidently 
 implied, he alleged, in the advice of Ralegh to Gorges, to 
 withdraw from the company of Essex, as " from a ship in 
 danger to be wrecked."* Gorges was then produced, and 
 gave an evidence confirming the guilt of Essex. Perhaps 
 there were few present who were not concerned to see this 
 treacherous friend, one, too, who had been distinguished in 
 the service of his country, disgrace his name by a base dis- 
 closure of the guilt in which he had participated. It was 
 obvious, that through some secret source, the enemies of 
 Essex had gained accurate information of all his designs 
 and proceedings. This source, in all human probability, 
 was the perfidious Gorges ; and the intercourse which Ra- 
 legh had with him, and the seeming fair terms on which 
 tbey continued even till the fatal day of the insurrection, 
 had, possibly, a far deeper source than common good-will. 
 After the conference at Drury House had been mentioned, 
 and it was proved that the heads of the consultation had 
 been written with his own hand, the Earl burst forth into 
 passionate exclamations : — " The hope," he said, " of life 
 and impunity had drawn these things out of some ; and let 
 them freely enjoy their life : for my part, death is more 
 welcome to me than life : Cobham, Cecil, Ralegh's violence, 
 hath driven me to the necessary defence of my life." 
 
 Thus did he seek to justify his own defection from loy- 
 alty. To this charge, Cecil and Cobham replied ; but Ra- 
 legh appears to have intrusted the defence of his own con- 
 duct to Francis Lord Bacon, who, in a polished and elegant 
 speech, affirmed that " Cobham, Cecil, and Ralegh were 
 such sincere honest men, and had such rich estates, that 
 they would never hazard their hopes and properties, by 
 entering into so foul a conspiracy."! He commented also 
 upon the inconsistencies of the Earl's allegations, in which 
 he affirmed, sometimes, that he was to be stabbed in his 
 bed, then slain in a boat, then killed by the Jesuits ; and 
 compared him to Pisistratus, who wounded his own body, 
 and showed it to the people as if done by his adversaries ; 
 and having by that means obtained a guard of soldiers, op- 
 oressed the commonwealth. 
 
 * Camden, p. 545. t Ibid. p. 546. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 105 
 
 In the course of this speech, Essex interrupted him by 
 observing, that Lord Bacon had written, not long since, an 
 elaborate letter in his name, to the Queen, against the very 
 men whom he now defended. This was a just accusation ; 
 and afforded one among the various instances of tergiver- 
 sation and insincerity which occurred in the life of the* 
 illustrious, but not faultless, Bacon. 
 
 After a warm contest between Cecil and Ralegh, which 
 originated in a dispute concerning Dollman's work upon 
 the succession to the crown, the prisoners were pronounced 
 guilty, by an unanimous sentence of the peers. Greatly 
 as the popular indignation was, at this time, incensed 
 against Essex, few persons could hear his appeal to the 
 mercy of the Queen, and to the mediation of the judges, 
 without pity ; and some, perhaps, not without remorse. On 
 the edge of the ax being, after his sentence, turned to- 
 wards him, he said, " This body might have done the Queen 
 better service, if it had so pleased her : I shall be glad if it 
 may be useful to her any way." 
 
 His execution succeeded his trial in seven days ; and his 
 repentance, in that short space of time, appeared to be 
 genuine, whilst his confessions were copious. Ralegh was 
 present at his death ; a circumstance which was variously 
 interpreted : by some he was charged with the baseness of 
 pursuing his fallen rival even to the scaffold, that he might 
 glory in the sight of those last sufferings, over which even 
 the bitterness of party rancor would willingly cast a veil ; 
 by others more charitable, it was thought that he placed 
 himself near the Earl, in order to answer any allegations 
 which the dying man might make against him. He was, 
 however, advised to withdraw ; and with this counsel he 
 found it expedient to comply. 
 
 In reply to the spirit in which these acknowledged factb 
 have been frequently detailed by historians on this subject, 
 it may be urged that in disclosing the dangerous schemes 
 of Essex, even if the fact that he did so were proved, Ra- 
 legh performed his duty as a subject, and as a well-wisher 
 to the tranquillity of his country. Nor can it be denied 
 that he was justified in maintaining any intercourse with 
 Gorges, which might afford an insight into the Earl's con- 
 spiracy With regard to his assistance in the apprehension 
 of Essex, it is obvious that he acted in his capacity of cap- 
 .ain of the guard, an office which obliged him to attend on 
 
106 „1FE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 public occasions, and especially at those times when the 
 public safety was endangered ; and it would be unjust to 
 reproach him with a service in which some of the most 
 valiant and honorable persons were employed. The impu- 
 tation of a conspiracy between him and Cobham to murder 
 the Earl was unsupported by proof, and devoid of proba- 
 bility ; and the charge of attending the execution of Essex, 
 which appeared from motives of malignant triumph to con- 
 tain much more likely grounds of accusation, is in a great 
 measure refuted by his own simple statement, after he had 
 himself appeared before the tribunal of justice. On that 
 solemn occasion he thus expressed himself: — " There was 
 a report spread, that I should rejoice at the death of my 
 Lord Essex, and that I should take tobacco in his presence ; 
 when, as I protest, I shed tears at his death, though I was 
 one of the contrary faction, and at the time of his death I 
 was all the while in the armory at the further end, where 
 I could but see him ; I was sorry that I was not with him, 
 for I heard he had a desire to see me, and be reconciled to 
 me ; so that I protest I lamented his death, and good cause 
 had I, for it was the worse for me as it proved, for after he 
 was gone I was little beloved."* Such, indeed, was the 
 frame of mind in which Ralegh viewed the last moments 
 of Essex, that, as he returned in a boat from the Tower, a 
 sad presaging anticipation of his own fate pressed heavily 
 upon his spirits, and excited the observation of his compan- 
 ions.! These gloomy forebodings may have been the effect 
 of strong compassion, or of sensations of awe upon behold- 
 ing an individual, so lately, and so peculiarly, the favorite 
 of fortune, conducted to the scaffold ; or they may have 
 been produced by the display of popular indignation which 
 had obliged Ralegh to retreat from his station near to the 
 scene of action into the armory. At any rate, they evince 
 any thing rather than an insolent triumph, or a brutal sat- 
 isfaction at the destruction of one so envied, and, as it 
 proved, so lamented as the unfortunate Essex. 
 
 It was, indeed, afterwards asserted, that Ralegh, in his 
 letters, had said that he doubted the Earl's saintship, and 
 that the "great boy had died like a calf and like a craven." 
 It was likewise affirmed, that soon after the execution, a 
 
 * See Life of Ralegh, prefixed to History of the World, p. 39. 8vo. 1673. 
 t Osborne's Essays, p. 615. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 107 
 
 o-entleman returning from Spain, rested at Sherborne, 
 where Ralegh then abode. On being asked what they 
 said of the death of Essex in Spain, this person is stated tc 
 have replied, that they had not heard of it ; but that he 
 was sorry to hear that in the island voyage the Earl had 
 brought Sir Walter Ralegh to his mercy. To this observa- 
 tion Ralegh is said to have answered, " But I trust I am 
 now quit with him." The author of this tale also declares, 
 that Ralegh gave instructions to the lieutenant of the 
 Tower for the execution of the warrant.* Upon this in- 
 formation it has been well observed, that it was given by 
 the person who afterwards ensnared him, to those who 
 eventually condemned Sir Walter Ralegh to the scaffold. 
 Common sense also suggests that Ralegh, conscious as he 
 was of some imputations of this nature, would not thus 
 wantonly lay himself open to fresh constructions of a simi- 
 lar kind. . 
 
 So great was the esteem in which Essex was held, that 
 Ralegh was never again well received in public ; and even 
 Elizabeth, in addition to the griefs of a breaking heart, ex- 
 perienced the chagrin of seeing that her popularity was 
 diminished, that the streets were less crowded, and the 
 acclamations, as she passed, less cordial than before.f The 
 popular feeling was right : -Essex, although a dangerous, 
 was not an irreclaimable subject; and Elizabeth evinced 
 as much harshness in thus punishing his offences, as a pa- 
 rent who visits with severe chastisement a child whom his 
 folly has spoiled. Neither jan Ralegh, even with the ben- 
 efit of every excuse, rise untainted above the suspicion 
 which attached to him in this affair. He must, in justice, 
 be indeed absolved from the heinous and almost diabolical 
 designs laid to his charge ; but great minds should be 
 judged by a high standard of honor, and of moral feeling. 
 That which might not appear extraordinary in Cobham, or 
 even in Cecil, became reprehensible in Bacon and in Ra- 
 legh. In consonance with the high spirit of patriotism 
 which he professed, with the demeanor of a gentleman, 
 with the sentiments of a Christian, Ralegh should have 
 discarded from his inmost thoughts every wish but that for 
 mercy, every intention but that of promoting public tran- 
 quillity, every recollection of past injury from Essex, every 
 
 * Oldys p. 138. t Osborne's Trad. Memoirs of Q. E 
 
108 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 idea of possible rivalry for the future. That such was not 
 the inference to be drawn from his conduct, is, unhappily, 
 too true : in what degree he was reprehensible, it is ex- 
 tremely difficult to determine ; but although the popular 
 feelings are often exaggerated, they are seldom wholly 
 unfounded. His mediation with regard to some of the 
 other delinquents was effectual ; and it is not extravagant 
 to suppose, that in the wavering state of the Queen's mind, 
 it might not have proved unavailable with respect to Essex.* 
 Sir Edmund Baynham, and John Lyttleton, two of the 
 conspirators, were pardoned, upon the payment each of a 
 considerable sum to Ralegh, who interceded in their behalf 
 with the Queen. The bribe held out in this instance by 
 Lyttleton is said to have amounted to ten thousand pounds. 
 Such was the mode in which mercy was purchased, even 
 in the eulogized reign of Elizabeth ; and such the base and 
 mercenary spirit in this instance displayed even by the 
 liberal and patriotic Ralegh. 
 
 It was long before Essex was forgotten, or his enemies 
 forgiven, by the people. He died in the thirty-fourth year 
 of his age, a period at which his father was said to have 
 warned him upon his death-bed.f The lower classes re- 
 garded his execution as a murder, and were the more 
 angry that intercession had been made by the opposite 
 party for Southampton, but none for Essex. J They forgot, in 
 their violent condemnation of the government which had 
 first imprisoned, then sentenced him to death, the obligations 
 which Essex had received from his country ; for, in his public 
 employments, he had reaped at least three hundred thousand 
 pounds^ : they forgot his influence with the military, and 
 his asserted pretensions to the crown ; and they saw not, 
 with the exception of those immediately about the court, 
 the agonized reluctance with which Elizabeth signed the 
 warrant, nor the griefs which even her strong mind could 
 not after his execution, control. It is probable that the senti- 
 ments of Ralegh upon this mournful occasion were equally 
 concealed, or misunderstood. The history of human mo- 
 tives has, perhaps, in few instances, been faithfully dis- 
 closed to the world. 
 
 * Camden, p. 5-19. t Camden, p. 533. 
 
 J Osborne's Essays, p. CIO. London, 1673. 
 § Note in Biographia, art. Devereux. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 109 
 
 Throughout the whole of this melancholy business, the 
 Queen abandoned herself to a dejection so mingled with 
 irritation, that few even of her favorites ventured to ad- 
 dress her on matters of business. Yet it seems that her 
 resentment was not directed to the enemies of Essex, but 
 to those who had been his most intimate associates. 
 
 Amongst the courtiers who had offended the Queen, 
 during the recent deputyship of Essex in Ireland, was Sir 
 John Harrington, the godson of Elizabeth, and, usually, the 
 indulged companion of her lighter hours. Secured, by his 
 privileged relation to her majesty, from the effects of her 
 serious resentment, and permitted in his character of a wit 
 to treat as sport those passing events by which the fate of 
 less happy courtiers was determined, Harrington had 
 lately in some measure incurred the displeasure of Eliza- 
 beth during his campaign in Ireland with Essex, not so 
 much for his visit to Lord Tyrone, the leader of the rebels 
 there, as from his changing the title of captain into that of 
 ■ knight on being endowed with that order ; — a dire offence 
 to Elizabeth, who, on hearing of twenty-four persons being 
 knighted by Essex at the siege of Roan, contemptuously 
 remarked, " that my Lord should have made his alms-house 
 first."* 
 
 No troubles or perils could however chill the vivacity 
 of Harrington, nor check the exuberance of his wit and 
 fancy. Facetiously described by Fuller as a " poet in all 
 things except his poverty," Harrington indulged in one of 
 the supposed privileges of an imaginative turn, by extrava- 
 gant habits, and a thoughtless indifference to the future. 
 His intimacy with Ralegh was considerable ; and it is sat- 
 isfactory to find, at a later period, when Ralegh was under 
 the cloud of court displeasure in the reign of James, that 
 Harrington had the independence to express a firm re- 
 liance upon the essential points of his character. It is 
 even more satisfactory to those, who, admiring the talents 
 of Ralegh, are disposed to view his conduct with partiality, 
 to perceive that the affair of Essex had not impressed Har- 
 rington with any notions prejudicial to Ralegh's honor and 
 veracity. It is evident, also, from the following passage, 
 that Cecil had not forgiven, in Ralegh, some parts of his 
 behavior in that affair, which have not been explained by 
 
 * Sydn Papers, vol. ii. p. 129. 
 
110 LIFE OP SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 any of the contemporary writers, sufficiently to show how 
 far they were calculated to rouse the anger of the secre- 
 tary. " Cecil doth beare no love to Raleighe, as you well 
 know, in the matter of Essex. I wiste not that he (Ralegh) 
 hath evyll desygn, in pointe of faithe or relygion. As he 
 hath ofter, discoursede to me moch lernynge, wysdome, 
 and freedome, I knowe he dothe somewhat dyffer in opyn- 
 yon for some others ; but I thynke alsoe his hearte is well 
 fixed in every honeste nature, to serve the state, especial- 
 lie as he is versede in foraign matters, his skyll thereyn 
 being alwaies estimable and prayseworthie. In relygion, 
 he hathe showne (in pryvate talke) great depth and good 
 readynge, as I once experyenced at hys owne howse, be- 
 fore manie lernyde men.*" Happy himself in escaping 
 unhurt from the snares of a courtier's life, Harrington ex- 
 perienced enough of its vicissitudes to congratulate him- 
 self that if he had been driven " amongst state rocks and 
 sightless dangers," he " had not ventured so far as to be 
 quite sunken herein.f" For some time after his return 
 from Ireland, he was regarded almost on the same footing 
 as the delinquent Essex, and was threatened with the 
 Fleet ; to which he answered, " poetically," " that coming 
 so late from the land-service, he hoped he should not be 
 pressed to serve in her Majesty's fleet in Fleet-Street." 
 At length he gamed a full audience of the Queen, where 
 she, being herself accuser, judge, and witness, he was 
 cleared, and graciously dismissed. He then retired to 
 Kelston, near Bath ; a seat which had been settled by 
 Henry the Eighth upon one of his natural children, a 
 daughter, who was the first wife of Sir John Harrington's 
 father.^ Nevertheless, he could not resist the inclination 
 which curiosity and habit occasion, sometimes to visit the 
 court, notwithstanding his resolution to " leave great mat- 
 ters to those who liked them better than himself." He 
 found, at every successive interview, the strength, the 
 spirits, and the self-command of the Queen fast diminish- 
 ing, and neither Ralegh nor Cecil could be ignorant of the 
 sorrows which were making rapid inroads into Elizabeth's 
 constitution. Her decline, " too fast," as many thought, 
 " for the evil they should get by her death," and too slow 
 for her own release from misery, was now apparent to all. 
 
 * Nugse Antiquse, vol. i. pp. 342, 343. f Ibid. J Ibid. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. Ill 
 
 £>he joined, indeed, in her former amusements, but it was 
 with a faltering step, and with faint attempts at forced 
 cheerfulness. When, after a short absence, Harrington 
 was summoned to her presence, she inquired if he had 
 seen Tyrone ! On his reply, that he had seen him with the 
 lord deputy, she smote her bosom, and said, " Oh now it 
 mindeth me that you were one who saw this man else- 
 where," — the connexion between Harrington and Essex 
 being thus recalled to her. And when Harrington, think- 
 ing to revive in her Majesty the old remembrance of his 
 pleasantries, which had often amused her, read some verses, 
 she told him, in the language of a breaking heart, " that 
 she was passed all relish for fooleries." But during the 
 short space of time that she survived Essex, the wretched 
 Queen, condemned to pay the usual tax of royalty, was 
 constrained to sustain the weariness of ceremonial with a 
 wounded spirit, and to support the cares of business, when 
 all enjoyment of her sovereignty was at an end. 
 
 In the summer of this year she made her last ,™, 
 progress, in which Ralegh accompanied her to 
 Dover, and probably to Hampshire. Whilst the Queen 
 was at Dover, the siege of Ostend, by the Archduke Al- 
 bert, alarmed Henry the Fourth for his own frontiers, and 
 brought him to Calais to provide for the safety of his do- 
 minions. When Elizabeth heard of his arrival there, she 
 dispatched Sir Thomas Edmonds to make her formal con- 
 gratulations and inquiries respecting his health. In returr 
 for this compliment, Henry sent over the celebrated Rosni 
 Due de Sully, one of the most experienced statesmen and 
 profound politicians of the day. It was the fortune of Ra- 
 legh, with Cobham and Sir Robert Sydney and others, to 
 receive this celebrated man on his landing at Dover ; a cir- 
 cumstance which is mentioned by Sully in his Memoirs of 
 the Reign of Henry the Fourth.* It is to be regretted 
 that no observations on the part of Ralegh, on meeting a 
 man so justly renowned, have come to light ; since, per- 
 haps, there is no subject of contemplation, in human affairs, 
 more interesting than the sentiments with which great 
 men regard each other upon their first interview. Whilst 
 the Queen pursued her course into Hampshire, the Mar- 
 shal Biron was also deputed by Henry the Fourth to make 
 
 * Sully's Memoirs, vol. v. p 60. 
 
112 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 an embassy into England ; and reaching London on the 5th 
 of September, he proceeded with a magnificent retinue of 
 three or four hundred persons to the neighborhood of Bas- 
 ing, the seat of the Marquis of Winchester, to whom the 
 Queen was then paying one of those burdensome ana 
 sometimes ruinous visits with which it was, in those times, 
 customary for our English monarchs to honor their sub- 
 jects. Biron took up his abode at the Vine, a seat of Lord 
 Sandys, furnished with seven-score beds from the neigh- 
 boring gentry, and with furniture from the Queen's palace 
 for the foreign guests. The festival which here took place 
 is said to have been one of the most continued and sump- 
 tuous entertainments ever given on a royal progress.* 
 Among ten persons whom the Queen, contrary to her 
 usual proceeding, knighted at one time, was Carew, that 
 younger brother of Sir Walter Ralegh,f who afterwards 
 sold his patrimonial estates of Widdycombe, Ralegh, and 
 Fardel ; and, removing from his native county, became the 
 ancestor of the Raleghs of Wiltshire, who flourished long 
 after the reign of Elizabeth.! Sir Carew was favored, in 
 several instances, by Queen Elizabeth, and held the office 
 of steward of her manor of Gillingham in Gloucester- 
 shire. § 
 
 Two inferences are deducible from the circumstance of 
 his being knighted at Basing. First, we are led to surmise 
 that Ralegh was probably present upon such an occasion, 
 and that he participated in the festivities given in honoi 
 of Biron ; and, secondly, we are brought to a still more 
 certain conclusion that Ralegh's favor, in the estimation of 
 Elizabeth, had in no degree suffered from his recent share 
 1601 * n ^ e ca ^ a ^ s a g amst Essex. During the month of 
 October in this year parliament mec, the last in 
 Elizabeth's reign, and the first of which there is a list ex- 
 tant of the members. || Sir Walter and his brother both 
 served in this parliament ; the one for Cornwall, the other 
 for Foway in that county. Sir Walter on this occasion 
 made a very creditable and conspicuous figure in the 
 House of Commons ; in his speech against the act to pro- 
 mote the sowing of hemp. It was his opinion that the 
 
 * Nicholl's Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, vol. ii. p. 6. f Ibid. 
 
 t Note in Oldys, p. 139. § Ibid 
 
 | Oldys, p. 139, from Townshend's Historical Collections. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 113 
 
 penalties enforced by this statute, in some instances, re- 
 tarded the progress of agriculture ; in others, that it obliged 
 those to plow who were scarcely able to furnish the 
 seed-corn to sow the land. " I do not," said he, " like this 
 constraining of men to manure the ground at our wills ; 
 but rather let every man use his ground for that which it 
 is most fit for, and therein use his own discretion. For 
 where the law provides that every man must plow the 
 third of his land, I know divers poor people have done so 
 to avoid the penalty of the statute, when their abilities 
 have been so poor that they have not been able to buy 
 seed-corn to sow it ; nay, they have been fain to hire 
 others to plow it, which if it had been unplowed, would 
 have been good pasture for beasts, or might have been con- 
 verted to other good uses." The bill was afterwards 
 thrown out by a majority of a hundred and sixty-two to a 
 hundred and three.* Ralegh next spoke in favor of the 
 subsidy ; a question on which he was opposed by Bacon, 
 who contended in favor of collecting the demand of three 
 hundred thousand pounds from the poor as well as the rich ; 
 a measure which was adopted, and which was afterwards 
 acknowledged by Ralegh to be necessary to make up 
 the sum. In his Prerogative of Parliaments, he informs 
 us, however, that his solicitude to tax the better sort only, 
 was suggested by the Queen herself, who " desired much 
 to save the common people ;" and that he did so bv her 
 command.f 
 
 The subject of monopolies was next discussed ; and in 
 this the personal interests of Ralegh were peculiarly con- 
 cerned. This theme of discussion related to a practice 
 which had not first originated with Elizabeth ; but it had 
 been carried to a greater extent by her than by her prede- 
 cessors, for a reason creditable to her subjects, but preju- 
 dicial to their comforts. The great achievements which 
 the age had witnessed were so numerous among the Eng- 
 lish, that Elizabeth was unable to reward her subjects in a 
 manner adequate to their merits, except by granting pat- 
 ents for monopolies, which were sold to those persons 
 who desired to trade in any particular article.]; The con- 
 sequences of these grants may readily be conceived, — the 
 
 * Oldys, p. 139. from Townshend's Historical Collections, 
 t Ralegh's Prerogative of Parliaments. J Hume. 
 
 K2 
 
114 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 immense and unfair prices imposed upon the public, to the 
 great deterioration of trade, and the odium justly incurred 
 by those who were the instruments and gainers in this 
 species of oppression. Every possible commodity for the 
 purposes of luxury, or the means of amusement, and even 
 the necessaries of life, were under the control of these 
 patentees, who were armed with powers from government 
 to enforce their privileges, and to levy fines upon those 
 whom they charged with interfering in their patent. Not 
 only was an immoderate and arbitrary price thus affixed to 
 every article, but industry and competition were precluded, 
 ill-will promoted, and liberty curtailed ; many of the pat- 
 entees having the power to enter any place, where they 
 imagined that goods, which they had licenses for selling, 
 were secreted.* It may be mentioned as an additional 
 evil of this extraordinary system, that whilst commerce 
 was diminished and the number of vexatious statutes and 
 limitations multiplied ; whilst the middling classes were 
 shackled and the poor oppressed, the spirit thus engendered 
 among the nobility was paltry and debasing ; avarice was 
 cherished ; and a disregard to the interests of our fellow- 
 men necessarily associated with notions of selfish aggran- 
 dizement. 
 
 When Ralegh, with other of the monopolists, appeared 
 in the debate on this question, he defended nimself with 
 considerable spirit and eloquence against any peculiar 
 censure attaching to his own conduct, and affirmed his 
 willingness to give up his patent in case of the rest being 
 also repealed.f He explained the nature of his patent, 
 which was chiefly for tin, and which he affirmed had bene- 
 fited the poor miners by raising their weekly earnings from 
 two to four shillings. He informed the house that it was 
 the same as that which the dukes of Cornwall had hitherto 
 been allowed to exerc-ae. He inveighed in strong terms 
 against other monopolies, especially against that possessed 
 Dy Sir Henry Neville for the transportation of ordnance, 
 by which even the Spaniards were provided with instru- 
 ments for our destruction. It was remarked that a long 
 and profound silence followed this speech. It is painful 
 o deteriorate from the merit of Ralegh in the sacrifice 
 which he proposed ; but he was probably aware of the 
 
 * Hume, reign of Elizabeth, 8vo. edition, p. 324. t Birch, p. 46. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 115 
 
 Queen's intention with respect to monopolies. The most 
 popular act of her reign was her ready acquiescence to the 
 opinions and wishes of her parliament, in this instance ; 
 her repeal of some of the most grievous of the licenses, and 
 the gracious manner in which the proposition was prof- 
 fered : and never was gratitude expressed in a more ful- 
 some, obsequious, and almost profane manner, than on this 
 occasion.* Besides the proceedings which have been enu- 
 merated, Ralegh voted also for the repeal of a statute of 
 tillage, enacted in time of dearth, and for other bills of 
 local or of passing importance. 
 
 During the period of his life which embraced the last 
 ten years of Elizabeth's reign, Ralegh devoted considera- 
 ble attention to the concerns of Cornwall, and found lei- 
 sure, notwithstanding the pressure of public business, to 
 study its antiquities and to cherish its interests. He pro- 
 cured the restoration of seventeen manors in that county 
 to their ancient tenure, which was disputed at Nisi Prius, 
 although it had subsisted for three centuries. The tenants 
 had deputed Richard Carew of Anthony, one of the deputy- 
 lieutenants of Cornwall, to present a petition to Lord Bur- 
 leigh, entreating the continuance of their ancient privi- 
 leges; and this remonstrance was seconded by Ralegh, 
 who, whilst residing in the west of England, wrote earn- 
 estly in behalf of the supplicants. He also prevented the 
 imposition of an ancient tax upon the curing of fish, im- 
 posed in the time of Henry the Second, and now revived 
 by some interested persons, who, under pretence of serving 
 the crown, sought to obtain patents to prevent the salting 
 and drying of fish without licenses. The destruction of 
 this branch of commerce, and the oppression of the poor 
 Cornish trader, formerly heavily burdened with fines to the 
 ancient earls of Cornwall, were the consequences of this 
 dishonorable attempt to enrich private individuals at the 
 expense of the community.! Ralegh applied the whole 
 force of his interests, and the strength of his arguments, 
 to prevent a result so injurious to the prosperity of Corn- 
 wall, of which he was then lieutenant. His next exertions 
 related to the reduction of the taxes upon the manufacture 
 of tin ; and in this matter, which was disputed before the 
 council, he was equally successful ; joining personally iu 
 
 * Hume, 8vo. p. 328. | Oldys, pp. 128, 129. 
 
116 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 the discussion, in which he attempted to restore the privi- 
 lege of pre-emption, founded in the reign of Edward the 
 First. The exercise of this privilege was afterwards vested 
 in Ralegh, as the person most qualified to regulate it judi- 
 ciously and impartially.* For the zeal with which he 
 promoted these regulations, Ralegh obtained the encomiums 
 of Richard Carew, one of the numerous branches of the 
 ancient family of that name, and better known as the au- 
 thor of a " Survey of Cornwall ;" — a work which he dedi- 
 cated to Ralegh, with a flattering, but apparently well- 
 merited address. In this composition, Ralegh is assured, 
 that whilst he exercises an extensive command, both civil 
 and military, over the people of Cornwall, he possesses a 
 far greater interest in "their hearts and loves" by his 
 kindness. " Your ears and mouth have ever been open to 
 hear and deliver our grievances ; and your feet and hands 
 ready to go and work their redress ; and that, not only as 
 a magistrate of yourself, but also, very often, as a suitor 
 and solicitor to others of the highest place. f" Such was 
 the language in which the benevolent labors of Ralegh for 
 the lower classes of Cornwall were eulogized. Happy 
 had it been for him, if his views had been henceforward 
 limited to philanthropic endeavors to promote the local 
 benefit of his countrymen, or in the advancement of scien- 
 tific and literary knowledge. 
 
 In conducting the concerns over which his situation of 
 lord warden of the stannaries, and other occasional offices, 
 required him to preside, Ralegh found considerable assist- 
 ance from his antiquarian researches, which afterwards 
 became highly important, and which were extended by him 
 to the study of history. 
 
 The study of antiquities, and of all pursuits connected 
 with history, was then much in vogue ; and considerable 
 opportunities were afforded for the most intricate and im- 
 portant researches, from the dispersion of many valuable 
 tracts from the monasteries but recently dissolved, and 
 from the visitations of our universities and colleges. J Stim- 
 ulated by these inducements, a society of antiquarians had 
 been formed in 1572, under the auspices of Archbishop 
 Parker, the patron of the revival of the Saxon language. 
 To this learned association Ralegh belonged, until the 
 
 * Oldys, pp. 128, 129 t'bid. I Biographia Britannica, art. Cotton. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 117 
 
 illiberal and impolitic jealousy of the government crushed 
 in their commencement the exertions which, if freely ex- 
 ercised at so advantageous a period, might have proved 
 highly beneficial to our national literature; and would, 
 perhaps, have illuminated many of those obscure points of 
 our history, concerning which, conjecture and disputation 
 will never, in all probability, be at rest. In vain, however, 
 had the Society petitioned Queen Elizabeth to be incorpo- 
 rated into a society or academy for the study of antiquities. 
 Devoted to the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, that 
 princess desired not to run the risk of interfering with those 
 important institutions ; and her example was not only fol- 
 lowed by her successor, but umbrage taken at the frequent 
 meetings of the antiquarians, to whom the suspicious 
 temper of the government attached sinister and dangerous 
 motives. 
 
 Under these unfavorable circumstances, the Society was 
 dissolved ;* but its important objects were pursued sedu- 
 lously, although with far less facility, by individuals. In- 
 deed if we affix to the reign of James the First any distinct 
 literary era, it would probably be that of antiquarian lore ; 
 and if we recall the names of Verstegan, Camden, Speed, 
 Cotton, Selden, Bacon, Ralegh, and of many other eminent 
 persons, we shall acknowledge, that, although the efforts 
 of the antiquaries may have been circumscribed, their en- 
 thusiasm in the cause was not, perhaps, diminished by op- 
 position. At the time of Ralegh's association in this infant 
 and oppressed society, the meetings were held in the apart- 
 ments of the garter king at arms (supposed to have been 
 Sir William Dethewick), at Derby House, which is now 
 appropriated to the Herald's Office.f Among the names 
 of the early members were those not only of the retired 
 and humble laborers in the pursuit of knowledge, but of 
 the great, the wealthy, and the warlike. The elder Bur- 
 leigh, Sir Philip Sydney, and the Herberts, Earls of Pem- 
 broke, were thus brought into contact with the indefatiga- 
 ble Stow, Spelman, Camden, Cotton, Hooker, and Selden. 
 
 * Until a more favorable era, as far as royal indulgence was con- 
 cerned, but a far less advantageous one for the researches into those 
 memorials, many of which had been dilapidated, and some altogether 
 destroyed, in the civil wars. It was revived in 1707, and in 1751 incor 
 porated by George the Second. 
 
 t Oldys, p. 130. 
 
118 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 With some of these eminent men, Ralegh maintained an 
 intimacy, creditable and advantageous to himself; to others 
 he afforded the assistance which his abundant means ena- 
 bled him, at this time, to afford : from several he obtained, 
 in the progress of his own works, those aids which the 
 learned and curious can alone supply. 
 
 Among those to whom the learned were principally 
 indebted for the stores of information which his own dili- 
 gence and liberality enabled him to dispense, was Sir 
 Robert Cotton, whose name, as long as our national library 
 exists, will never be forgotten ; nor should it ever be re- 
 membered except with gratitude. To him Ralegh, in the 
 latter part of his days, whilst in prison, applied for some 
 of those valuable corner-stones of knowledge upon which 
 a fabric of extensive interest and importance might se- 
 curely be reared. Sir Robert Cotton bore the same rela- 
 tion to Ralegh, and to many others, as that in which the 
 mineralogist, who tries and discovers the vein of ore, stands 
 to him who raises the precious metal from the earth, and 
 displays it in the most pleasing form to an admiring world. 
 Consulted as an oracle by the learned men of his time, he 
 had supplied manuscript materials for the histories of Cam- 
 den, Hayward,* Speed, Bacon, Selden, as well as for that 
 afterwards published by Ralegh.f Employed from the 
 early age of eighteen in the collection of manuscripts, few 
 persons had more to bestow than Sir Robert Cotton ; and 
 what was next in importance, none had a greater disposi- 
 tion to render his accumulated treasures useful to others. 
 There were subjects upon which it was not in those days 
 deemed sufficient for historical writers to trust to the re- 
 ports of others : and it was not uncommon for antiquaries 
 to make long, and, in the absence of regular travelling 
 accommodations, tedious journeys, to any particular spot 
 which they desired to commemorate. It was about the 
 time when Ralegh's name is first associated with the So- 
 ciety of Antiquaries, that the excursion of Camden and of 
 Cotton to Carlisle was undertaken, and a part of the Picts' 
 wall, still preserved at Connington, brought away for the 
 inspection of the curious. So great was the fame of Sir 
 Robert Cotton's collection, that no work of importance was 
 commenced without referring to that compendium of chart- 
 
 * See Hayward's Life of Edward VI. | Biographia Britannica. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 119 
 
 ers, records, and other documents. Wedded to his manu- 
 scripts, and in the peaceful prosecution of literary studies, 
 he long survived the less happy Ralegh ; so that all access 
 to his stores of learning was, during Ralegh's life, requested 
 as a personal i'avor. After effecting as much, in the ser- 
 vice of historical truth, as it appears possible, in the short 
 span of life, to accomplish, Sir Robert left his inestimable 
 library to his family, with such a security in his will against 
 the chance of its being sold or dispersed, that posterity 
 should have the benefit of referring to it as a collection.* 
 
 Whilst Ralegh thus enriched his works with contribu- 
 tions from Sir Robert Cotton, he had the credit of affording 
 aid to his relative John Hooker in the compilation of his 
 " Records of Devon.f" This industrious antiquary, the 
 assistant of Holinshed in his great work, the Chronicles 
 of Britain, was the uncle of Richard Hooker, author of 
 the justly celebrated work on Ecclesiastical Polity. These 
 ingenious and learned men were remotely related to Ra- 
 legh, and were both born in Devonshire, which Camden 
 describes as a "countrey fruitfull of noble wits."J Hooker 
 dedicated his Supplement to the Chronicles of Ireland, in 
 Holinshed, to Ralegh : and in that address to his relative 
 and patron he has testified his gratitude for the benefits 
 conferred, and his respect for the talents possessed, by that 
 valuable friend. 
 
 The assistance afforded to Hooker by Ralegh proves 
 how considerable a proficiency he must have attained in 
 antiquarian researches ; and he appears to have had a col- 
 lection of manuscripts, — the learned Selden applying to 
 
 * This collection consists in MSS. in loose skins, or bound up in vol- 
 umes, sometimes many upon different subjects in one cover. They came 
 into the possession of Sir Robert Cotton, sometimes by legacy, sometimes 
 by purchase ; and were collected at visitations, upon the dissolution of 
 the monasteries. The Cotton library was much augmented by his sous. 
 Sir Thomas and Sir John Cotton, and remained in the family residence, 
 in Westminster, near the House of Commons. In the reign of William 
 III. an act of parliament was passed for securing it in the family of the 
 Cottons; but Cotton House was afterwards bought from the great-erand- 
 son of Sir Robert, by Queen Anne, and was made a repository both for 
 the Cottonian and the Royal Library. Some years afterwards, it was 
 removed to a house near Westminster Abbey belonging to the crown; 
 where a fire breaking out in 173L one hundred and eleven books were 
 lost, burnt, or wholly defaced, and ninety-nine rendered imperfect. It 
 was afterwards removed to the dormitory of Westminster School, and 
 since to the British Museum. Note in Biog. art. Cotton. 
 
 t A work which has never been printed. Oldys, p. 5. 
 
 J Camden, p. 514. 
 
120 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 him for the loan of some from his library.* The acquaint 
 ance with this indefatigable man, which must, in all prob- 
 ability, either have preceded, or have been the consequence 
 of an application of this nature from Selden, was an advan- 
 tage to any person interested in such pursuits, which may 
 scarcely be expected to occur again : for Selden, — endowed 
 as he was with almost unparalleled energy, with an admi- 
 rable foundation of learning, and living, as he did, when 
 literary men mingled but little in the gaieties and pleas- 
 ures of the world, and seldom quitted their retirements ex- 
 cept when some urgent question of politics or religion 
 called them forth, — had the good fortune, like Sir Robert 
 Cotton, to reap the benefit of those monastic wrecks, 
 which none but the learned knew how to prize ; and which 
 therefore became, at a moderate expense of every thing 
 but time, their property. Hence he found materials for 
 his work on the Dominion of the Kings of England over 
 the Narrow Seas, chiefly from the monastic recordsf ; and 
 happily conciliated the displeasure of James I. towards 
 him on account of some former works, by settling a dis- 
 puted right to the fisheries on our coasts, to which the 
 Dutch had lately set claim. J Partly by these means, also, 
 Selden was enabled to collect the valuable library which 
 he left, with an earnest injunction to his executors to dis- 
 tribute it among themselves, rather than expose it to pub- 
 lic sale. In consequence of his further remark, that it 
 would suit some public library, or college, they considered 
 it, however, right to remove it to some chambers in the 
 King's Bench Walk ; but no house being provided for it 
 by that Society, — in that instance displaying neither learn- 
 ing nor wisdom, — it was placed in rooms added purposely 
 to the Bodleian Library, with a Latin inscription in the 
 apartment, denoting the gratitude and respect of those who 
 received the munificent gift. Thus, within a very short 
 space of time, were three valuable collections, which, if 
 once dispersed, could never have been replaced, conferred 
 upon public institutions. 
 
 In being contemporary with Bodley, Selden, and Cotton, 
 Ralegh in all probability enjoyed not only the benefit of 
 these collections, but, what is in all cases more important, 
 
 * Oldys, p. 130. f Preface to Tanner's Notitia, p. 57. 
 
 X This work was published 1636, lcng after being written, and wag 
 dedicated to Charles 1. Biog. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 121 
 
 that of their counsels and conversations. The mind almost 
 sickens to learn with certainty to what extent his commu- 
 nications with these great men proceeded : hut there are, 
 unhappily, no traces of any thing - more than the facts that 
 he exchanged with them mutual good offices. 
 
 Contrary to that which commonly occurs with learned 
 men, Selden, obscure hi his mode of writing, and apt to 
 crowd his works with an oppressive and perplexing weight 
 of learned matter, had, in his conversation, according to 
 Lord Clarendon, " the best faculty of making hard things 
 easy."* By the same admirable judge, " he was accounted 
 a person whom no character can flatter ; so conversant with 
 books that you would have thought his whole life passed 
 in reading ; yet his humanity was such, that you would 
 have thought him bred in courts."f Yet Selden, like Ra- 
 legh, was subjected to representations of a far different 
 nature ; and whilst he was sometimes accused of being 
 harsh in his nature and manners, he was not only reproba- 
 ted by the clergy, and prosecuted by the desire of King 
 James for a work controverting the divine right of tithes, 
 but was suspected by some persons of infidelity, or, in the 
 fashionable language of that day, Hobbism ; a charge from 
 which he has been strenuously defended by Baxter, upon 
 the authority of Sir Matthew Hale.J 
 
 The circumstance of Ralegh's supplying Selden with 
 books, leads to the conclusion that Selden, in return, may 
 have afforded some assistance to Ralegh in his historical 
 works. The work on the Prerogative of Parliaments, 
 which he dedicated to King James, was the first which he 
 published requiring historical accuracy ; but it is uncertain 
 at what time he began, or whether he was actually the 
 author of an " Introduction to a Breviary of the History of 
 England, with the Reign of William I., entitled the Con- 
 queror," and published in 1693, from the MSS. of Arch- 
 bishop Sancroft, by Dr. Moore, afterwards Bishop of Ely. 
 By one of the biographers of Ralegh the authenticity of 
 this piece is doubted^ ; but its resemblance in style to the 
 usual composition of his writings appears to afford some 
 internal evidence of its being his production. It has been 
 also conjectured, that this was one of the works which em- 
 ployed his latter days|[ ; but upon this subject, since many 
 
 * Clarendon's Characters. Reliquiae Wottonia?, p. 138. 
 t Biog. Brit. J Ibid. § Cayley, vol. ii. p. 188. [| Ibid. p. 186. 
 
 J-i 
 
122 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 years elapsed between his death and the publication, tho 
 greatest possible uncertainty rests. Many of his works 
 remained long in manuscript; for in the period of the civil 
 wars, circumstances were unfavorable to the reception of 
 his works in particular, and to the publication generally of 
 literary productions. Such, however, was the worth in 
 which Ralegh's works were held by the celebrated John 
 Hampden, that he was at the expense of having three 
 thousand four hundred and fifty-two sheets of Ralegh's 
 manuscripts transcribed a short time before the civil wars ; 
 — an amanuensis being furnished with fire and candle, and 
 a private apartment, with an attendant to deliver the origi- 
 nals into his hands, and to receive his copies as soon as 
 they were finished.* The writings themselves, many of 
 which have since been published, justly merited this tribute 
 from the patriot, who probably found in them the seeds of 
 many valuable ideas of our constitution and government. 
 That Ralegh availed himself of the best sources of informa- 
 tion to enrich his works, is obvious, not only from his con- 
 nexion with the Society of Antiquaries, and from his com- 
 munication with the ingenious men of whom it was com- 
 posed ; but from his encouragement of those institutions 
 which could aid him and other students in the progress of 
 knowledge. Thus, whilst he lent books to Selden, he 
 also contributed the sum of fifty pounds to augment the 
 Bodleian Library.f 
 
 In his days of prosperity, Ralegh was associated not only 
 with the studious and erudite, but with the witty and im- 
 aginative characters who illumined the sixteenth century. 
 Before the accession of James, Ralegh instituted a meeting 
 of intellectual men at the Mermaid, a celebrated tavern 
 in Friday-street. { To this club, Shakspeare, Beaumont, 
 Fletcher, Jonson, Selden, Cotton, Carew, Martin, Donne, 
 and many other distinguished literary men, were accus- 
 tomed to repair; forming an association certainly unri- 
 valled in any preceding time, unequalled by any subse- 
 quent assemblage, and, in all probability, not likely to be 
 witnessed in our own days. Here, in the luxury of unre- 
 strained and congenial society, were to be heard the " wit- 
 
 * Lloyd's Worthies. See Cayley, p. 189. t Cayley, vol. ii. 
 
 X Gifford's Life of Ben Jonson, p. 65, prefixed to an edition of his 
 works. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 123 
 
 combats" of Shakspeare and Jonson,* and the grave dis- 
 quisitions of Selden, Cotton, and Ralegh ; but if we may 
 credit the attractive description of the poet,f playful rail- 
 lery, exalted by the power of genius, predominated over 
 abstruse discussion. 
 
 " What things have we seen 
 
 Done at the Mermaid ! heard words that have been 
 So nimble, and so full of subtle flame, 
 
 As if that every one from whom they came 
 Had meant to put his wit in a jest," &c. 
 
 The result of such communications as these, is frequent- 
 ly a close intimacy between such of the parties as dis- 
 cover in each other that indefinable power of sympathy, 
 best described by the term congeniality, which is found to 
 be so capricious in its application, yet so delightful in its 
 consequences. That this bond did not exist between Ra- 
 legh and Jonson, is evident from the opinion entertained 
 of the former by the great dramatist. At what time their 
 acquaintance commenced; upon what principles or with 
 what sentiments it was continued ; or how far it was ce- 
 mented, or rather perpetuated, by obligations on one side 
 or on the other; — are points of extreme uncertainty. 
 There is no doubt of their introduction to each other having 
 taken place in Jonson's youth and in Ralegh's middle 
 age ; for Jonson was twenty-two years younger than Ra- 
 legh, and was scarcely arrived at the zenith of his fame 
 when the unfortunate Ralegh was in the decline both of 
 his natural existence and of his fortunes. It is well known 
 that Jonson, although a umn of originally good family, 
 was reduced by the imprisonment of his father in the reign 
 of Queen Mary, and by the second marriage of his mother 
 with a bricklayer, to work in that craft for his subsistence. 
 For this purpose he was taken from St. John's College, 
 Cambridge, whither he was sent after receiving at West- 
 minster school the instructions of the celebrated, and no 
 less virtuous, Camden. Reduced to this condition, in 
 
 * Referred to by Fuller. " Many," says he, " were the wit combates 
 betweene Ben Jonson and Shakespeare. I behold them like a Spanish 
 great galleon and an English man of war. Master Jonson, like the 
 former, was built far higher in learning, solid, but slow in his perform- 
 ances. Shakespeare, like the latter, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, 
 could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all windB 
 by the quickness of his wit and invention " Fuller vol fi. d 415 
 
 t Jonson. 
 
124 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 which the aspirations of an intelligent mind and the en- 
 joyments of imagination may be presumed to have added 
 a species of tantalizing torture to the mortifications of low 
 pursuits and the privations of penury, Jonson is stated to 
 have been selected by Ralegh as the tutor of his son Wal- 
 ter, with the charge of accompanying him in his travels 
 abroad. It would be agreeable to the partial biographers 
 of Ralegh if this fact could be accredited. That he had 
 discernment to perceive, and liberality to prize merit in an 
 humble, and, to a man of classical education, degrading 
 station, would be a consideration both creditable to him 
 and gratifying to all who wish well to his memory. The 
 statement is, however, widely at variance with truth. It 
 has been accompanied by the assertion that it was Camden 
 who recommended Jonson to Ralegh.* That this was the 
 origin of their acquaintance may be true ; but that it could 
 not have been with the view of Jonson's undertaking the 
 tuition of young Ralegh is obvious, from the fact that at 
 this period of Johnson's life the supposed object of his in- 
 structions was not in existence, — his birth happening in 
 the year 1595, when Jonson was serving as a volunteer 
 in Flanders, f 
 
 The anecdotes, too lightly admitted as authentic, of the 
 young student's contempt for his master, and of his sending 
 the poet, when intoxicated, in a basket to Sir Walter, are 
 refuted by this simple remembrance of certain dates ; and 
 happily, both for the tutor and for the pupil, no such dis- 
 grace seems to have befallen the one, nor such example to 
 have disgusted the other of the parties. 
 
 From all that can be gathered on this subject, it may be 
 inferred that no cordial intimacy nor bond of gratitude sub- 
 sisted between Ralegh and Ben Jonson. The poet is 
 said to have admired the talents of his eminent contempo- 
 rary, but to have distrusted his sincerity.! He is even as- 
 serted to have remarked, that Sir Walter Ralegh " es- 
 teemed more fame than conscience. ^" Perhaps there are 
 few men, who, like Ben Jonson, see closely into the 
 darkest passions and into the most hidden motives of human 
 nature, and who yet are able to divest their minds of sus- 
 picion, and their hearts of that contamination which pro- 
 
 * Gifford, p. x. f Ibid. p. x. 
 
 J Ibid. p. xi, § Ibid. p. cxxii 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 125 
 
 ceeds from a long- contemplation of vice, sufficiently, to 
 render a just tribute of appr< tbation to the virtues of others. 
 It is probable, also, that party feelings may have influenced 
 Jonson's opinion of Ralegh ; for whilst the latter was dis- 
 graced, and eventually deprived both of liberty and life, 
 by James the First, Jonson was the peculiar favorite of 
 that monarch as a dramatist, and was consequently disposed 
 to view political questions much in the same point of view 
 as the sovereign whom he served. His sentiments with 
 respect to Ralegh must not, therefore, be allowed to influ- 
 ence us without some caution : otherwise, as a contempora- 
 ry, and as an associate in the far-famed meetings at the 
 Mermaid, Jonson must be allowed to have had ample 
 means of forming an estimate of Ralegh's character. 
 
 He was besides employed in assisting Ralegh in the 
 compilation of the History of the World, to the frontispie . j 
 of which he wrote some good lines.* Jonson, like many 
 great writers of the time, had an excellent library, col- 
 lected, by degrees, from his own scanty means, and con- 
 taining more scarce and valuable books than any other 
 private collection in the kingdom. Selden, in referring to 
 a book possessed by Jonson, has not omitted to indulge in 
 that which is to generous minds a gratification — the op- 
 portunity to eulogize both his friend the dramatist, and Ills 
 library ;f commending not only his talents as a poet, but 
 that " special worth in literature, accurate judgment, and 
 performance known only to the few who are truly able to 
 know him." Among these, Ralegh, it is obvious, was so 
 fortunate as to benefit largely from the acquirements of 
 Jonson, although he may not have shared in the affection 
 and good opinion of that remarkable, and, in a peculiar 
 line, almost unrivalled genius. 
 
 It were endless to enumerate the illustrious men of 
 this period with whom Ralegh, in all probability, was per- 
 sonally acquainted. That little of his correspondence has 
 been preserved, except where it related to his public con- 
 cerns, is a circumstance to be seriously regretted.}: The 
 man who could boast of intimate communication with 
 Shakspeare, Beaumont, and Jonson, must, without relation 
 
 * Gifford, note xi. f Ibid. p. 147, note. 
 
 } See some letters in the Appendix, collected from the State Paper Of 
 fice, and now first published. 
 
 L2 
 
126 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 to his own natural or acquired talents, have merited well 
 the care of his surviving relatives and executors to his 
 slightest epistolary compositions: but when we consider 
 how valuable and how interesting would have been, not 
 the remarks as relating only to others, but as conveying 
 the sentiments of the relater, we are tempted to revile at 
 the supineness or carelessness of those to whom the papers 
 of Sir Walter Ralegh were committed. Perhaps it may 
 be observed, and with some appearance of justice, that his 
 life was so chequered with incidents, so occupied with the 
 active business of life, that he may have had little inclina- 
 tion, and found little leisure, to enter into the engrossing 
 occupation of communicating his thoughts on literary sub- 
 jects to others. To this, those who have perused the few 
 of Ralegh's letters still extant may reply, that they display 
 an ease and fluency which can only be acquired by habit : 
 they are, in fact, specimens of the most perfect mode of 
 expression, whether they relate to the emotions of the in- 
 most soul, its cares, its tenderness, or its hopes, or whether 
 they comprise simple narrative and explanation. In all 
 his works Ralegh describes that in which he was at any 
 time peculiarly concerned with a distinctness, animation, 
 and force of language in which few of our English writers 
 have excelled him. That which he carried to such per- 
 fection, he probably indulged in as a recreation. He has 
 left us, of his familiar correspondence, enough only to ex- 
 cite a strong desire for more abundant means of judging 
 of his excellence in this line. 
 
 The season was now nearly at an end for Ralegh's tran- 
 quil enjoyment of social or literary conversation, or for 
 study undisturbed by corroding anxieties. In the begin- 
 ning of this year, the Queen, who was now in her seven- 
 tieth year, betrayed more plainly those symptoms of decay 
 which had been obvious to her attendants since the death 
 of Essex. By determined temperance, both in abstaining 
 from wine, and in her diet, she had hitherto preserved un- 
 injured the vigor of a constitution which seemed formed by 
 nature to encounter the cares and risks of royalty. She 
 was wont to say, " that temperance was the noblest part of 
 physic ;" an admirable sentiment, but which, with the pre- 
 judice of one who had ever been accustomed to an obsequi- 
 ous compliance with her opinions, she carried so far as to 
 reject all aid of medicine when sickness actually asailed 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 127 
 
 her. Perhaps she may have heen aware that the sufferings 
 of a mind diseased constituted her only specific complaint, 
 and that her malady had passed the influence of human 
 ministration. She had now recourse to those aids which, 
 if sincerely resorted to, are never ineffectual in any season 
 of life. She frequented divine service, and had prayers 
 read in her presence more frequently than ever ; quitting 
 Westminster also for Richmond, to enjoy quiet of body, and 
 religious repose. Yet the unhappy closing days of her ex- 
 istence were embittered not only by those regrets for Es- 
 sex, which died only when she herself expired, but by the 
 intrigues of her courtiers with her presumed successor, 
 James the Sixth, and by the neglect to which her acute- 
 ness and experience could not remain insensible. Once, 
 when in a state of irritation, she exclaimed in the bitter- 
 ness of her heart, " They have yoked my neck ; I have 
 none in whom I may trust; my estate is turned upside 
 down ! *" — a complaint which was wrung from her, by the 
 advice of some of her courtiers to send for James even be- 
 fore her days were ended. Elizabeth was, however, 
 avenged for this desertion and ingratitude by the regrets 
 of those who knew her best, when they became competent 
 judges of the prince to whom they paid such sedulous and 
 indelicate attentions ; and when, too late, it was discovered 
 how great a prize had been lost when she ceased to sway 
 the sceptre, f Meanwhile, Cecil and most of her approved 
 and veteran counsellors were in secret correspondence with 
 James, exalting his merits in his own eyes, — a very un- 
 necessary labor, — and seeking to depreciate the merits of 
 their expiring sovereign.} Even her godson, Sir John Har- 
 rington, thought it not unseemly to lavish his ingenuity 
 upon a new-year's gift, presented by him to James at 
 Christmas, in the year 1602, consisting of a dark lantern 
 made of four metals, with a crown of pure gold on the top, 
 and within a silver shield, to give reflection to the light, on 
 one side of which was the sun, the moon, and seven stars ; 
 the whole explained by the inscription, borrowed, with no 
 very scrupulous taste, from the words of the poor thief who 
 Was crucified with our Lord and Savior, — " Lord, remem- 
 
 * Camden, p. 585. 
 
 t Nugse Antique, vol. i. See Letter from Sir R. Cecil to . 
 
 X Camden. Osborn. 
 
128 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 ber me when I come into thy kingdom ! *" But Harring- 
 ton, although favored by James, learned afterwards to bless 
 the Queen's memory,! and to compare her address, practi- 
 cal wisdom, and clear understanding, with the awkward 
 conceit, prejudice, and mixture of learning and folly, which 
 characterized her successor. 
 
 Whilst the Queen declined daily, ambitious persons of 
 every denomination flocked into Scotland, both by sea and 
 land, to pay their adorations to the northern luminary who 
 was soon to enlighten this nether hemisphere. Even Cecil, 
 \\ ho had been as prompt as any of his contemporaries in 
 endeavoring to secure his own footing with James, thought 
 it not beneath him to deceive his royal mistress with a 
 contemptible falsehood, when surprised one day by the ar- 
 rival of a packet from Scotland whilst he was riding with 
 Her Majesty upon Blackheath. Elizabeth, inquiring from 
 whence the dispatch came, and hearing that it was from 
 Scotland, stopped her coach, and desired that it might be 
 delivered. Cecil, pretending to be equally anxious, called 
 for a knife to cut the string ; but when it was opened, as- 
 sured the Queen that it consisted of old musty parchments, 
 which it would trouble Her Highness to endure. There 
 were seasons when Elizabeth's acuteness would have detect- 
 ed this subterfuge, and when her pride would not have sub- 
 mitted to this imposition ; but her spirits were broken, and 
 her mind, during her later years, had been entirely sub- 
 jected to the dominion of Cecil. The messenger was dis- 
 missed, that the packet might be purified before being ad- 
 mitted to the royal presence ; and the minister enjoyed the 
 self-gratulation of having outwitted the monarch, whom he 
 afterwards described as " more than a man, and (in troth) 
 sometimes less than a woman.J" Such was the address of 
 Cecil, that, whilst cajoling Elizabeth, he conciliated James ; 
 and although, like Ralegh and Harrington, he was, to use 
 the words of the latter, " nearly lost upon the coast of Es- 
 sex," he contrived to avoid all the evils which accrued to 
 Ralegh from the death of the unfortunate Earl. To what ex- 
 tent he contributed to the mischief which afterwards en- 
 sued to those who co-operated with him in that affair, will 
 appear, as far as history has enlightened us on the subject. 
 
 * Nugas Antique, p. 326. t Ibid. p. 355. 
 
 J Nugae Antique, 345. Letter from Cecil to Harrington. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 1 29 
 
 Meanwhile, he contrived to adopt that policy by which his 
 own preservation was secured. Cecil had all the narrow- 
 ness of an ambitious statesman ; his father, with equal dis- 
 cretion, would have pursued a more upright course in se- 
 curing the same ends, than his artful and able son deemed 
 it expedient to adopt. 
 
 But all necessity for subterfuge, as far as Elizabeth was 
 concerned, was shortly to be at an end ; and those, who for 
 motives of private interest, or of public opinion, desired to 
 see James upon her throne, were soon gratified by the ful- 
 filment of their wishes. In the beginning of March, a 
 heaviness, with a frowardness common in old age, an in- 
 difference to food, and a dislike to any subject but that 
 which excited religious reflections, intimated that her days 
 were fast hastening to a close. In this extremity, her 
 faithful servant, the Lord Howard of Effingham, shared 
 her confidence to the last, and continued in his assiduous 
 attendance on her. To him, and to the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, she chiefly addressed her conversation ; and to 
 the latter she named, as her successor, James of Scotland. 
 This was a point which had long been insisted upon by 
 Cecil, who was emboldened, by the absence of all compe- 
 tition in the Queen's favor, to tell her that " too many 
 years had been already lapsed, and the people's quiet 
 hazarded by her delay in not fixing upon one certain suc- 
 cessor.*" Thus urged on all hands, the Queen, in her 
 last moments, declared, " that her throne had been the, 
 throne of kings, and that her kinsman the king of Scots 
 should succeed her.f" 
 
 Her thoughts were then wholly fixed in prayer, and her 
 last words declared that her mind " was wholly fixed on 
 God, nor did it wander from him." Immediately after her 
 death, the neighborhood of the metropolis was almost de- 
 serted by the higher classes; the great families of the north 
 hastened to their country-seats to proffer their hospitality 
 to the king on his journey ; whilst those who had not the 
 means of showing him in this manner their loyalty and de- 
 votion, repaired to York, there to await the arrival of James 
 the First of England. 
 
 ♦Osborne's Memoirs of Queen Elizabeth. See his Works, 1682; p 
 398. 
 t Camden, p. 385. 
 
1 30 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Accession of James. — Intrigues against Ralegh. — Mediation of the Eail 
 of Northumberland. — Character of Cecil : — Of James —His first Inter- 
 view with Ralegh. — Causes of Ralegh's disgrace. — Acts of oppression 
 on tt.e part of James. — Memorial addressed by Ralegh to the King. — 
 Reason assigned by James for his dislike to Ralegh. — State of foreign 
 affairs. — Particulars of the Conspiracy, commonly called " Ralegh's 
 Plot." — Arabella Stuart — Brook — Cobham — Grey. — Examinations of 
 Cobham and Ralegh : — Their committal to the Tower. — Ralegh's at- 
 tempt at suicide : — His trial. — Character of Coke. — The Trial and Fate 
 of the other Conspirators. — Observations upon the degree of blame to 
 be attached to Ralegh. 
 
 Sir Roger Aston, many years the messenger between 
 Elizabeth and James the Sixth of Scotland, on coming to 
 London to desire that all things should be made ready for 
 the reception of James, after his accession to the throne 
 of England, addressed the Council in these words: — 
 " Even, my Lords, like a poor man wandering forty years 
 in a wilderness and barren soil, am I now arrived at the 
 land of promise." Such were the prevailing sentiments 
 of the Scots ; but, with respect to Ralegh, the case was 
 essentially different, and sudden was the vicissitude which 
 befell him on the accession of James to the throne. Busy 
 machinations had been for some time at work previous to 
 the death of Elizabeth. Already had Cecil, in a corre- 
 spondence which still remains in witness of his duplicity,* 
 justified himself in the sight of James for all past events 
 in which he had borne a part. The arts of the minister 
 were seconded by the powerful interest of Sir George 
 Hume, afterwards Earl of Dunbar, whose influence over 
 James was sufficient to induce him to pardon in Cecil his 
 concern in the death of Essex, a crime which he never 
 forgave in Ralegh.f 
 
 This endeavor on the part of Cecil to extricate himself 
 from blame, by casting imputations upon his former friend 
 and associate, was, indeed, controverted by Henry Percy, the 
 accomplished Earl of Northumberland, the intimate friend of 
 Ralegh, and brother to Sir Charles Percy, who was among 
 those who were' fortunate enough to bear the first news of 
 
 * In the Hatfield collection. 
 
 t Weldon's Court and Character of James I., p. 10, II. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 131 
 
 Elizabeth's death to James.* Unhappily, the impressions on 
 the King's mind were too indelibly fixed, to be eradicated by 
 this generous mediation. Northumberland, with a boldness 
 unusual in those days, and with a display of ability which 
 would have done him honor at any time, attempted to cor- 
 rect in James the false notion that Essex had been the firm 
 and uniform partisan of the Scottish succession, and that 
 the enemies of Essex had been opposed to that natural, 
 and evidently unalterable, arrangement. After showing 
 that Essex had " worn the crown of England in his heart 
 for many vears," and was, therefore, little disposed to place 
 it on the head of James, the Earl proceeded to discuss the 
 loyalty of Ralegh, and of Cobham, under whose names 
 were comprehended a numerous party. With regard to 
 Cobham, he declared his inability to express an opinion ; 
 and he discarded the subject of that nobleman's intentions 
 as comparatively unimportant, or as interwoven with those 
 of Ralegh, by whom Cobham was generally supposed to be 
 wholly guided in all his concerns. Of the latter, he spoke, 
 however, with a degree of confidence, not rendered suspi- 
 cious by any vehement panegyric, and established by an 
 acquaintance of sixteen years. " I must needs affirm," 
 said this manly supporter of the calumniated and oppressed, 
 " Ralegh's fete allowance of your right ; and although I 
 know him insolent, extremely heated, and a man that de- 
 sires to seem to be able to sway all men's fancies, all men's 
 courses, and a man that out of himself, when your time 
 shall come, will never be able to do you much good nor 
 harm, yet I must needs confess what I know, that there is 
 excellent good parts of nature in him ; a man whose love 
 is disadvantageous to me in some sort, which I cherish 
 rather out of constancy than policy, and one whom I wish 
 your Majesty not to lose, because I would not 'that one 
 hair of a man's head should be against you, that might be 
 for you.f" 
 
 But the generous advocate of Ralegh was, even at this 
 very time, himself endangered by the arts of Cecil, on 
 whose friendship he placed a fallacious reliance, the good 
 offices of the secretary not being extended to save him 
 from fifteen years of imprisonment in the Tower, and a 
 
 * Birch's Memoirs of P. Henry. Ed. 1750. p. 25. 
 
 | Miss Aikin's Memoirs of James I., vol. i. p. 56., from the Hatfield 
 Collection ; and Wilson's Life of King James, p. 720. 
 
32 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 fine of 30,00(M., upon a slight suspicion of being concerned 
 in the gunpowder plot.* At the accession of James, the 
 Earl was viewed by Cecil as favoring Ralegh, and was 
 consequently the subject of the minister's base and hidden 
 arts to injure him in the estimation of the King, and tc 
 effect his ruin. 
 
 The character of Cecil appeared, on a cursory view, lut 
 indifferently calculated to insure the favor of the new 
 king; and every ungenerous method which artifice could 
 supply was therefore considered doubly essential, in order 
 to retain the situations in the state which the secretary 
 now held. In estimating the chances which a candidate 
 for royal approval might possess, it was necessary in this 
 reign to place the advantages of person first, from the im- 
 portance assigned o them by James. The childish par- 
 tiality which this monarch afterwards bestowed upon Car 
 and on Villars, could never therefore be lavished upon 
 Cecil, who was not only inferior to those noblemen in ex- 
 ternal attractions, but below the common standard of per- 
 sonal favor, being deformed, though of a pleasing counte- 
 nance. But Cecil, although called by one of his contem- 
 poraries " Robert the Devil," was described by another as 
 " carrying on his little crooked body a head-piece of much 
 content," possessing a quick and lively eye, a placid coun- 
 tenance, and, what was still better, displaying in his 
 familiar conversation those charms of manner and deport- 
 ment which bespeak a character apparently sincere and 
 open, mild and yet decided. He had the gift of oratory ; 
 and though esteemed by Ralegh an indifferent writer, his 
 letters are easy, animated, and descriptive. But whilst 
 endowed with talents which counterbalanced his defects 
 of person, the opinions of Cecil, both in politics and reli- 
 gion, were, on the accession of James, opposed to the 
 favorite notions of the sovereign. He had a strong bias 
 to the doctrines of the Puritans, whom James detested ; and 
 was an enemy to the Spanish ascendency, which James 
 secretly favored, and afterwards openly countenanced. 
 But the able minister well knew how to keep these obnox- 
 ious principles of action in apparent subordination, whilst 
 he recommended himself to the confidence of James by 
 the most submissive demeanor, by his alacrity in proclaim- 
 
 * Camden's Annals of James, p. 642. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 133 
 
 mg the King's title immediately upon the death of Eliza- 
 beth, and still more, as their intercourse proceeded, by his 
 address in discovering plots, of which the king sent him 
 what he considered as the first surmise and intelligence. 
 On this account the king honored him with the name of 
 " Little Beagle ;*" an appellation far more precious, in the 
 opinion of James, than that of warrior or conqueror.f An 
 assiduous man of business, Cecil had little time or inclina- 
 tion for those literary attainments, which, however James 
 might extol, he could not view in Ralegh without a dread 
 of being surpassed. In his offices of state, Cecil merited 
 however the regard of his master by a faithful and diligent 
 service ; and was, as a contemporary writer expresses it, 
 as good a minister as James would let him be ;" securing 
 at the same time his own interests. Thus, whilst the 
 Scots who accompanied James to England were said to 
 have had the " shell" of all public honors and emolu- 
 ments, Cecil is supposed to have retained the " kernel" to 
 himself. 
 
 It is difficult to enter into the motives which actuated this 
 wary and disingenuous courtier in his immediate desertion 
 of Ralegh, and in his intrigues to effect the ruin of his for- 
 mer friend. Cecil had, on a former occasion, excused Ra- 
 legh to Elizabeth in terms creditable to his own candor and 
 discrimination.} Yet it appears that the whole machinery 
 of court cabals and artifice was set into play immediately 
 after the death of the Queen, and that the favorable recep- 
 tion of Cecil with the King, and the disgrace of Ralegh, 
 were almost coeval. The effect of these operations was 
 not at first perceived by their unfortunate object : he was 
 received, and for some weeks treated graciously by the 
 King, whom he met at Theobald's. Within this princely 
 mansion, the residence of Cecil, the officers of state and the 
 privy council had also been awaiting, with impatient curi- 
 osity, to behold the Monarch in whose favor the hopes of 
 the ambitious were now centered^ ; and here, so magnifi- 
 cent an entertainment was prepared for the new sovereign, 
 
 ♦Grainger's Biog. — Art. Cecil. 
 
 t See Sir William Coke's Apology, in Collectanea Curiosa, by Gutch. 
 
 X See Appendix C. Letter transmitted from the State Paper Office in 
 which Cecil's good wishes towards Ralegh at that time were obviously 
 expressed. 
 
 f Oldys, p. 148. 
 
 M 
 
134 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 that Lord Bacon declares that to attempt to describe it 
 were to imitate " geographers, that set a little round O for 
 a mighty province .*" To the splendor of the scene, James 
 added the joys which a lavish extension of honors and 
 privileges is supposed to impart. He made, indeed, shortly 
 after his accession, no fewer than twenty-eight knights ; so 
 that a contemporary writer sarcastically observes, "crea- 
 tions brake in upon us like a deluge ; knights swarmed in 
 every corner ; the sword ranged about ; men bowed in obe- 
 dience to it, more in peace than in war.f" In the midst of 
 this overflowing prosperity to others, Ralegh perhaps per- 
 ceived, with some anxiety, the slight probability of even 
 moderate success as a courtier, which appeared to await 
 him with the singular monarch whom he now for the first 
 time beheld. 
 
 The qualities which Sir Walter Ralegh hat evinced, 
 were calculated to insure the approbation of an enijghtened 
 monarch like Elizabeth, conscious of her own power, con- 
 fident of the affections of her people, and possessed of ad - 
 dress and discrimination, which enabled her to employ wit? 
 advantage in her subjects that busy ambition, and those ac- 
 tive talents which might, under a feebler government, be- 
 come derogatory, and even dangerous to the royal dignity. 
 But James, who has been wittily said to " have been the 
 wisest fool in Christendom,:);" saw, in the splendid military 
 talents of Ralegh, nothing but a fearful source of disturb- 
 ance to that peaceful tenor of life, for the inclination to 
 which this king has been unduly satirized ; whilst in the 
 acknowledged fame of Ralegh's genius, he dreaded an 
 eclipse of that reputation for learning which the monarch 
 had endeavored to send before him, and which he desired 
 to shine unrivalled in the English Court, and out of an im- 
 pertinent emulation, according to Osborne, " was thought 
 to affect Sir Walter Ralegh the less because of the great 
 repute which followed him for his excellent pen. 5" 
 
 A single interview was almost decisive of Ralegh's fate. 
 Unluckily for the amusement of succeeding generations, 
 there remains no memorial of the impression which the ap- 
 pearance and behavior of the Scottish monarch conveyed 
 to the acute mind of the accomplished courtier to whom 
 
 * Bacon's Letters. f Wilson's Life of Janxs I. p. 664. 
 
 J Weldon p. 173. § Osborne, p. 431. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 135 
 
 James, for the first time, stood revealed in all his native pe- 
 culiarity. His sentiments on the occasion may be easily con- 
 jectured. A strange contrast was indeed presented to the 
 majestic and fearless Elizabeth, in her timid, undignified, 
 and ill-favored successor. In his mode of speech, a circum- 
 stance which perhaps even more than personal appearance 
 first engages the attention of an observer, James retained 
 in its fullest and harshest tones that northern dialect, in 
 the practice of which he had been nurtured ; and to this 
 characteristic was added a difficulty of utterance which 
 rendered those uncourtly accents still more displeasing 
 from the natural defect of the tongue being too large for 
 the mouth. In tae management of this really unruly mem- 
 ber, he possessed but little discretion ; and, contrary to the 
 habits of most men in important stations, was, as Lord Bacon 
 describes him, " in speech of business short, in speech of 
 discourse large." The same author sums up the general 
 deportment of James, when he declares him to be a prince, 
 " the furthest from vain-glory that may be ;" for contrary 
 to the custom of the monarchs of the Tudor line, this King, 
 although estimating the adornments of dress to an absurd 
 extent in others, in his own person despised or rather dread- 
 ed the expenditure of costly attire, retained the same 
 fashions, and wore his clothes even to rags.* 
 
 Thus his natural or habitual awkwardness, a circular 
 walk, and a custom or necessity of supporting himself upon 
 the shoulders of others, appeared in undisguised ungainli- 
 ness to the amused and critical courtiers, who, if we may 
 judge by the accounts of contemporary writers, were not 
 unsparing of their remarks. But that which most offended 
 the politeness of the proud nobility, was a practice in which 
 the king indulged of rolling his large eyes after every 
 stranger, so that many persons could not withstand the im- 
 pulse of shame and indignation, and left his presence ab- 
 ruptly, and in a state of irritation.! 
 
 Such was the exterior of King James the First, and an 
 intimate acquaintance with the dispositions of this monarch 
 
 * When presented by some person with roses for his shoes, he asked if 
 they meant to make him a ruff-footed dove ? One yard of sixpenny riband 
 served that turn. Weldon, p. 100. 
 
 t It is said by that historical gossip, Aubrey, that James's first address 
 to Ralegh was couched in these elegant terms, " On my soul, mon, I have 
 teard Rawly of thee." See Oxforded. of Ralegh's Works, I. p. 740. 
 
^36 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 confirmed the notion of eccentricity which his appearance 
 denoted. His character was a continuity of contradictions ; 
 and to his bad government, and erroneous principles of ac- 
 tion, may be referred many of the evils which ensued in 
 the reign of his son.* Unable, from natural candor, to fal- 
 sify or even to disguise his sentiments in common discourse, 
 James could break the faith he had pledged to his parlia- 
 ments almost without a pang ; and whilst he showed the 
 deepest contrition, remembering, even with tears, his oc- 
 casional lapses into intoxication at Buckingham's jovial 
 suppers,f could sacrifice the life of an eminent subject 
 almost without a shadow of reluctance. Assuming to him- 
 self the character of Rex Pacificus, but inclined to peace 
 more from fear than for conscience' sake, James appears to 
 deserve little credit for cherishing the comforts, and pro- 
 tecting the safety of his subjects, if his patronage of the 
 murderer of Overbury be considered ; and lightly are the 
 mercies of a monarch to be prized, when his delight in dis- 
 covering plots and treasons was almost proverbial ; so that 
 on the blood being drawn from his finger by the carver at 
 dinner, he was ironically said to have cried out treason, and 
 his word in that respect was thought to be no slander. f 
 Thus agitated perpetually by frivolous concerns, and often 
 groundless fears, and regardless of the great interests and 
 of the real dangers of his country, the mind of James is 
 justly described to have been a " magazine for trifles," in 
 which there was little space for the deposit of graver and 
 more valuable materials ; and, in the total absence of that 
 quick perception of propriety which experience in the ways 
 of mankind cannot always teach, and " which thirty-five 
 years of what he called king's craft had not taught him,§" 
 the childish points of this monarch's character were con- 
 tinually allowed to escape from behind the veil with which 
 ceremony and royal dignity are calculated to conceal the 
 peculiarities of native character. 
 
 Addicted to changing his ministers, and fond of the little 
 intrigues incident to such occasions, James was now dis- 
 posed to remain firm to Cecil from the advice which that 
 eminent person gave to make peace with Spain. || The 
 eame reasons actuated him also to pursue a very different 
 
 * Osborne, p. 472. f Weldon, p. 1G7. J Oldys, p. 148. 
 
 $ Aikin. U Lodge's Illustrations, vol. iii. p. 181 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 137 
 
 course with Ralegh, who had lately written a memorial in 
 order to point out the disadvantages of a treaty with that 
 country* It was, in short, scarcely possible for any cir- 
 cumstances to be combined under an aspect more unpropi- 
 tious to Ralegh, than those in which James ascended the 
 throne. Surrounded by Scotsmen, whom he soon found 
 reason to designate " locusts," James displayed so glaring 
 and gross a partiality to the interests of the country which 
 he had left, that he began to be considered as no better than 
 a " king-in-lawf" to his new possessions on the southern 
 side of the Tweed. Hence the fame of Ralegh's exploits, 
 the hope of his future services, the honor resulting to this 
 country from the spirit of enterprise which he had pro- 
 moted, all availed but little in the sight of a prince who 
 regarded these meritorious traits with the cold indifference 
 of a stranger. But had the King been more alive to the 
 rare qualities of Ralegh's character, or more sensible of 
 the benefits of his example, one circumstance alone would 
 have obliterated the result of all these considerations. 
 This was the suggestion made by Ralegh, in conjunction 
 with the Lord Cobham, Sir John Fortescue, and others, that 
 James should, before his coronation, be obliged to subscribe 
 to certain articles, and that the number of his countrymen 
 in situations here should be restrained within due bounds. f 
 Regardless, or unconscious of the state of the King's 
 private sentiments, and of the fact that all the other cour- 
 tiers had been silenced on the same subject, either by a 
 knowledge of the avowed wishes of the King, or by the 
 potency of Spanish gold, Ralegh, at his first audience with 
 a monarch, who wore his doublets quilted for fear, and, 
 when he dubbed a knight, averted his head from the 
 weapon which denoted the honor, addressed to him a coun- 
 sel which might have shaken a far more courageous spirit 
 than that of James. " I offered his Majesty," says he, in 
 the work entitled his Remains, " at my uncle Carew's, to 
 carry two thousand men to invade the Spanish without the 
 King's charge. f" This rash, but manly and disinterested 
 offer, at once consigned the whole ascendency in royal fa- 
 vor to Cecil, and to the Spanish party. The presents re- 
 ceived from Ralegh in Scotland, were, indeed, acknow- 
 
 * Birch, vol. i. p. 48. t Osborne's Trad. Mem. p. 472. 
 
 I Oldys, p. 148. § Remains, 12mo. 1726. 
 
 M2 
 
138 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 ledged by the King ; but that act of grace was the last 
 ever accorded to him, and Cecil, who well knew that force 
 alone could oblige Ralegh to succumb to his greater in- 
 fluence, triumphed undisturbed and secure. The source 
 of Cecil's apprehensions, the object of James's dislike, and 
 the victim of the Spanish faction, a pretext was now only 
 wanting to complete the ruin for which machinations were 
 already in progress. 
 
 An act of oppression, such as would, in the present da$ 
 make the country ring with clamor, soon intimated to Ra- 
 legh the perilous situation in which he stood. One source 
 of James's jealousy of Ralegh originated in his guardian- 
 ship of a female descendant of the Plantagenets, an heiress 
 named Basset, who was thought by some persons to have 
 a claim to the crown of England, and who had the more 
 substantial possession of an estate worth three thousand a 
 year.* This young person was betrothed to Walter Ra- 
 legh, the eldest son of Sir Walter, a brave young man, 
 who was afterwards killed in the expedition to Guiana. 
 Notwithstanding this contract, James, of whom it has been 
 falsely said that he never committed but one act of tyranny, 
 severed the affianced lady from the family among whom 
 she had been fostered, and obliged her to marry Henry 
 Howard, who afterwards died. She then became the wife 
 of the Earl of Newcastle ; and this nobleman entertained 
 so strong a sense of the injustice of her separation from 
 Walter Ralegh, that he was heard to say, that had that 
 unfortunate young man been alive, he would not have mar- 
 ried his countess, for " he took her, before God, to be young 
 Ralegh's wife, whilst they were yet children." Nor did this 
 unjust proceeding end here : Sir Robert Basset, a relative 
 of the heiress, was obliged to fly the country to save his 
 life, probably for some opposition to this transaction : his 
 estate was much reduced, no fewer than thirty manors 
 being sold by the King's orders, f 
 
 Fresh insults convinced the unfortunate Ralegh that his 
 affairs at court were desperate. Whilst forbidden himself 
 to enter the royal presence, he had the mortification of 
 hearing that the Earl of Southampton, who was concerned 
 in the conspiracy of Essex, and " long covered with the 
 
 * Oldys, 149. 
 
 t Observations on Sanderson's History of Mary Queen of Scots and 
 ner son James the Sixth, 4to. 1656. p. 12. 
 
LIFE OP SIR WALTER RALEGH. 139 
 
 ashes of his ruin,"* had been sent for from the Tower, and 
 graciously received. Irritated by these events, and inca- 
 pable of sustaining with temper the reverses presented to 
 him, Ralegh, enraged against Cecil and his party, gave, by 
 his rash conduct, a full effect to the snares prepared for 
 him by his enemies. Had he, with more subtlety or with 
 more prudence, bent beneath the storm, or awaited its sub- 
 siding in seclusion and submission, his liberty might have 
 been spared to him, and, perhaps, his fortunes retrieved. 
 He adopted, however, a different course, and employing 
 his powerful talents in composing a justification of his con- 
 duct, addressed to King James a memorial, in which he 
 sought to vindicate himself from the death of Essex, and 
 to throw the blame of that affair upon Cecil. Not contented 
 with this defence, he attacked the minister upon the score 
 of Queen Mary's execution, which he attributed wholly to 
 the enmity of the Cecils, and not to the wishes of Eliza- 
 beth ; conchiding this document by an appeal to Davison, 
 the secretary, who was still alive, and in prison.f He was 
 removed from his situation as captain of the guard, and 
 that office conferred upon Sir Thomas Erskine, one of the 
 King's countrymen and favorites. He was apprized that 
 James disliked his continuance in his office of wines ; and 
 he found that his services at court were regarded as un- 
 welcome and intrusive.^ No impression upon the mind of 
 James was effected by his representations against Cecil, 
 and the minister was rendered implacable. That the con- 
 duct of the King towards Ralegh was actuated by some 
 fatal influence rather than by the impulse of his own un- 
 biassed feelings, is, however, obvious; for when asked, 
 What fault he found in Ralegh ? the embarrassed royal 
 pedagogue could only reply, that he had spoken irrever- 
 ently of Henry VIII. ; a reason which, if available as an 
 excuse, must have been called up at the moment, since no 
 one had declaimed in harsher terms against that monarch 
 than James himself. 5 The fact is, that James, although 
 secretly afraid of Ralegh, and disliking his opinions, left 
 this and all other points of policy to the sole guidance of 
 
 * Wilson, 642. 
 
 t The only share which Ralegh had in the condemnation of Mary, waa 
 his serving in the parliament which met before that event. — Camden. 
 % Oldys, 151. § Osborne, edit. 1682. p. 431. 
 
140 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGK. 
 
 those ministers who had served under his able and expe- 
 rienced predecessor ; and " dedicated," as Osborne relates, 
 " rainy weather to his standish, and fair to his hounds, or 
 any thing else that owned the voice of pleasure, which 
 was through the whole series of his government more ac- 
 ceptable than any profit or conveniency [that] might ac- 
 crue to his people.* 1 ' So great, indeed, was the ascen- 
 dancy which Cecil retained over him, that he was gene- 
 rally thought to have made a private compact with Hume, 
 Earl of Dunbar, and afterwards Chancellor of the Exche- 
 quer, to divide the favor of the King between themf ; thus 
 cementing interests which, if divided, might have been 
 comparatively powerless. 
 
 This brief detail of the various circumstances which at- 
 tended the accession of James, is necessary to show how 
 far domestic affairs affected the welfare and security of Ra 
 legh's existence ; the situation of England with respect co 
 foreign states had also a considerable influence upon the 
 destiny of this great but unfortunate individual. 
 
 James was at this time solicited with proposals of peace 
 by all the principal potentates of Europe. Among the dif- 
 ferent ambassadors who visited this country, none, however, 
 seemed so likely to secure the confidence of the public 
 mind, as Rosni, afterwards Due de Sully. This celebrated 
 friend and minister of Henry IV. came to England ex- 
 pressly to frustrate a scheme for a general peace, at that 
 time diligently sought by Count D'Aremberg, the Austrian 
 ambassador. On his arrival in England, the French am- 
 bassador found James but little disposed to favor the propo- 
 sals of Henry IV. for the continuance of the amity which 
 had subsisted between the King of France and Elizabeth. 
 All grateful recollections of that princess, every respectful 
 tribute to her memory, were almost prohibited in the court 
 of her successor ; and when Rosni intimated to some of the 
 English, that it was his intention to appear before James 
 with himself and his whole suite in mourning, he was 
 earnestly admonished not, by such a form, which had been 
 strictly enjoined him by Henry, to incur James's certain 
 displeasure.;); 
 
 The divisions of the English court, the weakness of its 
 
 * Hume. t Lodge's Illustrations, iii. 181. 
 
 | Sully's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 145. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 141 
 
 ruler, the overwhelming influence of the Scots, and the 
 deep duplicity of Cecil, whom he describes as "all myste- 
 ry," were soon apparent to the discernment and experience 
 of Sully, already ultimately acquainted with the character 
 of the English nation. Suspicion, jealousy, private and 
 even public discontents, pervaded the higher classes of the 
 community, and divided the responsible advisers of the 
 King into factions. Below the principal parties was a 
 subordinate cabal, composed of those who mingled in af- 
 fairs without having any connexion with the members of 
 the government, and who were scarcely united among 
 themselves, nor according in any one point, except in the 
 resolution not to join with any other faction. These were 
 composed entirely of Englishmen ; they breathed a spirit 
 of sedition,* and were ready, according to the opinion of 
 Sully, " to attempt any thing in favor of novelties, even if 
 it were against the king himself, f" At the head of this 
 combination were the earls of Northumberland, Southamp- 
 ton, and Cumberland, the Lord Cobham, Sir Walter Ra- 
 legh, Sir Grifhn Markham, and many others.J It may be 
 readily conceived how the contending interests of these 
 two parties, the vacillations of James, and the skilful ma- 
 noeuvres of Cecil, who veered about with each prevailing 
 faction, afforded but too seductive an occasion for the de- 
 signing, the discontented, or the rash, to form schemes for 
 the destruction of a government, of which even the earli- 
 est prognostications were those of error and of weakness. 
 
 In this state of affairs, various circumstances contributed 
 to make the scale of James's inclinations preponderate in 
 favor of the Spanish interests, and consequently against 
 the object of Rosni's mission. He bore, in the first place, 
 no great affection towards Henry the Fourth, who had 
 called him in derision, " Captain of arts, and Clerk of 
 arms," a too apt designation, of which James had been ma- 
 liciously apprized. § He was indolent to excess, and was 
 but too happy to resign the burden of thinking about state 
 matters to Cecil, who had now so far relaxed from his an- 
 tipathy to Spain, as to consider that kingdom and France 
 as both equally dangerous; above all, the King was in- 
 timidated, rather than influenced, by his queen, Anne of 
 Denmark, over whom he sought vainly to assume an au- 
 
 * Sully, 131. tlb'd. J Ibid. 131. § Ibid. 
 
142 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALECII. 
 
 thority which had the mere semblance of conjugal com- 
 mand, and which that bold, assuming, and popular princess 
 set at defiance with an undaunted assurance. Anne was 
 wholly devoted to the Spanish alliance, and she had sedu- 
 h usly endeavored to inspire the young prince Henry, the 
 h jir-apparent, with similar sentiments; but that well-judg- 
 ing and single-hearted youth could never be brought to 
 coincide with his mother in her opinions on this subject, 
 and was the more reluctant to join in her schemes from 
 his enthusiastic admiration for the King of France, whom 
 he proposed to make his model.* These prepossessions on 
 the part of the youthful heir-apparent, inclined him after- 
 wards to listen to the suggestions of Ralegh, and were, 
 probably, the first bond of that union which subsequently 
 subsisted between these two individuals. 
 
 Rosni, on establishing himself in London, found there, 
 as ambassadors, the Count D'Aremberg, from the Arch- 
 duke of Austria, Prince Henry of Nassau, and other depu- 
 ties from the States General. These ambassadors were 
 soon plunged into the mysterious and perplexing business 
 of negotiations, in which the irresolution and indifference 
 of James were, according to the representations of the am 
 bassador, only exceeded by his dissimulation. His great 
 wit consisted in inspiring all who had audience of him 
 with hopes, but fulfilling none of his promises ; a line of 
 conduct which had, as he affirmed, procured him security 
 when king of Scotland.! It has been well remarked, that 
 the attention of this monarch had been too long centered 
 in the anxieties for self-preservation to leave much matter 
 within him for generous exertion, f 
 
 All these conflicting circumstances were of vital, and, 
 as they proved, of fatal importance to Ralegh. Those who 
 admired his talents, and wished well to one who was so 
 calculated to advance the credit of his country, viewed 
 with regret the dangers by which he was threatened at 
 this crisis. Even Sir John Harrington, now no longer the 
 light-hearted and sportive courtier, but the mournful ob- 
 server of this world's inconstancy, § began to fear for Ra- 
 legh, and to whisper strange plots of which he .had private 
 intimations. By this strange compound of sentiment and 
 
 * Sully, 135. f Ibid. p. 143. 
 
 I Aikin's James I vol. i. p. 59. § Nugs, 181. 343. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 143 
 
 numor, it was plainly seen, and good-naturedly lamented, 
 that Raleeh was obnoxious to all factions. " The Spaa - 
 Kp " savlhe in a letter to Dr. Still, " beare no good wyll 
 fRal S efh; h andi a doubt if some of ^f/^Z 
 muche better affect one towarde hym: God deiyver me 
 ffSwdm I have spoken with Carewe concern- 
 nJe the matt/rl he thynketh ill of certain* > peop le whome 
 I knowe, and vvisheth he coud game knowledge and fur 
 her inspection hereof. Cecil doth beare _no ^bve to Ra- 
 leo-he as vou well understate m the matter ot fcssex. l 
 wfs not he that (Ralegh) hath evyll design m pointe of 
 Se or relygiom As he hath ofte fcoursedeto me wyto 
 moch learnynge, wysdom, and freedom, J ^owe he do h e 
 somewhat dyffer in opynyon from some others. but . 1 
 thmke also his hearte is we le fixe d in every hones to 
 thvno-e as farre as I can looke mto hym. He seemetn 
 wSousfie fitted, bothe by art and nature^ to «rve the 
 state, especiallie as he is versede m foreign matters his 
 skvll therein bein- alwaies estimable and P^eworthie 
 rW good trothe, I pitie his state, and doubte the 
 dvce not fairely thrown, if his lyfe be the losing stake but 
 hereof enowe, as it becomethe not a poore countrye 
 Ste to look from the plow-handle into policie and 
 prTvac e *" Such were some of the forebodings of a spec 
 K concerning the termination of ^gh^anqui^, 
 and the perils which threatened his reputation, and sucn 
 h* ^tnbu'te of weU-gxounded encomium ^d to bna by «je 
 who knew well how to satirize his failings; and .whose 
 preseS SvoT with King James might have made that ap- 
 pear for his own peculiar interests, the wiser part. 
 P I was at this juncture that a combination was formed, 
 so singular in its nature, and so mysterious m its in enUon 
 that its operations have proverbially been called a riddle 
 of state " Among the active, and enthusiastic, and malig- 
 nant spirits who°were thus mingled together in stomge 
 association, the name of Ralegh unhappily for hm .ap- 
 pears The imputed object of the plot in which he uas 
 Sosed to have engaged, was to alter the succession i to 
 the crown; the means, a rash and wild scheme tor sur. 
 prima the king and his court, and placing the next heir 
 apoTthe throne. The object, or rather the victim, of this 
 
 * NugK, 343. 
 
144 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 conspiracy, was Arabella Stuart, one of the most hapless 
 members of a family sufficiently remarkable for misfor- 
 tunes, and distinguished no less for the pride, imprudence, 
 and accomplishments which characterized the house of 
 Stuart, than for her exalted birth. The daughter of the 
 Earl of Lenox, uncle to the king, and brother of the ill- 
 fated Darnley, the Lady Arabella possessed, according to 
 the opinion of some, an advantage, by birth within the 
 realm, which raised her claim to the crown to an equality 
 with that of James, " according to the principle of law 
 which excludes aliens from inheritance*" to the crown. 
 Her pretensions were countenanced by the pope, Clement 
 VIII., who believed her to be secretly of the Catholic faith, 
 and projected a marriage between her and the Cardinal 
 Farnese, brother to the Duke of Parma.f But Arabella 
 manifested neither any decided inclination to popery, nor a 
 disposition, by an alliance with foreign states, to strengthen 
 her power of laying claim to her supposed birthright. Her 
 chief grounds of complaint appear to have been the loss 
 of her patrimonial property, when James, after the death 
 of her father, revoked the infeoffinent of the Earldom of 
 Lenox to her prejudice, an act which had incensed Queen 
 Elizabeth.J She was, therefore, in a great measure, de- 
 pendent upon James's bounty, and was obliged from pover- 
 ty to contract debts, which the king in one instance paid, 
 besides adding to her yearly allowance. § As this act of 
 liberality took place after the conspiracy|| which bore her 
 name as its plea, it may be presumed, as indeed it was 
 generally allowed, that Arabella was innocent of any par- 
 ticipation in that wild and wicked scheme. That she was 
 destined to fall a sacrifice to the suspicions raised by this 
 affair, was too well proved ; when, following the dictates 
 of her heart, she, some years afterwards, married her 
 cousin, Sir William Seymour, and endeavored to fly with 
 him abroad. He, a man of honor and of valor, who after- 
 wards proved his attachment to the reigning family during 
 the period of the rebellion, IT was, for a time, confined in 
 thn Tower. But the misery of their common imprudence 
 
 * Hallara's Constitutional Hist, of England, i. p. 390. 
 
 t Hallam, 391 
 
 J Camden, p. 461., also Ellis's Letters, 2d Series, vol. in. pp. bl — b4. 
 
 § Winwood's Memorials, iii. p. 117. 
 
 I Ibid. IT Clarendon. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 145 
 
 fell, as it usually does, most heavily on the lady. After 
 years of confinement and of hope of liberty deferred, she 
 died insane, and a prisoner.* 
 
 With the expressed purpose of vindicating the rights 
 of Arabella, but with the secret expectation each of bene- 
 fiting his own particular views, a set of men came into 
 co-operation with such dissimilar opinions and motives, that 
 posterity has scarcely ceased wondering at their conjunc- 
 tion. Amongst these, the most responsible for all the evils 
 which ensued was George Brooke, a brother of the Lord 
 Cobham, and, doubtless, the incendiary of the whole plot. 
 Whilst, from the greater importance of his relative in rank 
 and wealth, this base instrument of destruction to Ralegh 
 has been overlooked by historians, there can be little doubt 
 but that by his cultivated, and vigorous, but unprincipled 
 mind, the passions of Cobham were inflamed ; and the lat- 
 ter, who " was but one remove from a fooLf" initiated into 
 the mysteries of the web woven by others. It is remark- 
 able that the father of these two men had given them a 
 lesson in treachery, by disclosing the particulars of the 
 conspiracy in which the Duke of Norfolk was concerned, 
 in the reign of Elizabeth. This nobleman afterwards be- 
 came lord chamberlain, and enjoyed so great a portion of 
 Elizabeth's favor, that none dared to utter a syllable to his 
 prejudice, unless it were the Earl of Essex ; and when the 
 office of baron of the cinque ports became vacant, the 
 chance of the younger Cobham appeared to prevail above 
 that of all other competitors.]: With the advantages of 
 high birth and of a large fortune, Henry Lord Cobham 
 was as much despised by his contemporaries, even in his 
 days of prosperity, as he has since been contemned and 
 detested by every reader of history, capable of feeling vir- 
 tuous indignation. To his natural imbecility there was an 
 accompaniment not very unusual, a degree of stupid and 
 remorseless assurance, which enabled him to tell a lie with 
 as much ease and confidence as a fact:§ hence he was 
 generally conceived to be one upon whom any base office 
 might be thrust, without the dread of any relenting emo- 
 tions of conscience intervening to arrest the progress ot 
 his iniquities. If one odious and contemptible feature 
 
 *Winwood. fWeldon. 
 
 I Brydge's Extinct Peerage, 261. from Rowland White. § Weldon 
 
140 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 predominated in his composition, it was cowardice, a cir 
 cumstance of which his designing associates knew weD 
 how to avail themselves when occasion offered. It was 
 remarkable that a person so valiant, so philosophical, and 
 so discerning as Ralegh should have associated on terms 
 of intimacy with a character so unworthy of his regard, 
 and so debased in the public opinion, as that of Cobham : 
 for even during the lifetime of Essex, Cobham had been 
 despised, and it was the custom of the unfortunate Deve- 
 reux to call him, par excellentiam, " the sycophant," in 
 the very presence of Elizabeth.* Perhaps their common 
 enmity to that unfortunate nobleman first engaged Ralegh 
 and Cobham in a friendship which was as fatal to the for- 
 mer, as it was hollow and selfish in the latter. Perhaps the 
 influence and credit attached to the dominion which Ra- 
 legh exercised over a man of Cobham's great possessions, 
 gratified his vanity, or increased his power. It is scarcely 
 possible that the intimacy which subsisted between them 
 could have arisen in Ralegh from motives of regard or 
 esteem to a man so infinitely his inferior in every thing 
 but the adventitious circumstances of birth and fortune : 
 yet the familiar letters which passed between themf seem 
 to imply a degree of flattering attention on the part of 
 Ralegh, which, if it did not proceed from kindly feelings, 
 was utterly unworthy of a man of his intellect and estima- 
 tion in society. Yet it is but too true that their intercourse, 
 both personally and by correspondence, was of the most 
 familiar and confidential character ; and of the letters pre- 
 served of Ralegh's writing, in the State Paper Office, 
 those to Cobham are written in the terms of intimate 
 friendship and respect. When quitting the exaraination- 
 room, and returning as a prisoner to his own house, Ra- 
 legh received a message from Cobham requesting to know 
 what had transpired. To this inquiry Ralegh sent a writ- 
 ten answer, telling Cobham, that he had been examined, 
 and that " he had cleared him of all." This intelligence 
 was transmitted by Captain Keymis, one of Ralegh's de- 
 voted adherents, who, as it was stated, added a verbal mes- 
 sage, %'hich was donied by Ralegh, importing that " CoV 
 
 » Reliquiffi W moniae, 31. 
 
 t Copied from the State Paper Office, App. B. & B 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 147 
 
 lain might be of good comfort, for that one witness would 
 lot condemn him." 
 
 Contrasted with Cobham in every mental attribute, but 
 unhappily associated with him in deeds of folly and of 
 mischief, was the young, high-minded Lord Grey de Wil- 
 ton, described by a contemporary writer* as " a very hope- 
 ful gentleman, blasted in the bud." This unfortunate 
 nobleman, the last male heir of a brave and illustrious 
 line, and ancestor, by his sister, to the present house of 
 Wilton, had been engaged in the service of his country 
 against the Armada, and had borne an honorable character, 
 until his ill-advised connexion with that strange enterprise, 
 afterwards vulgarly known by " Ralegh's Plot," and, by 
 more accurate persons, " Watson's conspiracy." A Puritan 
 in religion, Grey manifested in his deportment the osten- 
 tation of piety and contempt of death, usually manifested 
 by persons of that sect, to whom it appeared in many in- 
 stances far more easy to die with heroism, than to live in 
 a rational state of peace, and whom King James not inaptly 
 described to be " Protestants flayed out of their wits." 
 He was also a man of some classical acquirements, which 
 were displayed with considerable ostentation in his letters, 
 as some of his affecting and high-spirited compositions still 
 preserved sufficiently show.f With these differing cha- 
 racters were joined William Watson, and William Clerk, 
 two priests ; Sir Griffin Markham, Bartholomew Brooksby, 
 Anthony Copley, Sir Edward Parham, and, as report as- 
 serted, Sir Walter Ralegh. 
 
 Of this strange medley of characters, Grey was the 
 most infatuated and violent ; Cobham the most contempti- 
 ble ; and his brother George Brooke, by far the most able, 
 designing, and dangerous. So much doubt still rests upon 
 the share which Ralegh had in this treasonable combina- 
 tion of Papists with Puritans, that he ought not to be re- 
 garded as decidedly forming one of this singular group. 
 Yet historians have unhesitatingly connected his name 
 with those of his reputed confederates, and have seemed 
 to consider his guilt as implied, without the necessity of a 
 doubt. Even Osborne, with every apparent intention to be 
 lenient, states, that at the King's " assumption, the Lord 
 Grey, Lord Cobham, and Sir Walter Ralegh," fell into a 
 
 * Weldon Ostein, Trad. Mem. J. 441. fSee Appendix, F. & G. 
 
148 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 treason similar to that of Essex, and equally " improbable to 
 hurt others, or benefit themselves :" and he adds this re- 
 mark, — "that if ever folly was capable of the title, or 
 pity due to innocence, theirs might claim so large a share, 
 as not possible to be too highly condemned, or too slightly 
 punished.*" By an historian, greatly superior to Osborne,f 
 the participation of Ralegh in the criminal designs of 
 Grey, Cobham, and the other members of the party, has 
 been mentioned as a circumstance to be accounted for by 
 the manifestations of James's displeasure towards him, 
 and as a fact not requiring investigation, nor challenging 
 dispute.:); 
 
 Mr. Hume has justly observed, regarding this affair, that 
 " every thing remains still mysterious, and history can give 
 us no clue to unravel it." In documents^ discovered long 
 since Hume's time, no fresh disclosures, which might es- 
 tablish the guilt of Ralegh, are to be found. The minds 
 of those who conversed with him appear to have been in 
 the same state of vague suspicion and perplexity as our 
 own ; no confession was elicited from him, nor any con- 
 nected evidence of co-operation traced. The origin of the 
 charges against him originated in the following circum- 
 stances, respecting which reports prevailed, without, how- 
 ever, any certain foundation. 
 
 It was in the first instance supposed, and it has been 
 repeatedly asserted, that Ralegh was guilty in tampering 
 with the foreign ambassadors, and in offering them the 
 benefit of his talents and influence for pecuniary consider- 
 ations. Rosni is said first to have received these unworthy 
 proposals|| ; but no such statement being found in the val- 
 uable and singularly accurate Memoirs of that great states- 
 man, it may be presumed that this account was false ; for 
 Sully would scarcely have passed over such an occurrence, 
 had it really taken place The sole reference which he 
 makes to any communications of importance offered to him 
 by Ralegh and Cobham, relates to the machinations of 
 
 * Osborne, Mem. K. J. vii. 425. 
 
 t Osborne, as a contemporary writer, has had considerable stress placed 
 upon his statements. He was born in 1589, and must have been fifteen 
 years old at the time of Watson's conspiracy. His dislike to James and 
 to the Stuarts is well known, and it was manifested by the share whici 
 le took in the civil wars. 
 
 t Wilson, 0C2. § Those in the State Paper Office. || Hume. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 149 
 
 Spain to detach England from France and the Low Coun- 
 tries; and, on this subject, the earl of Northumberland, 
 who was in no way concerned in Watson's plot, gave him 
 a far greater portion of information than the two former 
 individuals.* 
 
 It was next reported, that Ralegh and Cobham were im- 
 plicated with Count Aremberg, the ambassador from the 
 Archduke of Austria, and that their dealings with him, if 
 not absolutely of a treasonable nature, might be regarded 
 as disgraceful to themselves, and as dangerous to the 
 state. 
 
 In the month of May, 1603, Ralegh had projected, if not 
 executed, a work, which he presented soon afterwards to 
 James,f written expressly to discourage the prospect of a 
 peace with Spain, and urging the continuance of amity with 
 the Flemings, upon the grounds that " a poor neighbor's 
 house set on fire is better to be guarded than a great city 
 afar off J" In the course of June, in the same year, the Aus- 
 trian ambassador landed in England. Soon after his arrival, 
 Lord Cobham, who had formerly maintained some inter- 
 course with the Austrian government, by means of Lau- 
 rencie, an Antwerp merchant, renewed his previous com- 
 munication with that person, who attended D' Aremberg to 
 England, and, in his presence, had a personal interview 
 with the Austrian minister. On this occasion Cobham 
 was instructed by the Austrian minister to offer a bribe to 
 Ralegh, in order to induce him to relinquish that opposi- 
 tion to the peace with Spain, which he had continually 
 manifested, and which he had shown explicitly in his re- 
 cent publication. On quitting D' Aremberg, Cobham re- 
 paired to Durham House, in the Strand, where Ralegh 
 then resided, and communicated to him, during supper, the 
 particulars of his visit to D' Aremberg. 
 
 This was not the first proposal of this nature w T hich had 
 been made to Ralegh on the part of D'Aremberg, who had 
 tried his ground with Sir Walter, by a similar offer before 
 his landing in England. J The result of this particular ne- 
 gotiation does not appear, and it was probably anticipated 
 by the proceedings against Ralegh : the treaty was after- 
 wards stated to have been of a treasonable nature, although 
 no different object to that which has been assigned to it 
 
 * Sully's Memoirs, Translation, vol. iii. p. 164. London, 1819. 
 t Birch, pp. 4?, 43. . { Oldys. § Ibid. 151. 
 
150 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 could be ascertained. It may be justly remarked, that it 
 argues no great estimation of Ralegh's incorruptible prob- 
 ity, that such a proposition should have been made to him. 
 Unhappily such transactions were far too frequent in those 
 days to be matters of reproof, or sources of shame, when 
 discovered. Bribes were unblushingly offered, and greedily 
 received ; and the use of Spanish gold among British 
 statesmen was, in the reign of James I., almost proverbial. 
 The negotiation was denied neither by Cobham, nor by 
 Ralegh. 
 
 Upon this incident, which could have no relation to the 
 plot which was immediately afterwards disclosed, the sub- 
 stance of all that can with a shadow of justice be urged 
 against Raleigh's conduct as a loyal subject, entirely and 
 solely depends. 
 
 It was in the beginning of July that Cecil received, 
 from Anthony Copley, the particulars of a conspiracy, of 
 which Copley avowed himself to be a party concerned. 
 The intelligence conveyed by this man, affected only Grey 
 and George Brooke, disclosing, on their part, a plot to seize 
 the King's person, and other treasonable designs.* On 
 receiving this intimation, the experienced minister imme- 
 diately conjectured, that if Brooke were a principal, it was 
 not unlikely that Cobham might also be concerned in the 
 affair ; from Cobham it was again natural to refer to Ra- 
 legh, because, besides the well-known incapacity of the 
 wretched peer to any bold undertaking, it was notorious 
 that Ralegh possessed the greatest possible influence over 
 the small degree of mind which Cobham possessed; an in- 
 fluence so strong, that Brooke, in remarking upon it dur- 
 ing the trial which afterwards to^k place, called Ralegh, 
 emphatically, "the witch."f 
 
 Actuated by these suspicions, Cecil determined upon the 
 apprehension of the supposed conspirators ; and meeting 
 Ralegh on the terrace at Windsor, he desired him, as from 
 the King, to remain, alleging that the lords of the privy 
 council had something upon which they wished to com- 
 municate with him. J. He was then examined upon the 
 grounds of Cobham's communications with Aremberg ; but 
 he entirely cleared the accused nobleman of any " cor- 
 
 * Birch, i.50. f Trial in Pref. to Hist. World, p. 15. 
 
 t Cecil's Evidence in the Trial. See Cobbett's State Trials, vol. ii. 
 p. 13. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 151 
 
 respondence that might not be warranted ;" referring Cecil 
 to Laurencie for a fuller explanation ; a counsel which he 
 subsequently repeated in a letter to the minister.* Cob- 
 ham was then summoned to appear before the lords at 
 Richmond ; and here, after for some time refusing to de- 
 pose any thing at all,f he entirely exculpated Ralegh, and 
 endeavored to exonerate himself. But soon, the whole 
 train of affairs was changed, by an artifice eternally dis- 
 graceful to men of education and character, who were con- 
 cerned in a solemn investigation touching the lives and 
 reputations of others. A portion of Ralegh's letter to Cecil 
 was shown to Cobham, who was led, from some expres- 
 sions concerning Laurencie and D'Aremberg, to infer that 
 Ralegh, in the remaining portion of the document, had be- 
 trayed him. On reading these passages, the wretched 
 nobleman, conscious of his own nefarious dealings, and 
 seized with a sudden impulse, almost diabolical in its na- 
 ture, exclaimed, " Oh ! traitor ; oh ! villain ; now will I 
 confess the whole truth !" This burst of passion was suc- 
 ceeded by an avowal, or rather fabrication, which was but 
 too eagerly received by the assembled enemies of the un- 
 fortunate Ralegh. Under the impressions of cowardice, 
 and the excitement of revenge, Cobham declared that it 
 had been his intention to go into Spain for the purpose of 
 borrowing the sum of one thousand crowns from Philip the 
 Third, to pay the rebellious troops which were to be raised 
 in this country. He also detailed a plan of returning to 
 England by Jersey, where Ralegh, in his official situation 
 as governor of that island, would be ready to discuss with 
 him the mode of distribution of the money. His deposition 
 was interspersed with many oaths and exclamations, and 
 it was crowned by a protest, most earnestly desired by 
 many of the bystanders, that at the instigation of Ralegh 
 solely had he entered into these treasonable designs.'! 
 
 With regard to other plots, this mean and dastardly be- 
 trayer of his friend, with a degree of punning worthy of 
 his selfish character, declared his inability to give any dis- 
 tinct account of them, although they had, he affirmed, fre- 
 quently been the subjects of discourse between him and 
 Ralegh : an unlimited field was thus left to the accusations 
 
 * See Trial, p. 18. 
 
 t Oldys, 154, from the arraignment of Sir W. R. in Sherley's Life. 
 
 t See Trial. 
 
152 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 of the malignant, and to the attachment of any imputation 
 which might chance, from other coincidences, to have the 
 appearance of probability. With the inconsistency of 
 falsehood, Cobham, to his other allegations, added this 
 strange and contradictory surmise, that he dreaded lest, on 
 his return to Jersey, Ralegh should deliver him and the 
 money he was desired to bring to the king.* After deliv- 
 ering this evidence, which, incoherent and improbable as 
 it was, decided the fate of Ralegh, Cobham was discharged ; 
 but, even before he came to the stair-foot to depart from 
 the council room, he was seized with sudden remorse : he 
 retracted his assertion, and confessed that he had injured 
 his former associate and friend.f He refused for a long 
 time to subscribe to his iniquitous testimony, which was 
 taken down in writing, and could not be persuaded to do 
 so, even after reading that letter of Ralegh's which so 
 much enraged him, until Popham, the lord chief justice, 
 being sent for, told him, that it would be considered as a 
 contempt of court, if he did not sign his deposition. Nei- 
 ther could he be induced to confirm the truth of an allega- 
 tion which had been made by his brother Brooke, on his 
 examination, that Cobham had remarked to Brooke that he 
 and Grey were only upon the " bye," but that Ralegh and 
 himself were upon the " main." This statement, on the 
 part of Brooke, a known enemy of Ralegh, was also ex- 
 plained by him to refer to the destruction of the King and 
 his issue ; a plot which was considered as being the 
 " main" or chief end of the conspiracy, whilst the " bye" 
 was supposed to refer to some amendments in state affairs, 
 said to be desired by the other conspirators. Yet, notwith- 
 standing this denial on the part of Cobham, this point was 
 afterwards much insisted upon, and, during the trial, was 
 made the pretext of imputing the chief guilt in the affair to 
 Ralegh. Thus, as it were, prejudged, and almost condemned 
 by anticipation, Ralegh was indicted at Staines, in Middle- 
 sex, on the 21st of September, and Cobham and Grey in 
 the course of the three following days. They were then 
 committed to the Tower.+ 
 
 Upon the grounds of Sir Walter Ralegh's commitment 
 to prison, Cecil, recently created Baron Essenden, has ex- 
 
 * Oldys, from Sheiley, p. 153. f T « al - 
 
 X Stowe's Annals, folio S3. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 153 
 
 plained himself in a letter to Sir Thomas Parry, at that 
 time ambassador in France. With all his ingenuity and 
 his love for the discovery of plots, the able secretary was 
 unable to give any satisfactory reasons for this proceeding. 
 "Concerning Sir Walter Ralegh's commitment," he ob- 
 serves, " this hath been the ground. He bath been discon- 
 tented in conspeclu omnium ever since the King came ; 
 and yet, for those offices which are taken from him, the 
 King gave him 300Z. a-year during his life, and forgave him 
 a good arrearage of debts." He then narrates the examina- 
 tions before the council, which, in the eye of justice, had 
 been sufficiently refuted by the vacillating conduct of Cob- 
 ham, his contradictions, and his violent, but too late repent- 
 ance* ; and not being able to deduce from the vague accu- 
 sations of Cobham the desired evidence of Ralegh's guilt, 
 remarks that "his governing the Lord Cobham's spirit, 
 made great suspicions that in these treasons he had his 
 part." Such were the surmises upon which the brave, the 
 wise, and the virtuous were too often consigned to un- 
 merited disgrace and confinement in the boasted days of 
 our ancestors. 
 
 Since the former friendship between Ralegh and Cecil, 
 and the apparent reluctance of the latter to aid the prose- 
 cution of Ralegh upon his trial, may be considered as tend- 
 ing to confirm his guilt, it is proper here to remark that re- 
 cent investigations! appear to show more fully than has 
 heretofore been manifested, that dissensions between these 
 two eminent men had commenced even during the pre- 
 ceding reign, and had been disclosed to Cobham. In the 
 postscript to a letter addressed to that nobleman, Ralegh 
 speaks with bitterness of Cecil's conduct to him in a certain 
 law-suit, and designating the secretary by the sarcastic ap- 
 pellation of " my Lord Puritan Periam," denounces wrath 
 against him in severe terms.! If professions of regard 
 could, on the one hand, be so readily changed into con- 
 tempt and anger, it is not very probable that they were very 
 sincere, or stable, on the part of Cecil, whose worldly inte- 
 rest it appeared to be to forsake even this hollow semblance 
 of friendship towards Ralegh, on the accession of James. 
 Cecil, indeed, seems to have made no exertion to save any 
 
 * Cayley, i p. 384., from Pepys's Library in Magdalen College, Cam 
 bridge, 
 t In the State Paper Office. X See Appendix, G. 
 
154 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 of the prisoners from their doom ; and conscious of the in- 
 sufficiency of the evidence against Ralegh in an equitable 
 point of view, he displays in his letters a desire to expatiate 
 upon the circumstantial bearings of the case, and a dispo- 
 sition to seize hold of every incident to confirm conjectures 
 of his guilt. Under the mask of impartiality, and with 
 seeming hesitation, he labors to convince his correspondents 
 at foreign courts of Ralegh's guilt, without directly ex- 
 pressing his entire conviction of it himself. Nothing can 
 be more artful, more essentially diplomatic, than these dis- 
 patches* : yet truth will assert her power, and few calm 
 and unprejudiced spectators were really convinced of 
 Ralegh's co-operation in the wild schemes imputed to him. 
 
 It is melancholy to learn that the fortitude of Ralegh 
 deserted him at this crisis. The mind which could after- 
 wards so nobly rally to support misfortune, sank beneath 
 unexpected disgrace. That he attempted suicide, is a fact 
 over which the Christian mourns in the bitterness of dis- 
 appointment. The fatal blow was arrested by the merciful 
 interposition of that pitying Providence, who willed that 
 he should live to retrieve the errors of an useful, but not 
 faultless career. 
 
 Ralegh, at this period of his life, displayed a proud and 
 impatient spirit : adversity was almost entirely new to him, 
 and her salutary lessons had been experienced in a slight 
 and transitory manner. The season was yet to arrive in 
 which this great, but erring man, was enabled to show, how, 
 from degradation, he could raise himself to glory, by the 
 duties of submission and repentance, and by the wisdom of 
 resignation. 
 
 His despair must have been extreme, and it was unhap- 
 pily construed into an admission of his guilt. For although, 
 from the account of Cecil, he was on his commitment 
 treated with humanity, and at first lodged and attended as 
 well as in his own house,f he could not suppress the ago- 
 nies of his mind ; and one afternoon, whilst the secretary 
 and others were examining some of the prisoners in the 
 Tower, he stabbed himself in the breast, near his heart, 
 with a knife. When Cecil, on being informed of this at- 
 tempt at self-destruction, came to him, he found him in 
 
 * See his two letters to Sir T. Parry in Cayley, vol. i. p. 284. and ii. 5., 
 also his letters in Winwood, vol. ii. p. 8. 
 t Cayley. i. 365. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH 
 
 155 
 
 great mental distress, " protesting his innocency, with care- 
 lessness of life." That his indifference to life was real, is 
 obvious from his subsequent conduct at his trial, when he 
 appeared far more anxious to vindicate his character, and 
 to manifest the malice of his enemies, than to obtain their 
 mediation for his forgiveness. Perhaps there are few men 
 who can weigh the prospect of a long imprisonment with 
 that of a speedy release by death, who would not, in the 
 first ao-onies of such a prospect, be tempted to take their 
 fate into their own hands, forgetful of their reliance upon 
 that Supreme Providence under whose protection we may 
 presume the innocent captive peculiarly to abide. 
 
 Happily for mankind, happily for himself, the wound 
 which Ralegh inflicted was not dangerous, being, as Cecil 
 describes it, rather " a cut than a stab.*" The rash and 
 criminal deed was committed on the twenty-seventh of 
 July, 1603. By a letter from the lieutenant of the Tower, 
 dated the thirtieth of the same month, he seems to have 
 been almost restored to health, although still greatly agi- 
 tated in mind.f " Sir Walter Ralegh's hurte," says the 
 writer, addressing himself to Cecil, " wyll be within these 
 two days perfectly hoole. He doth styll contynewe per- 
 plexed as you leffte hvm." From the same source we learn, 
 that he greatly desired to be allowed the society of his friend 
 Herriot ; but we are not informed whether his request was 
 granted. 
 
 With regard to the private examinations which were 
 carried on between the interval of his first committal and 
 his trial, Ralegh appears to have adopted a very different 
 course to that pursued by the other prisoners. In a letter 
 addressed to Cecil by Sir William Wade, and indorsed with 
 the words " to me" in the hand of the secretary himself,t 
 it appears, that Raleffh at first preserved a resolute silence, 
 which he at length "relaxed, although with much caution ; 
 " and I doubt not," observes Wade, " havinge now opened 
 the hatche of his closet, he will losse reserve, and be more 
 willing to utter that is behind." Previous to this intelli- 
 
 * This attempt on the part of Ralegh is established by Cecil's Letters 
 and by his Diary, preserved in the Hatfield library, first brought to light 
 by Cayley, vol. ii. 366. It is confirmed by a letter in the State Paper 
 Office, now first printed in the Appendix, and alluding to the cure of the 
 wound. 
 
 \ See Appendix, H. t Appendix, I. 
 
156 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 gence, which was sent to Cecil on the 27th of August 
 nothing had been elicited from Ralegh, nor does it appear, 
 from any source, that he subsequently confirmed the ex- 
 pectations of Wade by disclosing any thing of importance. 
 His declarations, and those of his attendant Keymis, were 
 taken,* and sent to Cecil in Sir Walter's own hand-writing. 
 These, unluckily, have not been transmitted to us in any 
 manuscript collections, or have not been yet discovered. 
 They, probably, contained asseverations of innocence, and 
 were, perhaps, on that account, destroyed by Cecil. There 
 was, evidently, considerable pains taken to win from him 
 some admission of his guilt, and had such been obtained, 
 we should, no doubt, have been furnished with explicit and 
 perhaps triumphant remarks upon it from the pen of Wade, 
 who was indefatigable in his investigation of the prisoners.! 
 On the contrary, Cecil, in his letter to Sir Ralph Winwood, 
 then ambassador at the Hague, declares that Ralegh was 
 firm in his asseverations of innocence. And yet, unshaken 
 by this fact, or else determined to believe him guilty, lie 
 makes this invidious remark upon the circumstance, " that 
 though Sir Walter persists in his denials, by having gotten 
 some intelligence of the Lord Cobham's retractation, yet 
 the first accusation is so well fortified with other demon- 
 strative circumstances, and the retractation so blemished 
 by the discovery of that intelligence which they had, as 
 few men can conceive it comes from a pure heart." 
 
 The consistent asseverations of Ralegh were strongly 
 contrasted with the confessions, prevarications, and sup- 
 plications of his fellow-prisoners. Grey, in his " declara- 
 tion," as it was called, confessed that he had a " plot, a 
 party, and confederates."^ He further acknowledged, that 
 the object of this scheme was to surprise the King and his 
 court. ^ And he scorned not to address letters to the King, 
 two of which are still extant ;|| and probably several to 
 Cecil, to one of which we have the secretary's answer. IT 
 These addresses were written with the high bearing of an 
 English peer, who insisted upon his services, and those of 
 his ancestors, as claims to mercy, rather than on his own 
 
 * See Appendix, I. & K. 
 
 t Such is the general tenor of the letters in the State Paper Office, 
 from Wade to Cecil. Nothing was, however, elicited from Ralegh. 
 I See Appendix, I. & K. § Winwood's Mem., vol. ii. p. 8. 
 
 | In the State Paper Office, Appendix. L & M. V Appendix, O. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 157 
 
 innocence. They were penned with some ostentation of 
 learning, which might, one would think, have aroused the 
 sympathy of James ; hut it is evident from Cecil's cautious, 
 yet apparently kind reply, that the fate of this misguided 
 but high-minded young nobleman was already determined. 
 Cobham attempted no new retractation of his confession, 
 but resigned himself to the deepest depression of which 
 his mean and selfish soul was susceptible, and adopted those 
 humble terms of supplication which the basest craving for 
 the boon of life could suggest. In the documents in the 
 State Paper Office, so repeatedly referred to, his spirits are 
 said to be " exceeding muche declyned, he is growne pas- 
 sionate in lamentacion and sorrowe ; his only hope is in 
 his Majestie's mercye, and Lord Cecil's mediation." Mean- 
 while he addressed a letter to the Earls of Nottingham 
 and Suffolk, and to Lord Cecil, praying for their mediation, 
 in a mode which was extremely characteristic of his own 
 base nature, and of the corruptions of the times, which 
 emboldened him to hint to these three exalted personages, 
 that the " lowness of his estate prevented his being able 
 to promise them any requital of their favors.*" Jn this 
 letter, he humbly sued for a private interview with those 
 noblemen, to whom he promised " to disclose that which 
 he had revealed to no other living creature." This seems 
 to have been a last desperate attempt to obtain mercy ; for 
 the truly abject composition was penned so late as October, 
 about a month before the trials of the conspirators were to 
 commence. Brooke, who, with Cobham, acknowledged the 
 treasonable correspondence with Spain,f confessed also, to 
 the fullest extent, as much as Grey, and was declared by 
 Wade " to be before, and not behind the rest, as well in 
 ample declaration as in time." From his evidence, it was 
 collected that Sir Walter Ralegh was " ordinarily twiess 
 a week with the Lord Cobham, but what their confer- 
 ences were, none but themselves doe knowe. But Mr. 
 Brooke confidently thinketh, that what his brother knows, 
 was known to y e other.J" This, as far as can be at present 
 traced, was all the testimony given in the Tower which 
 could possibly criminate Ralegh ; and how little, in our 
 more impartial and enlightened times, should we think of 
 
 * Appendix, P. f Winwood, ii. p. 8. 
 
 J See Letters from State Paper Office, Appendix, L. 
 
158 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 such unsupported and indefinite allegations ! Like Grej 
 and Cobham, Brooke addressed a petition to Cecil, whom 
 he endeavored to move by an allusion to his own sister, the 
 deceased wife of Cecil, to whom he was thus closely allied 
 by marriage. The letter, like those of his fellow delin- 
 quents, is extremely characteristic, and shows both the 
 ability and acuteness of this designing but accomplished 
 man : for Brooke was far superior to Cobham in talents, 
 acquirements, and courage, although resembling his despi- 
 cable relative in his unprincipled conduct. He is supposed 
 to have stimulated Cobham to the selfish and dangerous 
 schemes which they had contemplated in concert with 
 Markham, Watson, Clerk, and the rest of the confed- 
 erates. 
 
 After Sir Walter had been examined by Lord Henry 
 Howard, Lord Wotton, and Sir Edward Coke, he addressed 
 to the Earls of Nottingham, Suffolk, and Devonshire, and 
 to Lord Cecil, a letter full of eloquent protestations of in- 
 nocence, and of sound argument* This he followed with 
 a supplication to the King, to whom he represented that ii 
 was one office of a just and merciful prince to hear the 
 complaints of his vassal, and especially of such as were 
 in misery."! These addresses, as it may be presumed, 
 failed to propitiate those who were predetermined against 
 him. 
 
 Hopeless of mercy, and resting his chance of security 
 upon the almost equally fallacious expectations of justice, 
 Ralegh, as the time appointed for his trial drew near, be • 
 came extremely anxious to obtain from Cobham that justi- 
 fication which his innocence, as he affirmed, demanded. 
 Availing himself one evening of the absence of the lieu- 
 tenant of the Tower at supper, he bribed a poor man to 
 throw up into Cobham's apartment an apple, to which a 
 letter was fastened. hi this communication, Ralegh en- 
 treated Cobham " for God's sake to do him justice in his 
 answer, and signify to him that he had wronged him in his 
 accusation." To this request Cobham returned a reply, 
 which, not being quite so explicit as Ralegh desired, he 
 sent another letter to Cobham, similar m effect to the 
 former ; to this, although he required no answer, but mere- 
 ly expressed his desire that Cobham would declare hia 
 
 * See Ralegh's Remains. t B i rch . »• 377 - 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 159 
 
 innocence at the trial, an emphatic assurance was returned, 
 declaring Ralegh, in the most solemn terms, guiltless of 
 all the charges.* 
 
 The plague was at this time raging in England, and, 
 although the King and Queen, almost in defiance of its 
 power, had been crowned at Westminster, yet little public 
 business could now be transacted in the metropolis. Whilst 
 a general panic pervaded all classes on account of this 
 direful infection, it is remarkable that the unhappy prison- 
 ers in the Tower were peculiarly exempt from its influ- 
 ence ; only one man, a porter in this edifice, being attacked 
 with it, and dying from its cruel effects.! This might be 
 some consolation at a time when diseased persons were 
 rushing out of the towns into the adjacent villages, and 
 dying in barns and stables, into which the poor despairing 
 wretches cast themselves, heedless of the dissemination of 
 that infection by which they were themselves the sufferers. 
 Such was the state of anarchy produced by this public 
 calamity, that constables could not be found who would, 
 under any penalty, convey the infected persons to the pest- 
 house. The bedding, straw, and clothes of those who had 
 died of this frightful distemper were cast into the streets, 
 and thus contagion borne on every breeze of wind, and 
 hasty travellers and passengers endangered by these con- 
 taminated articles. The cages and watch-houses in Lon- 
 don and the suburbs were filled with the dying, and even 
 the offices of burial could with difficulty be procured. In 
 this awful visitation, the mayor and aldermen, and the jus- 
 tices, deserted the city, and left it to its wretched fate, 
 without a project for relief and prevention. The courts 
 of law, after removing from place to place, and infecting 
 many towns with the disorder, were held at Winchester, 
 whither Ralegh and his companions were now removed for 
 their several trials. On the tenth of September he was 
 conveyed, in his own coach, first to Bagshot in Surrey, and 
 thence two days afterwards to Winchester Castle. Such 
 was the extreme, and almost unaccountable, popular aver- 
 sion to this great man, that, as he travelled, he was fol- 
 lowed by the execrations of the people through London 
 
 * Overbury's Copy of Sir VV. Ralegh's Confession, p. 5. ed. 1648. 
 
 t As it appears by a letter in the State Paper Office from Sir William 
 Wade to Cecil, dated August 31st, 1603, from which also the following 
 observations on the plague are taken. 
 
160 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 and the other towns ; and tobacco-pipes, stones, and mud 
 ;hrown into his coach.* To these cruel insults he paid 
 not the slightest notice, nor accorded the honor of his re- 
 sentment. Regarding these ebullitions as the indications 
 of a malignant faction, working upon the minds of the base 
 and ignorant, he viewed them with a calm and almost 
 cheerful countenance, nor suffered a murmur to. escape 
 him ; yet his personal danger must have been great, from 
 the account which Sir William Wade transmitted to Cecil 
 shortly after the arrival of the prisoners at Winchester. 
 "I thanke God," says the conductor of this important 
 charge, " we brought all our prisoners safely hither yes- 
 terday night in good tyme ; and yet I protest to your Lord- 
 ship, it was hab or nab whether Sir Walter Rawley should 
 have bin brought a live thorow such multitudes of unruly 
 people as did exclaym against hym. He that had seen it 
 would not think there had bin any sicknes in London ; we 
 toke the best order we could, in setting watches thorow 
 all the streets, both in London and in the suburbs : if one 
 hair-brain fellow amongst so great multitudes had begunn 
 to set upon him, as they were verry nere to do it, no nit- 
 watch or meanns could have prevayled, the fury and 
 tumult of the people was so greatf" The time was. 
 however, approaching, when these sentiments of detesta- 
 tion were to be changed into those of compassion, respect 
 and admiration. 
 
 * Lodge's Illustrations Hist. iii. 417. 
 
 t See Appendix, a. Letter from Wade to Cecil, dated Aug. 31. 1603. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 161 
 
 CHAP. V. 
 
 Trial of Ralegh.— Character of Sir Edward Coke.— Affair of the Lady 
 Arabella. — Conduct and Sentence of the Prisoners. 
 
 On the seventeenth day of the month, the trial of Ralegh 
 came on, before Lord Cecil, now Earl of Salisbury, the 
 Earl of Suffolk, Lord Chamberlain, the Earl of Devonshire, 
 Lord Henry Howard, Lord Wotton, Sir John Stanhope, 
 Vice Chamberlain, Popham, Lord Chief Justice, Anderson, 
 Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, Sir William 
 Wade, and two judges, Warburton and Gaudy. Several 
 amongst these individuals had already been employed to 
 examine Ralegh, and to investigate the whole affair. It is 
 remarkable that nothing to his disadvantage had been as 
 yet elicited. In the correspondence in the State Paper 
 Office, there occurs, indeed, the following observation, 
 from the pen of Sir William Wade, addressed, as usual, to 
 Cecil ; but it is wholly unexplained and ambiguous : — " It 
 may please your good lordship, by my Lord Henry Howard, 
 I was bold to troble your lordship with the short collection 
 of these last labors, which have gretly entangled Sir 
 Walter Rawley, or rather disclosed him from his covert; 
 and also discovered that depthe of malice in my Lord Cob- 
 ham's purposes, as to me seeme very strange." 
 
 The jury, consisting of an equal number of knights, 
 esquires, and gentlemen, were not personally known to 
 Ralegh, and, it was reported, had been changed even the 
 night before, the foreman, and one or two individuals who 
 had been first chosen, having been old and favorite servants 
 of Queen Elizabeth, and therefore not likely to prove so 
 ready to convict one who had also enjoyed the confidence 
 of that princess, as those whose chief object was to obtain 
 the favor of the reigning monarch.* 
 
 After the usual forms had been passed, the indictment 
 was read, and Sir Walter pleaded " Not guilty." The 
 general tenor of the charges amounted to this effect : that 
 he had conspired to deprive the king of his government, to 
 
 * Observations on Sanderson's History of Mary Queen of Scots and 
 her Son. Page 8. 4to. 1656. 
 
162 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 raise up sedition, to introduce the Romish religion, and to 
 procure foreign enemies to invade the kingdom.* The in- 
 dictment then entered into the supposed particulars of thia 
 plot, which were derived from the confessions of Cobham 
 and Brooke. He was also charged with having composed 
 a book against the king's title, and instigated Arabella to 
 write three letters ; one to the King of Spain, another to 
 the Archduke of Austria, and a third to the Duke of Savoy, 
 in order to persuade them to advance her title. The rest 
 of the charges related to the transactions between Arem- 
 berg and Cobham, and to the agreement between that no- 
 bleman and Ralegh, that the latter should obtain eight 
 thousand crowns of the money said to be raised on the part 
 of Spain. 
 
 Ralegh, on being asked if he would " take exceptions 
 to any of the jury !" replied, " I know none of them; they 
 are all Christians and honest gentlemen : I except against 
 none." He then requested to be allowed to answer every 
 point particularly, as delivered, " by reason of the weak- 
 ness of his memory, and sickness." Heale, the King's ser- 
 geant at law, proceeded to address the court, and, in a short, 
 but violent speech, gave a lamentable specimen of the le- 
 gal oratory of the day. A far greater display of eloquence 
 was expected from the attorney-general, Sir Edward Coke, 
 afterwards lord chief justice, who had recently received 
 the order of knighthood, and had formerly enjoyed the far 
 greater honor of being frequently consulted by Queen 
 Elizabeth and her council in matters of state, not immedi- 
 ately connected with his professional duties. As nature, 
 in dealing with Bacon, the great rival of Coke, seemed to 
 have forgotten, among her numerous gifts to that illustrious 
 person, the endowment of a heart ; so, in the constitution 
 of Coke, if she had bestowed originally warmer and better 
 dispositions, she had not guarded him with resolution suffi- 
 cient to defend himself from the corruptions of the times, 
 and from the effects of the political and professional inter- 
 ests in which he lived and moved. Violent and rancorous 
 towards those whom guilt or misfortune placed beneath 
 his iron grasp, Coke was remarkable for a paltry obsequi- 
 ousness to the great and powerful, who were able to confer 
 those temporal advantages upon which he vainly and wick- 
 
 * Cobbett's State Trials, vol. ii. p. 1. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 163 
 
 edly doted It was still fresh in the recollection of all 
 classes, that he had pursued the earl of Essex, and his fel- 
 low prisoner, Lord Southampton, with a malignity which 
 was the more contemptible, as it proceeded, not so much 
 from his own personal resentment, as from his ambition to 
 gratify the Queen, whose mingled sentiments of love and 
 anger he seems not to have comprehended. Coke was 
 connected with Cecil by his marriage with the secretary's 
 sister, which, on account of its irregularity, for which the 
 parties pleaded, it is strange to say, ignorance oflaio, had 
 been visited with severe penalties by the church. It may 
 be presumed, from this affinity to Cecil, that Coke was not 
 disposed to relax from his usual line of conduct in prosecu- 
 tions, from favor to Ralegh, whose bitterest enemy he had 
 already proved himself to be, by examining him as to what 
 he knew of the guilt of Essex, and thus contributing to 
 render him odious to the people. Influenced by all these 
 considerations, this indefatigable lawyer came to the trial 
 of the most accomplished gentleman of England with a 
 more than wonted preparation of gall and sarcasm on his 
 brow ; with the vehemence of party zeal, heightened by 
 private interest ; and with an habitual violence of temper, 
 apparently aggravated by an insolent triumph in grappling 
 with so illustrious an enemy, and by an opportunity of re- 
 ducing the admired of all observers to the level of a com- 
 mon prisoner. Such was the impression which the deport- 
 ment of Coke conveyed to all unprejudiced spectators ; and, 
 if posterity be thought to have dealt hardly with him, in 
 condemning him for a mode, then not uncommon, of pur- 
 suing his professional duties, let it be remembered that he 
 lost a glorious occasion of showing forbearance and impar- 
 tiality to a persecuted individual ; of paying a tribute to the 
 merit and talents of the unhappy prisoner, even whilst he 
 reprobated, as they the more enhanced, the danger of his 
 imputed crime;:; or, if such a line of conduct were deemed 
 incompatible with the severe exercise of his legal func- 
 tions, decency and humanity might have guarded the fallen 
 foe at least from insult. But Coke was blinded by a gross 
 selfishness, which could only in subsequent disgrace and 
 misfortune give place to more liberal and philanthropic 
 views. The illustrious Bacon, at a later period, addressed 
 to him this reproof: — " As in your pleadings you were 
 wr.>nt to insult over misery, and to inveigh bitterly at the 
 
164 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 persons, which bred you many enemies, whose poison yet 
 ewelleth, and the effects now appear, so you are still wont 
 to be a little careless in this point ; to praise or disgrace 
 upon slight grounds, and that sometimes untruly, so that 
 your reproofs for the most part are neglected or contemn- 
 ed ; when the censure of a judge, coming slow, but sure, 
 should be a brand to the gudty, and a crown to the virtu- 
 ous." 
 
 The attorney-general began his harangue with a decla- 
 ration, too soon proved to be fallacious, that nothing but 
 plain evidence should condemn " the prisoner." He 
 rang changes upon the different modes and degrees of 
 mischief, subdividing its import into " imitation, supporta- 
 tion, and defence ;" he gave a summary of the principal 
 charges, comparing the several plots to Samson's foxes, 
 " which were joined in the tails, although their heads were 
 severed." He declared it to be the intention of the con- 
 spirators to make Watson lord chancellor, Brooke lord treas- 
 urer, Markham secretary, and Grey earl marshal. He 
 dealt in nice definitions, and in labored, puzzling disquisi- 
 tions, interspersed with much law, some learning, and no 
 small portion of flattery to the King. He described treason 
 as in the heart, the hand, the mouth, and in consummation ; 
 comparing that in corde to the root of a tree ; in ore, to 
 the bud ; in manu, to the blossom ; and that in consumma- 
 tione, to the fruit. After this display of oratory, he showed 
 how little he was restrained by a sense of justice, either in 
 his assertions or in his examinations, for, on some questions 
 being asked by Ralegh, he broke out into the exclamation, 
 " I will prove you the notoriousest traitor that ever came to 
 the bar." This coarse and even brutal mode of address 
 was succeeded by a torrent of invective, in which the 
 learned counsel labored to cast upon Ralegh, as the ablest 
 individual of the conspiracy, the swordsman and penman 
 of the group, " the very head and front of the offences." 
 Since no evidence could possibly be brought of Ralegh's 
 personal co-operation in the conspiracy to seize the King, 
 he was stated to have been guilty of participation in the 
 plots of Markham and Brooke, by imitation ; but, on his re- 
 quiring the proof of this allegation, he was called by Coke, 
 a " monster having an English face, but a Spanish heart,' 
 and forbidden to speak, until the interference of Cecil pro 
 duced greater moderation. A long speech was, however 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 105 
 
 endured, containing such interpolations of abuse as the fol- 
 lowing : " the most horrible practices that ever came out 
 of the bottomless pit of the lowest hell;" "You are the ab- 
 solutest traitor that ever was ;" " Thou traitor, thou viper ;"* 
 to all which Ralegh, with calm dignity, replied, " that he 
 would wash his hands of the indictment, and die a true 
 man to the King." The deposition of Lord Cobham was 
 then read. This had been solemnly retracted ; yet it con- 
 stituted the material evidence upon which the case for the 
 prosecution rested.f Ralegh's confession was also pro- 
 duced ; the whole purport of which was, that he had been 
 offered by Cobham 8000 crowns if he would further the 
 peace between Spain and England ; a proposal to which he 
 replied, " when I see the money, I will tell you more ;'* 
 " for he thought it was one of Cobham's ordinary idle con- 
 ceits, and, therefore, made no account thereof.:):" After 
 many circumlocutions, and much perversion of the evi- 
 dence, which consisted, in general, of little but a recapitu- 
 lation of that which had already transpired upon the pre- 
 vious examinations, Ralegh rose to make his defence. 
 With the clearness of a well-arranged mind, he exposed 
 the illegal nature of the testimony upon which his fate de- 
 pended, which must either "condemn him, or give him 
 life ; set him free, or send his wife and children about the 
 streets to beg their bread." He first denied having ever 
 had the slightest concern in the succession of Arabella, to 
 whom he had, as it appears, a personal dislike. § On the 
 mention of her name, either at this period of the proceedings, 
 or at some other point, attention was drawn to that lady, 
 who, as well as the Countess of Nottingham, the Countess 
 of Suffolk, and other ladies of distinction, was in Court, || in 
 a gallery, with the Lord Admiral. Lord Cecil then said, 
 " Here hath been a touch of the Lady Arabella Stuart, the 
 King's near kinswoman ; let us not scandal the innocent 
 by confusion of speech. She is as innocent of all these 
 things as I or any man here ; only she received a let- 
 
 * Coke is supposed to have excited the well-merited satire ofShak- 
 speare by these effusions of passion, or manoeuvres of interest ; and our 
 great poet is thought to allude to this memorable scene, when, in Twefth 
 Night, Sir Toby, giving Sir Andrew directions to challenge Viola, says 
 to him, " If thou thou'st him twice, it may not be amiss." 
 t Trial. J Lodge's Illustrations, vol. iii. not* 217 
 
 § See Sir Dudley Carleton's Letters in Cobbett's State Trials. 
 Ibid. 
 
166 . LIFE OP SIR WALTER RAL EGH. 
 
 ter from my Lord Cobham, to prepare her, which she 
 laughed at, and immediately sent it to the King." The 
 Lord Admiral then added, "The lady doth here protest 
 upon her salvation, that she never dealt in any of these 
 things, and so she willed me to tell the court." 
 
 Thus was this part of the indictment dismissed, but to 
 what extent the reflections, touching the loyalty of Ara- 
 bella, and her connexion with the conspirators, were per- 
 mitted to go, is not known, because all the notes of the 
 trial relative to her were suppressed, except those relating 
 to her justification, which are supposed to have been inad- 
 vertently published.* 
 
 Ralegh also refuted the notion of a design to borrow 
 money from the King of Spain, whom he represented as 
 one of the proudest, yet poorest princes of Christendom. 
 He declared that his intimacy with Cobham originated in 
 the management which he took in the affairs of that noble- 
 man ; and that he had, at the time of his arrest, several 
 valuable jewels belonging to Cobham in his charge. He 
 represented how improbable it was that Cobham should 
 leave so much property to be confiscated, if he intended to 
 become an outlaw, besides taking into account recent ad- 
 ditions of considerable extent which the Earl had made to 
 his library at Canterbury.! He declared his willingness 
 to confess the truth of the charges against him, and to for- 
 feit his life, if Cobham, when confronted with him, would 
 persist in swearing to the truth of that which he had de- 
 posed ; and he was seconded in his earnest petitions for the 
 production of Cobham before the Court, by Cecil,! who ap- 
 pears alone of all the commissioners to have affected any 
 show of impartiality and moderation. The Lord Chief 
 Justice then commented upon Cobham's unwillingness to 
 sign his deposition ; and Cecil next described his own 
 share in the apprehension of the prisoners, premising that 
 a " former dearness between him and Ralegh had tied a 
 firm knot of his conceit of Ralegh's virtues, now broken by 
 a discovery of his imperfections. §" This allusion to their for- 
 mer friendship, this reference to Ralegh's prosperous days, 
 conveyed, perhaps, to his breast a sting more subtle, and more 
 keen, than the coarse and venomous revilings of Coke ; 
 but the cautious and wily remark of the once familiar 
 
 * Lodge, note, iii. 217. t Trial. J Loi!go § Trial. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 167 
 
 friend of the unhappy prisoner was, doubtless, intended 
 both as an apology to the King, for his previous intimacy 
 with Ralegh, and as a justification to the public for his ac- 
 quiescence in the persecution of one with whom he had 
 taken " sweet counsel." Yet some natural tears were ob- 
 served to escape from Cecil, as also from the Earl of Mar* ; 
 the selfishness of ambition not having altogether annihi- 
 lated every kindlier emotion. 
 
 Meanwhile the trial proceeded, and so temperate were 
 Ralegh's replies, so wise and so ready his refutations of all 
 objections, that an universal sentiment of good-will pre- 
 vailed towards him.f His arguments were ingeniously 
 interwoven with sentences of divinity, humanity, civil law, 
 and common law ; and such was his display of legal know- 
 ledge, that he was generally reported to have studied for 
 the bar at an early period of his life. But all his exertions 
 were unavailing, and the greater tbe learning and ability 
 which he manifested, the more were his enemies resolved 
 on crushing so dangerous a foe. In vain did he ask for 
 common justice, in desiring that the charges should not be 
 admitted on the evidence of one witness : " You try me," 
 said he, "by the evidence of the Spanish inquisition, if you 
 proceed without two witnesses." Upon which he was told 
 by Coke, that he "spoke treason.:);" He was informed by 
 the lord chief justice, that the statutes of the twenty-fifth 
 of Edward the Third, and fifth of Edward the Sixth, re- 
 quiring two witnesses, were repealed, and that it was now 
 sufficient if there were depositions under either hand, or by 
 the testimony of witnesses, or even that it needed not the 
 subscription of the party, so there be hands of credible men 
 to testify the examination. §" Such was the perversion of 
 a law too obviously just to need any comment. Men, who 
 could thus act for party purposes, would soon refine away 
 even sacred writ to countenance injustice. This destitu- 
 tion of principle, this mournful sign of the times, was too 
 well seen and fulfilled in the succeeding reigns, when 
 Scripture was made the watch-word for every instance of 
 oppression, and the barriers of moral honesty and of good 
 faith lamentably broken. Those persons who are curious 
 to peruse a tissue of falsehood, calumny, and contradiction, 
 
 * Lodge, iii. 216. from the Talbot Papers. 
 
 t Laige. J Trial. § Ibid. 
 
168 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 should refer to the details of that process, falsely called a 
 trial, by wh'ch Ralegh was condemned. Vehement abuse 
 from Coke, a sly and ingenious construction of every friv- 
 olous circumstance into a confirmation of the main charge 
 on the part of Cecil, and a shameless departure from legal 
 exactness in Popham and the other judges, were the char- 
 acteristics of this proceeding. Happily for Ralegh, whilst 
 iiis patience and ingenuity were thus painfully exercised, 
 an opportunity was afforded to him for the explanation of 
 every minute detail of his case. It was well observed by 
 an eye-witness, that " he served for a whole act, and played 
 all the parts himself.*" Borne down on all sides, he ap- 
 peared truly great during the whole of this scene, which 
 lasted from eight in the morning, until seven in the even- 
 ing. Humble, without servility, serious, yet not dejected, 
 " towards the jury not fawning, nor believing, nor hoping 
 in them," he stood before his enemies with the collected 
 and commanding appearance of one who " rather loves life 
 than fears death," and who seeks to rescue his name from 
 infamy in the serenity and dignity of a blameless con- 
 science.! AH who beheld him were astonished that a man 
 of his known spirit could brook the insults which he re- 
 ceived, with a degree of calmness which threw the oppro- 
 brium from himself upon his opponents. Yet, although it 
 was said, that he " seemed to cast himself for very weari- 
 ness, afraid to detain the company too long," he seems to 
 have left no effort unemployed to manifest his innocence; 
 and such were the temper, wit, and address which he dis- 
 played, that had it not been for the sad cause of these ex- 
 ertions, it would have been one of the most brilliant and 
 successful days of his life. J Repeatedly did he urge that 
 Cobham should be produced and confronted with him, al- 
 leging that a similar privilege had been conceded even to 
 Campion the Jesuit; but it was contested by Coke, and 
 negatived by the Lord Chief Justice Popham, too justly 
 and expressively called by Camden, a " censorious man," 
 and who proved himself not to be a very wise one, by di- 
 vulging the secret of the refusal in his remark, " that Cob- 
 ham, to procure the acquittal of an old friend, might be 
 moved to speak otherwise than the truth." On the part of 
 
 * Dudley Carleton. Hardwicke State Papers, i. 397. 
 
 f Wilson, 714. J Dudley Carleton. Letter in Cobbett, vol. ii. p. 47. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 169 
 
 that treacnerous nobleman, two contradictory letters were 
 produced ; the one, confirming the charges, and adding to 
 them fresh particulars ; the other " declaring, upon his sal- 
 vation," that Ralegh was innocent. This was the last 
 evidence ; yet the subservient jury retired for a quarter of 
 an hour only, and returned a verdict of guilty ; a sentence 
 whi :h must have been previously determined ; for had a 
 due and conscientious consideration of this case been given, 
 it would, even by the enemies of Ralegh, have been con- 
 sidered as one of extreme embarrassment and difficulty. 
 The Lord Chief Justice might well observe, m his charge, 
 that " he had never before seen the like trial, and hoped that 
 he should never see the like again." Raleah, on hearing 
 the verdict, calmly reiterated his denial of the principal 
 charges, and hoped that the King would be informed of the 
 wrong he had received that day from the attorney. He 
 then declared his submission to the royal pleasure, recom- 
 mending his wife, and " son of tender years, unbrought up," 
 to his Majesty's compassion. After a long explanatory 
 harangue from the Chief Justice, in which he told Ralegh, 
 that his conceit " of not confessing any thing was very in- 
 human and wicked," the unfortunate prisoner was sen- 
 tenced to be hanged, and afterwards beheaded, with all the 
 usual, horrible, and barbarous accompaniments, which 
 were, in those days, thought necessary to the effective ex- 
 ecution of the law. Sir Walter then addressed the Earl 
 of Devonshire, and the other Lords, beseeching them, by 
 their interest with the King, to obtain a remission of the 
 ignominious mode of his death. This they promised* ; but 
 he is said to have procured also an interview with the 
 Lords in private, and to have again entreated that Cobham 
 might be produced, and might die before him ; on which 
 solemn occasion he had, he declared, no doubt that Cobham 
 would retract all that he had said.f He was then con- 
 ducted to the castle, to which he returned, according to 
 the account given by Sir Thomas Overbury, " with an ad- 
 mirable erection, and yet in such sort as a condemned man 
 should do.t" 
 
 It is said, that some of the jury who had condemned him, 
 were so " touched in their consciences," as to ask his par- 
 
 * Trial, 21 f Lodge, iii. M6 
 
 X Overbury's Arraignment of S. W- Ralegh, 25. 
 
170 LIFE OP SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 don on their knees* ; but this is scarcely probable, since 
 the men who gave such a verdict must either have been 
 compelled by fear, or induced by bribery, to compromise 
 their sense of justice : and either of these motives would 
 have kept them silent after their decision. It has also been 
 related of Sir Edward Coke, that when he retired, after the 
 trial, to take the air of the garden, and that intelligence 
 was brought to him that Ralegh was convicted of treason, 
 he felt, or affected, extreme surprise, declaring that he 
 had himself only accused him of misprision of treason. 
 This anecdote has been attributed to the pen of Carew, the 
 son of Sir Walter Ralegh ; but it is neither well authen- 
 ticated, nor does it appear to be consistent with the con- 
 duct and expressions of the implacable lawyer during the 
 trial. It is however possible, that Coke may have perceived 
 that he had allowed himself too much latitude of abuse, 
 and that he had injured himself in public estimation ; since, 
 in the words of Ralegh himself, in a letter addressed to 
 Sir Robert Carr, " The hearing of his cause had changed 
 enemies into friends, malice into compassion, and the minds 
 of the greatest number then present into commiseration 
 of his estate.f" Sir Roger Aston, then in the confidential 
 employ of the King, and the first who carried the intelli- 
 gence of Ralegh's condemnation to James, affirmed, on this 
 occasion, " that never had man spoken so well in times 
 passed, nor would do in times to come." And his compan- 
 ion, a Scotchman, asserted, " that although he would, before 
 his trial, have gone a thousand miles to see him hanged, he 
 would, ere he parted, have gone a thousand miles to have 
 saved his life." In short, never, according to the acknow- 
 ledgment even of his enemies, was a man so much loved 
 and so much hated, in so short a timet ; and seldom, per- 
 haps, have the advantages of moral courage, and of a well- 
 governed spirit, been manifested more conspicuously. 
 
 A singular contrast to the admirable deportment of Ra- 
 legh was presented in the conduct of Cobham, who was 
 next brought to play his part before the tribunal which had 
 condemned his former friend. To the indictment he lis- 
 tened with fear and trembling, interrupting the charges at 
 in tervals by forswearing certain particulars, so that he im 
 
 * Weldon, 32. t Winwood's Letters. 
 
 t Sir Dudley Carleton's Letters, from the Hardwicke Papers. Sea 
 Cobbett, 248. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 171 
 
 mediately divulged, with the rashness of a coward, what 
 he would affirm or deny. His doom was quickly decided ; 
 for, although he found means to implicate all his friends in 
 the conspiracy he could not succeed in clearing himself. 
 He represented Ralegh as the cause of his being stirred up 
 to discontents, and he alluded to imaginations, but would 
 not allow any purposes of a criminal nature.* On being 
 questioned respecting the two letters which he had written, 
 the one condemning the other exculpating Ralegh, he de- 
 clared that the first letter was true, the latter having been 
 gained from him by a stratagem, by young Harvey, who 
 was the son of the lieutenant of the Tower, and was under 
 the influence of Ralegh. The peers immediately found 
 Cobham guilty ; and it affords a strong presumptive proof 
 in Ralegh's favor, that the abject culprit pleaded his first con- 
 fession as a claim for pardon, accompanying his petition with 
 long and persevering entreaties for life and mercy, which 
 were peremptorily refused. 
 
 The high-minded Grey was next brought to the bar ; and, 
 although clearly convicted of a plot to seize the King's per- 
 son, he redeemed, by his dauntless demeanor, the character 
 of a British peer from the ignominy which the conduct of 
 Cobham had brought upon his rank and station. Grey be- 
 gan, with great courage, to tell the lords commissioners of 
 their duties, and kept them from eight in the morning until 
 eight in the evening in " traverses and subterfuges." He 
 conducted himself with the self-possession of a man, who, 
 from a misapprehension of his duties to his country, con- 
 sidered himself innocent, and with the energy of one who 
 was determined not to relinquish life without a struggle. 
 He excused his share in the conspiracy, on the ground of 
 his desiring to present a petition for the reformation of 
 abuses ; but the evidence of Brooke and Markham was de- 
 cisive against this part of his defence. The presiding lords 
 evinced, nevertheless, considerable reluctance in convicting 
 one who must have appeared to the more experienced mem- 
 bers of their number to have been rather misguided by 
 false principles, than instigated by criminal motives. They 
 beheld, also, in Grey, the young companion of many of the 
 junior .members of the aristocracy, himself the represent- 
 ative of one of its proudest families. Long and painfully 
 
 * Dudley Carleton. 
 
172 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 they demurred, and even his enemies dared not to utter, in 
 open court, that which they might desire to urge in aggra- 
 vation of his fault : whilst some, who deemed him guilty, 
 " would fain have dispensed with their consciences to have 
 shown him favor.*" Yet he was also condemned ; and, on 
 being asked if he had any thing to allege why sentence 
 of death should not be passed upon him, he replied : " I 
 have nothing to say ;" and then, after a long pause, during 
 which, perhaps, a desire of life contended with the mag- 
 nanimity of a noble nature, he added these noble and af- 
 fecting words : — " and yet a word of Tacitus comes in tny 
 mind, ' non eadem omnibus decora ;' the house of the Wil- 
 tons have spent many lives in their princes' service, and 
 Grey cannot beg his. God send the King a long and 
 prosperous reign, and to your Lordships all honor. f" The 
 fete of the remaining conspirators excited but little public 
 interest. Brooke, on his trial, pleaded a commission to try 
 faithful subjects, but was unable to produce the document. 
 He was executed on the fifth of November, in the castle 
 of Winchester ; and, shortly before his death, confessed to 
 the bishop who administered to him the sacrament, that he 
 had falsely accused Lord Cobham, his brother, and Ralegh, 
 in ascribing to them the treasonable speeches which formed 
 the basis of their accusations. This circumstance is related 
 by Cecil himself in his letters, and is accompanied with a 
 commendation of Brooke's remorse J ; it has weighed much 
 in Ralegh's favor, not only with his contemporaries, but 
 with those who, being removed at a sufficient distance of 
 time to judge without partiality of his cause, have deemed 
 the very nature of the evidence sufficient to impugn the 
 justice of his trial. " I would know," says Sir John Hales, 
 " by what law Brooke's deposition of what the Lord Cobham 
 had told him of the fact, was evidence against Ralegh ? I 
 would know by what statute the statutes of the 25th of Ed- 
 ward III., and 5th of Edward VI. are repealed." In short, 
 this celebrated lawyer, in his work on the magistracy and 
 government of England, pronounces the trial of Ralegh to 
 be, on this and other grounds, very irregular throughout, 
 the accusations against him not amounting to legal proof. 5 
 When the proceedings relative to his own trial were 
 
 * Carleton. t Ibid. Brydges' Extinct Peerage, 75 — 79. 
 
 t Winwood, ii. p. 11. § Birch, i. CO. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 173 
 
 finally and hopelessly closed, Ralegh, with fortitude and 
 decency, prepared to follow the sheriff to the prison, whence 
 he expected to issue only to close a life of activity and of 
 vicissitude on the scaffold. In following him in imagination 
 into the gloom of confinement, one reflection alone, ir 
 reviewing his conduct as a subject, seems likely to have 
 disturbed the tranquillity of a conscience entirely at peace, 
 with itself. In a letter which he wrote to the King, Ralegh 
 acknowledged, before his trial, as he had also done to Cecil 
 and the Lords who were appointed to examine him, the 
 only offence which could justly be laid to his charge, that 
 of listening to the proposals made by Cobham of a bribe 
 from Spain, although he declared that he neither believed 
 nor approved it * It is, indeed, to be feared, that there was 
 some deviation from the rules of strict integrity, induced, 
 too probably, by the temptation of turning his abilities and 
 influence to account ; for a strange contradiction existed in 
 the character of Ralegh, who, while he freely promoted, at 
 his own expense, the schemes which he projected for the 
 extension of British dominion, was clear neither from the 
 imputation of receiving bribes from his own countrymen, 
 nor from the disposition to admit them from foreign states. 
 Avarice, unguarded by a nice and delicate sense of honor, 
 was the prevailing vice of the day, and few statesmen 
 were, in those times, exempt from stains upon their purity 
 of conduct, which would at present consign persons in simi- 
 lar stations to merited and irremediable disgrace.! 
 
 Whether engaged in mournful retrospections, or in fear- 
 ful anticipations, Ralegh had not now the consolation 
 which was afterwards afforded him in the society of his 
 distressed and devoted wife. Although absent from him 
 for whom she endured so much, this unfortunate lady re- 
 laxed not in her exertions to redeem from destruction the 
 object of her earliest affections, and the pride of maturei 
 years. Three years afterwards, when the King was in all 
 his pomp and state, at Hampton Court, and when the revels 
 of the gay and great were at their height, we read of the 
 humiliated and neglected Lady Ralegh kneeling to him 
 in behalf of her husband, but passed in silence by the Mon- 
 arch.:); That Ralegh estimated her affection, and appre« 
 
 *Cayley's Life of Ralegh, i. 367. Also Ralegh's Remains, p. 188. 
 \ In proof of this assertion, see note, Lodge's III. vol. iii. p. 286. 
 X Lodge, iii 313. 
 
 P2 
 
174 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 ciated the strength and elevation of her character, is evi- 
 dent from the tone of the eloquent and pathetic letter 
 which it was almost his earliest care to address to her after 
 his trial.* He wrote, indeed, in the first instance, to the 
 king ;f but finding his petitions fruitless, he now directea 
 to his wife and to his child every wish which anxious affec- 
 tion could dictate. His earnest desire seems to have been, 
 that no fruitless sorrows should diminish the power of ex- 
 ertion which the helpless orphan whom he expected to 
 eave, would fully require from his surviving parent. 
 " Let my sorrows," said he, " go into my grave with me, 
 and be buried in the dust. And, seeing it is not the will 
 of God that ever I shall see you more in this life, bear it 
 patiently, and with a heart like thyself." He entreated 
 her, not by seclusion and fruitless sorrow, to lose the bene- 
 fits of exertion ; " thy mournings cannot avail me : I am 
 but dust. Remember yoar poor child for his father's sake, 
 who chose you and loved you in his happiest time." Such 
 are, in part, the exhortations with which Ralegh sought to 
 strengthen the resolution, and to sustain the spirits of one 
 whom he thought soon to consign to the neglect and indif- 
 ference of the world. 
 
 The death of Ralegh and of the other prisoners was now 
 daily expected at Winchester ; and, on the ninth of De- 
 cember the King, at Wilton, signed the warrants for the 
 execution of Cobham, Grey, and Sir Griffin Markham; 
 Brooke, Clarke, Watson, and the two priests, having pre- 
 viously suffered. Meanwhile the benefit of spiritual aid 
 was afforded to the condemned men, the Bishop of Chi- 
 chester being intrusted with the awful responsibility of 
 preparing the dastard soul of Cobham for its departure 
 from a state which lie had too fondly valued.} The prelate 
 who was deputed to this difficult office was Dr. Anthony 
 Watson, who had been the King's almoner, and had been 
 patronized by the Queen for his talents as a preacher. He 
 was beloved, also, in his diocese, and bore so exemplary a 
 character for the discharge of his duties^ that there is no 
 reason to suppose that he would not endeavor to impress 
 Cobham with a deep sense of his unfitness to enter upon 
 
 * See Appendix, L. t See Cayley, vol. ii. p. 31. 
 
 i Carleton's Letters. Cobbett, vol. ii. p. 51. 
 § Nugse Antique, ii 1' ? 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 175 
 
 eternity. Yet it appears to have been the chief solicitude 
 of all who were concerned in the care of the prisoners, to 
 induce them to suffer, without contradicting their previous 
 testimony. Accordingly, we are told by one who was at 
 this time at the very scene of action,* that the reverend 
 prelate " found in Cobham a willingness to die, and a 
 readiness to die well;" expressions which are further ex- 
 plained by the words, " with purpose at his death to affirm 
 as much as he had said against Ralegh." It is not unchar- 
 itable to suppose that Cobham's spiritual guide found it far 
 more easy to confirm him in this resolution, than to move 
 him to emotions of penitence, or acts of justice. But Cob- 
 ham was reserved to a long course of suffering, and to a 
 prostration both of body and mind, which may possibly 
 have elevated and chastened his grovelling soul. 
 
 The grave divine, to whose lot it, fell to bring Ralegh to 
 a contrite disclosure of his errors, and, in particular, to a 
 confession of his alleged treasonable practices, was Doctor 
 Thomas Bilson, Bishop of Winchester. Sir John Harring- 
 ton, in describing this prelate to the young prince Henry, 
 depicts him as " carrying prelature in his very aspect. f" 
 He rose to his eminent station solely by his learning, but 
 adopted means to retain it, which cannot be justified, 
 having obtained the name of " Nullity Bilson," by his sub- 
 serviency in devising a nullity of the marriage between 
 the Earl and Countess of Essex, in order to accommodate 
 Carr, Earl of Somerset, the notorious favorite of James I. J 
 It was, probably, on account of Doctor Bilson's classical and 
 general attainments that he was commissioned to under- 
 take the charge of reconciling Ralegh to his doom ; for the 
 universal and just opinion of Ralegh's intellectual superi- 
 ority to other men, would naturally actuate the choice of 
 him who was appointed to exert a spiritual influence over 
 his mind. Some similarity subsisted, also, between the 
 pursuits of this divine and those of Ralegh. The reverend 
 Doctor was not only deeply versed in philosophy and di- 
 vinity, but in the less important pursuits of poetry and the 
 dead languages. 5 He had formerly been master of Win- 
 chester school, and might reasonably be supposed, in hia 
 capacity of a teacher, to have looked closely into the human 
 
 * Sir Dudley Carleton. t Nugae, 99. 
 
 I Note in Nugas, 102. § Ibid. 101. 
 
176 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 mind. Yet the Bishop failed in the main object of his con- 
 ferences with Ralegh, whom he earnestly desired to cor- 
 roborate the confessions of Cobham. He acknowledged 
 the distinguished prisoner, indeed, to be, with regard tc 
 " his conscience, well settled, and resolved to die a Chris- 
 tian and a good Protestant ;" but " for the point of confes- 
 sion, he found him so straitlaced, that he would yield to no 
 part of Cobham's accusation ; only the pension," he said, 
 " was once mentioned, but never proceeded in.*" Thus 
 nothing more was elicited than that which had already 
 transpired. 
 
 Whilst these operations were going on, the mind of 
 James I. was agitated by strange alternations of feeling ; a 
 desire to preserve his dignity and consistency being coun- 
 terbalanced by the vanity of appearing to act the part of 
 mercy and forbearance, which was again checked by a se- 
 cret dread of the powerful mind and activity of Ralegh, 
 whom he had been skilfully instructed by Cecil to regard 
 with apprehension ; a lesson which James was, in all in- 
 stances, too ready to learn, and in no haste to forget. The 
 Lords of the council, with one accord, urged him to show 
 mercy, and, in this beginning of his reign, to gain " the 
 title of Clemens, as well as of Justus." The Countess of 
 Pembroke wrote to her son, co guring him, as he valued 
 her blessing, to employ his own credit, and that of his 
 friends, to insure Sir Walter's pardon; and there were 
 probably other persons of rank, who secretly felt an inter- 
 est in his safety. But there were many individuals about 
 the court who took a different course, and one of the King's 
 chaplains, Patrick Galloway, disgraced his Christian pro- 
 fession by a discourse openly contemning remission of sins 
 and mercy as the greatest offences against justice. James, 
 in this early period of his reign, displayed, however, on 
 this occasion, that jealousy of his prerogative, which arose 
 from his consciousness that all his power rested upon the 
 opinion of the people, over whom he had so recently as- 
 sumed the reins of government. f He resolved, also, to en- 
 gross, in his own person, the full credit of the course which 
 it was his intention to pursue. Holding himself, therefore, 
 " upright between two waters," he took care to inform the 
 Lords, that it in no degree became them, as judges, to 
 
 * Sir D. CarletorTs Letters. f James I. Hume, 8vo. vi. 121 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 177 
 
 press for a commutation of the sentence, which they had 
 themselves imposed ; but that they should rather desire the 
 execution of just decrees. Having thus silenced that por- 
 tion of the petitioners, the King-, with a secret enjoyment 
 of the conjectures which he was creating, intimated to all 
 persons who presumed to advise him, that he would " move 
 not a whit the faster for their driving ;" sometimes pretend- 
 ing to lean to one side, sometimes to another, as whim or 
 appearances directed.* He signed, however, the warrants 
 for the execution of Grey, Cobham, and Markham, at Wil- 
 ton, where the Court then remained ; and these necessary 
 documents were sent to the authorities at Winchester, 
 two days previous to the morning assigned for the death 
 of the prisoners. Until the appointed time, their doom was 
 considered as certain, and the whole Court expected to 
 hear that the unhappy men had suffered, until nine o'clock 
 on the Friday morning, when the King summoned his 
 council, and informed them that he had sent a warrant the 
 day before to countermand the execution. To this act of 
 grace, Cecil, upon " his credit and reputation," declares 
 " no soul living to be privy, the messenger excepted," who 
 conveyed the royal command to Sir Benjamin Tichborne. 
 It was extolled as a " rare and unheard-of act of clemen- 
 cy,!" which the most enthusiastic admiration could not 
 sufficiently commend. Such were the sentiments of the 
 adulatory throng who alternately flattered and satirized 
 King James; to our present improved notions of humanity 
 and of justice, the whole proceeding seems to have been 
 arranged with a contrivance of effect almost contemptible, 
 and with a disregard of its impression upon the feelings of 
 others, very nearly amounting to cruelty. 
 
 Whilst the King was receiving at Wilton encomiums 
 upon his mercy, the unhappy prisoners at Winchester were 
 still ignorant of the change in their prospects, a change 
 which, by giving life, to some gave only a prolongation of 
 misery. In pursuance of this sentence, Markham was 
 brought to the scaffold, where " one might see in his face 
 the very picture of sorrow,:);" and he much lamented his 
 hard fate, in having been deluded with hopes of pardon, 
 now, as he thought, proved to be groundless. Yet, with a 
 
 * Hardwicke State Papers, i. 377. 
 
 i Winvvood's Mem.— Letter of Cecil, vol. ii. p. 11. Carleton. 
 
178 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 magnanimity worthy of a better cause, he threw away a 
 napkin, given him by some pitying hand, and refused to 
 cover his face, saying, that he could look upon death with- 
 out blushing. He then took leave of his friends, and pre- 
 pared to die, first offering up his devotions, according tc 
 his own fashion. Meanwhile the King's messenger, a 
 Scottish gentleman, and one of the grooms of the royal 
 chamber, stepped forward, and drawing the sheriff on one 
 side, the execution was delayed, and Markham left on the 
 scaffold to pursue the reflections incident to his awful and 
 singular situation. After a short interval, the sheriff re- 
 turned, and informed him that he was to have a respite of 
 two hours, in order to prepare himself more completely for 
 death : he was led into Prince Arthur's hall, in which he 
 was locked, and left solitary, in that state of suspense, 
 which has justly been considered as the greatest mental 
 torture that human nature can endure. 
 
 The Lord Grey was next conducted to the scaffold. 
 This young nobleman had passed the time intervening be- 
 tween his sentence and its execution, in the exercise of 
 those devotions, the spirit of which had enabled him to 
 brave his fate with a magnanimous composure. Upheld, 
 like most persons of his persuasion, by a sense of the as- 
 cendency of religious hopes over all other considerations, 
 Grey manifested a degree of calm unconcern towards this 
 close of his mortal career, which might in others have 
 been mistaken for callous indifference. It was remarked 
 that he neither ate nor drank less, nor slept worse, than he 
 was wont to do in happier and less momentous times. It 
 must, indeed, have softened the sternest hearts to have 
 beheld this last scion of a noble house approach the scaf- 
 fold, surrounded by a band of young courtiers, and sup- 
 ported on each side by the beloved friends of his youth 
 and prosperity. Yet, if this sight were calculated to move 
 the pity of the beholders, the high bearing of the unfor- 
 tunate Grey was certain to receive their admiration, for in 
 his countenance there shone a gaiety and spirit which 
 might have suited the deportment of a young and happy 
 bridegroom. 
 
 Great compassion had been excited, and considerable 
 interest exerted for this unfortunate nobleman, and his con- 
 duct, both at his trial and his execution, was the more 
 admired as contrasted with that of Cobham ; although, by 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 179 
 
 some of the obsequious courtiers, his careless and high 
 bearing had been termed pride and obstinacy, in compli- 
 ance with the notions in those days prevalent of entire 
 and passive obedience.* It was justly thought that he had 
 a claim upon the King, from having been formerly engaged 
 in the fleet against the Armada ; but this circumstance, in 
 the present disposition of James towards Spain, might be 
 viewed in an unfavorable light. The Prince Palatine, 
 who afterwards married the Princess Elizabeth, had en- 
 treated the King, before his departure for Bohemia, to 
 spare the life of this young nobleman ; but James, in the 
 full dignity of his prerogative, dismissed the request with 
 these words, " Son, when I come into Germany, I promise 
 not to ask you for any of your prisoners.!" When Grey 
 ascended the scaffold, he was ignorant of the respite of 
 Markham, and probably thought that his fate was inevita- 
 ble. Falling upon his knees, he followed, with great de- 
 votion, but in the affected fashion of those of his persua- 
 sion, a prayer made for him by one of his attendant priests, 
 and added another, which lasted an hour, of his own com- 
 position, for the King. When all was prepared, he was 
 likewise told by the sheriff that the order of the execution 
 was changed, and that the Lord Cobham was to die before 
 him. He was then led also to Prince Arthur's hall in 
 a state of astonishment which can scarcely be imagined, 
 and which none would wish to experience. Cobham, who 
 had by this time summoned a sufficient portion of courage 
 to retrieve his former appearance, was now brought upon 
 the stage, and so outprayed the minister, and over-acted 
 his part, that it was coarsely observed, " he had a good 
 mouth in a cry, but was nothing single." He occasioned 
 some disappointment to many of the spectators, who ex- 
 pected considerable diversion from the total deficiency of 
 all manly resolution which his character and conduct im- 
 plied. He asserted the truth of all that he had deposed 
 against Ralegh, affirming all that he had said of him " upon 
 the hope of his soul's resurrection ;" and after acknow- 
 ledging his offence, and praying forgiveness of the King, 
 prepared to take his farewell, when the sheriff again in- 
 terposed, and told him that he was to be confronted with 
 some of the prisoners. Grey and Markham were then 
 
 ♦Carleton. f Brydges, 75— 79. 
 
180 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 Drought back to the scaffold, looking on each other " like 
 men beheaded and met again in the next world." To close 
 this singular scene, they were required by the sheriff" to 
 acknowledge the heinousness of their offences, the justice 
 of their trials and sentences, to which they all assented. 
 Then the sheriff desired them to admire the mercy of theii 
 prince, who had countermanded their executions, and 
 given them their lives, and the streets rang with plaudits 
 which reached even from the castle to the town, where it 
 was echoed with similar effusions of public joy. But 
 happy would it have been for some of these unfortunate 
 men, had their existence been terminated on the scaffold 
 at Winchester. The gallant and beloved Lord Grey, 
 whom even the King allowed to be " a noble spirited 
 young fellow,*" languished, like an imprisoned eagle in 
 his cage, and died in the Tower in 1614. He left no heir 
 to his estates, which were sold and divided among other 
 families ; part remaining attached to Wilton castle, part 
 being appropriated to Guy's hospital, and a portion, proba- 
 bly the greater, falling into the hands of George Villiers, 
 Duke of Buckingham, the favorite of King James in after 
 times, f The career of Cobham was, to our human com- 
 prehension, in strict accordance with that sense of retri- 
 butive justice which God has implanted in the mind of 
 man. Sacrificing so much for liberty and for wealth, he 
 continued a prisoner, and became poor; abandoning and 
 vilifying his friend, he was himself abandoned,' even to the 
 lowest destitution, and sunk into infamy, compared to which 
 the forgetfulness and neglect of mankind appeared almost 
 as mercy. He was confined for many years in the Tower, 
 and, it is said, afterwards re-examined at the request of 
 the Queen and of Sir Walter Ralegh ; when he entirely 
 exonerated Ralegh from the _ charges which he had been 
 the chief instrument of affixing to him. He survived 
 Ralegh a few months only, living to see the web which he 
 had once woven, again ensnare the gifted and lamented 
 victim of his machinations. The days of Cobham were 
 ended in a garret in the Minories ; a miserable apartment, 
 to which there was no access except by a ladder, and be- 
 longing to a poor woman who had formerly been his laun- 
 dress. This despised, unpitied, and deserted being, died, 
 
 ■ Carleton. t Brydges' Extinct Peerage, 75. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 181 
 
 almost, from want of food.* Such was the termination of 
 that life, for which he had sacrificed truth, friendship, and 
 reputation. 
 
 Whilst the public mind had been alternately chagrined 
 and diverted by the late proceedings, the state of astonish- 
 ment and conjecture in which Ralegh learned the progress 
 of events, can hardly be conceived. After remaining at 
 Winchester castle for a month after his condemnation, it is 
 natural to suppose that some hopes of mercy must have 
 entered into his calculations of the future, to cheer that 
 dark prospect. On the day of the solemn farce which 
 James thought proper to permit, Ralegh was stationed at a 
 window of his prison, where he could gather that some sin- 
 gular revolution in his destiny had taken place ; but the 
 meaning of the change was still a matter of wonder, and 
 of anxious inquiry, for it was the contrivance of the King, 
 that the boon of life should be accorded to the unhappy 
 prisoners, after a struggle, in which the bitterness of death 
 might be fully experienced. But the hopelessness of con- 
 firmed imprisonment quickly returned ; and Ralegh, with 
 his companions in misfortune, was remanded to the Tower 
 of London, there to remain during the King's pleasure.f 
 
 It was in this gloomy retirement that Ralegh expe- 
 rienced the true benefits of those resources which the 
 world cannot taint with the infection of her influence ; do- 
 mestic affection was his consolation, philosophy his solace, 
 literature his employment. He was re-conducted to his 
 prison, under the guard of Sir William Wade, who had 
 first escorted him to Winchester. Between this person 
 and Cecil, a constant communication existed, the chief sub- 
 ject of which appears to have been, at this time, the condition, 
 conduct, and pursuits of the state prisoners under the charge 
 of Wade, but especially those suspected of being concerned 
 in Watson's conspiracy. We are not, from any documents, 
 apprized whether Ralegh entertained any suspicion of 
 Wade's fair dealing towards him ; but it seems probable 
 that the natural impetuosity of the unhappy captive's dispo- 
 sition prevailed over his patience, so as to render him un- 
 just towards his keeper, for in the course of his imprison 
 ment, the following passage is found relating to him, pre- 
 
 * Osborne's Traditional Memoirs, King James I. ed. 1701. 
 f Hardwicke Papers. 
 
 Q 
 
182 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 served in the Hatfield MSS. in a letter addressed by Wade 
 to Cecil : — 
 
 . , - " My Lord Treasurer and my Lord of Devon- 
 iWftS ' smre me ^ at t- ne Tower on Monday at three of 
 the clock in the afternoon, and gave me my 
 oath. Though Sir Walter Ralegh used some speech of 
 (lis dislike of me the day before, yet sithence, he doth ac- 
 knowledge his error, and seemeth to be very well sat- 
 isfied." 
 
 It is possible that Ralegh may have distrusted the repre- 
 sentations which he concluded that Wade would dispatch 
 to Cecil ; for about this time, Wade, as it appears from the 
 conclusion of a letter in the State Paper Office, addressed 
 to Cecil, was pleading for the fulfilment of some promise 
 which the late Queen had made to him, relative to some 
 advantageous appointment ; and that he earnestly solicited 
 the interest of Cecil with the King, to forward this affair. 
 ft is therefore possible, and perhaps in those days of undis- 
 guised corruption, but too probable, that Wade may have 
 thought it his interest to appear unfavorably disposed to 
 Ralegh in the sight of Cecil, and that Ralegh may have 
 divined this disposition to censure him on the part of his 
 watchful keeper. In the letters from Wade to Cecil, pre- 
 served in the State Paper Office, the guilt of Ralegh is 
 implied, and an unfavorable construction placed upon every 
 circumstance relating to him ; yet, no single circumstance 
 is stated which could confirm the accusations against him, 
 although it is evident that there were the most earnest and 
 incessant endeavors to substantiate those charges by any 
 heedless expression which might be drawn from him. This 
 fact, whilst it strongly argues the innocence of Ralegh, is 
 favorable, at the same time, to the integrity of Wade's 
 representations, and accounts, perhaps, in some measure, 
 for the lenient measures afterwards adopted towards the 
 unfortunate prisoner. 
 
 Some society was allowed to Ralegh in the course of the 
 first year after his return to the Tower; and he had the 
 inestimable comfort, chequered probably by many bitter 
 emotions, of receiving his wife, and then only son, within 
 the precincts of his melancholy abode. He was allowed, 
 also, in common with several other persons, to have access to 
 Cobham's apartment ; and several of his own former domes- 
 tics, Gilbert Hawthorn, a preacr :, two medical attendant* 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH 183 
 
 his steward of Sherborn, and one or two other individuals, 
 vvere permitted to repair to him at the necessary seasons. 
 " The door of his chamber," says Sir William Wade, 
 " being always open all the day long- to the garden, which 
 indeed is the only garden the lieutenant hath. And 
 in the garden he hath converted a little hen-house to a 
 still-house, where he doth spend his time all the day in 
 distillations.*" Thus engaged, Ralegh made sufficient pro- 
 gress in chemistry, to obtain, in those days, a high reputa- 
 tion for skill in the compounding of a valuable nostrum, 
 called by his contemporaries his cordial, and used by the 
 celebrated Robert Boyle with great effect.f A list of the 
 chemical processes in which Ralegh thus occupied the 
 tedious hours of imprisonment, and, perhaps, succeeded in 
 obliterating painful recollections, is still in existence in 
 manuscriptj ; and it might probably afford to the chemical 
 antiquarian a curious test of the comparative progress of 
 knowledge in that branch of philosophy, to which the most 
 eminent men of the seventeenth century may be supposed 
 to have advanced. 
 
 His first care, on establishing himself within that which 
 he might reasonably expect to be his final residence, was to 
 supply himself with such humble means of prosecuting his 
 beloved sciences, as the indulgence of his keepers, or the 
 remnant of his own ruined fortunes, would allow him to ob- 
 tain. It may afford both instruction and encouragement to the 
 humble and destitute laborer in the pursuit of knowledge, 
 to learn, with what scanty materials and limited space the 
 great Ralegh prosecuted the studies commenced in happier 
 days. 
 
 It has been lamented by an ingenious biographer of Ra- 
 legh, that the anecdotes of his hours of confinement are 
 few, and that period comparatively involved in a tantaliz- 
 ing obscurity. 5 Successive investigations have contributed 
 but little to remedy this cause of regret ; but, in the State 
 Paper Office, a very interesting document remains, en- 
 dorsed in Cecil's hand-writing, entitled " The Judgment of 
 Sir Walter Ralegh's Case." This appears to have been a 
 
 * Birch's Collections in Brit. Museum, cxxi. 4160. 
 t Aubrey's MSS. See Oxford edition of Ralegh's Works, 1829. Ap 
 pendix, vol. viii. 
 t Ayscough's Cat Brit. Mus. 4E2. § Cayley, ii. 38. 
 
184 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 memorial addressed to the great man in power, in favor of 
 the unhappy prisoner, and conveys such an impression of 
 his bodily sufferings as may, it is to be hoped, have moved 
 the heart of the prosperous minister.* From this account 
 it seems that Ralegh was afflicted either with rheumatism 
 T v/ith the dire effects of incipient palsy, having been 
 seized on the left side with an extreme coldness and numb- 
 ness, and his speech impeded so that an utter loss of it was 
 apprehended by his medical attendants. It was, therefore, 
 recommended by Dr. Turner, one of his ordinary physi- 
 cians, that Sir Walter should be removed from the cold 
 apartment which he had hitherto occupied into a warmer 
 apartment, that which he had built adjoining the Still 
 House being particularly specified as proper for his condi- 
 tion and comforts, f This letter, to which no date is affixed, 
 may be assigned, in all probability, to the year 1604 or 
 1605. No memorial has transpired to show if the indul- 
 gence requested were granted. On the contrary, but lit- 
 tle favor appears to have been shown to Ralegh during the 
 two or three first years of his imprisonment. By a letter 
 recently discovered,! and addressed by him to the King, it 
 is obvious that his feelings were insulted, his reputation 
 injured, and his comforts abridged, in many grievous in- 
 stances. The seal of the duchy of Cornwall was demanded 
 of him, which, in compliance with the King's command, he 
 resigned, giving it into the hands of Lord Cecil to restore 
 it to the sovereign. § But, whilst surrendering the pledge 
 of his high employments, Ralegh failed not to remind his 
 Majesty that it was by the favor of his predecessor Queen 
 Elizabeth that he had been authorized to assume the im- 
 portant offices which he held as Chancellor of the Duchy, 
 and Warden of the Stannaries. He declared, in solemn 
 terms, his faith to James, and his dependence on his mercy 
 alone. Unhappily, he addressed himself to one too much 
 alienated from him, and too greatly prejudiced by the in- 
 sinuations of others, to listen to his petition with any emo- 
 tions of compassion. Yet, whilst at this distance of time 
 some passages of this letter are perused, it is difficult to 
 imagine, that James can have rejected, without some re- 
 
 * The original is printed now, for the first time, in the Appendix. 
 f Appendix, L. & M. 
 
 X Also in the Stats Paper Office, and n >w first printed in the Appen 
 lix, O. 
 § Ibid. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 185 
 
 tenting, the petition of so accomplished a petitioner, who, 
 whilst feeling' that his corporeal and mental vigor declined 
 under the pressure of his calamities, entreated the King 
 not to keep him in restraint until " the powers both of his 
 body and mind should be so enfeebled," that " it had been 
 happier for him to have died long since." With a humil- 
 ity resulting from a spirit broken by the virulence of ene- 
 mies, and by the desertion of friends, he implored the King 
 to have compassion on him whilst he had yet " limbs and 
 eyes" to do him service, entreating the "Lord of all power 
 and justice to strike him with the greater misery of body 
 and soul" if he failed in fidelity to his sovereign. Such 
 were the affecting, and, perhaps, abject terms in which the 
 unfortunate Ralegh endeavored to obtain the boon of a ces- 
 sation from persecution. The powerful expressions of his 
 own pen portray, with a melancholy force, the dejection 
 and dread into which he sank upon seeing the renewed at- 
 tempts which were made to ruin his earthly prospects. 
 
 On finding all applications for mercy fruitless, Ralegh 
 appears to have wisely devoted himself to those sources of 
 consolation, of which the injustice of men could not de- 
 prive him. The extent of his acquirements in literature 
 and science furnished him with a fund of constant employ- 
 ment, in his graver hours, the appetite for knowledge, hap- 
 pily for human nature, " growing by what it feeds on." He 
 had the advantage also of being able to vary his pursuits 
 from grave to gay, and of being able to relax into amuse- 
 ment without the necessity of descending into frivolity. 
 But of his favorite recreations, music and painting were prob- 
 ably the only resources which could be introduced into the 
 bounded and austere inclosure of his prison limits.* The cul- 
 tivation of plants, and the arrangement of a garden, in which 
 he delighted and excelled, was precluded, or, at least, its pride 
 and pleasure were at an end ; for who can cherish the soil 
 with which slavery is associated? Of the enjoyments of so- 
 ciety he could taste but a very moderate portion, and even that 
 small portion would necessarily be alloyed by the absence 
 of comforts, by the contrast with former days, by the dread 
 
 * Sir Walter Ralegh was not the only member of his family who wu 
 distinguished for his musical talents. His brother Carew played upon tlM 
 olpharion, an instrument somewhat resembling a lute, and sang all 
 well. Aubrey's MSS. in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford edition of R» 
 egh's Works, vol. viii. p. 743. 
 
186 
 
 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 of surveillance, and the danger of unrestrained communi- 
 cation within a prison. But, although, from the happinesa 
 of the free, Ralegh was precluded, he could yet avail him- 
 self of the consolations of which innocence is never desti- 
 
 ■ifinn tute. Soon after the commencement of his long 
 captivity his wife and son were permitted to join 
 
 w,, him, and in the ensuing year the birth of another 
 son added a new member to the small and oppressed 
 family. This child was christened Carew, probably in honor 
 of Lord Carew, a relation and intimate friend of Ralegh's, 
 and afterwards an intercessor for him with the King ; Ca- 
 rew was the only one of Sir Walter's two sons that was 
 destined to survive him. The works which Ralegh began, 
 and in some instances completed, were numerous, and of 
 the most varied kind : of these, the most elaborate and re- 
 markable is his History of the World, which he published 
 in 1614. Of this stupendous production, whilst it has been 
 observed by some that its " only defect (or default rather) 
 is that it wanteth the half thereof* ;" it has been thought by 
 a far better judgef " to afford the best model of the ancient 
 style" of composition. Never, perhaps, in our language has 
 so copious and extended a work been composed with so little 
 apparent difficulty to the author ; and, whilst the learned 
 have been excited to admiration by the vast stores of eru- 
 dition which its pages unfold, the less enlightened reader 
 cannot fail to rise from the careful perusal of its pages 
 without his knowledge of human nature being improved 
 and verified, and his desire for virtuous distinction stimu- 
 lated. It contributes greatly to the interest of this compo- 
 sition, that the writer has identified himself with many of 
 its most striking passages, in the course of its ponderous 
 dissertations and minute details. We refer continually to 
 the historian, whose opinions, his personal observation, his 
 experience, and tastes, were called into active requisition 
 in the compilation of its pages. Ralegh, in relating the ac- 
 tions of the warlike and the exertions of the wise, writes 
 with the spirit of an enthusiast in the cause of virtue, and 
 with the discrimination of a veteran in the fields of fame. 
 Neither is his generous ardor chilled by the cold and scep- 
 tical views of religion with which some excellent authors, 
 under the plea of philosophical moderation, have cooled 
 
 * Fuller's Worthies. 
 
 \ Hume. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 187 
 
 down the expression of every noble sentiment. He gives 
 nature her scope, and aims not at the fruitless task of 
 weighing the utility of every splendid action by the men- 
 tal scale which has been adopted in modern times. It is 
 still more important to observe, that his proper appreciation 
 of the actions of men, and his love of moral excellence, 
 sprang from the right source. It is obvious that he must 
 have been deeply imbued with the force and importance of 
 religious truth, and, in the progress of his labors, had God 
 in all his thoughts. For this happy and truly enviable state 
 of mind, for that elevation of the character which proceeds 
 from a prostration of the soul to God, for that strength 
 which arises out of weakness, Ralegh was indebted to the 
 season of adversity which afforded him the opportunity, and 
 impressed him with the proper spirit to execute this work. 
 Lord Bacon, in alluding to the dangerous gifts of fortune, 
 has beautifully remarked, that " afflictions only level those 
 mole-hills of pride, plow the heart, and make it fit for 
 wisdom to sow the seed, and for grace to bring forth her 
 increase. Happy if that man, both in regard of heavenly 
 and earthly wisdom, that is thus wounded to be cured ; thus 
 broken to be made straight ; thus made acquainted with his 
 own imperfections, that he may be perfected.*" 
 
 Like many other works of value and erudition, the His- 
 tory of the World was, according to some accounts, ne- 
 glected by the literary men of the time. Perhaps the dis- 
 grace and present obscurity of its author, the neglect of 
 the court, or its own bulk, and in the early part, the diffi- 
 culty of treating the subject in a popular manner, may have 
 contributed to the result, which is said to have proved a 
 source of deep mortification to Ralegh. A few days be- 
 fore his d^ath, he iy stated to have sent for Walter Burre, 
 who printed his book, and to have inquired how the work 
 had sold ? To this question he received the mortifying re- 
 ply, " So slowly, hat it has undone me." Upon hearing this 
 intelligence, Sir vValter rose, and reaching from his desk a 
 continuation of ihe work, threw it into the fire, saying to 
 Burre, " The second volume shall undo no more : this un- 
 grateful work! is unworthy of it ' This anecdote, although 
 characteristi ; of Sir Walter Ralegh, who was naturally 
 passionate and impetuous, rests upon no authority sufficient 
 
 * Bacon's Letter to Coke in Stephen's edition of Bacon's Letters, 127. 
 
188 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALECH. 
 
 to stamp it as more deserving of credit than the relations 
 which are commonly told of all eminent persons, and for 
 the truth of which we are to rely on the particular veracity 
 of the narrator. 
 
 In his scientific and literary pursuits Ralegh found a 
 young and liberal patron in Prince Henry of Wales, the 
 heir apparent to the throne. The virtues of this youth 
 were universally extolled, and, perhaps, with greater 
 earnestness, from the contrast which every indication of 
 character presented to that of his well-intentioned but 
 almost pusillanimous father. It was, however, the desire 
 of James that his first-born should, in all important respects, 
 resemble himself, and especially in that instinctive appre- 
 hension of plots, of which James especially boasted. In 
 such discoveries, he prayed that the Prince " might be his 
 heir ;" and particularly commended any detection of impos- 
 ture which it was the lot of the youth to effect.* 
 
 But daily experience proves that there are some minds 
 which rise not only superior to the force of circumstances, 
 but almost in defiance of perpetual incitement to error. 
 Witnessing in one parent perpetual manifestations- of ab- 
 surdity, and beholding in the other nothing but insignifi- 
 cance, it was the happy lot of Prince Henry, as far as his 
 short life extended, to unite the best, or, the only good quali- 
 ties of both parents. To the love of learning, and simple- 
 heartedness of King James, he joined the courtesy and 
 good-nature of Queen Anne, escaping, as it were by a 
 miracle, the pompous vanity of the one, and the unthinking 
 frivolity of the other parent, f Towards this young prince, 
 justly denominated by his contemporaries, "the flower of 
 his house,}" Ralegh expressed an enthusiastic admiration : 
 and, indeed, the mind of Henry Stuart appears in many 
 instances to have been congenial to that of the illustrious 
 prisoner, to whom he extended his favor. Unlike the King 
 
 * Birch's Life of Prince Henry. In James's instructions to his son, hf 
 particularly commends his discovery of a female impostor. Ibid. 38. 
 
 f This queen was mistress of Somerset House, which she would fain 
 have named Denmark House, and so it was called by her people during 
 her life. In this palace she held a continual masquerade. She and her 
 ladies, like so many sea-nymphs or nereids, continually delighting all 
 beholders by the display of new dresses. The King had his favorites in 
 one place, she in another: she loved the Earl of Pembroke, he patron- 
 ized the Earl of Montgomery, his brother. Wilson's Life of King James 
 I. C85. 
 
 I Win wood's Mem. iii. 410. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 189 
 
 his father, the prince loved the semblance and mimicry of 
 war; and from his delight in tilting, the barriers, and other 
 martial exercises, he had become highly popular among the 
 people* to whom such diversions recalled the days ot the 
 Tudors and Plantagenets. With such a disposition, it is 
 natural to suppose that the young candidate in the lists ot 
 military fame must have regarded the veteran warrior with 
 veneration and interest. 
 
 In respect to maritime affairs, especially, their tastes 
 were similar ; for Ralegh, who perfectly understood this 
 subject, found in the prince an ardent spirit of inquiry, 
 which augured well for the future benefit of the British 
 navy.f To him Ralegh dedicated his work, entitled "Ob- 
 servations on the Royal Navy and Sea Service," and a 
 " Discourse of a Maritimal Voyage," never published. It 
 was also his intention to have dedicated to his young pa- 
 tron the second and third volumes of his History of the 
 World, which he purposed, as he himself expresses it, to 
 " have hewn out," but which, from the death of this pow- 
 erful friend, from the discouraging circumstances attending 
 the sale of the first part, or from new schemes, and the 
 revival of hopes of liberty, was never completed. The 
 prince, to whom Ralegh applied the epithets " most excel- 
 lent and hopeful^" was a proficient also in classical litera- 
 ture, in which he had been carefully trained; and had 
 himself displayed so premature a genius, as to compose, 
 when only in his tenth year, a Latin hexameter poem, en- 
 titled the " New Year's Gift. 5" Concurring in their gene- 
 ral tastes, widely as all other circumstances relating to 
 them differed, the Prince and Ralegh were also, in one re- 
 spect, similarly situated : they were both supposed to be 
 objects of jealous suspicion to the King, who is said to have 
 thought his " fearless and noble" son|| " too high mounted 
 in the people's love,T' whilst he saw in Ralegh a great 
 luminary, beneath whose lustre the brightness of other 
 lights must fade, or be wholly obscured. Congenial in 
 mind and in pursuits, a grateful and enthusiastic admira- 
 tion prevailed between these two individuals. That " none 
 
 * Wilson, v. 685. 
 
 t Birch's Life of Prince Henry, 297. See also Ralegh's Works in 
 Birch, vok. ii. 
 JBirck § Ibid. 38. || AulicusCoquinarise. IT Wilson, 685. 
 
190 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RAx EGH. 
 
 but his father would, keep such a bird in such a cage*" 
 was the well-known observation of Prince Henry ; and 
 Ralegh, after the untimely death of this promising youth, 
 alludes to the decease of his royal friend in terms of sor- 
 row almost prophetic. Speaking of one of his own works, 
 he says, " But God has spared me the labor of finishing by 
 his loss, by the loss of that brave prince, of which, like an 
 eclipse of the sun, we shall feel the effects hereafter. Im- 
 possible it is to equal words and sorrows ; I will, therefore, 
 leave him in the hands of God that hath him.-|-" 
 
 At the command of Prince Henry, Ralegh composed, in 
 1611, two discourses, concerning the double alliances which 
 were proposed between the duchy of Savoy and the house 
 of Stuart. In those treatises, which are written in the 
 clear, forcible, and animated style which characterizes 
 Ralegh's pen, he proves the unsuitableness and inexpe- 
 diency of the proposed marriages, and recommends the con- 
 tinuance of the Prince in celibacy, until " his Majesty 
 have somewhat repaired his estate, and provided beautiful 
 gardens to plant those olive-branches in-J" In this coun- 
 sel the inclination of the Prince was probably considered ; 
 for report not only assigned the honor of his regards to the 
 infamous Frances Howard, Countess of Essex, but his own 
 testimony presented the reasons of his dislike to the Sa- 
 voyan contract. § Induced by arguments to approve of the 
 marriage with a daughter of France, this conscientious 
 youth, the only prince of the Stuart line who could be 
 strictly termed Protestant, repented bitterly on his death-bed 
 that he had ever been induced to accede to the proposals 
 of wedding a Papist, and considered his illness as a judg- 
 ment on that account. || Yet as we may suppose that the 
 sentiments expressed by Ralegh in his work tallied with 
 those of the Prince, it was obviously their agreed conclu- 
 sion, that no other foreign marriage presented advantages 
 so powerfully overbalancing the impediment which differ- 
 ence of religious faith presented, as that with Henrietta 
 Maria of France, subsequently the queen-consort of Charles 
 the First. IT 
 
 * Osborne's Miscell. Works, ii. 165. f Hist. World, lib. v. c. 1. § 6. 
 
 | Works of Ralegh. Birch, i. 278. 
 
 § Wei wood's Notes to Wilson, 688. 
 
 || Winwood's Mem. iii. 410. IT Ralegh's Wortfj. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 191 
 
 It is probable that Ralegh owed his station in the regard 
 of the young prince chiefly to the good offices of Sir John 
 Harrington, who acted almost in the capacity of a tutor to 
 the heir-apparent. It is not unlikely that he was also in- 
 debted for the kindly feelings displayed to him by Henry, 
 tc his mother, Anne of Denmark, the queen-consort, a 
 weak but good-natured woman, and an indifferent, and, as 
 some thought, faithless wife, but an affectionate, though 
 not judicious mother. From this princess Ralegh is said to 
 have eventually received the dearest boon that an innocent 
 man can crave, that of restored reputation, the Queen 
 granting him, at a subsequent period, the privilege of hav- 
 ing Cobham re-examined. She proved to him, indeed, on 
 various occasions, a kind mediator and friend ; and Ralegh, 
 as we shall find, had recourse, on some occasions, to her 
 good offices. 
 
 But his fortunes, as far as his worldly estates were con- 
 cerned, were now irremediably ruined ; and the wreck of 
 all his dearly-earned possessions was eventually completed 
 by the injustice of King James, and the cupidity of his 
 courtiers. 
 
 CHAP. VI. 
 
 Estimate of Ralegh's Property. — His estates and occupations in Ireland. 
 — Ralegh's Companions in Prison. — His schemes with respect to Gui- 
 ana.— Death of Cecil and of Prince Henry. — Ralegh's release from 
 the Tower. 
 
 In order fully to comprehend the losses and deprivations 
 which it was Ralegh's fate to sustain, it is necessary to 
 take a short review of those various gradations in the scale 
 of wealth, by which he rose to the possession of a consid- 
 erable estate. 
 
 His property in Ireland, by order of time, ought first 
 to be noticed. The history of his possessions in that coun- 
 try must be referred to the period of the rebellion in the 
 reign of Elizabeth, who found it expedient, in 1582, to at- 
 taint Gerald Fitzgerald, the last Earl of the Geraldines, a 
 man of almost princely power over the semi-barbarous 
 people amongst whom he resided. This potent nobleman 
 could muster, it was said, at a call, six hundred horse and 
 
192 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 two thousand foot, and had five hundred gentlemen of his 
 kindred and surname on his estate. Upon his destruction, 
 and that of his adherents, the Queen divided his extensive 
 possessions in Cork, Waterford, Kerry, and Limerick, 
 among those officers and knights in her armies who had 
 been chiefly engaged in subduing the power of her ene- 
 mies in the sister countries. The forfeited lands were di- 
 vided, therefore, into manors and seignories, containing 
 each from four to twelve thousand acres, bogs and moun- 
 tains not being included until improved and fertilized. 
 The undertakers, as they were called, of these estates, 
 were freed of all taxes, except subsidies levied by parlia- 
 ment, and were to import all commodities into England, 
 duty free, for five years. They were obliged to furnish, 
 for the defence of their new possessions, horse and foot- 
 men, in number proportioned to their share of the forfeited 
 demesnes; an arrangement by which an effective force 
 was afterwards supplied to the country. In 1586, Sir Wal- 
 ter Ralegh obtained a warrant from the Privy Seal, grant- 
 ing him three seignories and a half in the land of Cork* 
 and Waterford, constituting an estate of 12,000 acres.f 
 This domain he held in fee-farm, and with it, at Youghal, 
 in the barony of Imohilly, a house belonging, before the 
 dissolution of the monasteries, to the friars preachers, with 
 a rent of twelve pounds, nineteen shillings and sixpence 
 sterling, payable at Easter and Michaelmas.J 
 
 It would seem that Ralegh had but little leisure to enter 
 into the concerns of his Irish estates with interest, or that, 
 in the turbulent scenes in which he was mingled in that 
 country, he could have enjoyed sufficient leisure to attend 
 to the improvement of the inhabitants or the culture of the 
 soil. From the manuscript records of the town, it appears 
 that he held the office of mayor of Youghal in 1588, \ and 
 he probably occupied the house belonging to him near the 
 cottage or priory, for one room still bears the traditional 
 name of " Sir Walter's Study," having in it a rich and cu- 
 
 * Smith's Hist. Cork, i. 55, 56. t Ibid. 54. J Ibid. 109. 
 
 §For this information I am indebted to Crofton Croker, Esq., whose 
 works on Irish traditions and antiquaries are so well known, and so 
 justly admired. That gentleman inspected these records in 1821, and 
 visited the house formerly belonging to Ralegh, and now inhabited by 
 Sir Christopher Musgrave. It is a plain old-fashioned house, with an 
 abundance of fine myrtles, some of them twenty feet high, in the 
 garden 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 193 
 
 nTAT^ ?! d C , him " e y-Pi^e. This residence is situ- 
 ated on the north side of the church, and on the soLth side 
 ■tends, large buH<W, called the College, founded by the 
 Geraldmes, and which came also into Ralegh's posses- 
 
 AtYoughal the first potatoes were landed in Ireland 
 
 time thlTU hj A ir ^ altei ' Rale §- h ' and ' at ^ ™ 
 thpri ? C fl eh ^ affane cherry was brought by him 
 
 ti\fLtZ 6 ! C r ai7 1Sk , nds - The ^ll-knoin ta y ie S 
 
 s ?hT t ^ at / r , St ^ athered and tasted V the 
 person who planted it, and of the early neglect of this val- 
 uable Production, originated in the neighborhood of Yoi 
 rj 11 loots were for some time left untouched, until 
 the ground in which they were sown, being dug up their 
 real value was discovered. From this small portion of see? 
 the whole country of Ireland was supplied wfth that 
 which has since proved to be almost ite only Sure S 
 S ^ asaco ^odity for the support of life./ 
 t„ p" 1 1 ™ i gh V s induced to sell his estates in Ireland 
 to Richard Boyle, afterwards Earl of Cork, a man of ener 
 
 ssffl; an ; of p r erful ^-^w, SE 
 
 ntorest Z tT™ " 6XCelIent h ^ m for his °wn 
 mterest., and to turn every possession to full account 
 
 S^SJEh? f ° Umler IV^ aft ™ ds so S 
 renowned both in arms and letters, returned to England 
 his native country, with an introduction to Sir Robert 
 Cecil from the president of Munster, who requested the 
 assistance of the secretary to Mr. Boyle in effecting he 
 
 G Tt °/aid Sl h a T alter Ra ^ h ' S ^-/-yinCorL^Ra! 
 Legh, it is said, had no repugnance to the sale of his prop- 
 erty, on account of the heavy sums which it cost him to 
 support his titles to it, his annual expenses on tha accomi? 
 
 TTmXT° hU I! dred P °u Un d8 -* U a PP ears ' ho-eve 
 that Mr. Boyle purchased the estate at a verv low rate 
 upon the plea of its uncultivated condition; and tl a7i not 
 
 tT L buT:v a s m0St t^TT aC ^" isition *° h ™ e-n- 
 S J L but ) Va co " sld ered by him at the time as a great 
 
 Sofital e^n h aUgmen l atl ° n to his GState ' and as ^ more 
 piofitable to him even than the possession of a richly-dow- 
 
 ^nXSce™^^*™ Mexic °- whe »<* they had proiab.y 
 t Smiths Hist. Cork, p. 1—120. 
 t Nota in Biographia, first Art. Boyle. 
 
194 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 ered wife, or of a former grant to himself of lands in Mun- 
 ster, had hitherto proved.* 
 
 It has likewise been manifested, in a recent work on the 
 antiquities of the south of Ireland, that the " great earl," 
 as he was popularly entitled, acted a very equivocal part 
 in this transaction, and succeeded in duping the penetrat- 
 ing, but rash owner of the lands, who had parted with 
 them at a price far inferior to their value.f It is obvious, 
 from the tenor of the earl's own memorial, that he thought 
 it necessary to write in an apologetical strain upon the 
 subject;| for he declares, that he not only paid Sir Walter 
 the full amount of what he owed him for his estate, long 
 before Ralegh's attainder, but that he presented him with 
 a thousand pounds after that event ; preferring, from com- 
 passion and generosity, to give him that sum in full, than 
 to accept of a composition of five hundred marks from the 
 crown, with an offer of a full acquittal under the broad 
 seal, if he complied with that proposition. § This is the 
 earl's own exposition of his conduct ; but it has been hint- 
 ed, that his conduct was not so honorable as this represent- 
 ation would seem to imply; and some remonstrance ap- 
 pears to have been made, in subsequent times, against the 
 transaction, as irregular and illegal. It was not, however, 
 a time, for those suffering - from adversity and oppression, 
 to appeal with success against the favored and the pros- 
 perous. The estate remained in the possession of Boyle, 
 by whom it was soon rendered one of the most flourishing 
 properties in the sister kingdom. 
 
 With respect to his English domains, Ralegh was even 
 still more unfortunate than in his Irish property ; for he 
 had the distress of seeing those lands which he had im- 
 proved and embellished with care, and had hoped to trans- 
 mit, as a family inheritance, to his son, wrested from him, 
 and bestowed upon an unworthy favorite of the king's, in 
 defiance of every principle of justice, and in disregard of 
 every impulse of compassion. 
 
 We have already seen that Ralegh was unable to effect 
 the purchase of the simple and retired residence of his 
 youth, for which he applied in 1584, offering to give the 
 
 * See Mr. C. Crokcr's Researches in the South of Ireland, 1824. 
 
 t Ibid. J Smith's Hist, of Cork, note, i. 121. 
 
 $ Smith's Cork, vol. i. p. 121. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 1 95 
 
 owner " whatsoever in his conscience he should deem it to 
 be worth ;" preferring-, as he alleged, for the " natural de- 
 position" which he had to that place, being born in the 
 house, rather " to seat himself there than anywhere else.*" 
 In case of refusal on this point, it was at this time Sir 
 Walter's determination to build a house at Colliton in 
 Devonshire ; but circumstances afterwards induced him to 
 select, as a family residence, Sherborne or Shireborne, in 
 the same county, described by Aubrey as " a most sweet 
 and pleasant place, and site, as any in the west." From 
 this estate alone, he afterwards cleared five thousand 
 pounds yearly. 
 
 A curious manuscript, relating to this noble seat, has 
 been preserved and published in the Collectanea Curiosa. 
 The lands of Sherborne were bequeathed by Osmund, a 
 Norman knight, to the see of Canterbury, with a heavy de- 
 nunciation against any rash or profane person who should 
 attempt to wrest them from the church.f This anathema 
 was, in the opinion of the vulgar, first accomplished in the 
 person of the protector Somerset, to whom, after sundry 
 vicissitudes, the property devolved. This nobleman was 
 hunting in the woods of Sherborne, when his presence was 
 required by Edward the Sixth ; and he was shortly after- 
 wards committed to the Tower, and subsequently beheaded. 
 The forfeited estate then reverted to the see of Salisbury, 
 until the reign of Queen Elizabeth, to whom it was made 
 over by Coldwell, bishop of Salisbury, at the instigation of 
 Ralegh, who was blamed, and apparently with justice, for 
 having displayed on this occasion a grasping and even dis- 
 honorable spirit. So strong were the religious prejudices 
 of the day, that even the discerning Sir John Harrington 
 attributed to a judgment from heaven a trifling accident 
 which occurred to Ralegh whilst surveying the demesne 
 which he coveted. Casting his eyes upon it, according to 
 the notion of that writer, as Ahab did upon Naboth's vine- 
 yard, and, in the course of a journey from Plymouth to the 
 coast, discussing at the same time the advantages of the 
 desired possession, Sir Walter's horse fell, and the face of 
 its rider then, as the relater observes, " thought to be a 
 very good one," was buried in the ground.J Having ob- 
 
 * See Aubrey's MSS. f Peck's Collectanea, 520. 
 
 t Brief View of the State of the Church of England, p. 88. 
 
196 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 tained the estate, Ralegh resolved to improve and embel- 
 lish it to the utmost of his means. He first began to build 
 a fine castle ; but, changing his design, erected a noble 
 house, which he rendered superior to all the places around 
 it. Here he appears, from his letters, to have both exer- 
 cised the duties of hospitality, and to have enjoyed the so- 
 ciety of his friends in a public career, although at so great 
 a distance from the metropolis ;* and here he anticipated 
 also the calm refreshment of philosophic leisure ; " build- 
 ing," says Aubrey, " a delicate lodge in the parke of brick, 
 not big, but very convenient for tbe bignesse, a place to 
 retire from the court in summer time, and to contemplate, f" 
 But he was destined never to enjoy the fruition of his 
 wishes, in seeing his name and family reinstated in rank 
 and influence in his native country. In 1G62 he had found 
 it expedient to settle Sherborne upon his eldest son. The 
 supposed cause of this determination was a challenge from 
 Sir Amias Preston, one of the commanders who had been 
 knighted by the Earl of Essex at the siege of Cadiz ; but 
 neither the origin nor the issue of the quarrel has trans- 
 pired. All that is known of Ralegh's sentiments upon the 
 occasion, is, his declaration that he " intended to answer" 
 the challenge. Yet it is uncertain whether or not he de- 
 clined it; the difference of military rank and character 
 being a sufficient plea for deviating from the received laws 
 of honor, and the fashionable practice of the times. It may 
 be surmised that Ralegh had high and important reasons 
 and obligations to pursue a line of conduct which mani- 
 fested the true and delicate perception of that honor, on 
 which so many are ready to discourse, and which so few 
 are able to understand ; and that he may have sought to 
 discountenance a custom then so prevalent, that Lord Ba- 
 con, when Attorney-General, was obliged, in 1614, to make 
 an example of a butcher and a barber-surgeon in the Mar- 
 shalsea Court, in order that this dangerous and disgraceful 
 practice might be brought into contempt.f It is obvious 
 that Ralegh viewed the character of a duellist with the 
 cool and well-digested sentiments of a philosopher, rather 
 lhan with the inflated enthusiasm of a soldier. In his His- 
 
 * See his Letter to Cobham, in Appendix. 
 
 f Aubrey's MSS. Oxf. ed. of Ral. Works, App. 738. 
 
 X Sanderson's Life of James I., p. 395. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 197 
 
 tory, he ridicules the false notions which teach us to con- 
 sider it " as a far greater dishonor to receive from an enemy 
 a slight touch with a cane, than a sound blow with a 
 sword ; the one having relation to a slave, the other to a 
 souldier." And concerning the received belief that to decry 
 duelling, and to be a coward, are synonymous, he remarks 
 that it is true, " if you call it cowardice to fear God and 
 hell ; whereas he that is truly wise or valiant knows that 
 there is nothing else to be feared.*" Such being the sen 
 timents of Ralegh, we must look for some different cause 
 than the prospect of a duel, to account for his transfer of 
 his principal estate to his son ; and it is not difficult to con- 
 jecture that he may have anticipated the vicissitudes of his 
 coming years, and sought to preserve this portion of his 
 property from the effects of the lowering storm. 
 
 This measure, if the result of forethought, was prudent, 
 but it was unavailing. After his trial, the enemies of Ra- 
 legh pretended to find a flaw in the deed of conveyance, 
 and for the omission of a single word, the oversight of a 
 clerk, and which was in the paper copy only, it fell into 
 the possession of the crown.f The person principally bene- 
 fited by this discovery was Car, Earl of Somerset, who 
 brought the matter before the Court of Exchequer, in 
 which a decision was given against RaleghJ : " a judg- 
 ment," observes the relater of the fact, 5 " easily to be fore- 
 seen without witchcraft, since his chiefest judge was his 
 greatest enemy, and the case argued between a poor friend- 
 less prisoner, and a King of England." This event took 
 place seven years after the commencement of Sir Walter 
 Ralegh's imprisonment, until which period he had enjoyed 
 the revenues of Sherborne. In vain did the persevering 
 Lady Ralegh, — being, as her son describes her, a woman 
 " of a very high spirit, of noble birth and breeding," — on 
 her knees, and in the bitterness of her heart, in the pres- 
 ence of the King, implore Almighty God to look upon " the 
 justness of her cause, and punish those who had so wrong- 
 fully exposed her and her poor children to beggary." The 
 inflexible and insensible monarch, who had neither the 
 
 * Hist. World, b. 5. chap. 3. p. C77. 
 
 t A Brief Relation of Sir Walter Ralegh's Troubles, 117. 
 X Oldys, 64. 
 
 § Carew Ralegh, who presented, in the form of a petition to parliament 
 some account of this act of oppression. See Birch, i. p. 114. 
 
198 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 feeling to pity, nor the discernment to value this devoted 
 woman, returned, in his usual phrase, this reiterated reply 
 " I mun have the land ; I mun have it for Car." And, ac- 
 cordingly, to Car the estate was conveyed. But the old 
 prophecy, by those who observed the fate of Sherborne 
 with curiosity, was still thought to hang to its destiny. 
 Through the generous exertions of Prince Henry, it may 
 be said to have belonged for a time to the House of Stuart, 
 since he begged it from the King, pretending to fancy the 
 place, but in reality with the hope of restoring it to the 
 accomplished owner of the seat. Unwilling or afraid to 
 refuse the request of his son, James compromised the mat- 
 ter by paying to Car the sum of twenty-five thousand 
 pounds for the surrender of the estate, and even allowed 
 the Lady Ralegh eight thousand pounds for the property.* 
 But the death of the young Prince in 1611 frustrated his 
 generous intention, and left Sherborne still in the hands of 
 the favorite. The premature decease of this promising 
 youth was thought by the vulgar again to corroborate the 
 old prophecy, and was one of those singular coincidences 
 which, in human affairs, confirm the day-dreams of super- 
 stitious reasoners. But, in the times of the Tudors and 
 the Stuarts, estates were so often gained and lost, on the 
 one hand by the misfortunes of the real owners, and, on 
 the other, by the iniquities of those who reaped them, that 
 few exchanges of property from one family to another, took 
 place without being occasioned by some tragical occur- 
 rence. To Carew, the youngest son, and the injured sur- 
 vivor of Sir Walter Ralegh, the subsequent attainder of 
 Car, and the forfeiture of his estates, upon his committal to 
 the Tower for the murder of Overbury, appeared to con- 
 firm the ill fortune attendant upon the owners of Sher- 
 borne; and the misfortunes which afterwards befell the 
 House of Stuart were also considered by him to corrobo- 
 rate the old presage. The spell has, however, since been 
 broken ; for, on the confiscation of Car's estates, Digby, 
 Earl of Bristol, obtained Sherborne from the King, on ac- 
 count of his services in the embassy to Spain. This noble- 
 man added two wings to the house ; and in his family it 
 now remains.f 
 
 During the proceedings relative to his favorite anC 
 
 * Brief Rel., &c. t Ibid. 117. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 199 
 
 boasted residence, upon which he had expended a consid- 
 erable portion of his gleanings in the public service, Ralegh 
 endeavored to avail himself of his eloquent pen in order to 
 excite the pity or obtain the justice of those who were 
 reaping the fruits of his self-created fortune. Fame, which, 
 as Lord Bacon has observed, " hath swift wings, especially 
 that which hath black feathers,*" soon brought to him, 
 even in prison, intelligence of all those courtly intrigues, 
 by which his miserable fate might be alleviated or de- 
 pressed. In 1608, we find him addressing to Car an expos- 
 tulatory letter, couched in those guarded and insidious, yet 
 moving terms, of which many of Ralegh's epistles present 
 a specimen. Perhaps there can scarcely be any supplica- 
 tion more delicately and happily expressed than the fol- 
 lowing natural yet polished address to a young and favored 
 courtier, just entering upon those deluding delights of suc- 
 cessful ambition and gratified vanity, of which Ralegh had 
 himself shared largely. " And for yourself, sir," he observes, 
 " seeing your fair day is but now in the dawn, and mine 
 drawn to the evening, your own virtues and the King's 
 grace assuring you of many honors, I beseech you not to 
 begin your first building upon the ruins of the innocent ; 
 and that their sorrows, with mine, may not attend your 
 first plantation.!" But Ralegh, in his application to Car, 
 appealed not to a generous, and honorable, young favorite 
 of fortune, like Essex, who would rather have impoverished 
 himself than " have cut down the tree for the fruit, and un- 
 dergone the curse of them that enter the fields of the 
 fatherless.^" Somerset Was, from his early nurture in a 
 subordinate station, weak and pliable, and incapable of 
 greatness, although originally, until ensnared by the al- 
 lurements of a depraved woman, of a gentle and affable 
 disposition. 5 Besides, there were other sufficient reasons 
 that Somerset should not incline to the requests of one 
 who enjoyed the friendship of Prince Henry ; a bitter jeal- 
 ousy both of the King's favor, and a still more dangerous 
 rivalry in the affections of the Lady Frances Howard, at 
 this time subsisting between those two distinguished per- 
 sonages. || 
 
 In regard to the residue of his property, Ralegh was 
 
 * Bacon's Letters by Stephens, 90. 
 
 f Ralegh's Letter to Car, in Cayley, vol. ii. 43. % Ibid. vol. ii. 40. 
 
 § Wilson, 700. K Ibid. 686. 
 
200 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 scarcely less unfortunate than with respect to Sherborne. 
 The extent of any other estates which he possessed has not 
 been ascertained. Some proofs remain of his having been 
 the owner of a house at Islington, near the church, which 
 was stated by tradition to have belonged to Sir Walter Ra- 
 legh, the insertion of his arms, and several old account-books 
 which were found in it, confirming that idea. There is 
 no evidence that a seat at West Horseley in Surrey, after- 
 wards occupied by his son, and also decorated with the 
 family arms, ever belonged to Sir Walter Ralegh. With 
 regard to his residence in London, it frequently changed 
 from Somerset House, St. James's, and Durham House: 
 in all of these places he is supposed to have had apartments : 
 and in the latter, which Aubrey describes as a noble palace, 
 he is stated to have had a study, " which," says that writer, 
 " I well remember, on a little turret that looked into and 
 over the Thames, and had the prospect which is pleasant, 
 perhaps, as any in the world, and which not only refreshes 
 the eye-sight, but cheers the spirits, and (to speake my 
 mind) I believe enlarges an ingeniose man's thoughts.*" 
 Ralegh afterwards sold a house at Mitcham in Surrey, for 
 the sum of twenty-five thousand pounds, in order to enable 
 him to prosecute his last voyage to Guiana.f 
 
 In 1604, all his goods and chattels were, by the King's 
 grant, given over to trustees of Ralegh's appointing, to be 
 sold for the benefit of his creditors, and of his lady and his 
 children.:): To these proceedings there were some obstruc- 
 tions, from the knavery of those upon whose prompt and 
 honest assistance Ralegh had a peculiar right to depend. 
 Sanderson, a gentleman by birth, father of the historian of 
 that name, had married Margaret Snedale, a niece of Sir 
 Walter Ralegh's, and was on that account empowered to 
 receive considerable sums from the office of wines and 
 other charges, with which Ralegh had been in the days of 
 his prosperity intrusted. Upon an account of these being 
 required, Sanderson, with shameless dishonesty, not only 
 declined giving up the proceeds, but attempted to put in a 
 claim of two thousand pounds upon Sir Walter's estate. 
 An action was therefore commenced against him, and he 
 was found liable to the demand, and thrown into prison. § 
 
 * Aubrey's MSS. 
 
 f Observations on Sanderson's History. Tntroduct. 10. 
 
 t Birch, 62, from Ryraer's Fcedera. § Cayley's Life, vol. ii. p. 40. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 201 
 
 This act of justice is thought to have provoked the enmity 
 of Sanderson's son, who inherited the assurance and treach- 
 ery for which only his rather was remarkable. Becoming 
 secretary to the Earl of Holland, who was chancellor of 
 Cambridge, this younger Sanderson was turned out of the 
 university for receiving bribes from scholars and bachelors 
 to make them doctors of divinity upon an occasion of fes- 
 tivity ; and " Sanderson's doctors" were long proverbial at 
 that seminary of learning, as a term for assumption and 
 knavery. By his marriage with the Queen's laundress, 
 Sanderson was afterwards initiated into that partial, ven- 
 omous species of mformation which the base know best how 
 to glean, and the vindictive how to apply. In his History 
 of Mary Queen of Scots, and of her son James, this truly 
 reprehensible writer has endeavored to level the greatest 
 men to the standard which he best understood ; and revers- 
 ing the admonition of the wise man, showed that he nei- 
 ther forgot nor spared his own nor his father's enemies. 
 Ralegh came, therefore, under the severity of his scourge ; 
 and had not historians of indisputable accuracy, knowledge, 
 and impartiality, agreed in condemning Sanderson as an 
 author of no credit,* posterity, affixing much importance to 
 the testimony of a contemporary writer, might have done 
 lamentable injustice to the memory of one who committed 
 doubtless many errors, but not the gross and heinous sins 
 which Sanderson has laid to his charge.f 
 
 Thus, whilst the law in one instance with unjust exact- 
 ness and rigor, gave away one portion of the unfortunate 
 Ralegh's property, his character suffered even in the en- 
 deavor to redeem another which had been unjustly wrested 
 from him. To add to the trouble and anxiety incident to 
 the first of these proceedings, suspicion now arose, on the 
 part of the government, of Ralegh's participation in the 
 gunpowder plot, that conspiracy being discovered during 
 his imprisonment. It was, perhaps, in reference to , fi0c . 
 these surmises, or to the dread of his obtaining too 
 great popularity, that a letter was about this time ad- 
 dressed by Sir William Wade to the Earl of Salisbury, 
 
 * Heylin, in his Examen Historicum. See Advertisement to Ob. on 
 Sanderson's Hist. Birch, Oldys, Cayley, Ralegh's Biog., are perhaps 
 partial evidence, at least the two latter. 
 
 f See Sanderson's Hist. James, pp. 461, 462. 
 
202 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 before whom, as it appears, Ralegh had been taken and 
 examined. 
 
 " Sir Walter Ralegh sithence his being before your Lord- 
 ship (whereof notice is generally taken) doth shew himself 
 upon the wall in his garden to the view of the people, who 
 gaze upon him, and he stareth on them. Which he doth 
 in his cunning humor, that it might be thought his being 
 before your Lordship was rather to clear than to charge 
 him. And so he challengeth his keeper, that your Lord- 
 ship gave him new liberty, for his son to go abroad, and his 
 physician to resort to him. Which, I assure your Lord- 
 ship, he useth only to justify himself ; and the world ex- 
 pecteth rather farther restraint than liberty. Which made 
 me bold in discretion and conveniency to restrain him 
 again, and meet with his indiscreet humor, until your 
 Lordship shall otherwise order.*" This document shows 
 that Ralegh had experienced some alleviations of the se- 
 verity of his confinement, at the instances of Cecil ; but 
 Wade, on the contrary, appears, from his own account, to 
 have been a rigid and suspicious keeper ; and to have urged 
 rather the enforcement than the relaxation of severity. 
 Unhappily, Ralegh's constitution was now irremediably 
 broken by his long privation of the free enjoyments of 
 exercise and change of scene, and an anticipation of ap- 
 proaching death is obvious in a letter which he addressed 
 to the Queen in 1611. f An extreme shortness of breath 
 made him, to use his own expression, in referring to the 
 schemes which he still cherished respecting Guiana, " re- 
 solve that God had otherwise disposed of that business, and 
 of him." In the same affecting strain he laments that he 
 despaired of obtaining so much grace as to be allowed to 
 walk with his keeper up the hill within the Tower ; and 
 piteously referred to the hardship of being " shut up after 
 eight years of durance, as straightly as before ; and the 
 punishment due to other men's extreme negligence laid 
 altogether upon his patience and obedience." His latter 
 passage referred, probably, to some passing occurrence, 
 perhaps the escape of some state prisoners. But his forti- 
 tude had now nearly deserted him ; and in the same letter 
 to the Queen, he declares that it were a " suit far more 
 
 ♦Birch's Collection in Brit. Museum. 4160. cxxiii. Cayley, 241. 
 t In the State Paper Office. See App. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 203 
 
 fitting the hardness of his destiny to desire to die once for 
 all, and thereby to give end to the miseries of this life, than 
 to strive against the ordinance of God, who is a true judge 
 of his innocence." 
 
 Ralegh was not, however, without his companions in 
 misfortune ; and amongst those were some men distinguish- 
 ed both for their rank and acquirements. Of these, the 
 most conspicuous was Henry Percy, Earl of Northumber- 
 land, who had interceded for Ralegh with the king at an 
 early period of this reign. This nobleman had been sus- 
 pected of some concern in the gunpowder plot, from the 
 mere circumstance of his kinsman, and agent in the north, 
 Thomas Percy, one of the conspirators, having called at 
 Sion house, on his journey to London, a few days before the 
 discovery of that famous treason. Upon this suspicion, 
 followed by a star-chamber accusation, the Earl was com- 
 mitted to the Tower, where he remained fifteen -iqqa 
 years ; quitting his unmerited imprisonment two 
 years after Ralegh was also released from it. In addition 
 to this decree, Northumberland was deprived of all his 
 offices, and condemned to pay a fine of thirty thousand 
 pounds, — a sum which was appropriated to the payment of 
 the Queen's debts.* But the Earl had powerful friends, 
 and family connexions ; and upon his release, reassumed a 
 degree of splendor and consequence which the ruined state 
 of Ralegh could never entitle him again to maintain. 
 Such was the pride of the highly-descended Percy, that, 
 shortly after his restoration, hearing that the duke of Buck- 
 ingham had six horses to his coach, he appeared with eight ; 
 and in that style travelled from Bath to London : an equip- 
 age the more remarkable, as the species of conveyance 
 which he adopted had been rare, even with two horses, in 
 the late Queen's reign, f Notwithstanding this act of folly, 
 the earl was a reflective md intelligent man ; the patron 
 of science ; and in his pursuits, of a taste congenial to that 
 of Ralegh. Herriot, Miers, and Warner, eminent for their 
 mathematical acquirements, shared and enlivened his cap- 
 tivity ; and Sergeant Hoskyns, and Dr. Lionel Sharpe, 
 were also committed to the Tower during the course of 
 Ralegh's continuance in it. Sharpe had been chaplain to 
 the Earl of Essex and to Prince Henry ; but was imprisoned 
 
 * Aikin's James I. vol. i. p. 274. t WilsDn, 720. 
 
204 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 for one year, upon suspicion of having suggested to Ser- 
 geant Hoskyns some obnoxious allusions which that lawyer 
 introduced into a bold speech made by him in the House 6*f 
 Commons.* Hoskyns, who had acquired the reputation of 
 a poet, is said to have played " The Aristarchus" to Ra- 
 legh, during their mutual seclusion from more enlarged 
 society.f The conversation of these persons proved, no 
 doubt, a source of recreation and amusement to Ralegh; 
 but it is probable the chief solace of his retirement con- 
 sisted in the schemes which he had never wholly relin- 
 quished, and which he now again prosecuted with vigor, 
 for the second investigation of Guiana. One great obstacle 
 to this object was removed by the death of Cecil ; for that 
 minister had ever been resolutely opposed to the plans 
 1R19 which Ralegh, at various times, proposed to the 
 King with respect to this remote territory. Salis- 
 bury, of whom it was said that he was the " first ill treas- 
 urer and the last good since the days of Queen Elizabeth,}" 
 died on the twenty-eighth of May, at Marlborough, on his 
 road from Bath, whither he had gone as a last resource for 
 the cure of complicated diseases, at length terminating in 
 consumption. J After cruel and lingering sufferings, the 
 mind of this indefatigable and ambitious statesman was 
 not only resigned to the approach of death, but eager to 
 receive the last awful summons from a weary existence. 
 " Ease and pleasure," said the dying minister, " quake to 
 hear of death ; but my life, full of cares and miseries, de- 
 sireth to be dissolved. ||" In his latter moments, retaining 
 all the collectedness and tenacity of memory for which he 
 was remarkable, he manifested also the patience and hope 
 of a Christian ; such as is said to " have brought joy into 
 the sorrow of those around him, in their greatest discom- 
 forts giving full assurance of their best happiness.il" The 
 King, the Queen, and the Prince severally sent him to- 
 kens of their regard and sympathy, almost too late to af- 
 ford happiness to a mind bent on higher consolations than 
 the favor of princes. Although unpopular, probably on 
 
 * Birch's Mem. of P. Henry, 63. 
 t Aubrey's MSS. Oxford ed. of Ralegh's Works, 663. 
 JBiograph. § Winvvood, iii. 467. 
 
 U Collectanea Curiosa, by Gutch. Sir W. Cope's Apol. 
 1T Winwood, 368. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 205 
 
 account partly of his inclosures of Hatfield Chase, and oc- 
 cupation of the palace there, which he had exchanged 
 with the king for Theobald's, partly from his conduct to 
 Ralegh, and partly, probably, from his near relationship to 
 Cobham, whose sister he had married,* Salisbury was al- 
 lowed to possess dexterity and judgment, which were more 
 fully appreciated when his successor, the Earl of Suffolk, 
 a man of small capacity, came into power, f The expe- 
 dients adopted by Cecil for replenishing the treasury, which 
 James dispersed among unworthy favorites, had both refer- 
 ence to public convenience, and a regard to the mainte- 
 nance of the royal dignity. He obtained a great yearly 
 revenue by bargaining that the New River water should 
 be brought to London ; but it was not till after his death 
 that the disgraceful practice was begun of selling the 
 order of baronet, which he had introduced in imitation of 
 Edward III., or that other expedients were adopted equally 
 unworthy of the sovereign whose profusion occasioned, or 
 whose weakness permitted, such depredations. 
 
 There was a prophecy in King James's reign, " that 
 Salisbury's crazy body should yield before Prince Hen- 
 ry's]: ;" alluding, probably, to those arts of poisoning to 
 which all persons of rank or influence were remarkably 
 exposed at this era. It was not long, however, before this 
 accomplished young prince, in falling a victim to a malig- 
 nant fever, confirmed that part of the prophecy by which 
 it might be implied, that his destiny and that of Cecil, in 
 respect to the period of their deaths, were united. $ 
 
 Concerning the cause of the Prince's malady strange 
 rumors were afloat, circulated, not only by vulgar acclama- 
 tion, but by means of the individuals most in the vicinity, 
 and even in the secrets, of the court. || Yet, to those who 
 carefully follow the progress of his disorder, and consider 
 the delay of administering medical aid, and the time thus 
 afforded "to the aggravation of the disease, and who mark 
 the feebleness and inefficiency of the remedies which were 
 applied to the violent symptoms which his disorder from 
 its first appearance manifested, it will not appear extraor 
 dinary that an attack, apparently trifling in the beginning 
 
 * Biog. t Hume. J AulicusCoquinarice, 118. 
 
 § Prince Henry died first,— 1611. 
 
 I See Letter from Mr. Beaulieu to Mr. Turnbull. Winwood. 
 
206 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 should have proved mortal, in days when the application 
 of " cloven pigeons*" to the feet, and other equally puerile 
 efforts, were deemed advisable by the unscientific and em- 
 barrassed physicians usually in attendance. The Prince 
 began to decline in health in September, complaining of 
 pain and giddiness in the head.f After removing from 
 place to place for change of air, he took up his abode at St. 
 James's on the 25th of October, about which time he was 
 occasionally confined to bed. As the autumn advanced, 
 his indisposition increased ; and a drowsiness and coldness 
 in his head created in the mind of the sufferer himself a 
 suspicion that he had imbibed what was then called " the 
 disease," a species of fever supposed to have been brought 
 from Hungary.;); These indications of sickness appear, 
 however, to have excited but little attention from his own 
 family, although the paleness of his countenance, and the 
 change in his temper, which displayed alternate fits of apa- 
 thy and of irritability, were perceptible to all who casually 
 beheld him on public occasions. It was remarkable, that 
 on one of the last occasions of public worship that this la- 
 mented prince ever attended, the text of the sermon was 
 taken from that fine passage of Job, beginning, " Man, that 
 is born of a woman, is of short continuance, and of long 
 trouble. §" On the second of November, he dined with the 
 King and the Prince-palatine, who was shortly afterwards 
 married to the Lady Elizabeth, scarcely less the idol of the 
 nation than the Prince her brother. This was the last 
 social enjoyment in which he was able to participate, his 
 malady increasing rapidly, and, to all appearance, hope- 
 lessly. In this state of public dismay, the Queen, who 
 fondly loved a son, rather a source of pride than an object 
 of affection to her royal consort, remembered that Ralegh 
 had formerly administered to her with success medicine of 
 his own composing, which has since obtained the popular 
 name of his cordial. It is said that the reward which Ra- 
 legh required in the first instance for giving the specific 
 was, that Cobham should be re-examined, a demand as 
 creditable to his innocence as it was infamous to his coun- 
 try, in which justification could not then be obtained with- 
 out either bribery or interest. He was now enjoined to 
 
 *See Birch's Life of Prince Henry, 270., also Aul. Coq. 154. 
 
 f Notes to Wilson, 680, vol. ii. 410. 
 
 J Birch, ed. 1750, 383. § Ibid. 1756, 337. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 207 
 
 lend the aid of his invention for a purpose, if possible, of 
 even greater moment than the fruitless attempt to deal 
 his blasted fame ; and was commanded by the Queen to 
 send it for the benefit of the dying Prince. By some 
 writers a different story is told ; and it is asserted that the 
 Queen herself, being given over by the physicians as in- 
 curable, the skill of Ralegh was resorted to with success ; 
 • and that it was on this occasion that Cobham was brought 
 forth from his ignominious seclusion to corroborate or deny 
 his statements respecting Ralegh, in presence of six lords 
 sent by the King to examine him. By the same authority 
 it is stated, that Cobham declared that Wade had forged 
 the written document produced as his evidence against 
 Ralegh, having procured the wretched peer's signature to 
 a blank piece of paper.* The lords, on returning to Lord 
 Salisbury, are said to have commissioned him to inform the 
 King that Cobham "had subscribed to all that he had 
 written ;" a stratagem which, if practised, would have 
 been base in the extreme ; but this anecdote is extremely 
 improbable, Cobham being with difficulty brought to sub- 
 scribe to any examination, and therefore not very likely to 
 put his name thus incautiously to a document, in which 
 anything whatsoever might be inserted.f It is however 
 certain, that, either during the illness of the Queen, or of 
 the Prince, Ralegh availed himself of his transitory import- 
 ance, as a man of science, to procure the examination of 
 Cobham, who is stated on that occasion to have acquitted 
 him of all that had been before alleged. Whatever may 
 have been the boon promised for the trial of the cordial, or 
 whether it were granted at this critical period, or during 
 the illness of the Queen, it is singular that he, who had 
 been charged with conspiring to extirpate the King and 
 his family, should have been intrusted with the adminis- 
 tration of any potion to them, the ingredients of which 
 were unknown. Ralegh, expressing a tender concern for 
 the fate of his young patron, complied, however, with the 
 injunction of her Majesty, but accompanied the cordial 
 with a letter, purporting that the remedy would cure the 
 Prince or any other person of a fever, except in case of 
 poison. :f The cordial was received by the Prince's attend 
 
 * Weldon's Court and Character of King James, 12mo. p. 35. 
 
 f Cayley, vol. li. p. 48. note. 
 
 I Welwood's Notes to Wilson, 714. 
 
208 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 ants, was tasted, proved, and given to the expiring youth, 
 but with no other success than that of procuring some rest.* 
 It was not indeed, very probable, that the remedy which 
 had been given with success to the Queen, who had a 
 dropsy, could have a beneficial effect in a fever ; but the 
 belief in specifics was then universal, and Ralegh was not, 
 probably, sufficiently profound in medical science to dis- 
 credit their efficacy. The vital energy of the young 
 Prince's frame was now unhappily destroyed ; and repeated 
 attacks of convulsion and of death-like faintings had at 
 times given birth to the report that life had already fled. 
 Nothing could arrest the hand of death ; and this bud of 
 promise yielded to it on the sixth of November, after an ill- 
 ness obviously of twelve days' continuance, but, in all prob- 
 ability, for some weeks threatening his existence before it 
 was discovered. 
 
 The general impression that some foul conspiracy or pri- 
 vate vengeance had cut short the days of the royal youth, 
 displayed itself immediately after his decease. The King, 
 unwilling, as it was said, to remain so near the gates of 
 sorrow, had removed from the metropolis, where the young 
 prince died, to Theobald's, there to await the event. The 
 Queen, resting upon the rash assertion of Ralegh in his 
 letter to her, affirmed till her last hour that her lamented 
 son had been poisoned.f Upon the dissolution of his house- 
 hold, his chaplain alluded so plainly and so pathetically to 
 the supposed cause of his death, that the audience were 
 melted into tears, and the preacher was afterwards dis- 
 missed for his rashness.} Some time afterwards, when an 
 investigation of the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury was 
 discussed, the Lord Chief Justice Coke plainly intimated 
 that Overbury had been murdered to prevent the discovery 
 of another crime, committed on one of the highest rank, 
 whom he termed a " sweet prince." For this allusion 
 Coke lost the King's favor, and some time afterwards his 
 office. 
 
 The solution of these mysterious remarks was variously 
 attempted by those who pretended to opportunities of form- 
 ing a correct judgment. Of Ralegh's opinion on the sub- 
 ject, we have no evidence, nor would prudence have per 
 
 * Birch's Life of P. Henry, 270. f Wilson, 714. note. 
 
 t Welwood's note, in Wilson, 689. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 209 
 
 mitted him to join in the popular insinuations so dangerous 
 to others, and so certain ofdestruction to himself. Sir Robert 
 Naunton, then in the service of Overbury, the friend and 
 tutor of Car, declared, in a letter to Sir Ralph Winwood, 
 that he " held it not fit to write what he conceived, and less 
 fit to address it to his correspondent, who was then in situ- 
 ations of trust and honor." Rumors of a dark but almost 
 absurd tendency were carried about ; — some asserting that 
 the Prince was poisoned by a bunch of grapes ; others, that 
 an envenomed pair of gloves had communicated a subtle 
 poison to his head,* the pain principally lying in that part, 
 which was found after his death partly filled with water, f 
 The person against whom these insinuations were chiefly 
 levelled was Car, Viscount Rochester, now in the height 
 of the absurd favor which James had for some time lavished 
 upon him. Yet there were those who attributed a share 
 in the untimely death of the Prince to the Spaniards, 
 whose power and policy he opposed, or to the Catholics in 
 general, whose opinions he detested with more zeal than 
 candor or good sense.! Others there also were, who, in 
 secret and guarded terms, ventured even to glance at the 
 King as the instigator or assenter to a crime too heinous 
 and too unnatural for the soul of James to contemplate 
 without horror. It was, perhaps, the indiscreet and heart- 
 less conduct of that monarch on this occasion which in- 
 spired such suspicions. He forbade all mourning in his 
 court, — a circumstance, by no means, however, unprece- 
 dented, since, after the death of Queen Elizabeth, the for- 
 eign ambassadors were forbidden to appear before the 
 King in mourning, and the court was only allowed to wear 
 that tribute of respect for two months^ ; and he was equally 
 negligent in observing that form when his own consort 
 died. The black imputation which has been cast upon 
 him is unsupported by any evidence of more weight than 
 the gossip and slander of his own court ; and it is probable 
 that, had not the disclosures of the infamous Mrs. Turner 
 been brought to light, the alarm of poison would not have 
 been so rapidly conveyed to the public mind, nor so readily 
 cherished when implanted. It was also, probably, com- 
 pletely discredited by those who had witnessed the dutiful 
 
 * Wilson, 690. f Aul. Coq. 154. 
 
 X Wilson, 790. § Ibid. 681. note. 
 
210 LIFE OP SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 and discreet conduct of the young Prince towards his 
 father, who at times had been inclined to censure his son's 
 readiness in entering into public affairs, and even into the 
 regulation of his own household.* 
 
 Whilst the death of Prince Henry precluded all hope of 
 permanent sunshine settling upon the path of Ralegh, that 
 of Cecil produced no peculiar benefit to his interests. Cir- 
 cumstances combining, as it might appear, from mere ac- 
 cident, eventually paved the way, however, to a change 
 seemingly propitious to the restitution of his fortunes. In 
 1614, he was allowed the liberty of the Tower ; a privi- 
 lege which he owed either to the tranquillity of domestic 
 affairs, or possibly to the intercession of the Queen. But 
 this permission was not enjoyed without the alloy of hear- 
 ing that his eldest son Walter was obliged to escape into 
 the Low Countries, on account of a duel in which he had 
 been engaged with Mr. Robert Tyrwhit, a dependant of 
 the Earl of Suffolk, who had succeeded Cecil as Lord High 
 Treasurer.! The issue of this affair has not transpired ; 
 and it can be inferred only that the necessity for absence 
 was merely temporary, from the return of the youth, and 
 his subsequent employment in the enterprise to Guiana. 
 Meanwhile, singular events and changes had taken place 
 in the English court. 
 
 Car, now Earl of Somerset, had for some time been ob- 
 noxious to the greater part of the aristocracy, and at open 
 enmity to the queen, who, from some secret persuasion 
 respecting the mode of Prince Henry's death, had never 
 consented to see the favorite since that event ; a line of 
 conduct the more remarkable, as the thoughtless and profli- 
 gate Anne of Denmark had never, in any other instance, 
 been sufficiently aroused from a career of frivolity and a 
 life of insignificance, to interfere in any public transac- 
 tion.;); Intrigues of the blackest character, and murder, ag- 
 gravated by every artifice of cruelty, had for some time 
 been gradually worked out of the dark mine in which their 
 iniquitous agents had found means to conceal these heinous 
 crimes. Ralegh, in his imprisonment, might compare his 
 fate with that of the unfortunate Sir Thomas Overbury, 
 who now shared the gloomy confinement to which so many 
 
 * Birch's Mem. 381. t Birch, 65. 
 
 t Welvvool's notes to Wilson, 697. 
 
LIFE OP SIR WALTER RALEGH. 211 
 
 in those days of arbitrary power were destined, without 
 the privilege of being heard, or the satisfaction of legal 
 defence. That unhappy man, guilty in having communi- 
 cation with the guilty, had died a victim to the lingering 
 poisons of Somerset and his accomplices, infused into every 
 article of his food, and even into the salt with which his 
 meat was seasoned.* The conspiracy by which his death 
 was accomplished, was revealed by one of its meanest 
 members, the apothecary's boy who administered the last 
 poison ; and Sir Ralph Winwood, formerly ambassador in 
 the Netherlands, assisted by the Queen, brought the whole 
 matter before the King and council. But little would dis- 
 covery have availed to the punishment of the delinquents, 
 had not James found a new object, upon which to lavish 
 the weak fondness of a heart indifferent to its natural and 
 nearest ties. 
 
 George Villiers, afterwards Duke of Buckingham, and 
 the instrument of Ralegh's release from the Tower, was 
 now considered as the rising favorite. Educated by a care- 
 ful and provident mother, herself raised from a low sta- 
 tion to be the second wife of his father, a Leicestershire 
 knight, Villiers was trained in the expectation of his one 
 day becoming a courtierf ; and, being a younger son, with 
 some management furnished with the sum of fifty pounds, 
 and sent up to London. Possessed of a singular and com- 
 manding beauty, of an open and happy countenance,} and 
 of a calm and pliant temper, Villiers soon attracted the 
 notice of the King, who was captivated with his personal 
 advantages, and was afterwards wont to give him the name 
 of Steney, or Stephen, in an allusion, both adulatory and 
 profane, to the solemn occasion of which it is recorded that 
 "the council, looking stedfastly" on that apostle, "saw 
 his face as if it had been the face of an angel. J" "Favored 
 rather by the Graces than the Muses," and endowed with 
 acquirements more brilliant than solid, but displaying 
 eventually both courage as a soldier, and in civil life, Vil- 
 liers was compared to that darling of the chivalrous part of 
 the nation, Brandon, Duke of Suffolk,|| in the time of Henry 
 
 * Wilson, 693. f Wilson, 698. 
 
 t Reliquiae Wottonia:, 77. Parallel between the Duke of Buckingham 
 nd Ea 1 of Essex. 
 
 § Granger's Biography, vol. i. 326. g Rel. Wot. .17. 
 
212 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 VIII. This accomplished nobleman* had never, however, 
 heen admitted to those marks of favor which almost imme- 
 diately succeeded the introduction of young Villiers to 
 James. The King took him instantly to be his cup-bearer, 
 an office by which he was retained in the presence of the 
 monarch, without awakening the jealous suspicions of the 
 former favorite ; and he was soon afterwards made a gentle- 
 man of the bed-chamber. From this time, the ruin of Som- 
 erset proceeded with rapid strides. The King, who had 
 evidently some private reasons for endeavoring to avoid 
 irritating his former idol, dissembled, indeed, with him in 
 the matter of Overbury, whilst he pretended, in his com- 
 munications with the judges, the utmost zeal for the fur- 
 therance of justice. It was during the rise of young Vil 
 , a-, c- liers to the highest distinctions of royal favor, that 
 ' Ralegh, after an imprisonment of twelve years, be- 
 gan to hope once more for the enjoyment of that liberty 
 which he knew so well how to employ. Of the measures 
 which he adopted to procure his liberation little is known, 
 except this melancholy and scandalous fact, that it was not 
 from the relenting sense of justice in the King, or even 
 from his mercy, that Ralegh had to expect this long-craved 
 boon. In those tunes, public honor was perhaps at its low- 
 est ebb, and bribery most upheld in shameless effrontery. 
 It was essential therefore, and perhaps might be excusable, 
 where the greatest blessing of life was concerned, to bend 
 to the corruptions of the times ; and Ralegh, who had for- 
 merly descended to receive, from others, payment for his 
 good offices at court, was now constrained to try the poten- 
 cy of similar inducements to others. Accordingly, he paid 
 to Sir William Saint John, and Sir Edward Villiers, the 
 uncles of the new favorite, the sum of fifteen hundred 
 pounds ; and by this means obtained, with the mediation of 
 the Lady Villiers, the mother of Buckingham, his final re- 
 lease.! A few months before this event, he had the singu- 
 lar fate to behold Somerset, long triumphant whilst he lan- 
 guished in confinement, and the usurper of his valued 
 estate of Sherborne, conducted, as a prisoner, to the Tower. 
 Respecting this vicissitude, Ralegh observed, "that the 
 whole history of the world had not the like precedent, of 
 a king's prisoner to purchase freedom, and his bosom favor- 
 
 * Rel. 30. 31. t Oldys, 192. . 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 213 
 
 Ite to have the halter, but in Scripture, in the case of Mor- 
 decai and Haman." Upon being apprized of this remark, 
 the King 1 is said to have observed, " that Ralegh might die 
 in that deceit*;" a singular proof of James's inveterate dis- 
 like to this persecuted subject, and a most disgraceful one 
 of the monarch's secret, and afterwards fulfilled intentions 
 to uphold the sinner in his ways. 
 
 On the 17th of March 1615, Ralegh was liberated, and 
 on the same day he addressed to Villiers the following 
 letter : — 
 
 " Sir, — You have, by your mediation, put me again into 
 the world. I can but acknowledge it : for to pay any part 
 of your favor, by any service of mine, as yet is not in my 
 power. If it succeed well, a good part of the honor shall 
 be yours ; and if I do not also make it profitable unto you, I 
 shall show myself exceeding ungrateful. In the mean- 
 while, and till God discover the success, I beseech you to 
 reckon me among the number of your faithful servants, 
 though the least able. 
 
 "W. Ralegh.!" 
 
 CHAPTER VE. 
 
 Ralegh's Designs with regard to Guiana.— His last Voyage thither.— Its 
 unfortunate issue.— His Return.— Apprehension.— Trial.— Death.— Ac- 
 count of his Literary Works, and Character. 
 
 It is interesting to conjecture what are likely to be the 
 reflections, and the first efforts of an able and ambitious 
 man, the restlessness of whose active mind has been long 
 repressed by despair, and the co-operating energy of whose 
 bodily exertions diminished, if not annihilated, by the chill- 
 ing quietude of imprisonment. In returning to what Ra- 
 legh might almost deem a renewed existence, he cherished 
 with most avidity the fruition of hopes which had been 
 nurtured in seclusion, and rushed with the greatest degree 
 of ardor into schemes, to which, by contrast with the drea- 
 riness and monotony of the foregoing years, a false bril- 
 liancy had been imparted. 
 
 It has been remarked, in the course of this narrative, 
 
 * Birch, Cfi. f Oldyg, 192. 
 
214 LIFE OP SIR WALTER RAI.EGH. 
 
 that his inclinations had been early directed to maritime 
 pursuits, with a greater zest than to any other means of 
 acquiring 1 fame ; a preference resulting, probably, from the 
 associations of his infancy with those whose lives were 
 sedulously passed in advancing the interests of navigation. 
 As maturer age brought to his view the advantages of 
 speculation to his rising fortunes, Ralegh had continued hia 
 naval exploits with the avidity with which mercantile oc- 
 cupations are usually followed, and with the boldness and 
 determination which characterize warlike affairs. In the 
 decline of life, he now regarded his former researches in 
 remote countries as a resource, by the aid of which he 
 might raise his name from degradation, and his condition to 
 affluence and honor. In a retirement of twelve years' con- 
 tinuance, schemes of fresh enterprise and exertion had 
 been his solace and employment, and the first acquisition 
 of liberty was devoted to the fruition of these cherished de- 
 signs. Unhappily for him, his plans partook of that spirit 
 of romance and temerity which a long seclusion from gene- 
 ral society sometimes engenders ; and the hopes with which 
 he adorned the prospects of futurity, were lavished upon 
 grounds not calculated to bring him an equitable produce. 
 In order to comprehend fully the merits of the undertaking 
 upon which his solitary meditations were employed, it is 
 necessary to refer to the exertions which Ralegh had made, 
 at a former period of his life, in promoting the extension 
 of maritime discovery. 
 
 It were tedious to recapitulate the voyage which he 
 made to Guiana in 1595. Since that fruitless expedition, 
 ; t might appear that important occupations, and repeated 
 anxieties and vicissitudes, would have banished all future 
 projects of the same nature from the mind of Ralegh. 
 During the life of Cecil it was, indeed, hopeless to en- 
 deavor to procure liberty ; and, if liberty, permission for 
 the renewal of this scheme. By a letter in the State Paper 
 Office, it is evident that Ralegh found the opposition of 
 that minister insurmountable ; for, addressing the Queen,* 
 he informs her that he had lately presumed to send her 
 Majesty the copy of a letter written to the Lord Treasurer 
 concerning Guiana ; and that " there was nothing done 
 therein, he could not but wonder with the world, did not 
 
 * See Appendix, R. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 215 
 
 die malice of the world exceed the wisdom thereof." " In 
 mine own respect," he continues, " the ever-1'ving God 
 d:>th witness that I never sought such an employment; for 
 all the gold on the earth could not invite me to travel after 
 misery and death, both which I had been more likely to have 
 overtaken in that voyage, than to have returned from it." 
 The design of revisiting Guiana was, as he affirms, revived 
 entirely foi the approving of his faith to the King, " and 
 to have done him such a service as had seldom been per- 
 formed for any king.*" But James, influenced by Cecil, 
 and by Ralegh's other enemies at court, listened to the 
 supplications of the Queen, and to all other mediators for 
 the unhappy prisoner, only to reply to them in these 
 words : — " That his council knew him better than he did." 
 Some indications of a relenting spirit on the part of gov- 
 ernment, appeared, however, towards the latter years of 
 Ralegh's imprisonment.! In aid of these, his own personal 
 exertions, and the small remains of his property, had been 
 continually applied. Even in times of difficulty and dis- 
 tress, he had been able to send a vessel every year to 
 Guiana, to reassure the hopes of the affrighted Indians,, 
 who were perpetually liable to the invasions and outrages 
 of the Spanish Colonies in South America. By the ships 
 thus dispatched, natives of the province had been occa- 
 sionally brought to England, and allowed to communicate 
 with Ralegh in the Tower, J After the death of Cecil, and 
 upon the appointment of Sir Ralph Winwood to the office 
 of Secretary of State, Ralegh resumed his propo- lfi -i 4 
 sals, and in a letter to him, declared it to be his own 
 greatest infelicity, that the King " did not know him as 
 those courtiers pretended to do; for, had his Majesty 
 known him, he would never have been where he then 
 was ; or, had he known his Majesty, they had never been 
 so long where they then were." 
 
 To the furtherance of his designs, the patronage, or at 
 least the indulgence, of the court, was far more essential 
 than his individual efforts ; and Ralegh, with a perseverance 
 not to be daunted, resolved to address himself, again and 
 again, to that source, humbly to supplicate permission to 
 venture the wreck of his fortunes, and the remaining 
 
 * See Original. Letter. f Harleian Miscel.any, iii. 145. 
 
 J Ralegh's Apol. for the Voyage ti Guiana, im Birch, vol. ii. p. 52, 53 
 
216 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 ,«jc strength of an enfeebled constitution, in the service 
 of his country. In Sir Ralph Winwood lie met 
 with a degree of indulgence and encouragement to which 
 he had long been a stranger. Winwood had but recently- 
 acquired a justly merited portion of influence, from which 
 he had been precluded during the prosperity of Somerset ; 
 who, although occupying the less important office of cham- 
 berlain, had engrossed the actual control of all state em- 
 ployments, and had suffered no places nor favors to be 
 given away except by his own hands, or through his ac- 
 knowledged mediation.* Upon the disgrace of Somerset, 
 Winwood had a transitory enjoyment of real authority, 
 which was closed, however, by his death, in less than two 
 years, worn out by age, and still more by the fatigues of 
 an active and anxious career. To him, Ralegh now, how- 
 ever, addressed a letter, induced, probably, to hope for a 
 favorable reply to his petitions, from the integrity of Win- 
 wood, who required no bribery from suitors to enforce the 
 justice of their petitions, and by his well-known abilities 
 and attainments, which might enable the veteran ambas- 
 sador justly to appreciate schemes of public utility. It 
 was, also, a circumstance of some avail to Ralegh, that Sir 
 Ralph was in close union with the Queen, who, in con- 
 junction with the secretary, had formed the rival party to 
 Somerset and to his factionf ; for it is evident, from the 
 whole tenor of Anne's conduct to Ralegh, that she was 
 fully sensible of his innocence, and persuaded of the loyalty 
 of his actions and motives. To this favorable disposition, 
 Ralegh, in his letter to Sir Ralph Winwood, on this occa- 
 sion, makes a pointed allusion, when he observes, that " the 
 wife, the brother, and the son of a King, do not use to sue 
 for men suspect.]:" Seconded by friends so powerful, and 
 possessing in the Queen one who during the short remain- 
 der of her life never forsook him, it might seem that Ra- 
 legh's days of prosperity had now returned with renewed 
 freshness ; yet never was he in a condition of more immi- 
 nent peril than at this juncture, when, emerging apparent 
 ly from obscurity and distress, he hastened into snares 
 which were curiously connected with the political concerns 
 and intrigues of the period. 
 
 * Wilson's James I., p. 698. Grainger i. p. 381. f Wilson, p. 696. 
 X Letter in Cayley, vol. ii. p. 58. See Appendix. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 217 
 
 It had ever been a determined project with King James, 
 that the " beams" of his eldest son's greatness should dis- 
 play themselves only in a royal horizon * The death of 
 Prince Henry had occasioned no change in his plan ; for 
 that lamented youth, although far more beloved by the 
 people than the serious and reserved Prince Charles, had 
 never either shared the affections, nor participated in the 
 intimacy, of the King. The inclinations of James were 
 well understood at the Spanish Court, and his hopes per- 
 petually excited of an union between the house of Stuart 
 and the Infanta of Spain, daughter of Philip III. The 
 treaty, however, proceeded but slowly, partly from the 
 natural caution and gravity of the Spanish character, and 
 partly, as it was thought, from a dread which the Spaniards 
 entertained, of renewing a species of bond and alliance, 
 which had proved so disastrous between them in the in- 
 stance of Henry VIII. and Katharine of Arragon.f It was 
 during this uncertain state of affairs, that Don Diego of 
 Sarmiento, better known in this country by the name of 
 Gondemar, was selected by the Spanish ministry to act as 
 ambassador in England ; not, indeed, without well-ground- 
 ed expectations that his address, vivacity, and consummate 
 effrontery, would work upon the simplicity of James, and 
 reduce him wholly to a conformity to the interests of Spain. 
 Furnished not only with all the requisites of an expert 
 courtier, but with ample means of bribery and corruption, 
 Gondemar soon contrived to bring the most important per- 
 sonages, whether male or female, in the court, into a close 
 compact with him, and into a full co-operation with his in- 
 trigues. The derelictions from integrity, which were at 
 this time prevalent among the highest officers of state, 
 were both scandalous and appalling ; and of these Gonde- 
 mar knew well how to avail himself; nor was his danger- 
 ous influence to be estimated only by the duration of his 
 power. He implanted within the bosom of the court seeds 
 of avarice, and of notions of self-aggrandizement, — the 
 fruits and effects of which were transmitted from father to 
 son ; and the boasted ages of James I., and of his son, un- 
 duly extolled, as they have been, as an era of private virtue 
 and probity, evince, in then annals, corruptions which were 
 
 * Wilson, 702. 
 
 t Weldon, 32. See also Lodge's Illustrations, iii. 286. 
 
 T 
 
218 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 nearly, if not wholly unknown, among the English nobility 
 under the capricious, but rigid dominion of the Tudors. So 
 notorious, indeed, were the practices of Gondemar upon 
 the virtue of our courtiers, that, in a few years after his 
 residence in England, there was said not to be a single 
 courtier who had not tasted of Spanish bounty ; and if Ce- 
 cil himself were exempt, his favorite, the Countess of Suf- 
 folk, was permitted by him to reap the profits of his pur- 
 chased influence — the famous palace of Audley End having 
 been unblushingly erected by the aid of bribes received 
 from the Spanish ambassador. 
 
 These, although notorious, are but scanty instances 
 among the numerous collusions of the same nature alluded 
 to by historians. 
 
 It was during the height of the Spanish dominion over 
 the king and court, that Ralegh was unhappily induced to 
 bring to maturity his cherished schemes of subduing Gui- 
 ana. The Spaniards had already looked with jealousy 
 upon his former expeditions, but had either dreaded the 
 displeasure of his early patroness, the formidable Elizabeth, 
 or had discarded the task of frustrating the progress of our 
 colonists in that quarter for more important contests. The 
 renewal of his designs, however, at a time when the influ- 
 ence of the Spanish Court seemed to be fairly established 
 here, was no sooner imparted to the public than it was ve- 
 hemently opposed by the insidious yet determined Gonde- 
 mar. Unluckily he had in James a frail vessel upon which 
 to pour the venom of his machinations. The King, on this 
 occasion, conducted himself with a vacillation and pusil- 
 lanimity verging into deception of the most reprehensible 
 character. He had, in the first instance, cordially acqui- 
 esced in Ralegh's project, and, according to some accounts, 
 had acceded to the release of that oppressed subject the 
 more readily that some remote prospects of wealth and 
 conquest seemed to await his restored exertions. With a 
 degree of treachery which indecision and weakness can 
 account for, but not excuse, he now not only imparted the 
 nature of the whole scheme to Gondemar, but enabled the 
 ambassador to furnish the Spanish monarch with every par- 
 ticular of the intended attack, and consequently with the 
 means of annulling its success.* 
 
 * Biographia. Life of Ralegh. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 219 
 
 Unconscious of these proceedings, Ralegh prepared to 
 venture the last remains of a once ample fortune m the 
 fatal enterprise on which he was intent. The expenses 
 of this expedition were defrayed entirely by himself or by 
 his friends, some few adventurers, chiefly foreigners, being 
 found to share in the undertaking* The sum of eight 
 thousand pounds, which had been granted by King James 
 as a compensation for the sequestration of Ralegh's valua- 
 ble estates, was now reclaimed from the Countess of Bed- 
 ford, to whom it had been lent.f The disinterested and 
 devoted Lady Ralegh gave her consent to the sole of an 
 estate belonging to her at Mitcham in Surrey, and valued 
 at two thousand five hundred pounds; a sacrifice by which 
 she was reduced eventually almost to beggary, but which 
 proved her confidence in the good faith of her husband, and 
 her belief both in the practicability of his scheme, and in 
 his intentions of fulfilling his professions regarding Guiana. 
 A commission was also procured through the mediation of 
 Sir Ralph Winwood, constituting Ralegh Admiral of the 
 Fleet, and dated Aug. 26, 1616 ; but this document was 
 not granted until after he had given the most decided assu- 
 rances to the government that he had no hostile intentions 
 or piratical designs upon the Spanish settlements; and 
 chiefly, according to the noted declaration of King James, 
 afterwards published, because it " stood with His Majes- 
 ty's politic and magnanimous courses in these his flourish- 
 ing times of peace to nourish and encourage noble and 
 generous enterprises for plantations, discoveries, and open- 
 ing of new trades.J" To this document, the Privy Seal 
 was alone affixed, as King James in his declaration affirm- 
 ed ; yet Ralegh is said to have referred to the authority of 
 the Great Seal in a letter which he dictated to be written 
 relative to his voyage, J and the powers vested in him were 
 both extensive and important. 
 The commission specified, that for the benefit of the 
 
 *01dys, 193. fCayley, ii. 61. J Declaration of King James. 
 
 SOldys, 193. Cayley. Appendix. This was a letter written by Mr. 
 Peter Vanlore, an eminent merchant, to his brother at Amsterdam, in 
 favor of Ralegh's undertaking, entreating him to receive some deposi 
 tions of importance relative to Guiana, from a merchant of Amsterdam, 
 who required, as the reward of the information which he was able to 
 give an agreement on the part of Ralegh that he should share the profits 
 of the commodity referred to in the intelligence thus afforded.— Oldyg 
 fbl. 193 
 
220 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 subjects of the realm, and the encouragement of others in 
 the "like laudable enterprises, the princely furtherance 
 was given to Sir Walter Ralegh and his friends, with full 
 power to carry for the voyage to Guiana so many of the 
 British subjects, or such as should become British subjects, 
 as should willingly accompany him, with an unlimited supply 
 of arms, ammunition, ships," &c. To these clauses was 
 added the permission to trade in goods and merchandise, 
 and to bring back gold, silver, bullion, and other wares to 
 this country, " for the proper use of Sir Walter Ralegh 
 and his company, reserving to the King and his heirs, one 
 fifth only of such importations." In addition to these pow- 
 ers, Ralegh was authorized to pass to the south or other 
 parts of America ; was constituted also general and com- 
 mander of the enterprise ; governor of the new country, 
 and endowed with the privilege of exercising martial law, 
 in a similar manner to the county lieutenants in England, 
 or to the lieutenant-general of land or sea forces. Respect- 
 ing this commission, of which an abstract was given sub- 
 sequently to Ralegh's death in King James's declaration, 
 various reports were circulated ; and in particular a state- 
 ment was made that the words " to our trusty and well- 
 beloved knight, Sir Walter Ralegh," were prefixed ; ex- 
 pressions which Ralegh is said to have afterwards pleaded 
 as implying a pardon.* Regarding this important detail 
 the royal declaration is silent ; although it gives an abstract 
 of the original commission. It has been well remarked 
 that the disingenuity and artifice of the whole proceeding 
 was manifested in the terms of this abstract ; the country 
 which Ralegh was empowered to explore not being even 
 once specified by name, and America alone referred to as 
 the vast and indefinite region of his enterprise. Such was 
 the paltry subterfuge by which James, or his ministers, 
 sought to evade the displeasure of the Spaniards, in the 
 event of hostile measures between Ralegh and the Span- 
 ish settlers in Guiana proving eventually necessary. 
 
 The sanguine expectations of success which Ralegh en- 
 tertained, appear to have lessened his natural discernment, 
 and to have blinded him to the snares concealed in the 
 
 *See Declaration of King James in Oldys, 193, 194, also Birch, i. 68. 
 t Ralegh's Remains, p. 200. Rapin's History of England, and Trini 
 dad's notes. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 221 
 
 apparent liberality of the King's dealings towards him, and 
 to the danger of confiding in a government which had 
 already, upon unsatisfactory evidence and an illegal trial, 
 subjected him to a cruel incarceration. Some misgivings 
 appear to have suggested the notion of a more definite re- 
 lease from his former sentence, than he had hitherto found 
 it possible, or deemed it essential to procure. Assured, to 
 all appearance, of the King's perfect accordance, and even 
 patronage ; and trusting in the good faith of a monarch to 
 whom that principle of action was unknown, and who 
 could afterwards avail himself of an informality to depart 
 from the virtual sense of an implied permission, Ralegh 
 was not devoid of a natural apprehension concerning the 
 use to which his enemies might, subsequently, apply any 
 deficiency in the forms of his restoration to an implied 
 equality with his free fellow-subjects. As his liberation 
 had been effected by working upon the corruptions of the 
 times, so he now turned his attention to obtaining explici 
 pardon through the same means. There was in those days 
 but little difficulty in obtaining almost any boon for money, 
 and Ralegh had even a proposal from Sir William St. John, 
 who had been instrumental in procuring his liberation, tc 
 effect his pardon for the sum of j£1500.* But being, proba- 
 bly, not in a state to aftbrd such a payment, in addition to 
 the expenses of his projected voyage, Ralegh had recourse 
 to the advice of Lord Bacon, then Lord Keeper, and him- 
 self but recently restored to royal favor. Upon the coun- 
 sels of this profound observer of human nature and its 
 concerns, the ill-fated Ralegh rejected the overture made 
 to him by Sir William St. John. The memorable and dis- 
 tinct assurance of the illustrious Bacon, on this occasion, 
 is related by two contemporary writers, and it exonerates 
 Ralegh from the charge either of indiscretion, or of neg- 
 ligence, in not obtaining the necessary documents. " Sir,' 
 said the highly-gifted minister, in reply to his application 
 " the knee-timber of your voyage is money ; spare youi 
 purse in this particular ; for, upon my life, you have a suf- 
 ficient pardon for all that is passed already : the King 
 having, under his broad seal, made you Admiral of hia 
 Fleet, and given you power of the martial law over your 
 
 * Brief Relation of Ralegh's Troubles. Remains. 
 
 T2 
 
222 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 officers and soldiers.*" This opinion, besides elucidating 
 the opinion of Bacon upon the illegality of the subsequent 
 proceedings against Ralegh, establishes the fact of the 
 original commission having been given under the Great 
 Seal, notwithstanding that it is expressly set down in the 
 King's printed declaration as "per breve de privato sigil- 
 lo.f" But although the advice was consonant, not only 
 with law, but with common sense, the motives of Bacon in 
 affording it have been questioned, and attributed to a ser- 
 vile desire of flattering the King's wishes, by affording 
 James an opportunity of excusing any future prosecution 
 of Ralegh, upon the ground of the sentence of death passed 
 against him in 1603, never having been repealed. Un- 
 happily the character of Bacon authorizes no indignant 
 rejection of surmises too easily reconcilable with the cor- 
 ruption of his conduct, and the unfathomable duplicity of 
 his nature. But, since there is no proof of the charge, no 
 record of any particular benefit which he derived from the 
 counsel, it may be hoped, if not inferred, that Bacon was 
 in this instance innocent of betraying one who trusted in 
 his counsels, and enthusiastically reverenced his talents ; 
 one whose labors for the improvement of mankind, sprung, 
 like those of Bacon, in many instances, from the pure 
 sources of patriotism and philanthropy, and raising them 
 both, in that sense, far above the level of the age in which 
 they lived, and the characters by whom they were sur- 
 rounded, procured for them memorials of fame independ- 
 ent of the passing history with which they were but tem- 
 porarily connected, and distinct from the errors by which 
 their conduct in relation to worldly concerns was lamenta- 
 bly sullied. 
 
 All preliminaries being arranged, Ralegh, seven months 
 after the date of the royal commission, completed the pre- 
 paration of his fleet ; and on the 28th of March, 1618, be- 
 gan his ill-omened voyage, and sailed down the Thames. 
 In assembling the force with which he prepared to set forth 
 upon this expedition, having had recourse to the aid of 
 several merchant adventurers, he was compelled to accept 
 as his associates, and to collect as his subordinate assistants, 
 
 *See Howell's Familiar Letters. Oxford Edition of Ralegh's Workg, 
 vol. viii. p. 752. 
 
 fNote to Biog. ; Life of Ralegh: and Observations on Sanderson'! 
 Hist. K James, p. 10. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 223 
 
 men, and even officers, who had never witnessed either 
 land or sea service ; and of desperate, or at least disreput- 
 able characters, whose friends were happy to procure for 
 them any employment, which for the sum of forty or fifty 
 pounds could retain them abroad for a year ; and if not out 
 of mischief, at least in habits of active exertion for some 
 time. The volunteers on this occasion were, therefore, 
 with the exception of forty gentlemen, a disorderly and in- 
 efficient assemblage of dissolute and unprofitable persons, 
 whom it was Ralegh's hopeless task to organize, and to 
 stimulate with the same ardent desires as those which ani- 
 mated his own bosom. In describing these, his compan- 
 ions, Ralegh expresses himself in these characteristic 
 terms : " Their friends," says he, " thought it an exceeding 
 good gain to be discharged of them, at the hazard of some 
 thirty, some forty, or fifty pounds, knowing they could not 
 Jive so cheap at home.*" These valiant characters, stowed, 
 at first, in six different ships, were joined by several others 
 before they left the English coast. Ralegh, in a vessel ap- 
 propriately named " The Destiny," carrying 440 tons and 
 36 pieces of ordnance, and built at his own charge, was ac- 
 companied by his eldest son as captain, and by two hundred 
 volunteers, eighty of whom were gentlemen, and many of 
 them his relations, the number of whom was afterwards in- 
 creased.! For the benefit of this motley company, , „,~ 
 Ralegh, previous to their sailing, published at Ply- 
 mouth orders to be observed by the several commanders 
 of the fleet and land forces.f It is observable, that he who 
 was taxed by the illiberal and uncharitable part of the 
 community in his own day, and who has, in a great mea- 
 sure, been supposed even in the present age to have been 
 coldly affected to religion, § prefaces these regulations with 
 strict injunctions to begin and close the day with Divine 
 service ; enforcing his exhortations with a solemn admoni- 
 tion, by which he reminds them that " no action nor enter- 
 prise can prosper (be it by land or sea), without the favor 
 and assistance of Almighty God, the Lord and strength of 
 hosts and armies ;" and enjoining them, if there be inter- 
 ruption from foul weather, to perform this important and 
 
 * Camden's Annals. Ralegh, Apology for his Voyage to Guiana, Ox- 
 ford ed. of his works, 
 t Cayley, vol. ii. p. 65. % Birch, i. icvii. 
 
 § See Hume's History of England, reign of James I. 
 
224 LIFE OF SIR WALTEL RALEGH. 
 
 consolatory duty at least once during the day ; " praising 
 God every night with singing of a psalm at the setting of 
 the watch.*" 
 
 Such was the spirit of his last instructions previous to 
 the commencement of his voyage. If, in directing an im- 
 moral and undisciplined crew, he deemed the soothing in- 
 fluence of religious habits efficacious, it is to he hoped that 
 he experienced also, in his own mind, the benign effects of 
 those serious and pious contemplations to which his mind 
 appears to have resorted in the seasons of his heavy afflic- 
 tions ; and which could alone effectually support him in the 
 renewed and overwhelming calamities which it was soon 
 his destiny to encounter. 
 
 The very outset of Ralegh's enterprise was inauspicious. 
 It was late in June, or perhaps early in July, before he had 
 fairly put to sea, and, after various disappointments and 
 impediments previous to his voyage, he was obliged by 
 tempestuous weather to take refuge in the harbor of Cork, 
 where he remained until the month of August had nearly 
 elapsed, and was spent in anxiety and inactivity. These 
 disasters were aggravated, if not at the time, at a subse- 
 quent period, by reports that he had no intention of going 
 to Guiana, but that he lingered at Plymouth when he had 
 a fair wind ; a rumor which was accompanied by the con- 
 trary assertion, that he meant to turn pirate, and to return 
 to his country no more.f And a similar accusation was re- 
 iterated against his involuntary loss of time in Ireland, 
 which he had no intention of touching when he left Eng- 
 land. These disparaging and defamatory statements were 
 attributed by Ralegh to the circumstance of his being in 
 the eye of tire law still a culprit, which emboldened all who 
 were disaffected to his interests and service, to spread 
 abroad calumnies which they would not have dared to utter 
 against one who basked in the sunshine of royal favor.| At 
 length, in September, he gained the Canary Islands ; in 
 October, those of Cape de Verd ; reaching, in November, 
 the continent of South America. In this calamitous pas- 
 sage an accumulation of disasters arrived, which no pen 
 but that of Ralegh could describe in the touching language 
 in which he poured forth his sorrows to his anxious and 
 ever-devoted wife.§ 
 
 * Ralegh's Apol. in Cayley, vol. ii. p. 84. t Ibid. t Apology. 
 
 § See Letter to Lady Ralegh, in Ralegh's Remains, duod. 1664. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 225 
 
 In this letter, the first which he addressed to her from 
 Guiana, he describes himself as suffering from the most 
 violent calenture (or fever) for fifteen days, that man ever 
 endured and survived : " but God," he continues, " that gave 
 me a strong heart in all my adversities, hath also now 
 strengthened it in the hell-fire of heat." 
 
 During the course of the voyage forty-two persons died 
 of some contagious distemper, and many of the crew were 
 still diseased upon landing at Guiana. Two hundred ef- 
 fective men, however, remained ; and, with these, Ralegh 
 expected to advance, provided that the Spaniards had not, 
 upon the information of Gondemar, fortified themselves 
 to resist his approach ; a circumstance which, by the tone 
 of his language, he seemed to consider as but too proba- 
 ble.* 
 
 In this conjunction of difficulties and of disappointments, 
 he had the satisfaction of being able to assure the anxious 
 mother whom he addressed, that their eldest son, who ac- 
 companied him, was in perfect health, and had escaped 
 every distemper whilst enduring the equinoctial heat. This 
 consolatory intelligence was soon to be succeeded by tidings 
 of the most afflicting nature, both to him who was destined to 
 communicate, and to her who received the blow which 
 they imparted. Such was the distress, apprehension, and 
 regret, which Ralegh experienced during these early days 
 of his enterprise, that, in desiring to be remembered to two 
 of his friends, he apologized for not addressing himself to 
 them in these afflicting terms ; — " I write not to them, for 
 I can write of naught but miseries.f " Yet, in the extremi- 
 ty of his suffering, a sanguine temper, and still more, a 
 confidence in the superintendence of that Providence which 
 had permitted him to pass securely the dangers of the 
 ocean, upheld and cheered him. " By the next, I trust, you 
 shall hear better of us : in God's hands we were, and in 
 Him we trust." In the conclusion of his letter, the vanity 
 natural to human nature was apparent, and, with a desire 
 to solace the individual whom he addressed, probably insti- 
 gated this parting effusion : " To tell you that I might be, 
 here, King of the Indians, were a vanity ; but my name 
 hath lived among them : here they feed me with fresh meat, 
 
 * Remains, 224. t Ibid. 225. 
 
226 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 and all that the country yields — all offer to obey me. Com 
 mend me to poor Carew, my son.*" 
 
 But the difficulties and suffering's which Ralegh ermme- 
 -ated in his first letter from Guiana were far exceeded by 
 others of a far more momentous and poignant character, ac- 
 counted by him, in his narrative to Sir Ralph Winwood, as 
 the greatest misfortunes that ever befell any man.f 
 
 In the first place, the passage from Cape de Verd to 
 America, which was usually in those days accomplished in 
 fifteen or twenty days, was with difficulty made by Ralegh 
 in six weeks, from adverse winds and storms, and the addi- 
 tional inconvenience to the little fleet of losing its water- 
 casks and anchors off Bravo, one of the Cape de Verd 
 Islands, upon which it was driven by a hurricane, to the 
 imminent peril of the ships and mariners. 
 
 When, at length, the adventurers reached Guiana, many 
 of the bravest men were disabled by sickness, and Ralegh 
 himself, having, as he describes it, been " in the hands of 
 death these six weeks," was carried on shore in a chair, 
 but was received with great kindness and hospitality by 
 such of the Indians as remembered his former voyage. 
 
 He now dispatched Captain Keymis, who was well ac- 
 quainted with the country, to sad into the Oronooko in 
 search of the mine, and intrusted him with the command 
 of five small ships, manned with the most valiant portion 
 of the crew and officers, among whom were Lord North 
 and Lord Mounteagle. The forces of this devoted and en- 
 terprising band were divided into five companies, one of 
 which was commanded by Captain Ralegh, who was des- 
 tined never to return. Another was conducted by George 
 Ralegh, a nephew of Sir Walter's, who thus ventured his 
 best and dearest connexions in the cause, in the success 
 of which he was so nearly interested ; and concerning 
 which, he may, without severity, be said to have displayed 
 some degree of infatuation. As the unfortunate adven- 
 turers passed up the river, the Spaniards, who had been 
 apprized by intelligence from England of their proceedings, 
 attacked them both with muskets and ordnance. The first 
 assault was, therefore, made on the side of the Spaniards, 
 but the English soon drove them out of St. Thomas, a new 
 town belonging to the Spaniards, and situated on the 
 
 ♦ Remains, 226. t Letter to Winwood, Remains, 226. 
 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 227 
 
 Oronooko. In this action, the dauntless youth, Walter 
 Ralegh, " more desirous of honor than safety," was killed : 
 " with whom," said the agonized father, " to say truth, all 
 the respects of this world have taken end in me.*" Of 
 this event Ralegh was informed by Keymis, in a letter, 
 dated from Oronooko on the 8th of January, and beginning 
 m a manner calculated to excite parental apprehensions. 
 " All things that appertain to human condition," began 
 this veteran companion, " in that proper nature and sense 
 which of fate and necessity belongeth unto them, being 
 now over with your son, maketh me to choose rather, with 
 grief, to let you know from me the certain truth, than un- 
 certain lies from others, which is, viz. — that had not his 
 extraordinary valor and forwardness, (which, with constant 
 vigor of mind, being in the hands of death, his last breath 
 expressed in these words, ' Lord have mercy on me, and 
 prosper your enterprise,') led them all on, when some be- 
 gan to pause and recoil shamefully, this action had neither 
 been attempted as it was, nor performed as it is, with this 
 surviving honor. f" That the son was worthy of his ener- 
 getic and dauntless parent may be inferred from this sim- 
 ple account : that he was deeply and incessantly mourned 
 by that parent, is evident from the perpetual and touching 
 allusions which Ralegh, in every narrative of this unhappy 
 affair, makes to his memory and early fate. This part of 
 his history requires, however, no comment. Those, who 
 have been happy enough to escape the severest of all earth- 
 ly privations, the loss of a child in the bloom and promise 
 of youth, may easily comprehend the extent of his sor- 
 rows ; those who have encountered a similar calamity, will 
 too readily feel it. The particular details of his son's death 
 were afterwards too soon communicated to Ralegh, sick, 
 both in body and mind, at Trinidad, where he had prom- 
 ised to await the return of the detachment. The troops 
 commanded by Keymis had departed from Ralegh's in- 
 structions in landing near St. Thomas, instead of pursuing, 
 through the country, that real or imaginary track which he 
 had designated to them as conducting to the gold mine 
 which they sought. Thus, attacked by the Spaniards, and 
 brought into immediate contact with the governor of the 
 fort, young Ralegh was borne down by the but-end of a 
 
 * Letter to Winwood. t Sie Keymis's Letter. 
 
228 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 Spanish musket, in the hands of a commander whom he 
 pursued at the head of a company of pikes. The English 
 captain's sergeant quickly revenged the death of his mas- 
 ter, by thrusting his halberd into the body of the Spanish 
 officer. Two other officers, and the governor himself, fell 
 in the engagement: the inhabitants of St. Thomas took 
 shelter in the market-place, whence they committed great 
 havoc on the assailants, who, in an evil hour, but, as they 
 contended, for self-defence, were induced to set fire to the 
 town. The garrison retreated to the woods and moun- 
 tains, still harassing their English foes, and steadily guard- 
 ing all avenues to the interior of the country, where, as it 
 was supposed even after Ralegh's death, several valuable 
 mines were situated.* 
 
 Of this affair, especially with regard to the share which 
 young Ralegh took in it, various and contradictory ac- 
 counts were transmitted. It was the current report of the 
 day,f and afterwards asserted by royal proclamation, that 
 this young commander, on leading his soldiers forward to 
 the town, exclaimed, " Come on, my hearts, here is the 
 mine that we expect, they that look for any other are 
 fools4" This anecdote, whether true or false, tends not 
 however to substantiate, as King James infers, the opinion 
 that the mine of Guiana was an airy scheme, uncredited 
 by the followers of Ralegh, and sketched out by him only 
 for the purpose of obtaining liberty to try the ground of 
 enterprise, cherishing at the same time some sinister and 
 unavowed motive. The thoughtlessness of youth, to whom 
 the present time and the nearest object are ever most im- 
 portant, may have induced the unexperienced and daring 
 officer to tempt his soldiers with the prospect of immediate 
 booty, as most attainable and precious. It is, however, 
 probable, from the silence of Keymis on this point, that the 
 speech was fabricated by some of the many individuals 
 whom Ralegh found reason to regard, even among his own 
 officers, as enemies and calumniators. 
 
 On the 18th of January, Keymis prepared to proceed to 
 the mine, which was situated, according to report, at the 
 distance of eight miles only from the town. It is remarka- 
 ble that he saw neither coin nor bullion in St. Thomas, al- 
 
 * Birch, i. 78. f Howell's Letters, Oxf edit, of Ralegh, vol. viii. 
 
 J Ohiys, note, foi. 203. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 229 
 
 though the principal houses, as he affirms in his letter to 
 Ralegh, were those belonging to gold refiners.* Encour- 
 aged by the representations of a Mulatto servant, who had 
 been in the service of the Governor, and who positively 
 described the precise situation of several mines, Keymis, 
 accompanied by three of his principal officers, attempted tc 
 land on an unexplored part of the shores of the Oronooko, 
 but was driven back by an ambuscade of Spaniards, with 
 the loss of two of his men, and the complete disablement 
 of one officer. The repulse overpowered the resolution of 
 the captain, who was either inexcusably timid in his mili- 
 tary operations, or secretly deficient in confidence with 
 respect to the object which it was his mission to seek. It 
 may readily be supposed, that the last inference was too 
 readily drawn by those who had either but little reliance 
 on Ralegh's sincerity, or who had private motives for put- 
 ting the worst construction on his conduct. The fact of 
 Keymis's desertion of his search, upon a partial success 
 checked only by a trifling defeat, is indeed remarkable: 
 and, if the intentions of a commander of an expedition are 
 always to be estimated by the proceedings of his officers, 
 extremely injurious to Ralegh's reputation. 
 
 Struck with panic, or actuated by treachery, Keymis set 
 sail, and proceeded down the river to Punto de Gallo, a 
 port near Trinidad, where Ralegh had awaited his return 
 in the greatest anxiety, both for tidings of his success, and 
 lest the Spanish fleet, which, as he had been apprized, was 
 arrived to attack him, should overwhelm him with its une- 
 qual forces during the absence of that portion of his land 
 and sea forces which Keymis commanded. Sickness had 
 enfeebled his men, and impaired his own powers of exer- 
 tion ; and treachery had contaminated his crew. It was 
 his custom, and probably his delight, to go on shore from 
 time to time, to make observations both of a botanical and 
 mineralogical nature ; thus refreshing his spirits with the 
 consolatory investigations of Nature's stores, curious, and 
 in many respects bounteous, in that region. In a journal 
 which he wrote of part of this expedition, and which has 
 been preserved in the British Museum amongst the manu- 
 scripts of his friend Sir Robert Cotton, Ralegh minutely 
 describes the productions of the country which he, in this 
 
 * Oldys, 204, from Ralegh's Apology, p. 32. 
 
 u 
 
2.30 I IFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 manner, industriously explored.* But whilst he was thug 
 beneficially engaged, a rumor that his ships were loaded 
 with treasure to a large amount, tempted a considerable 
 number of his crew to discuss the expediency of leaving 
 him on those shores, a prey to wild beasts, or to the Span- 
 iards, who had already wreaked their vengeance upon 
 some of the English by flaying them alive, f The distress 
 produced in the mind of Ralegh by these various circum- 
 stances, received the bitterest aggravation when Keymis, 
 with his detachment, joined him in February at Punto de 
 Gallo, after an absence of two months ; a period fraught 
 with events productive of destruction to that unhappy offi- 
 cer himself, and with disgrace and eventual ruin to the 
 unfortunate Ralegh. The intelligence, which Keymis 
 brought, was rendered doubly mortifying by the fact that 
 even on his return down the Oronooko, a chance had been 
 rejected by him of retrieving the honor of the expedition, 
 proposals of the most tempting character having been made 
 to him by some Guaian chiefs who had remembered Ralegh 
 in his former expedition, and who held a part of that coun- 
 try in nominal trust for Queen Elizabeth.]: The plea which 
 Keymis made for refusing the assistance of these people 
 was that he apprehended treachery, and collusion with the 
 Spaniards. But Ralegh, to whose ardent mind, this reluc- 
 tance to incur some portion of risk for the sake of all that 
 could be valuable to a man so pledged and so involved as 
 himself, appeared the basest pusillanimity, contended with 
 justice that Keymis might have waited till the promised 
 ore, with which the Indians lured them to return, had been 
 brought to their vessels ; and he disputed the probability 
 of treachery on the part of these natives, since they had 
 offered to leave six hostages for one. His judgment on this 
 point was possibly correct ; unhappily, the fatal error was 
 irreclaimable. 
 
 When Ralegh and Keymis met, it was only to receive 
 reproaches and the effusions of keen disappointment on one 
 side, and to pour forth ineffectual excuses on the other. 
 After some days of recrimination and mutual dissatisfac- 
 tion, Keymis entered Ralegh's cabin, and showing him a 
 letter which he had written to the Earl of Arundel, exten- 
 uating his conduct, entreated Ralegh to " allow of hia 
 
 * Titus, B. Vril., Oldys, 204. fOldys, 204. f Ralegh's Apology 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 231 
 
 apology." But Ralegh, in the bitterness of his heart, a rid 
 with a severity to his old companion in arms only to be 
 excused by the poignancy of disappointment, told him tiiat 
 he had undone him by his obstinacy, and that he would not 
 " favor nor color in any sort his former folly." Keymis 
 asked him " if that were his determination J" to which 
 Ralegh replied that it was his fixed resolution. The un- 
 happy Keymis then said, " I know not then, Sir, what 
 course to take :" and retiring to his cabin shot himself 
 through the ribs, and stabbed himself to the heart. Ra- 
 legh, unsuspicious of his design, sent to know who had 
 fired the pistol, when he was answered by Keymis, lying 
 on his bed, that he had discharged it because it had been 
 long loaded. With this reply Ralegh was satisfied ; but 
 half an hour afterwards, a boy going into the cabin, found 
 the wretched officer quite dead, with a long knife plunged 
 into his heart, and a pistol, the first instrument with which 
 he had attempted suicide, lying near him, the bullet having 
 merely broken a rib, and proceeded no farther. The knife, 
 with which the fatal deed was accomplished, was then re- 
 sorted to for the destructive purpose.* 
 
 Of this catastrophe, Ralegh wrote an account to Sir 
 Ralph Winwood, declaring in the same letter, that if he 
 had not been deserted by some of his captains, he would 
 have left his body at St. Thomas's by his son's, or have 
 brought with him out of that or other mines so much gold 
 ore as should have satisfied the King. " I propounded, 
 adds he, "no vain thing ; what shall become of me I know 
 not : I am unpardoned in England, and my poor estate con^ 
 sumed, and whether any prince will give me bread or no, 
 I know not. I desire your Honor to hold me in your good 
 opinion ; to remember my service to my Lord of Arundel 
 and Pembrook ; to take some pity on my poor wife, to 
 whom I dare not write for renewing her sorrow for her 
 son ; and beseech you to give a copy of this to my Lord 
 Carew : for to a broken mind, a sick body, and weak eyes, 
 it is a torment to write many letters.!" To Lady Ralegh, 
 he shortly afterwards addressed a letter, the model of such 
 compositions for simplicity, tenderness, and deep feeling, 
 both for him he had lost, and for her, the unhappy maternal 
 survivor of a gallant and promising youth. J 
 
 * Ralegh's Apology in Cayley, ii. 105. 
 
 t Ralegh's Remains, 234. J Ibid. 283. 
 
232 LIFE OP SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 It was now determined in a council of war, that Ralegh 
 and his fleet should return to Newfoundland, to repair and 
 clean the ships. It was, however, deemed necessary by 
 Ralegh, to send home several disaffected persons, described 
 in his own pithy terms as " good for nothing, neither by 
 sea nor by land," under the charge of one of the many 
 relatives who accompanied him. On arriving at New- 
 foundland, mutiny broke out among his men, some of whom 
 inclined to remaining abroad, whilst others were clamorous 
 for returning home. It was afterwards affirmed in the 
 King's declaration, that Ralegh offered his own ship, which 
 was of great value, to any of the company, if they would 
 set him in a French bark ; and that he repeated the same 
 proposition when arrived on the coast of Ireland, being 
 "loth," as he said, "to put his head under the King's 
 girdle." He took, however, the part most creditable to his 
 innocency, and most fatal to his earthly career, and return- 
 ed to the British dominions. 
 
 The intelligence of Ralegh's disasters were first conveyed 
 to James, by Captain John North, the brother of Lord 
 North, who had accompanied the expedition to Guiana, 
 and who was greatly esteemed by Ralegh for his valor, 
 and fidelity, in that luckless undertaking. These tidings 
 were transmitted to the English Monarch on the 13th of 
 May, 1618.* They arrived at an epoch when James's an- 
 ticipation of a marriage between the Prince Charles, and 
 .he second daughter of the King of Spain, were at their 
 height ; when the Queen, Anne of Denmark, the firm, and 
 to the last, the unalterable friend of Ralegh,f was suspect- 
 ed to be insane ; whilst Gondemar, whose private senti- 
 ments on the subject are fully exemplified in a letter from 
 him in French, preserved in the Sancroft Collection, still 
 remained in the English Court, to flatter James with propo- 
 sals for the arrangement of the marriage articles, and to 
 exclaim against the infringement of the treaty between 
 Spain and England, which he declared to have been mani- 
 fested by Ralegh's plunder of St. Thomas. It was, indeed, 
 obvious to all observers of the strange events of the day, 
 that Ralegh, who had formerly been accused of a treasonable 
 
 * Camden's Annals. 
 
 t Letter from Heame's Hemingford. See Oxford edit, of Ralegh's 
 Works. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 233 
 
 ao-operation with the emissaries of Spain, was now on the 
 eve of being sacrificed to her resentments. Gondemar, as 
 it was remarked by a contemporary, " would never give 
 him over until he had his head oft' his shoulders.*" The 
 chief apprehensions entertained by the Spanish Govern- 
 ment, related to the interception of their conquests, and 
 the injury of their trade and property in the West Indies ; 
 and Gondemar had already given such a coloring to the 
 exploits of Ralegh, as the forcible and invidious repetition 
 of the word "pirate," in the presence of James, could 
 convey.f Meanwhile the King congratulated himself on 
 the success of his manoeuvres, in not permitting to his ad- 
 venturous subject the benefit of his royal pardon, by which 
 any future proceedings against him would have been in- 
 volved in considerable difficulty. For by a private assu- 
 rance to Ralegh, previous to his departure for Guiana, lie 
 had pledged himself to keep his projects secret, if Ralegh 
 would confide them to him ; an intimation being conveyed 
 to him before his exit from the Tower to that effect, of 
 which a written document was afterwards, by some means, 
 transmitted to the Spanish Ministers.:); Thus the weak pol- 
 icy of James was, in this instance, defeated ; and, whilst 
 resolving to sacrifice Ralegh to the vengeance of Spain, 
 he was obliged, as it afterwards proved, to have recourse 
 to the sentence formerly passed, concerning the communi 
 cations held by Ralegh with the agents of that country. 
 
 Previous to Ralegh's arrival on the coast of Ireland 
 whither he first bent his course on his return to England 
 opinions in his native country differed widely as to thfe 
 nature of his alleged piracies, and the degrees of legal 
 guilt to be affixed to his adventurous proceedings. By his 
 friends, his services, his sufferings, and his heavy expenses 
 in his voyage, were earnestly proclaimed. Even tho^e who 
 were comparatively indifferent to his safety, contended 
 that the plundering of St. Thomas was an act committed 
 beyond the equator, where the articles of peace between 
 Spain and England do not extend :$ and the first intelli- 
 gence of the action was communicated to King James with 
 great caution, and with much pathetic description, by 
 
 * Howell's Letter to Sir J. Crofts, viii. 783. f Ibid. vol. vjii. p. 747. 
 t Howell's Letters, Ralegh's Works, viii. 750. §H»id. 
 
 112 
 
234 LIFE OP SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 Captain North, and all aggravation of the circumstances 
 avoided. 
 
 But this forbearance was unavailing, and the obstinate 
 and implacable conduct of James, after the first announce- 
 ment of Ralegh's disasters, and the subserviency of his min- 
 isters and courtiers, were all fully explained in the course 
 of the summer, when Gondemar sailed in July for Spain, 
 bearing with him the articles of the proposed marriage be- 
 tween Prince Charles and his intended Spanish bride.* 
 Accordingly, an immoderate degree of haste was mani- 
 fested in the proceedings against the unfortunate object of 
 Spanish vengeance, a proclamation against him being is- 
 sued by the King on the 11th of June, some weeks pre- 
 vious to his landing in England.f By this measure, the 
 King's " utter dislike and detestation of the violences and 
 excesses," said, by Gondemar's report, to have been com- 
 mitted upon the territories of his " dear brother of Spain," 
 were strongly put forth ; and all persons who could supply 
 information upon the subject, were exhorted upon their 
 " duty and allegiance" to repair to the Privy Council to 
 make known their " whole knowledge and understanding 
 concerning the same.J" 
 
 Meanwhile conjectures varied with regard to the proba- 
 bility of Sir Walter's return — the world, wondering, as a 
 contemporary expresses it, that " so great a wise man as 
 Sir Walter Ralegh would return to cast himself on so in- 
 evitable a rock as it was to be feared he would." In despite 
 of this wonderment, Ralegh, after touching with his dilapi- 
 dated ships and dispirited companions at Kingsdale in Ire- 
 land, arrived in Plymouth in the beginning of July, and 
 resolved to surrender himself immediately into the hands 
 of those who were commissioned by the King to apprehend 
 him. Whether this act were the effect of a high sense of 
 honor, and of justice to his own character; whether it 
 arose from desperation, or proceeded from a fatal reliance 
 upon the goodness of his cause, are points upon which con- 
 siderable doubt must always rest. His conduct on this 
 mournful occasion, is, however, decisively in favor of his 
 innocence with respect to the charges brought against 
 
 * Cayley, ii. 145. 
 
 f Cayley, 137, from Rymer's Foedera, xvii. p. 92 
 
 X Ibid. § Howell. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 233 
 
 nim, of having purposed merely to accumulate wealth in 
 his expedition to Guiana, without any intention of return- 
 ing to his country. Fortunately he was accompanied, dur- 
 ing his journey from Plymouth to London, the last which 
 he ever made, by an old companion in service, Captain 
 Samuel King, who has left a succinct account of the in- 
 tentions and measures pursued by his unfortunate com- 
 mander, from his arrival in the harbor of Plymouth to his 
 final entrance into London.* 
 
 By the narrative of this veteran it appears, that Ralegh, 
 on hearing, before he landed, of the royal proclamation 
 against him, instantly determined upon the step which ap- 
 peared to him most honorable and expedient, and, that his 
 intentions might be clearly shown, sent his sails ashore, 
 and moored his ship, immediately after touching shore 
 himself. Thus, after a year's absence, regaining the coast 
 of his native land, and of his beloved Devonshire, only to 
 renew the distresses, and to be the object of persecutions 
 which seemed, during his later years, to constitute his 
 destiny ; or, to speak the language of those who trust in 
 the consoling belief of a superintending power, to fill up 
 the cup of afflictions which Providence had assigned to 
 him. 
 
 It was Ralegh's fate, not only to endure the malice of 
 the world, but to receive its sharpest stings by the imme- 
 diate agency of persons from whom he might reasonably 
 have expected neutrality, if not fidelity and attachment. 
 On his first attainder, it was Cobham, his once familiar as- 
 sociate, who pointed the venomed shafts of falsehood against 
 him. On his last imprisonment, it was a kinsman, Sir 
 Lewis Stucley, who not only undertook for a liberal reward 
 to apprehend him, but inflicted an injury even more serious, 
 by calumnious misrepresentations of his conduct during his 
 charge of the illustrious prisoner. Stucley, who was at 
 this time vice-admiral of Devon, met afterwards with 
 some portion of retribution from the avoidance and oppro- 
 brium of the world. Unhappily, it is not to such minds as 
 his, that the loss of honor conveys its severest stings. 
 Coveting the accumulation of wealth, he "had his re- 
 ward ;" and probably felt not the punishment which the 
 
 * Oldys, 209. The narrative of King has never been published, but it 
 was seen, and carefully followed, by Oldys. 
 
236 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RAlSGH. 
 
 justice of civilized society might be supposed to inflict. 
 Meanwhile the sanguine nature of Ralegh's disposition in- 
 clined him still to rely upon mercy, which never was to 
 be extended to him, or upon justice, of which there was 
 but the name during the prevalence of Spanish gold, and 
 the influence of Spanish intrigues at the English court. 
 He heard, indeed, reports concerning Gondemar's contin- 
 uance in London solely with the intention to effect his 
 ruin, yet he continued firm to his first resolution. Gonde- 
 mar departed, however, from London, three weeks be- 
 fore the arrival of Ralegh there, but not before he had 
 placed affairs in such a train as best suited his instructions : 
 it has been also stated by some authors, that in addition tc 
 the incentives occasioned by motives of national policy, he 
 had those of private dislike and malignity towards Ralegh, 
 to heighten the eagerness with which he pursued his suit.* 
 Yet, this expert diplomatist was unable wholly to succeed, 
 even with the " Caledonian Solomon," whose heart he is 
 said to have beguiled with his tales and witticisms, with- 
 out employing the agency of bribes and presents, with 
 which he effectually plied the English courtiers before he 
 bade farewell to their country, f 
 
 It was in vain, therefore, that Ralegh addressed to the 
 misguided and prejudiced monarch upon whose mercy he 
 had cast himself, a letter, replete with sound argument in 
 favor of his innocence and loyalty. J This address, after 
 enumerating the aggravations received from the Spaniards 
 by the English, and the precedents of retaliation on the 
 part of our countrymen, concludes with this eloquent ap- 
 peal to the compassion and justice of the King : — " If 1 
 have spent my poor estate, lost my son, suffered by sick- 
 ness, and otherwise, a world of hardships; if I have resisted, 
 with manifest hazard of my life, the robberies and spoils 
 with which my companions would have made me rich ; if, 
 when I was poor, I could have made myself rich ; if, when 
 I had gotten my liberty, which all men and nature itself 
 do most prize, I voluntarily lost it ; if, when I was sure of 
 my life, I rendered it again ; if I might elsewhere have 
 sold my ship and goods, and put five or six thousand 
 pounds in my purse, and yet brought her into England ; I 
 beseech your Majesty to believe that all this I have done, 
 
 » Oldyg, 210. t Ibid., note. J Ralegh's Remains, duod. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 237 
 
 Decause it should not be said that your Majesty had given 
 liberty and trust to a man whose end was but the recovery 
 of his liberty, and who had betrayed your Majesty's trust." 
 This simple exposition of Ralegh's motives, was followed 
 by an act equally honorable to him, — the commencement 
 of his journey to the metropolis. Before, however, he 
 could reach Ashburton, a town twenty miles from Ply- 
 mouth, he was arrested by Sir Lewis Stucley, who, in the 
 eagerness of an obsequious and interested courtier, com- 
 menced operations previous to the receiving his commis- 
 sion from the King. The address of this man to Ralegh, 
 contained the intimation that he had orders for arresting 
 him and his ship ; " a falsehood, which was received with 
 calmness, and answered, by Ralegh's informing him that he 
 had saved him that trouble, and done it to his hand.*" 
 They returned together to Plymouth, and lodged at the 
 house of Sir Christopher Harris, where Ralegh was so ill 
 guarded by Stucley, that he sometimes failed to see him 
 for two or three days. In this interval, the operations of 
 fear, and the temptations induced by that love of life and 
 liberty incident to human nature, excited in the unfortu- 
 nate Ralegh a strong desire to make one desperate effort 
 for the recovery of freedom. With this view, he prevailed 
 upon his friend, Captain King, to procure him a bark to 
 convey him to France, and paid, as it was stated, twelve 
 crowns for the passage, pretending that it was a gentleman 
 known to him, who desired to pass into that country.f 
 The vessel was detained four days at anchor beyond the 
 limits to which the authority of the Plymouth garrison ex- 
 tended, but Ralegh never ascended her deck : for although 
 one night he had certainly resolved to avail himself of this 
 resource, procured a small boat to convey him and his 
 faithful companion, King, to the ship, and had actually 
 proceeded some distance towards the object of his destina- 
 tion, he altered his resolution, and returned; deeming it, 
 perhaps, better to risk the event of renewed persecutions, 
 than to incur dishonor, and reproach, by flight. Yet, even 
 the severest judges could scarcely have censured one whc 
 had suffered so mercilessly, for insuring his own safety 
 
 * Oldys, 12. from King. 
 
 ■f Oldys apud King. Declaration of King James Cayloy, ii. 434. Ap 
 pendix. 
 
238 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 and avoiding a fresh encounter of shameless injustice and 
 oppression. Ralegh returned to a tyrannical master, and 
 to an unthankful country ; and he would have been amply 
 justified in escaping from the snares prepared for his de- 
 struction. But, whether induced by heroism which we 
 must admire yet regret ; or actuated by fears of the conse- 
 quences which might accrue to his family ; or influenced 
 by a fatal reliance upon the faith of James, who had not 
 only virtually but literally authorized his expedition; he 
 did return, and unsuspected of any design of escape, after 
 engaging the vessel for one night more, relinquished all 
 thought of emigration. 
 
 Such is the account given of his movements by Captain 
 King, who has established his own veracity by the bold 
 avowal of the share which he took in promoting Ralegh's has- 
 tily abandoned schemes. It was, however, asserted in the 
 royal apology for Ralegh's wrongs,* that the darkness of the 
 night frustrated their plans ; a statement which is refuted 
 by King's allegation, that if Sir Walter had been willing 
 to have rowed a quarter of a mile further, they might have 
 met the bark. Besides, as he remarks, if that night would 
 not have served, one of the other three would have been 
 available for the proposed flight, the wind being fair, and 
 the tide falling out conveniently. 
 
 Stucley having at length received his commission, pre- 
 pared to set out with his prisoner, whom he was instructed 
 not to hasten more than his health would permit. One 
 Mannourie, a Frenchman, • was added to their travelling 
 suite, an acquisition apparently intended for the accommo- 
 dation of Ralegh, but eventually contributing to his de- 
 struction. 
 
 Ralegh was now joined by his wife, and was received on 
 his journey at the houses of several of his friends and ac- 
 quaintance, from whom he speedily learned the machina- 
 tions of his enemies at court. He now, too late, regretted 
 that he had allowed the season for retreat to pass away, 
 lamenting it to Lady Ralegh, and to King, who told him, 
 " that he could blame no one but himself," for his resolution 
 to continue in England.f But upon the arrival of a mes- 
 senger to expedite his journey to the metropolis, his mind 
 became agitated, and eager for a fresh project of escape 
 
 * See the King's Declaration, in Cayley, ii. 434. t Oldys, 213. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 239 
 
 until the influence of Spain and the fury of his enemies 
 should have subsided, after the fashion of political rancor 
 and of political factions. Yet he still, as his veteran com- 
 panion asserted, declared, that "no misery should make 
 him disloyal to his king- and his country." And never, even 
 in the extremity of desperation, was he heard to name His 
 Majesty but with a degree of respect which James can 
 hardly be thought to have merited. 
 
 In pursuance of the project which he now seriously 
 meditated, Ralegh, on arriving at Salisbury, where the 
 King had recently been on his progress, dispatched Captain 
 King to London to provide a boat at Tilbury, desiring him 
 to employ, on this occasion, a man named Cotterell, who 
 had been in Ralegh's service. When King arrived in Lon- 
 don, he was, however, prevailed upon by Cotterell to in- 
 trust a boatswain of his, named Hart, with the office of 
 furnishing a wherry. King unguardedly complied with this 
 advice, proffered the perfidious boatswain thirty pieces of 
 silver for his assistance and secrecy, and paid him, for some 
 time, to keep the boat in readiness at Tilbury. By Hart the 
 whole scheme was however disclosed and eventually frus- 
 trated. On the 7th of August, Ralegh arrived in London, 
 whence he was anxious to proceed to Tilbury on the same 
 night, but was told by King that the arrangements for his 
 departure were not completed. And now the intelligence 
 of his schemes having transpired, Stucley was empowered 
 by his employers to tamper with Ralegh by feigning ac- 
 quiescence in those plans, without, himself, incurring sus- 
 picion or reproof. The object of thus ensnaring him whose 
 ruin was already determined, was to justify his seizure to 
 the public ; to become effectually possessed of any private 
 documents which he might carry about him, and to certify 
 to the world his intention to escape.* Meanwhile Ralegh 
 had received offers from the agent of the French king to 
 furnish him with a bark, and other means of assistance in 
 his escape, a proposal which he declined upon the plea of 
 the French vessel not being in readiness. Thus he again 
 missed an opportunity of flight, from which it is more than 
 probable the machinations of his enemies could not have 
 detained him. 
 
 On Sunday the 9th of August, Sir Walter repaired to a 
 
 * Oldys, 118. 
 
240 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 certain place of rendezvous on the Thames, appointed by 
 Captain King, who awaited him there with two wherries. 
 He was accompanied by Sir Lewis Stucley, and by his son, 
 young Stucley, whom Ralegh was credulous enough to be- 
 lieve interested in the success of his scheme. His sole at- 
 tendant was a page. The unfortunate and persecuted pris- 
 oner was disguised with a false beard, wearing a hat with 
 a green hatband. He had provided merely a cloak-bag and 
 four pistols, which were put into the boat. The traitor 
 Stucley then asked the anxious friend of RaJegh, Captain 
 King, this suspicious question, whether "he had not dis- 
 tinguished himself an honest man 1" To this inquiry King 
 returned the cautious answer, " that he hoped he would 
 continue so." 
 
 After the party had entered the boats and had rowed 
 some paces, they were informed by the watermen that Mr. 
 Herbert, to whom Hart had revealed the plot, was also on 
 the river and in pursuit of them. This intelligence excited 
 Ralegh's fears; but he was reassured by Stucley, who 
 threatened to kill the watermen if they did not proceed, 
 and feigned concern at having ventured his fortunes and 
 safety with a man so full of doubts and apprehensions as 
 Ralegh. As they approached Greenwich, the sudden 
 glimpse of a boat again inspired Ralegh with suspicions of 
 treachery and pursuit, but King persuaded him to proceed, 
 with assurances of reaching Tilbury in safety. But in these 
 delays the serving of the tide was disregarded, until the 
 watermen declared it to be impossible to arrive at Graves- 
 end till morning. Upon hearing of this disaster Ralegh 
 was almost resolved to land at Purfleet, an idea which was 
 encouraged both by Hart and by Stucley , the former prom- 
 sing to procure him horses to Tilbury, and the latter offer- 
 ing to carry the cloak-bag for the distance of half-a-mile 
 after landing: but the faithful and cautious Captain King 
 negatived the proposal, assuring Ralegh that if they could 
 not reach Gravesend by water, it were impossible to com- 
 pass that distance by land, in the dead of night and without 
 the certainty of procuring horses. " 
 
 During these debates they passed Woolwich ; and now 
 Ralegh became fully sensible of the dangers by which he 
 was assailed, although he was still ignorant of the treachery 
 by which these perils were contrived, and directed to his 
 ruin. After encountering several small boats, it became 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 241 
 
 evident to him that they contained the emissaries of Her- 
 bert, whom he had been instructed to consider as commis- 
 sioned by James to apprehend him. He still, however, con- 
 tided in Stucley, who kept up the appearance of friendly 
 interest in his escape, promising to return with him to his 
 own house, and embracing- his deluded prisoner with an af- 
 fectation of regard which put the finishing touches to the 
 character of this accomplished villain. The betrayed and 
 the betrayer retraced their watery way to Greenwich, 
 where, Stucley pretending that he dared not carry Ralegh 
 farther, they landed. Here they encountered the boats 
 which had before alarmed Ralegh, which now proved to be 
 full of men in the service of Mr. William Herbert, and of 
 Sir William St. John, who had formerly procured Ralegh's 
 liberation on the payment of a sum of money. As Cap- 
 tain King, with his unfortunate master, passed over 
 Greenwich Bridge, Stucley made an attempt upon the 
 fidelity of King, advising him to appear to the world to 
 concur in the plot for delivering Ralegh into the hands of 
 his enemies. But this proposal was rejected with indigna- 
 tion by the gallant officer, who was immediately arrested 
 by Stucley, and committed to the charge of two of Her- 
 bert's men. The party entered a tavern, in which King 
 heard Ralegh utter this calm but expressive reproach to 
 the contemptible Stucley. '£ Sir Lewis, these actions will 
 not turn out to your credit." On the ensuing day Ralegh 
 was conducted to the Tower ; and on entering this weh- 
 known edifice, he observed to King that he " was himself 
 the mark shot at," but that King need not apprehend the 
 consequences of this affair. The dejected and disappointed 
 officer was then obliged to take a last farewell of the mas- 
 ter for whom he had risked so much ; leaving him, as he 
 touchingly expressed it, in the guardianship of that Provi- 
 dence " with whom," said he, " I do not doubt but his soul 
 resteth." 
 
 Such was the tissue of treachery, coarsely contrived, and 
 carelessly executed, by which the final destruction of Ra- 
 legh was effected. That he could rush into a snare prepar- 
 ed with so little address, would excite surprise, were it not 
 remembered how often desperation unnerves the strongest, 
 and blinds the most acute minds. A species of fatality, as 
 the superstitious may consider it, seems, indeed, to have in- 
 volved the last years of Ralegh's existence. His resolu- 
 V 
 
242 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 tion appears to have wavered, and his credulity to have 
 preponderated over the caution which his situation pecu- 
 liarly required. When it would be probable and natural 
 that he should, from mournful experience, distrust all men, 
 he accorded his confidence to those whose deeds were 
 equivocal, and whose worldly interests might be promoted 
 by his ruin. The vivid perceptions of that mind which 
 could investigate the concerns of past ages, and dive into 
 those of the future with almost prophetic scan, were ob- 
 scured when his own immediate and important affairs were 
 pressed upon him by emergencies, which, whilst they al- 
 most broke a heart worn out with contending emotions, 
 weakened the faculties of an understanding, such as few 
 men could boast of possessing. 
 
 But the tragedy of Ralegh's life was now nearly draw- 
 ing to a conclusion, and the repose of the grave, purchased 
 by the agonies of an ignominious death, was soon to be his 
 portion. On the 10th of August, he had again been con- 
 signed as a prisoner to that gloomy residence with which 
 he was already but too well acquainted. It is probable 
 that he was here joined by Lady Ralegh, although that fact 
 has not been specifically mentioned ; yet she who had fol- 
 lowed him in his good and ill fortunes was little likely to 
 desert him in the last extremity. 
 
 A committee was, in a few days, appointed to examine 
 into the details and motives of Ralegh's intended flight, 
 which was decried as an heinous offence, and as a distrust 
 of the King's mercy never to be forgiven by the royal per- 
 sonage, whose mercies, as they were called, had been for- 
 merly so graciously extended.* Yet considerable interest 
 was still exerted for one whose sufferings and whose ser- 
 vices were, in the minds of the impartial, the sources of 
 commiseration and subjects of praise. The Queen, with a 
 generous earnestness which redeems the frivolity of her 
 character, wrote to the Villiers, now Marquis of Bucking- 
 ham, whom she addressed as her " kinde dogge," entreat- 
 ing him, as she had any favor or credit with him, " to let 
 her have a trial of it at this time, in dealing earnestly and 
 sincerely with the King, that Sir Walter Ralegh's life 
 might not be called in question.!" 
 
 Lord Carew, the relative and constant friend of Ralegh, 
 
 * Oldya, 221. t Cayley, ii. 137. 
 
LIFE OF SLR WALTER RALEGH. 243 
 
 nad already, on his knees, interceded with the King in his 
 behalf, but was answered by the remark from his Majesty, 
 " that it were as well to hang him as deliver him to the 
 King of Spam, who assuredly would ;" and " one of these 
 two things he must do, if the case were as the Spanish 
 ambassador had represented it." And when Lord Carew 
 still entreated for mercy, he was dismissed with the obser- 
 vation, that " the most he could expect was that the King 
 would give him a hearing.*" But, whilst Ralegh's frienda 
 earnestly desired a legal investigation into his case, and 
 confidently expected that he would make his cause good, 
 they anticipated not the perversion of law, and the depar- 
 ture from every principle of equity by which that promised 
 inquiry was to be characterized, and the fate of the object 
 of their solicitude determined. 
 
 Ralegh now resolved to take his cause into his own 
 hands ; but though few pens could plead so effectually as 
 his, his representations appear not to have received the 
 slightest encouragement in this instance. To the Marquis 
 of Buckingham, he, with a delicacy suitable to a mind so 
 accomplished as his, apologized for presuming to address 
 " so great and worthy a person, who had been told that he 
 had done him some wrong. I heard of it," he continues, 
 " but of late ; but most happy had I been if I might have 
 disproved that villany against me, when there had been 
 no suspicion that the desire to save my life had presented 
 my excuse.f" 
 
 It is observable that in Ralegh's letters, in many of 
 which he had, unhappily, to plead for life, or to sue for 
 justice, there prevails a becoming tone of humility and 
 supplication, free from abject flattery or from undignified 
 lamentation. In the document now referred to, containing 
 his last appeal to the intercession of Buckingham, he justi- 
 fies himself with a clearness and manliness, distinct from 
 the petulance of a rash and arrogant adventurer, and de- 
 void of presumption. In all his written communications, 
 whether addressed to the great, to his intimate associates, 
 or to the beloved members of his family, there pervades 
 the true spirit of an accomplished English gentleman. The 
 mind fondly dwells upon certain attributes of his character, 
 ind, with the more tenacity and regret, as we approach 
 
 * Cayley, ii. 137. t Ibid. 143, from Harleian Coll. 
 
244 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 the close of so much excellence, the destruction of such 
 attainments, greater, and more brilliant in the mournful 
 sun-set of Ralegh's existence, than in his meridian of 
 glory. 
 
 In his explicit justification of his projected escape, Sir 
 Walter avows to Villiers, that " it was the last severe let- 
 ter from the lords for the bringing of him up, and the im- 
 patience of dishonor, that put him first in fear of his life, or 
 enjoying it in perpetual imprisonment, never to recover his 
 reputation lost, which strengthened me," he proceeds to 
 say, " in my late, and too late lamented resolution, if his 
 Majesty's mercy do not abound ; if his Majesty do not pity 
 my age, and scorn to take the extreme and utmost advan- 
 tage of my errors ; if his Majesty, in his great charity, do 
 not make a difference between offences proceeding from a 
 life-saving natural impulsion, without an ill intent, and 
 those of an ill heart." 
 
 No reply to this letter has been transmitted to us ; and 
 it is but too probable that the exertions of the young and 
 prosperous courtier to whom it was addressed, were not 
 extended to sustain a cause so weak, and almost hopeless, 
 as that of Ralegh. Meanwhile, the commissioners who 
 were appointed to examine him, were unable even in the 
 most minute exercise of their office, and in their daily 
 visits to the Tower, to extract from the depositions of his 
 late companions in his voyage, any evidence of treasonable 
 designs, or of piratical practices.* At the end of the 
 King's " Declaration of the Demeanor and Carriage of Sir 
 Walter Ralegh," &c. the names of these commissioners 
 are supposed to have been annexedf ; and if that conjecture 
 be correct, their testimony to the truth of the charges con- 
 tained in that publication is implied. The allegations 
 which James, in the fullness of royal dignity, deemed it ex- 
 pedient to publish, by way of apology, after the death ef 
 his victim, were neither adduced during the life of Ralegh, 
 nor supported by any credible witness after the termina- 
 tion of his career. The tenor of the Declaration is, in 
 fact, so much inflated by exaggeration, and its details have 
 so greatly the air of invention, that little importance would 
 have been annexed to it as historical evidence, had it not 
 been for the strange, and, apparently, careless credence 
 
 * Oldys, 222. f Ibid. 
 
LIFE OP SIR WALTER RALEGH. 245 
 
 afforded to it by one of the most eminent and elegant of 
 historians* The deductions which he derives from it are 
 amply refuted, as far as they relate to the expedition itself, 
 by a simple reference to Ralegh's Apology for his last Voy- 
 age to Guiana,f a narrative which might have been con- 
 tradicted by the united testimony of his whole crew and 
 officers, had they been disposed or able to disprove the 
 truth of his statements. The alleged details of Sir Wal- 
 ter's conduct after his return to England, deserve even less 
 consideration by the inquirers into historical truth, than 
 his motives and actions during the period of his absence 
 from this country. These particulars rest chiefly upon 
 the testimony of Mannourie, the French empiric, whom 
 the insidious Stucley engaged to accompany him at Ply- 
 mouth, under pretext of his attending to Ralegh's health, 
 and affording him the alleviation of his advice. It is suf- 
 ficient here to state the heads of those calumnies which 
 Mannourie, doubtless by the influence of some lucrative 
 advantage, was instigated to produce against his patient. 
 How far they were rebutted or acknowledged by Ralegh, 
 will appear upon his trial. 
 
 In Mannourie's depositions it is stated, that Sir Walter 
 had persuaded the quack to administer to him medicines in 
 order to bring on the appearances of violent and dangerous 
 disease. This feint was attributed to the desire which he 
 naturally felt to gain time, and to be permitted to remain 
 at his own residence in London, whence he might easily 
 effect his escape. The account of this alleged stratagem is 
 given with much circumlocution, and with many frivolous 
 and even disgusting details. It is almost incredible that Sir 
 WaLer should have laid himself open to a man of whom he 
 knew but little, in the manner which Mannourie describes. 
 It is likewise incredible that he should have had recourse 
 to the desperate and absurd contrivances which Mannourie 
 describes him to have adopted. They were, however, ad- 
 duced not only as proofs of conscious guilt, but as deeds of 
 guilt in themselves, as " impostures" " declining his Majes- 
 ty's goodness," and thus rendering himself unworthy of his 
 Majesty's farther mercy. Tne question may, however, be 
 asked — why, if sufficient evidence could have been adduced 
 against Ralegh of fresh schemes against government, his 
 
 * Hume. t Caylcy, ii. 83. 
 
 V2 
 
246 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 former sentence was, as we shall find, revived, in order to 
 give a color of justice to his condemnation'? It was, how- 
 ever, pretended, " that his former attainders for treason be- 
 ing the highest and last work of the law," his " Majesty- 
 was enforced, (except attainders should become privileges 
 for all subsequent offences,) to resolve to have him executed 
 upon his former attainder.*" 
 
 The council, after deliberating for some time, were una- 
 ble to recommend a fresh trial, either on the grounds of 
 Ralegh's attack upon Guiana, or on the feebler allegations 
 against him. The first mode of impeachment would ha\ e 
 acknowledged a cession of the English interest in the 
 province of Guiana to Spain ; the latter was totally unsup- 
 ported except by the evidence of Mannourie and Stucley, 
 both now the objects of popular suspicion, and, eventually, 
 of universal odium and contempt. 
 
 On the 23d of October, a discussion took place in the 
 Privy Council with regard to the mode in which prisoners 
 condemned for treason, and set at liberty, could be legally 
 executed. In this conference, at which all the judges were 
 present, it was determined to send a Privy Seal to the 
 Judges of the King's Bench, commanding "them to pro- 
 ceed against Ralegh according to law.f" On the ensuing 
 day he received notice from the commissioners to prepare 
 for death. He was, at this time, ill of an aguish com- 
 plaint, which he had, probably, incurred in Guiana, in which 
 such diseases are prevalent. From the hot stage of this 
 disease the unhappy man was aroused, on the 28th of 
 October, at eight o'clock in the morning, and conveyed 
 to the Court of King's Bench in Westminster, being taken 
 thither by writ of habeas corpus. An account of the pro- 
 ceedings against him has been preserved in the Harleian 
 Collections, and other authentic sources, and transmitted 
 through the medium of the State Trials. 
 
 In the last process against him a writ was first read, 
 purporting, " that whereas Sir Walter being long before 
 in the presence of divers noble personages, legally convict- 
 ed of high treason at Winchester, was then and there ad- 
 judged to be hanged, drawn, and quartered." After going 
 through this form, the attorney-general rose to make the 
 expected harangue upon the case. The person on whom 
 
 * King's Declaration, in Cayley, ii. 44b. 
 | Oldys, from Mutton's Reports. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 247 
 
 this office fell was Henry Yelverton, a man of reputed 
 honor, who had been raised to his present eminence by 
 Car, Earl of Rochester, but was destined to experience 
 himself the vicissitudes of fortune, through the agency of 
 Buckingham, whose corruptions Yelverton afterwards at- 
 tempted to oppose.* It is melancholy to reflect, that a man 
 of probity and of extensive legal acquirements should have 
 been induced or constrained, by his prosecution of Ralegh, 
 if not to violate the laws of his country, at least to infringe 
 upon the spirit of equity in which those laws are in most 
 instances dictated. But, Yelverton, redeeming his charac- 
 ter by his subsequent conduct, by his resistance to certain 
 patents which Buckingham desired to grant, was, like the 
 oppressed individual in whose ruin he now concurred, 
 doomed to experience the terrors and anxieties of impris- 
 onment, being afterwards committed to the Tower, and 
 deprived of his office for a time, although eventually re- 
 stored to more than his former honor. His speech was 
 concise, and consisted in a mere formal exposition of the 
 case, tending rather to compliment, than to confound, and 
 vilify the unhappy prisoner. Invective was now unneces- 
 sary, and even Coke's vituperations would, perhaps, have 
 been silenced by the defenceless nature of Ralegh's situa- 
 tion, by his infirmities, and broken spirits, and by the con- 
 templation of one so gifted and one so favored, humbled 
 beneath the very feet of those above whom he rose proudly 
 superior in intellectual eminence. Even Yelverton could 
 not, in his address, forbear describing him as a man, " who, 
 in regard of his parts and quality, was to be pitied." " Sir 
 Walter Ralegh," he continued, " in his time, was a star ; 
 yea, and of such nature, that shineth fair ; but out of the 
 necessity of state, like stars when they trouble the sphere, 
 must indeed fall.f" 
 
 Sir Walter was then asked what he should say for him- 
 self, why execution should not be awarded against him 1 
 He first replied, by apologizing for the weakness of his 
 voice by reason of his late sickness, and an ague, in the 
 access of which he had been brought before their tribu- 
 nal. He also requested the accommodation of pen and ink. 
 
 Being told by Sir Henry Montague, the Lord Chief 
 Justice, that " his voice was audible enough," he then prc- 
 
 * Wilson, 734. f Note in Oldys, 224. 
 
248 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 ceeded. His expostulations with the court were put forth 
 with that moderation and judgment which he well knew 
 how to oall to his aid upon important occasions. He told 
 his judges, that with respect to his former sentence, he had 
 conceived himself to be discharged of it, when it had been 
 His Majesty's pleasure to grant him a commission to pro- 
 ceed on a voyage beyond the seas, wherein he had power, 
 as marshal, over the life and death of others. As be pro- 
 ceeded to descant upon the circumstances of his voyage to 
 Guiana, he was checked by the Lord Chief Justice, who 
 informed him that his commission could not in any way 
 help him, and did not imply a pardon ; and that " there 
 was no word, tending to pardon in all his commission ;" 
 " therefore," continued he, " you must say something else 
 to the purpose, otherwise we must proceed to give execu- 
 tion.*" 
 
 Upon perceiving the hopelessness of his case, Ralegh 
 forbore further argument, and, throwing himself on the 
 mercy of the King, said, that with respect to his former 
 judgment, some "present could witness, nay, his Majesty 
 was of opinion, that he had hard measure therein." 
 
 This appeal, though of course unavailing, was answered 
 in a tone of moderation, and with a degree of humane con- 
 sideration, which proved how greatly public opinion had 
 been altered in his favor since his trial. It was, however, 
 thought necessary to assure him that he had an "honorable 
 trial," and was justly convicted : he was recommended to 
 submit himself, and to confess that his offence had justly 
 drawn his former judgment upon him. He was told, that 
 for the last fifteen years he had been as a dead man in the 
 law, and might in any moment have been cut off; that new 
 offences had now " stirred up his Majesty's justice" to re- 
 vive what the law had formerly cast upon him. " I know," 
 continued Montague, " you have been valiant and wise ; 
 and I doubt not but you retain both these virtues, for now 
 you shall have occasion to use them. Your faith hath here- 
 tofore been questioned, but I am resolved you are a good 
 Christian, for your book, which is an admirable work, doth 
 testify as much. I would give you counsel, but I know 
 you can apply unto yourself far better than I am able to 
 give you ; yet will I, with the good neighbor in the Gospel, 
 
 * Cayley, ii. 153. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 249 
 
 (who finding one wounded and distressed, poured oil into 
 his wounds and refreshed him,) give unto you the oil of 
 comfort, in respect that I am a minister of the law, mixed 
 with vinegar. Sorrow will not avail you in some kind ; 
 for were you pained, sorrow would not ease you ; were you 
 afflicted, sorrow would not relieve you ; were you torment- 
 ed, sorrow would not content you ; and yet the sorrow for 
 your sins would be an everlasting comfort to you." With 
 these, and similar exhortations, too easily offered to others, 
 too hardly applied to oneself, perhaps well meant, yet tam- 
 pering, as it were, with the grief they were intended to 
 subdue, the Lord Chief Justice concluded the proceedings 
 by declaring that " execution was granted." No supplica- 
 tions for life, no base confessions with a view to conciliate 
 pardon, no abject, flattering encomiums of the King's 
 wonted mercy, were heard from the prisoner ; greater, 
 perhaps, in this state of unjust condemnation, than in pros- 
 perity. He begged merely not to be cut off so suddenly, 
 for that he " had something to do in discharge of his con- 
 science, something to satisfy the world in ;" and he " de- 
 sired to be heard at the day of his death." In requesting 
 this leisure he besought them not to consider that he crav- 
 ed one minute of life, for being now old, sickly, in disgrace, 
 and certain of death, life was wearisome to him. He said 
 with an emphasis almost approaching to sublimity, that he 
 never was disloyal to His Majesty, which he should prove 
 where he should not fear the face of any king on earth. 
 He concluded his address by beseeching that he might 
 have their prayers, and was then conveyed under charge 
 of the sheriffs to the Gate-house in Westminster, near the 
 Palace Yard. 
 
 The king was now in Hertfordshire, on his progress, yet 
 the warrant for Ralegh's execution was produced immedi- 
 ately after the passing of the sentence, dated the same 
 day, signed, and directed to the Lord Chancellor Verulam. 
 The mode of execution was changed from hanging to that 
 of beheading only, a commutation of his sentence which 
 Ralegh, it may be remembered, had earnestly solicited at 
 his former condemnation. The time for which he had pe- 
 titioned, on the plea of both temporal and eternal concerns 
 was not however granted. James, who had absented him- 
 self from the close of the mournful tragedy which he per- 
 mitted to disgrace the annals of his reign, was fearful, 
 
250 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 probably, of the explosion of popular indignation. Appre- 
 hensions of this nature probably hastened the death of Ra- 
 legh. Perhaps, in mercy, suspense, which often shakes 
 the strongest minds, was not added to the other tria'a 
 which the illustrious sufferer had to encounter. The bit 
 terness of death was past, when its certainty was pro- 
 nounced. That, which to the happy, and to the sanguine, 
 might be a close to enjoyment and to hope, was to the sor- 
 rowing father, the disappointed patriot, the subject be- 
 reaved of liberty, and loaded with disgrace, the commence- 
 ment of a brighter existence, and the harbinger of peace. 
 Happily for Ralegh's fame, and still more happily for his 
 peace, his mind could rally under the pressure of severe 
 calamities, and was aroused to exertions admirable to 
 others, and conferring comfort to his own breast, by the 
 presence of powerful excitements, whether of joy, or of 
 grief. By the regulation of his feelings, and, it may be 
 trusted, the elevation of his thoughts to that source whence 
 grace to the pure and contrite is never asked in vain, he 
 was enabled to reply to the sorrowing observations of his 
 friends in a manner worthy of a Christian philosopher. 
 " The world," he calmly observed, " was but a large 
 prison, out of which some were daily selected for execu- 
 tion." 
 
 Dr. Robert Townson, Dean of Westminster, and after- 
 wards Bishop of Salisbury, who was commanded by the 
 Council to be with him, found him not only resigned, but 
 a man most fearless of death that ever was known ; and the 
 most resolute and confident, yet with reverence and con- 
 science. When this divine endeavored to console him, 
 he heard from the object of his solicitude that " he had 
 never feared death ;" and much less then, for it was but an 
 opinion and imagination ; and the manner of death, though 
 to othe/s it might seem grievous, yet he had rather die so 
 than of a burning fever." And when the conscientious and 
 assiduous minister of the gospel sought to probe into his 
 soul, and to discover whether that which the condemned 
 man described as religious confidence and peace, might not 
 be the effect of presumption, or of vain-glory, he was as- 
 sured by Ralegh of his conviction that " no man that knew 
 God, and feared him, could die with cheerfulness and cour- 
 age, except he were assured of the love and favor of God 
 towards him." 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 251 
 
 On the day of his execution he received the communion, 
 and was "very cheerful and merry," expressing- himself to 
 Dr. Townson, full of hopes that he should, at his death, 
 convince the world of his innocence. He never touched 
 upon the grounds of his first trial, but asserted his inno- 
 cence of the charges latterly brought against him. 
 
 On the morning after sentence of execution, he met his 
 doom. October 29th, the day of his death, was one of fes- 
 tivity to many of his fellow-subjects, for it was that then 
 usually appropriated to the Lord Mayor's procession. Ra- 
 leo-h, even to the last, behaved with his wonted magna- 
 nimity, ate his breakfast as usual, and took tobacco ; reply- 
 ing to the observations of those who were with him, that 
 he thought no more of his death than if he had been in 
 preparation to take a journey. A scaffold was erected m 
 the Old Palace Yard, near the Parliament House. This 
 last stage to eternity Sir Walter ascended with composure 
 and even with cheerfulness, saluting the numerous and 
 hio-h-born assemblage, who were present, among whom 
 were many with whom he had been long and intimately 
 acquainted. His dress, on this solemn occasion, was studied 
 with the same precision and attention to decorum that he 
 had ever observed in his attire. It was grave but costly, 
 and adapted at once to the accommodation of his infirmi- 
 ties, and to the situation in which he was placed on this 
 last occasion of his life. Drooping with sickness, and 
 broken with calamities and ill-requited services, his appear- 
 ance may probably have suggested to the beholders the re- 
 flection, that had the ax of the executioner spared him 
 but for a brief space of time, the visitations of disease, and 
 the course of nature, would have relieved King James of 
 his supposed and dreaded enemy. It must, indeed, have 
 been an afflicting, as it was a disgraceful spectacle, to be- 
 Aold age, under its most venerable and pitiable aspect, thus 
 exposed to a fate which, even in its softened form, could 
 not be regarded but as one full of opprobrium and of se- 
 
 After silence had been proclaimed, Sir Walter addressed 
 the bystanders, requesting them, if they perceived in him 
 any weakness of voice, or faltering of manner, to attribute 
 them to the languor of disease, with which he was attacked 
 by intermission, and that this was the wonted hour of its 
 approach. After a short pause he sat down, and turning 
 
252 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 towards a window, in which were placed the Earls of 
 Arundel, Northampton, and Doncaster, 'he continued, " I 
 thank God that he hath brought me to die in the light, and 
 not in darkness." But fearing that his voice was inaudible, 
 he said he would endeavor to exert it, upon which those 
 noblemen immediately came to the scaffold, and, after ex- 
 changing salutations, were enabled effectively to hear Ra- 
 legh's last justification. In this he distinctly, and to the 
 impartial listener satisfactorily, justified himself from the 
 principal allegations which had attainted his loyalty as a 
 subject, his honor as a private individual, and his conduct 
 as a naval commander. It has been before observed, that 
 he also exonerated himself from the charge of having fol- 
 lowed the Earl of Essex to the scaffold, that he might sa- 
 tiate a base spirit of revenge with the sight of his suffer- 
 ings. In vindicating his conduct as a subject, he denied 
 with vehemence that he had ever engaged in any plot with 
 the King of France, or had a commission from him, or even 
 seen the hand-writing of that monarch. This had been 
 one of the calumnies which Stucley and Mannourie had 
 devised. He solemnly declared that he had never uttered 
 dishonorable or disloyal expressions touching the King ;-an 
 accusation which had, he said, been fabricated by a " base 
 Frenchman, a runagate fellow, one that had no dwelling — 
 a kind of chemical fellow, one that he knew tc be perfidi- 
 ous." This man, he had, as he confessed, intrusted with 
 the secret of his projected flight, which Mannourie had in- 
 stantly revealed. 
 
 He acknowledged that he had intended to escape, but 
 justified that natural design by the plea of wishing to save 
 his life. He confessed, what was less excusable, that he had 
 dissembled and feigned sickness, but referred as a precedent, 
 to the example of David, who had assumed the appearance 
 of an idiot to escape from his enemies. 
 
 He declared that he forgave his betrayers, Stucley and 
 Mannourie, but warned all men to beware of their perfidy. 
 He denied, specifically, several particulars which they had 
 adduced, especially in relation to the sum of ten thousand 
 pounds, which Stucley had declared Sir Walter to have 
 offered him as a bribe for his escape. After commenting 
 minutely on his conduct during his voyage, he concluded 
 his exhortation in these words: — 
 
 " And now I entreat you all to join with me in prayer to 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 253 
 
 the Great God of Heaven, whom I grievously offended, 
 being a man full of vanity, and lived a sinful life in all sin- 
 ful callings, — for I have been a soldier, a captain, a sea-cap- 
 tain, and a courtier, which are courses of wretchedness and 
 vice,— that God would forgive me and cast away my sins from 
 me, and that he would receive me into everlasting life. So 
 I take my leave of all you, making my peace with God." 
 
 On the proclamation being made that all persons should 
 depart from the scaffold, Sir Walter, after taking off some 
 of his attire, gave his hat, a wrought cap which he wore, and 
 some money to his attendants. On bidding a last farewell 
 to the noblemen and other friends, who stood around him, 
 he entreated the Lord Arundel to petition the King, that 
 no calumnious publications might defame him after his 
 death : an entreaty which was utterly disregarded. The 
 composure of his demeanor may be gathered from the sim- 
 ple and tranquil, yet decorous observations which fell in 
 these solemn moments from his lips. With the magnanimi- 
 ty, without the untimely jocularity of Sir Thomas More, 
 he referred to the awful change which both soul and body 
 were shortly to undergo, by remarking " that he had a 
 long journey to go, and must therefore speedily take his 
 leave." Having taken off his gown and doublet, he desired 
 the executioner to show him the fatal instrument of destruc- 
 tion. The man, hesitating to comply, Sir Walter said, " I 
 pr'ythee let me see it : dost thou think that I am afraid of 
 it]" Having passed his finger on the edge of the ax, he 
 returned it, saying to the sheriff, " this is a sharp medicine, 
 but it is a cure for all diseases." Then, entreating the 
 prayers of the beholders, that God might strengthen and 
 assist him, he gave the customary forgiveness to the exe- 
 cutioner, laying his hand on the shoulder of the man. 
 These preliminaries being arranged, he was asked, as he 
 .aid his head on the block, in which direction he would 
 place it: an inquiry which he calmly answered, by ob- 
 serving "that if the heart be right, it were no matter 
 which way the head was laid." The executioner threw 
 his cloak over him as he reclined his body on the block, 
 his face being- turned towards the east. In a few seconds 
 Sir Walter gave the signal that he was prepared for the 
 solemn office, by raising his hand. No start of weakness, 
 no trembling movement, indicated either the emotions of 
 mental agitation, or those of nervous sensation. By two 
 W 
 
254 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 strokes his head was severed from his body : it was then 
 displayed to the populace on each side of the scaffold, and 
 put into a red leather bag; and his velvet night-gown 
 being thrown over it, it was carried away in a mourning 
 coach belonging to the desolate Lady Ralegh, by whom it 
 was long preserved in a case, and, after her death, kept 
 with the same reverential care by her son Carew, in whose 
 grave it was buried. His body was interred in the church 
 of St. Margaret, in Westminster, near the altar of the sa- 
 cred edifice. 
 
 After his death, two lines were generally circulated, 
 stated to be his, and said to have been suggested by the 
 expiring snuff of a candle, the very night before he died. 
 
 Cowards fear to die, but courage stout, 
 Rather than live in snuff, will be put out.* 
 
 This couplet is also thought to have referred to a sug- 
 gestion made to Ralegh to solicit Gondemar to sue to James 
 for his pardon. The proposal was offered to him by Lord 
 Clare, one of Ralegh's earliest and latest friends, in asso- 
 ciation with whom he had served both in court and in 
 camps, and to whom he was attached by reciprocity of 
 sentiments, and similarity of pursuits. Yet Lord Clare 
 could not prevail with Ralegh to risk the chance of a re- 
 fusal, with the sacrifice of that which he deemed a point of 
 honor. " I am neither so old nor so infirm," said he, " but 
 that I should be content to live ; and, therefore, this would 
 I do, were I sure it would do my business ; but if it fail, 
 then I shall lose both my life and my honor, and both those 
 I will not part with.f" 
 
 The lines, entitled by Archbishop Sancroft, " Ralegh's 
 epitaph," were given, according to that learned prelate, by 
 Sir Walter to one of his attendants, the night before his 
 execution ; and were said to have been found in his Bible, 
 in the Gate-house at Westminster. This touching and al- 
 most sublime composition, is thus given in the best collec- 
 tion of Ralegh's works : — 
 
 Even such is time, that takes on trust 
 Our youth, our joys, our all we have, 
 And pays us but with age and dust; 
 Who in the dark and silent grave, 
 When we have wandered all our ways, 
 Shuts up the story of our days! 
 
 * Folio edition of Ralegh, viii 729. 
 
 t Note in Biog. from Collin's Collections, fol. p. 10. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 255 
 
 But from this earth, this grave, this dust, 
 The Lord shall raise me up, I trust.* 
 
 The more elaborate poetical effusion, entitled the Fare- 
 well, and formerly asserted to have been the composition 
 of Ralegh's last hours, was, however, in print so early as 
 the year 1608, when it appeared in " Davisons' Rhapsody." 
 It is also to be found in a manuscript collection of Ralegh's 
 Poems, dated 1596. It is written with considerable force 
 and point, and is, undoubtedly, the most vigorous of Ra- 
 legh's poems ; yet it breathes not that chastened and be- 
 nevolent spirit which he appears to have imbibed in the 
 close of his later years. 
 
 Several occurrences, unimportant in themselves, appear 
 to have renewed the subject of Ralegh's death hi the pub- 
 lic mind, for a short time after his execution. One anec- 
 dote, related by Osborne, shows the jealousy of government 
 of every tribute, whether serious or frivolous, to his mem- 
 ory; and also illustrates the summary and tyrannical mode 
 then adopted of checking any popular feeling. 
 
 It was the fashion of those times, a custom in which the 
 facetious Mr. Francis Osborne frequently concurred, for the 
 principal nobles, gentry, courtiers, and men in professions 
 and occupations, not " merely mechanic," to meet in St. 
 Paul's Church by eleven, and walk in the middle aisle till 
 twelve. This practice was renewed after dinner, from 
 three to six, and afforded to the great, the gay, the ambi- 
 tious, and the curious, a place of rendezvous, where the 
 topics of the day w T ere discussed,! an d much important 
 business, under the semblance of pastime, oftentimes ar- 
 ranged. 
 
 Soon after Ralegh's death, Mr. Edward Weimark, a 
 wealthy merchant, one of the frequenters of this noted 
 promenade, and called, on that account, a Paul's walker, 
 chanced to express a wish that Ralegh's head were on Sir 
 Robert Naunton's shoulders, alluding to the notion of inca- 
 pacity and frivolity which he attached to Naunton, who 
 was better fitted for a mere courtier, than for the office of 
 Secietary of State. The observation was thought, how- 
 ever, to imply an insult, and the offence was deemed a 
 grave one : Weimark was summoned before the Privy 
 Council, and was obliged to allege in his defence, that he 
 had only meant that two heads were better than one. Some 
 
 * See Oxford edition. t Osborne's Mem. of King James, 449. 
 
256 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 time afterwards, upon a contribution being- raised for St 
 Paul's Cathedral, Weimark at the Council Chamber sub- 
 scribed one hundred pounds ; but the secretary remarking - , 
 that " two hundred were better than one," the citizen be- 
 came alarmed at the renewal of the old proverb, and dou- 
 bled his subscription. 
 
 But soon the recollection of Ralegh was dissipated by 
 fresh events, or it passed away, according to the fashion 
 of an inconstant world, except in the minds of those whose 
 love to him was not of a transitory nature. Dr. Townson, 
 who, on the 9th of November, penned a narrative of his 
 last hours, remarks, " this was the news a week since ; but 
 now it is blown over, and he is forgotten.*" Soon did his 
 sad fate cease to excite sympathy, or the causes of his death 
 to challenge conjecture. 
 
 It is some consolation to find, that Stucley's part in this 
 mournful history, was not so hastily obliterated from the 
 public mind. Both he and Mannourie became the subjects 
 of universal opprobrium.f The firmness of Ralegh in his 
 asseverations, having shaken all credence in Stucley's cal- 
 umnies, that individual offered, at court, to take the sacra- 
 ment that what he had said of Ralegh was true, and to 
 produce two other witnesses that would do the same. Nev- 
 ertheless his company was obviously avoided ; and, on a 
 subsequent occasion, his character was fully disclosed in a 
 fraudulent transaction. For avarice, his besetting sin, 
 having tempted him to lay his hands upon some coin in the 
 very palace of Whitehall, he was condemned to be hanged, 
 and was constrained to purchase his pardon by the sacrifice 
 of all his possessions, even, as it is said, to his shirt. He 
 afterwards returned to the little island of Lundy, in the 
 Severn, and died, in less than two years after Ralegh, in- 
 sane, and a beggar.J 
 
 Respecting Ralegh's surviving family, a far more char- 
 itable species of interest is felt, than that which the mise- 
 rable fate of Stucley inspires. His widow survived him 
 nine and twenty years, but never replaced one who had 
 few equals, by a second marriage. After his death she is 
 said to have relaxed not in her exertions to rescue his 
 property from the grasp of others, and to have petitioned 
 
 * Townsou's Letter, Oxford ed. viii. 782. 
 
 t Letter in Cayley's App. ii. 417. t Oldys, 221 
 
i,IFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 257 
 
 government to restore his Irish estates to his family, on the 
 ground that the sale was illegal, and the whole transaction 
 irregular. 
 
 Carew Ralegh, the only surviving offspring of Sir Wal- 
 ter and Lady Ralegh, was, at the time of his father's death, 
 thirteen years of age. He was educated at Wadham Col- 
 lege, Oxford, and introduced at Court, by William Earl of 
 Pembroke, his kinsman, and the son of that noble lady who 
 was the subject of Ben Jonson's commendations, and who 
 had formerly interceded for Sir Walter Ralegh. But, al- 
 though thus protected, the misfortunes of his family were, 
 in many respects, extended to Carew Ralegh. On his ap- 
 pearance at Court, the King observing "that he looked 
 like the ghost of his father," the poor youth was constrained 
 to absent himself, and to travel for a year, when the death 
 of James occurring, he returned. Parliament being then 
 sitting, he petitioned to be restored to his rights, but was 
 not allowed the privilege of inheriting his father's proper- 
 ty, until he had been induced, by threats and persuasions, 
 to give up all claim upon the Sherborne estate, which had 
 been consigned to Digby, Earl of Bristol. Nor was tha i 
 portion of his fathers lands ever restored to him, although, 
 upon the subsequent flight of Digby to France, a fair op- 
 portunity of rendering him justice was presented. He 
 was permitted, however, to retain a pension of 400Z. a year, 
 which had been allowed to Lady Ralegh during her life, 
 and lie was afterwards constituted by General Monk, gov- 
 ernor of Jersey. Carew Ralegh sought to vindicate his 
 father's fame both in his letters to Mr. James Howell ; and 
 in his work, entitled a " Brief Relation of Sir Walter Ra- 
 legh's Troubles." He is also supposed to have been the 
 author of " Observations on Sanderson's History of Mary 
 Queen of Scots, and her son James." He inherited some 
 portion of his father's abilities, and poetical turn, but not 
 his enthusiasm and elevation of character. Perhaps the 
 depressing circumstances of his birth and education, may 
 account for the cautious, and as some writers state, inter- 
 ested nature of his disposition. By a fortunate marriage 
 he became possessed of wealth ; and, in the person of his 
 son, the title of Sir Walter Ralegh was revived, at the 
 restoration of Charles II. It is a pleasing trait in the con- 
 duct of Carew Ralegh, that he chose to be buried in his 
 father's grave, at Westminster, in preference to being in 
 W2 
 
258 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 terred at either of the country-seats of which he had he- 
 come possessed, both at West Horsley, in Surrey, and at 
 Kenton Park, near Hampton Court.* 
 
 The works which Ralegh left behind him, in prose 
 alone, are considerable ; and as not many writers have ex- 
 ceeded him in the number of his compositions, very few 
 can also be found who have equalled him in the variety of 
 his subjects. 
 
 His poetical compositions in order of time, are first enu- 
 merated by those who have sedulously collected them from 
 various publications, or from the Ashmolean Library at Ox- 
 ford, in which several manuscript pieces attributed to him 
 have been discovered. Unlike the poets of more modern 
 times, Ralegh appears to have carelessly scattered the ef- 
 fusions of his fancy in sundry contemporary publications, 
 to have neglected their preservation, and to have disre- 
 garded the possibility of their being attributed to others. 
 It is remarkable that a stanza in his " Silent Lover," one 
 of his most eulogized poems, was, about seventy years ago, 
 current among the fashionable literary circles, as the pro- 
 duction of the celebrated Earl of Chesterfield.f 
 
 It is evident that Ralegh had recourse to poetry as a 
 recreation only, and that he never, even in his youth, con- 
 sidered it as the probable basis of his fame. Hence, the 
 desultory mode in which his lyric efforts were flung, as it 
 were, from his pen ; most of them originating in the pass- 
 ing circumstances of the day, and written in the enthu- 
 siasm of the moment. We are therefore to regard his 
 poems as the indications, rather than the fruits of his 
 genius. The mind which unfolds itself in his finished 
 works, is also displayed, forcible, elegant, and imaginative, 
 in the dreams of his muse ; but it is obvious that he be- 
 stowed not, in preparing these latter exhibitions of talent, 
 the same care as in more important undertakings. Of his 
 poetry, a considerable portion is devotional ; some pieces 
 
 * In the same tomb with the father and son, or very near to it, were 
 interred the remains of James Harrington, the author of Oceana. Au 
 brey MSS. Oxf. ed. R. W. viii. 744. 
 
 t Oxf ed Ral. Works, viii. 775, note. The stanza runs thus : — 
 
 Silence in love bewrays more woe 
 Than words, though ne'er so witty, 
 
 A beggar that is dumb, you know 
 Deserveth double pity. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 259 
 
 are dedicated to flattery of Queen Elizabeth, under a strain 
 of affected humility and of passionate admiration. A few 
 pastoral, and two satirical compositions vary the collec- 
 tion ; but the finest verses are those already referred to in 
 some publications entitled the " Farewell," and in others 
 the " Lie," and beginning with the spirited and well- 
 known stanza, 
 
 Go sou!, the body's guest, 
 Upon a thankless errand. 
 
 Fear not to touch the best, 
 The truth shall be thy warrant. 
 
 As a poet, Sir Walter Ralegh might, perhaps, in the 
 lapse of time have been forgotten, except by the antiqua- 
 ry; but there is scarcely another subject which he has 
 handled, his treatises upon which would not have insured 
 him an exalted rank in the literature of his country. Pos- 
 sessed not only of extensive knowledge, but of indefatiga- 
 ble industry, he displayed a perfect acquaintance both with 
 military and maritime science, and proved in his numerous 
 publications on these subjects, not only that his theories 
 were well-digested and ingenious, but that his information 
 was practical, and his facts gleaned from experience. Upon 
 military operations he wrote three discourses, two of which 
 were completed during the three eventful and busy years 
 of his life, before the invasion of the Spanish Armada. 
 Upon maritimal concerns he published no fewer than eight 
 treatises,* being, as he proudly announced, the first writer 
 either ancient or modern that had treated on this subject.f 
 These works are written with great perspicuity, and, al- 
 though the practices recommended in them be now obso- 
 lete, and the improvements and plans suggested, super- 
 seded by the rapid strides of modern science, they are in- 
 teresting, as all compositions dictated by good sense and 
 experience must ever be ; and curious, as illustrating the 
 comparative progress of navigation, and of the arts con- 
 nected with it. Several of the essays were dedicated, or 
 addressed in the form of letters, to Prince Henry. 
 
 The geographical discoveries of Ralegh would have held 
 a much higher station in the collectanea of valuable disser- 
 tations which he left to posterity, had not their credit beep 
 lessened by speculations in which the interests of his imme 
 
 * See Notes in Biog. art. Ralegh, with a complete list of his works, 
 t Hist Wood. lib. 5. cap. 1. sect. 6. 
 
260 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 diate gains were obviously considered, and those of truth 
 disregarded. He appears to have relied too readily upon 
 the accounts of others, and to have allowed himself, ac- 
 cording to the fashion of the day, when no precision in geo- 
 graphical delineations was deemed essential, too much lati- 
 tude in conjecture ; an error which eventually, as we have 
 seen, proved fatal to his reputation. Those of his works, 
 which may be classed under the head of Physical Geogra- 
 phy, consisted of several discourses upon the discovery, 
 planting, and settlement of Virginia ; a treatise on the West 
 Indies; and his accounts of Guiana, which have already 
 been noticed. 
 
 It has been well remarked, that Ralegh was no less 
 qualified to govern nations, than to conquer or defend 
 them, an observation which was drawn forch by the num- 
 ber of political works which he composed. Of these, one 
 treatise entitled " The Cabinet Council, containing the 
 chief Arts of Empire, and Mysteries of State, discabinet- 
 ed ;" was published by Milton in 1658 ; with the motto, 
 " Quis Martem tunica tectum adamantina digne scripse- 
 rit '?" And with the following notice. " Having had the 
 manuscript of this treatise, written by Sir Walter Ralegh, 
 many years in my hands, and finding it lately by chance, 
 among other books and papers, upon reading thereof, I 
 thought it a kind of injury to withhold longer the work of 
 so eminent an author from the public ; it being both an- 
 swerable in style to other works of his already extant, as 
 far as the subject will permit, and given me for a true 
 copy by a learned man at his death, who had collected 
 several such pieces.* 
 
 " Joh\ Milton." 
 
 Whilst this essay treats on the nature of governments 
 generally, that on the Prerogative of Parliament, dedicated 
 to King James, and printed at Middleburgh in 1628, des- 
 cants in the form of dialogue, and in an ingenious and ani- 
 mated manner, on the peculiarities, history, and advantages 
 of the English constitution and usages, with which Ralegh 
 had no ordinary nor superficial acquaintance. His treatises 
 on political subjects amount in number to ten ; the authen- 
 ticity of one or two of these is, however, doubtful ; several 
 are still in manuscript in the Ashmolean Library at Ox- 
 
 *See Oxford edit, of Ralegh's Works, vol. viii. p. 36. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 261 
 
 ord ; but lew of these were published during his lifetime, 
 ind, consequently, had neither the benefit of his correc- 
 tions, nor of his inspection. 
 
 The philosophical writing's of Ralegh are remarkable for 
 the peculiarly happy and elegant mode in which his posi- 
 tions are illustrated, and for the fascination which he 
 throws around his subject. Whilst to the profound meta- 
 physician they may appear deficient in depth, or imperfect 
 in conception and arrangement, they are, perhaps, to a 
 general reader, the most engaging of all his works. In 
 the " Sceptic," he has ingeniously shown the various and 
 contradictory views, which may, with an appearance of 
 justice, be entertained of the same subjects. Upon this 
 fanciful plan, lie has displayed extensive observations of 
 nature, and a knowledge of her economy, which excite 
 wonder and admiration, when his multifarious occupations, 
 in the court, the camp, and the cabinet, are considered. 
 Ralegh, during the short periods of leisure which he en- 
 joyed, must have been an indefatigable student, and that 
 which in private he stored up with so much assiduity, he 
 knew well how to apply with address, when called forth 
 by occasion. 
 
 Among his philosophical works have been classed, " The 
 Instructions to his Son, and Posterity," published after his 
 death, in the small collection of his works, entitled his 
 " Remains." This didactic composition reminds the mod- 
 ern reader, in many passages, of the celebrated Letters of 
 Lord Chesterfield, who may, perhaps, have borrowed the 
 notion of such a form of admonition from this little work. 
 But Ralegh, in directing the attention of youth to the for- 
 mation of character, presents, as the only solid foundation, 
 the pure principles of Christianity, and derives his best max- 
 ims from Holy Writ itself. He places, indeed, a sufficient, 
 and perhaps more than sufficient importance upon worldly 
 motives and worldly prudence ; but he considers them ever as 
 in subjection to virtue and religion. In this respect he holds a 
 rank as an instructor, far superior to the ingenious writer with 
 whom the foregoing comparison has been made. Although 
 he enters not into the minutiae of deportment, habits, ard 
 dress, nor upon the methods necessary for the attainment 
 of a good name in society, upon which Lord Chesterfield 
 peculiarly insisted, yet he may be deemed, of the two, 
 the wiser friend, and, it may be added, the more affection- 
 
262 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 ate father ; for he writes with a more earnest regard to 
 those interests of his child, and of youth in general, to 
 which an anxious parent would look with solicitude, and 
 inculcate with the greatest assiduity. The essays of Ra- 
 legh are calculated to form the pure and well-intentioned 
 youth, into an upright and religious member of the com- 
 munity. Those of his modern rival are qualified to nour- 
 ish selfishness, to encourage the subtleties and artifices of 
 polite life, and to convert the aspirations of youthful ambi- 
 tion into an habitual reverence for worldly advantages, and 
 for these alone. 
 
 With these instructions of Ralegh to his son, has been 
 published another essay, entitled, " The dutiful Advice of 
 a loving Son to his Father," by some considered as a satire 
 upon Ralegh, but, by most of his biographers, considered to 
 be the production of his son. 
 
 Such was the variety of Ralegh's avocations, that, be- 
 sides these works on Moral Philosophy, he left two others 
 on Natural Philosophy, for one of which, " A Treatise on 
 Mines, and the Trial of Minerals," he found tune to collect 
 materials during his transient visits into Cornwall and De- 
 vonshire, and improved, and extended the ideas thus ac- 
 quired, by his acquaintance with the West Indies, and his 
 intimacy with Sir Adrian Gilbert. That kinsman of Ra- 
 legh, began, in the reign of Elizabeth, to explore the long- 
 neglected mines of Comb Martin, from the stores of which 
 Edward the Third supplied the resources for his wars with 
 France ; and from the silver ore of which, Sir Adrian 
 caused two massy goblets to be formed, one of which he 
 presented to the Earl of Bath, and the other to the Lord 
 Mayor of London, in the thirty-fifth year of the Queen's 
 reign.* 
 
 Ralegh also left a collection of " Chymical and medicinal 
 receipts for fixing mercury, preparing antimony, and for 
 the cure of various diseases." This work is still in manu- 
 script, in the library of Sir Hans Sloane : it is contained in 
 about seventy leaves in quarto ; and on one leaf Sir Wal- 
 ter has written, " our great cordial," with a line under it, 
 and a list of ingredients following.! 
 
 Of Ralegh's historical productions, some incidental no- 
 tices have already been given in the course of this sketch 
 
 * Oldys, 183. t Note in Oldys, 183 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 263 
 
 of his life. The noblest of all his literary productions, the 
 History of the World, was not, in all probability, commenced 
 until he had entered his fifty-first year ; and when, in sick- 
 ness and despondency, he had to check the afflicting retro- 
 spection of his heaviest calamities, to sustain unrelenting 
 persecutions, and the most appalling reverses of fortune, 
 and to contend against the depression naturally produced 
 by the prospect of a long imprisonment. Such were the 
 circumstances with which he had to conflict, and such 
 their tendency to damp his ardor for fame,- and to chill 
 every transport of enthusiasm. These were, however, in- 
 effectual in impeding the progress of such a portion of this 
 undertaking as is sufficient to perpetuate Ralegh's name, 
 so long as 'our national literature shall continue to exist. 
 It is deeply to be regretted, that if he had actually collect- 
 ed materials for a second part, they were destroyed, or suf- 
 fered to remain useless. If, as an historian of remote ages ; 
 he could throw any interest into the narrative of early 
 times, how vivid would have been his pictures of modern 
 manners; how animated his details of the achievements of 
 chivalry ; how graphic, and yet how impartial, his relations 
 of the vast changes, which time, conquest, or religion, ef- 
 fect upon our moral condition! It is, however, problemati- 
 cal, whether more than loose notes, or hasty reflections 
 were really compiled for the sequel of this justly eulogized 
 undertaking. 
 
 On Ralegh's epistolary remains, too high an encomium 
 can scarcely be passed. Of these Mr. Oldys had seen 
 twenty-eight letters, either in manuscript or in print, which, 
 with the addition of those printed in the Appendix to this 
 work, and collected from the State Paper Office, amount 
 to a considerable number, and would form a small volume. 
 Some of his epistles, especially to Sir Ralph Winwood, 
 may be ranked, from the important events they describe, 
 and their official character, among his historical produc- 
 tions. In this form of composition, Ralegh is always ad- 
 mirable ; and, whether we view him as a grave narrator 
 of facts, or in the familiarity of friendly communication, 
 he has been equalled by few of our English writers ; for 
 few nave possessed the art to appear wholly concerned in 
 their subjects, and but little in themselves. It has been 
 remarked, respecting a letter of Ralegh's published by Sir 
 Richard Steele in the Englishman, that there is no satisfac- 
 
264 
 
 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH 
 
 tory evidence of its authenticity.* This, of his epistles, ia 
 most generally admired, and known ; yet, although a beauti- 
 ful composition, it might seem rather to be the production 
 of Steele himself, than of Ralegh, with whose sentiments of 
 monarchy,! a s well as with his usual style of composition, 
 it is at variance in many respects. 
 
 Sir Walter Ralegh was sixty years old at the time of 
 his deatli ; but, although then suffering from fever, retained 
 considerable vigor of constitution, even to the last. The 
 attributes of his person were universally acknowledged by 
 his contemporaries, to be strength, symmetry, and dignity ; 
 of his countenance, proportion and expression, not, indeed, 
 wholly devoid of a peculiarity, at first sight, unpleasing ; 
 his forehead was exceedingly high, and the contour of his 
 face altogether long ; and the general impression which his 
 presence inspired, was that of a commanding boldness, not 
 unmingled with austerity.]: There was an ancient rebus, 
 usually applied in Sir Walter's time, to his name as it waa 
 then pronounced : — 
 
 " The enemy to the stomach,§ and the word of disgrace,]) 
 Is the name of the gentleman with a bold face." 
 
 Tradition asserts him to have had a weak voice, a report 
 which seems probable, from the apprehension which he 
 manifested on several important public occasions, lest he 
 should not be distinctly heard. Notwithstanding his learn- 
 ed education, his intercourse with foreign nations, and with 
 polite and intellectual society at home, Sir Walter Ralegh 
 is said to have spoken " broad Devonshire to his dying 
 day.lP 
 
 In his ordinary habits of life, he possessed that faculty, 
 conspicuous in men of powerful genius, of being able quick- 
 ly to vary his pursuits, and of giving the whole powers of 
 his mind to that which ought immediately to occupy his 
 attention. The various faculties of his understanding were 
 thus incessantly called into exercise, and no portion of hia 
 acquirements was suffered to fall into disuse. In the early 
 part of his life, it seems incomprehensible how he could 
 have studied ; and, when he found leisure, or retirement, 
 to accumulate the great stores of learning, which after- 
 
 * Cayley. t See his Cabinet Council. Oxford ed. vol. viii. p. 37, 38. 
 t Aubrey's MSS. Oxford ed. vol. viii. p. 737. X Raw - 
 
 | Ly. 1T Aubrey. 
 
LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 265 
 
 wards caused him to be reputed " one of the weightiest and 
 wisest men that this island ever bred.*" Independent of 
 his military career, of a life of incessant activity in Ireland; 
 in France, in Portugal, and at home, he was the gayest 
 member of society, and the most loquacious, frolicsome, and 
 frequent attendant upon taverns, and other places of resort, 
 then in vogue. He was not, however, indiscriminate in 
 his approval of certain companions. Aubrey relates, that 
 being much annoyed by the impertinence and incessant 
 vociferation of one Charles Chester, the original of Ben 
 Jonson's Carlo Buffone,f Sir Walter sealed up the mouth, 
 upper and nether beard of this noisy personage, with hard 
 wax, accompanying the outrage with an effectual beating. 
 Of Ralegh's social habits but few authentic anecdotes have 
 been transmitted to us. Inferences, from casual remarks 
 and various authors, may, however, be drawn, that he was 
 frequently, during his liberty, in public and in private fes- 
 tivities, into which he introduced, both by the importation 
 of tobacco, and his own practice, the custom of smoking, 
 with a silver pipe, which was at first handed round from 
 one man to another at table.f But he knew how to in- 
 dulge in recreation without constituting it the sole end and 
 aim of his being, an error, fatal to enjoyment, as well as to 
 mental attainments. Few men were so independent of 
 external circumstances : within the walls of a prison, or, 
 what is almost equally a durance, the narrow bounds of a 
 ship's cabin, he could make to himself an imaginary world 
 by the aid of study and reflection. We have seen how he 
 employed the period of his captivity : he is said also to have 
 studied assiduously in his sea voyages, where he carried 
 always along with him a great trunk of books. § 
 
 On the qualities of Sir Walter Ralegh's mind, most 
 writers have been agreed. That he possessed imagination, 
 not rendered sickly by continued indulgence, but invigo- 
 rated by the aid of judgment and cultivation, is undeniable. 
 That the scope which he proposed to himself in his literary 
 undertakings was most extensive, and that it could only be 
 compassed by a mind of the most elevated and powerful 
 character, is equally obvious. He planned more than many 
 
 * Howell's Letters, vol. ii. p. 372. 
 
 t See " Every Man out of his Humor." 
 
 X Aubrey. § Ibid. 
 
266 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 men have ventured even to think on ; he executed what 
 few individuals have been bold enough to plan. Although 
 an experim mtalist, he was not merely a dreamer ; his en- 
 ergies were in proportion to his schemes. Yet in delinea- 
 ting the mental characteristics of this extraordinary man, 
 we cannot but acknowledge the preponderance of his ima- 
 gination over the other attributes of his intellect; a prepon- 
 derance increased by a temperament naturally ardent and 
 sanguine. Subdued, as it was, by the necessities of action, 
 and by an incessant mingling with the realities of life, it 
 was this quality, which, whilst it gave the charm, pro- 
 duced also the danger to Ralegh's career. In a moral 
 sense, whilst it was the source of most of his glorious en- 
 terprises, it was also the cause of his speculations, of his 
 acts of imprudence, and schemes of ambition. The errors 
 of his life may far more justly be traced to the visionary 
 notions which he indulged, and which were not, indeed, 
 always of a selfish character, than to gross deficiencies in 
 principle, or defects of the heart. His faults, exaggerated 
 as they were by the writers of his own times, belonged to 
 the period in which he lived : his virtues attained a degree 
 of eminence which a far more civilized age would have 
 viewed with admiration and repaid with gratitude. Where, 
 in any of the successive reigns, up to the present day, do 
 we behold such instances of patriotic exertion in a private 
 individual, as in Ralegh, who never attained any offices in 
 the state, but such as were calculated to give him local 
 importance only? Though accused, and in some points 
 convicted of avarice, where the national glory was con- 
 cerned he risked, in his earliest expeditions, large portions 
 of his property ; and, in his last fatal voyage, ventured all 
 that he possessed. Though ambitious, and a courtier, he 
 was not time-serving, like Cecil, nor despicably subser- 
 vient, like Bacon : and, at the accession of James I., was 
 almost the only man that dared to give that monarch hon- 
 est counsel. Though desirous, after his disgrace, of resti- 
 tution to honor and station, he was yet above seeking it by 
 any base crimination of others, or mean concession to his 
 oppressors : he neither vilified Cobham, nor condescended 
 to beg from Gondemar the boon of existence. 
 
 As a statesman Ralegh was earnest, liberal, enlightened, 
 and, generally, independent. As a British subject, he was 
 assiduous in his country's service ; in most of his designs 
 
LIFE OF SIR WAI I'ER RALEGH. 267 
 
 benevolent, and, except for persecution, he would have 
 been loyal. As an author, he has sought to promote the 
 interests of morality, and to elevate its standard : neither 
 infidelity nor impurity sullied the worth of his productions. 
 He bequeathed not to posterity that which the most sedu- 
 lous parent might not place in the hands of a child, just 
 rising to a consciousness of the existence of evil. He did 
 more ; he left those testimonies of his wisdom, and efforts • 
 of his abilities, which would inspire in the youthful breast 
 sentiments of generous ambition, and a desire of laudable 
 exertion. To the senator,' the soldier, the mariner, the 
 student, he may alike be presented as a model for imita- 
 tion, and a stimulus to hopes of success. Nor, when we 
 look into the private life of Ralegh, are we compelled to 
 check the enjoyment which admiration of talent produces: 
 strongly tinctured with the erroneous notions of the day, 
 in some points, he was yet a good man. Though, in his 
 youth, he ran into irregularities, these were not settled into 
 vices: his heart was affectionate, and his horror of profli- 
 gacy, on many occasions, strongly and admirably expressed.* 
 Though tempted, in the ardor of military fame, to acts of 
 cruelty, he became patient, lenient, and compassionate : 
 this is evident from the love which his shipmates bore to 
 him, and from the care and anxiety which he evinced for 
 them in all his voyages. Though vehement in his enmi- 
 ties, hi early life, his latter days were not degraded, as far 
 as we can judge, by virulent resentments or malevolent 
 feelings, for which few men could have been more ex- 
 cused. His expressions, whenever he alludes to his 
 wrongs, are temperate ; and on all solemn occasions, on 
 his trial, at his execution, though he earnestly sought to 
 justify himself, he abstained from reflections upon others. 
 
 On one of the most important points of his character, 
 iiis veracity, opinions are still divided. Whether Ralegh 
 really believed, or only feigned to believe in the riches of 
 Guiana; whether his account of that country were the re- 
 sult of credulity, or the labor of imposture, can scarcely be 
 determined. But on these considerations, different views 
 will be adopted, in proportion to the different notions im- 
 bibed of his general qualities. Confiding in a man, as hon- 
 orable and faithful, we should be inclined rather to charge 
 
 * See his Letter to his Son, &c. 
 
268 LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH. 
 
 him with folly, than to censure him for deception. In the 
 reign of James, the prevalent, or at least avowed sentiment 
 regarding Ralegh, was that of distrust and reprobation. 
 Hence the worst construction was placed upon his failure 
 and his errors : but posterity, rendering him justice in the 
 other passages of his life, will be more inclined to view 
 him in this respect with indulgence. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Note (A). 
 
 The potatoe is the tuber of a poisonous plant, the Solatium tuberosum 
 a native of South America ; belonging to the natural order Solanew. It 
 is improperly regarded as a root, as it is a tuber or an underground mag- 
 azine of nutriment for the gems, the rudiments of the lateral progeny of 
 the plant which is to become plants in the subsequent year. I he pota 
 toe is not even attached to the root ; but, by cords of vessels, or wires, as 
 they are termed, to the base of the stem or caudex. The nutriment form- 
 ed in the plant by the exposure of the sap to the air and light in the leat, 
 is conveyed through these wires, and deposited in the tubes for the use 
 of the gems. It is not, however, until these begin to vegetate, that the 
 farinaceous matter is absorbed ; and at this time, it undergoes a change, 
 and acquires saccharine properties. As the young plant grows, the pota- 
 toe shrivels ; and, being at length exhausted, becomes an empty skin ; but 
 ere this happens, the young plants are capable of supplying themselves 
 from the ground, and no longer require the aid of the tuber. In convert- 
 in" the potatoe therefore, to nourishment for himself, man robs the young 
 plants of what nature intends for their support : by the art of cultiva- 
 tion, however, he has greatly increased the supply of nutriment, the wild 
 potatoe affording tubers not longer than a walnut. 
 
 The uncooked potatoe possesses injurious if not poisonous properties; 
 but heat destroys these, and converts the parenchyma of the tuber into a 
 highly nutritive and agreeable food. It is a matter of dispute with polit- 
 ical economists, whether the introduction of the potatoe has really con- 
 tributed to the welfare of the human race. ATT 
 
 Note (B). 
 
 Notices relative to Tobacco, by Doctor A. T. Thomson. 
 
 " He first the snuff-boi open'd, then the case." 
 
 Rape of the Loch. 
 
 What is tobacco, which has enslaved to its use the greater part of the 
 human race for upwards of three centuries? is a question which natural- 
 ly occurs to the mind of any one who hears or reads of the obstacles 
 which were opposed to its introduction into Europe, and the popularity 
 which it has for so long a period of time maintained. The reply is familiar 
 to every one : it is the dried leaf of a species of plant which is named, 
 in botaiiical language, Nicotiana tobacum ; but it is not generally known 
 that the Tobacco, which is brought to this country in the form ot dried 
 leaves cigars, and snuff, is the production of not one only, but of several 
 species of the genus Nicotiana. The greater number of the species are 
 animal plants, natives of South America ; but two, at least, are perenni 
 al • the Nicotiana fruticosa, which is a shrub, a native of the Cape of 
 Good Hope, and of China ; and N. urens, a native of South America. 
 Many of the species are cultivated in Europe ; but, it is remarkable that 
 Humboldt found only two of them, the N. paniculata, and N. gluttnosa, 
 
 rowin" wild in the Oroonoko. He added two new species to the family 
 .ne N. laxcnsis and andicola, which he found on the Andes at 1850 toises 
 of elevation.* 
 
 The species of Nicotiana which was first known, and which still tur 
 nishes the greatest supply of Tobacco, is the N. tabacum, an annual plant 
 
 * Humboldt's Personal Narrative, vol. v. 
 
270 APPENDIX. 
 
 a native of South America, but naturalized to our climate. It is a tall, 
 not inelegant plant, rising to the height of six feet, with a strong, round, 
 villous, slightly viscid stem, furnished with alternate leaves, which are 
 sessile, or clasp the stem ; and are riecurrent, lanceolate, etitire ; of a full 
 green on the upper surface, and pale on the under. In a vigorous plant, 
 the lower leaves are about twenty inches in length, and from three to 
 five in breadth, decreasing as they ascend. The inflorescence, or flower- 
 ing part of the stem, is terminal, loosely branching in that form which 
 botanists term a panicle, with long, linear floral leaves or bractes at the 
 origin of each division. The flowers, which blow in July and August, 
 are of a pale pink or rose color: the calyx or flower-cup, is bell-shaped, 
 obscurely pentangular, villous, slightly viscid, and presenting at the mar- 
 gin live acute, erect segments. The corolla is twice the length of the 
 calyx, viscid, tubular below, swelling above into an oblong cup, and ex- 
 panding at the lip into fine, somewhat plaited, pointed segments; the 
 seed vessel is an oblong or ovate capsule, containing numerous reniform 
 seeds, which are ripe in September and October; and, if not collected, 
 are shed by the capsule opening at the apex. 
 
 The character that particularly distinguishes N. labacum from the other 
 species of the genus, is the sessile, recurrent leaves. 
 
 Besides the species of Nicotiana described by botanists, seven kinds of 
 Tobacco, some of which are probably distinct species, others only varie- 
 ties of the tabacum, are cultivated in Virginia ; and known by the names 
 of Hudson, Frederick, thick-joint, shoe-string, thickset, sweet-scented, 
 and Oroonoko* The cultivation of Tobacco varies in different places. 
 1 shall only mention that which is pursued, and the manner of preparing 
 the plant, in the United States. The seed is sown in February and March, 
 when the ground is soft and rendered light by repeated workings; in 
 April, after the first vernal rains, the young plants are drawn, and plant- 
 ed in beds, at the distance of three feet from one another. The planta- 
 tions must be kept well weeded ; and in another month the top of each 
 plant is pruned off, the lateral shoots or suckers are taken away, and the 
 weeds very carefully kept down. At this period the plants are attacked 
 by several insects, from which they are cleared by turkies, flocks of which 
 are driven into the grounds for this purpose.! When the plant has at- 
 tained its full height, the leaves begin to acquire a brownish color, and a 
 clamminess which indicates their maturity. They are now cut close to 
 the surface of the ground, and laid in heaps, exposed to the sun, for one 
 day; then carried to the sheds, where each plant is hung up separately, 
 and remains until the leaves are perfectly dry ; after which they are strip- 
 ped from ihe stalks, and tied in small bundles, a twisted leaf serving to 
 tie them together. These bundles are now laid in heaps, and sometimes 
 covered with blankets or straw, to favor a fermentation which takes 
 place in them; but to prevent their being overheated, they are occasion- 
 ally opened and spread abroad to the air. J As soon as all danger of over- 
 heating is past, the Tobacco is packed in casks and carried to the public 
 warehouse, where it is examined ; if pronounced good, a transfer note is 
 given to the owner, and it is permitted to be exported ; if it be bad and 
 unsaleable, it is publicly burnt, and the certificate refused. 
 
 * Brodigan on the Tobacco Plant, p. 17. 
 
 t In Colombia the following are the great enemies of the Tobacco plant. A grub, named 
 tonne, which devours the young buds ; the rosca-worrn, which commits its depredations in the 
 night only, burying in the ground during the day ; the grub of a butterfly, called by the Creoles, 
 paktmeta ; a species carabeus called aradcr, which feeds on the root of the plant ; and a species 
 of caterpillar which is called in the country, the horned-worm, so voracious as to require one 
 night only to devour an entire leaf of tobacco. The natural history of these insects has not yet 
 been examined. 
 
 In South America, the Tobacco is fermented in balls made in a peculiar manner ; and in order 
 to obtain from the plant a juice which is highly prized under the name of JVfoo and Chimoo; the 
 fermentation is repeated four successive times ; a u eight is then placed on the balls which press- 
 es out this liquor, and which, received into appropriate vessels, is boiled to the consistence of l 
 svrup. It is much prized by the planters of the interior of Tierra Firme. Vidi Colombia, vol 
 i;. p. 117. 
 
 J Warden's Account of the United States, quoted by Brodigan, p. 123-26. 
 
APPENDIX. 27 i 
 
 Tohacco as it arrives in this counUy, has undergone a second fermen- 
 JnTS™ it is termed ; and acquires a dark brown Hue and 
 a soft 'text, re Its odor is strong, and to many not very agreeable;! 
 U te's bluer and very acrid, and when burned; emits *par ks con .... ,ng 
 ,„ h ,, rn ..f t p r ;. has been "hted, resembling the deflagrating o. pitpei 
 that ha been soaked in nitre, to which salt! indeed, tobacco owes this 
 Seo burning It yields its properties both to water and to alcohol 
 and when distilled per se, affords a green essential oil, v. Inch is a v iruli u 
 no son The expressed juice of the fresh leaves has been analyzed by 
 Vauq .e.in the Krated French chemist, who found in it a -Ms.derabe 
 quantity of vegetable albumen or gluten; some supcr-ma a e «/ I.» , •* 
 £c odd nitrate and muriate 0/ potosso ; a red matter, soluble in alcohol 
 and in water the nature of which is still unknown ; muriate of ammonia 
 and 1 pecul ar acrid, volatile principle, which Vauque.in termed nicotina 
 from the generic name of the plant. To this substance and the volatile 
 KSs of Tobacco, both in an economical and medicinal point 
 of view a?e f to be attributed. I shall notice the peculiar propert.es of 
 each of these principles in its proper place. 
 
 Ralegh found Tobacco cultivated in Trinidad, on his first visit to 11 in 
 ,593 hut it was not introduced into Virginia unt. IblG wte utt growtt 
 there was commenced under tne government of Sir Thorny Dale n is 
 now raised also in the Brazils, Demerary, Cuba, St. Don lingo, the t,ape 
 of Good Hope 3 , and in India. Sir W. Ralegh introduced , tscu t,,re in o 
 Ireland on his estate at Youghal, in the county of Cork, and it is irtili 
 produced to a small extent in Carlow Waterford and K.Ike nny although 
 it has ceased to be raised in England and Scotland, since 1782. Before 
 that period it was extensively reared in the north r ding ot Yorksl re , 
 and in tie neighborhood of Kelso, in Scotland, not less than one thou- 
 sand aces were covered with it. How far the prohibition of its growth 
 at home is to be regarded as an act of legislative wisdom, I must leave 
 
 ° l The S hisforyTf Tobacco, as a luxury, is a striking illustration of the 
 inefficiency -of human laws to control the inclinations of mankind 
 WhefcolLbus discovered the continent of the Western world he found 
 that in some of the relic ous ceremonies of the Indians, a plant v>as 
 ,1 into the fire, the smoke of which, ascending, V^^dJ^me 
 effects upon the officiating Piache * as the mephitic vapors of Delphos 
 upon the P Pythian priestess : responses were given, and oracles delivered, 
 under the influence of a peculiar intoxication. This P'anJ was ™ acco, 
 which was probablv used, also, as a luxury by the subjects of Montezu- 
 ma as it was smoked over the whole of America at the period of the 
 Snanfsl connueTt t Its introduction into the Old World soon followed 
 and a hough it was opposed by every power, both civil and religious yet 
 its use has become so general, that it is not only regarded as the solace 
 and enjoy menTof the luxurious in every rank of life in civil. zed Europe 
 but has been introduced wherever Europeans have found, the, ay. 
 even into the islands of the Pacific Ocean, by their adventurous discov- 
 erers In the Sandwich Islands, says Kotzebue, Tobacco is now so gen. 
 IraUy used, that young children learn to smoke bf ore they walk and 
 grown up people carrv the practice to such an excess, that they have lall- 
 en down senseless, and often died in consequence.! .j„«,„ iit t„ 
 
 There is reason for believing, that the first time the Spaniards saw To- 
 bacco smoked as a luxury, wis at an amicable interview between Gri- 
 ialva a Spaniard, and the Cacique of Tabasco, after a victory which 
 Grilalva, who, under th e auspices of Velasquez, conducted an expedition 
 
 y^^^«g^ Ms? SSiSSSsw 
 n ^:: u : ZT e °z& cX ^ t . P t^; ffl re ia.i. .ha. .m.™* ^ so».h a™» 
 
 SSSH^B±^^k c = t s:ffi^^^s 
 
 febver the reTpon^" which .hey pretend ,0 have received from the world of sp.rtts. 
 t Humboldt's Personal Narrative, vol. v. p. 666. 
 j Vovage of Discovery. 
 
272 appends. 
 
 from St. Iago de Cuba, in 1518, had gained over the Indian at Potonehan. 
 It was from the name of the place of this interview, which is indiscrim 
 inately called Tabasco and Tabaco,* that the plant received the appella 
 tion, which Hernandez de Toledo then imposed upon it, and which it still 
 retains.f In the following year, 1519, Cortez, who had commenced his 
 career of ambition, transmitted a propitiatory present to Charles, as a 
 specimen of the wealth and productions of the territory he had conquer- 
 ed for urn: as a part of this tribute, Tobacco first found its way into 
 Europe, and, through the Venetian and Genoese traders to the Levant, 
 it was introduced into Turkey, Arabia, Persia, and the whole of Asia. 
 It was not, however, until the middle of this century that it attracted 
 considerable notice. In 15(51 some seeds of Tobacco were given by a 
 Dutch planter to Jean Nicot, lord of Villemain, and Master of Requests 
 in the French court, who was then the ambassador of Francis II. in Por- 
 tugal. Nicot sent them to Catherine de Medicis, who afterwards patron- 
 ized it as a medicine ; and thence it obtained the name of Herbe a la 
 Reine until her death. The generic name, JVicotiana, was imposed by 
 Linnaeus ; and is the appellation now employed. 
 
 About this period, the monarchs of the world combined, as it were, to 
 crush, by force, the evils which they anticipated from the introduction 
 of Tobacco into their dominions. In England, Elizabeth published an 
 edict against its use, assigning as a reason, that her subjects, by employ- 
 ing the same luxuries as barbarians, were likely to degenerate into bar- 
 barism t : and in the following reign, James wrote his celebrated "Coun- 
 terblaste to Tobacco," in which he remarks that the custom of smoking 
 " is loathsome to the eye, hateful I to the nose, harmefull to the braine, 
 dangerous to the luncs ; and in the black stinking fume thereof, nearest 
 resembling the horrible Stygian smoake of the pit that is bottomless?;" 
 whilst, at the same time, he imposed a prohibitory duty of six shillings 
 and eight pence per pound on its importation, || and enacted that no plant- 
 er in Virginia should raise more than one hundred pounds of it in one 
 year. Charles continued this impost, and made Tobacco a royal monop- 
 oly, as it is at the present period, in the Netherlands and in France. An 
 amusing fact, connected with the opposition to its general use, is related 
 of Fagon, the physician to Lewis XIV. .- in the midst of an oration on 
 the pernicious effects of Tobacco, the orator made a pause ; and, taking 
 his snuff-box from his pocket, refreshed himself with a pinch to enable 
 him to renew the argument. 
 
 In 1590, Shah Abbas prohibited the use of Tobacco in Persia, by a pe- 
 nal law : but, so firmly had the luxury rooted itself in the minds of his 
 subjects, that many of the inhabitants of the cities fled to the mountains, 
 where they hid themselves, rather than forego the pleasure of smoking. 
 In the beginning of the next century, in 1(324. Pope Urban VIII. anathe- 
 matized all snufftakers, who committed the heinous sin of taking a 
 pinch in any church : and so late as 1G90, Innocent XII. excommunicat- 
 ed all who indulged in the same vice in Saint Peter's church, at Rome, 
 in IC25, Amurath IV. prohibited smoking, as an unnatural and irreligious 
 
 * Tabasco is an island in the Gulf of Mexico, at the bottom of the Bay of Campeachv. It ia 
 formed by the river Tabasco, which, rising in (he mountains of Chiapa, continues its course un- 
 til within four leagues of the sea, when it divides and separates the island of Tabasco from the 
 continent. 
 
 I Notwithstanding this clear illustration of the origin of the specific name, some are of opinion 
 that it is derived from Tabac, said to be the name of the instrument used in America for smoking 
 the herb. s 
 
 I Camden thus states this fact. — " .Anglorum corpora in barbarorum naturam degenerasse, 
 quum iidem ac barbari delectentur."— Annul. Eliz. p. 143. The general opposition on the part 
 of different frovernnients to its introduction, may be, in some measure, explained by the fact, that 
 the poisonous qualities of Tobacco were known in Europe at the time of its introduction from 
 America. 
 
 § James also proposed as a banquet for the devil, "a pig, a poole of ling and mustard, and a 
 pipe or Tobacco for digestive."(n) Nevertheless, in the treaty for Guiana, Robert HaTOUrt 
 stipulated, on Ihe part of James, " that one-tenth of the Tobacco cultivated there should £0 it 
 the king."- Harris, vol. i. p. 7. 
 
 II The liu'J in the reign of Elizabeth was only two pence per pound. 
 
 (n) Apophthegms of Kt-'% James, 1671 
 
 H 
 
APPENDIX. 273 
 
 custom, under pain of death: few, indeed, suffered the penalty, yet, in 
 Constantinople, where the custom is now universal, smoking was thought 
 to be so ridiculous and hurtful, that any Turk, who was caught in the 
 act, was conducted in ridicule through the streets, with a pipe transfixed 
 through his nose. In Russia, where the peasantry now smoke all day 
 long, the Grand Duke of Moscow prohibited the entrance of Tobacco into 
 his dominions, under the penalty of the knout for the first offence and 
 death for the second ; and the Muscovite who was found snuffing, was 
 condemned to have his nostrils split. So great, indeed, was the animos- 
 ity of the government against Tobacco, in every form, that a particular 
 tribunal, the Chambre au Tabac, for punishing smokers, was instituted 
 in 1034, and not abolished until the middle of the eighteenth century. 
 Even in Switzerland, war was waged against the American herb: to 
 smoke, in Berne, ranked as a crime next to adultery; and in 1653, all 
 smokers were cited before the Council at Apenzel, and severely punished. 
 But, like many bad, and all persecuted customs, Tobacco triumphed over 
 its opponents ; it is now cultivated in both hemispheres of the globe ; and 
 the importation of Tobacco and snuff into Great Britain alone, in 1829, 
 amounted to 16,880 hogsheads.* 
 
 It has been stated that Tobacco was discovered by the Spaniards in 
 Yucatan, in 1518; but Humboldt asserts, that it was cultivated, from 
 time immemorial, by the natives of the Oroonoko ; where it is called 
 Petun, Pote-ma, and Piciel] It was, soon after its discovery, transported 
 
 * Comparative Statement of the Importation, Home Consumption, Exportation, Stock remain 
 ing, and prices of American Tobacco at London for Six Years, ending 31st of December, 1829. 
 
 Prices, 31st December 
 per lb. 
 
 Hils. 
 8737 
 1S745 
 10340 
 10223 
 9516 
 9620 
 
 Hds. 
 
 ..„,_ C Virginia, 
 14719 i '( Maryland, 
 5 Virginia, 
 ( Maryland. 
 J Virginia, 
 I Maryland. 
 \ Virginia, 
 c Maryland 
 
 [ Maryland, 
 i Virginia, 
 [ Maryland 
 
 27878 
 27705 
 
 2Yy~: 
 
 : v ij.j 
 
 21 to 8 
 
 2. to2 
 3* to 9h 
 2$ to 2 3 
 
 3 to OS 
 
 3, to 3 
 2s-to0 6i 
 35 to 1 6, 
 2\ to O62 
 2i to 1 3 
 24to07 
 
 4 to 16 
 
 Virginia, . . . I 
 Kentucky, &c. 2106 
 Maryland, . . 939 
 
 9620 
 
 Stock consisted of 
 Virginia, Ken- 
 tucky, fee. . . 22419 
 Maryland, . . 1115 
 
 23534 
 
 Deliveries to 
 
 Hds. 
 
 Holland, 2072J 
 
 Hans Towns, . . . 518 
 
 Prussia, 12' 
 
 Norway & Denm. 144J 
 
 Italy, 173 1 
 
 Portugal & Spain, 792| 
 Brit. Possessions, 294 
 Irish Ports, .... 419 
 Use of Navy, . . . 
 Home Trade, . . . 3S65 
 Do. in Bond, . . . 
 
 Statement of the Quantity of Tobacco imported into Liverpool and the Clyde in 1S29, compared 
 with 1828, and the Stock estimated to remain on hand at the close of each year. 
 
 Liverpool. ...American.... 
 
 Imported in 
 
 Slock on 3lst December. 
 
 1828. 
 
 1S29. 
 
 1828. 
 
 1S29. 
 
 5980 
 6SI 
 68 
 
 4900 
 768 
 
 9200 
 857 
 68 
 
 6400 
 860 
 68 
 
 
 T The name by which tobacco is known in America differs in each province : in the Mexican 
 or Aztuk tongue it is called yetle ; in Algonkin, sema ; in the Huron, ayougoi.a: in the Peru 
 vian it is sayri in Chiquito, paw; in Vilela, tusup ; Albaja, nalodasadi; Moxo, t&bar*. 
 
274 APPENDIX. 
 
 to the West Indies; particularly to Cuba, the Tobf ..co of which is still 
 the most highly prized : and to North America, where it has been most 
 extensively cultivated. One curious circumstance connected with its cul- 
 tivation in Virginia is worth noticing : the planters, in the beginning of 
 the seventeenth century, being all bachelors, regarded themselves merely 
 as temporary sojourners in the colony ; the London Company, which wa3 
 established in iliOG, for the colonization of Virginia, with a view to their 
 steadiness, sent out a number of respectable young women, to supply the 
 settlers with wives. These ladies were actually sold for one hundred 
 and twenty pounds of Tobacco each, being the quantity considered aa 
 equivalent to the expenses of the voyage.* 
 
 Let us now inquire into the various uses to which Tobacco is applied 
 and its medicinal properties. It is used, as a luxury, in three ways:-- 
 for chewing, smoking, and snuffing. 
 
 1. Chewing Tobacco. — The origin of this custom has not been traced, 
 but it probably sprung from the desire to extract from the entire Tobacco 
 a substitute for the fermented juice, the thoo, which has been already no- 
 ticed. At this day, the women in the province of Varinas, carry this 
 inspissated liquid in " a small box, which they wear like a watch, sus- 
 pended to one side at the end of a string. Instead of a key, it is furnish- 
 ed with a little spoon, with which they help themsel"es from time to 
 time, of this juice, relishing it in their mouths like a sweetmeat." f 
 Chewing Tobacco has always been confined chiefly to the lower classes, 
 and seafaring men, whose avocations do not always permit the means 
 of smoking, and who cannot afford to snufF. Habit enables many chew- 
 ers to swallow the saliva with impunity, although the strong infusion 
 introduced into the alimentary canal, is a virulent sedative poison. The 
 celebrated canon of Saint Victor, Santeuil the poet, fell the victim of a 
 practical joke with Tobacco. He was much distinguished for the liveli- 
 ness of his disposition and his wit. At one of those entertainments, 
 at which he was a constant guest, some young men, thinking it would 
 be a pleasant jest, made him drink a glass of wine, into which a tobac- 
 co-box, rilled with Spanish Tobacco, had been emptied. He was sud- 
 denly seized with the most violent vomitings, and, in a few hours after- 
 wards died in the greatest tortures. The saliva of a chewerof Tobacco, 
 when swallowed, affects the stomach nearly in the same manner as Opi- 
 um, taking off" the sensation of hunger, and enabling those who indulge 
 in it to sustain the want of provisions for a great length of time. An 
 anecdote, strikingly illustrative of this fact, was related to the author 
 of this notice by an old gentleman, who, in the early part of his life, was 
 employed in collecting furs, in North America : — Having, with his party, 
 by some accident, lost his path in the woods; the provisions were ex- 
 hausted, when he fortunately encountered three Indians, who were, also, 
 engaged in hunting. He solicited some provisions from them ; but was 
 informed they had none. He then begged for some Tobacco. Alas! there 
 was only one solitary quid in the company, and that was half masticat- 
 ed ; but, with the feeling of true benevolence, the Indian took it from 
 his mouth, divided it, and presented one half to the Englishman, who 
 accepted it ; and declared that it was the sweetest morsel he had ever en- 
 joyed. The Tobacco for chewing is Shag Tobacco, cut from Richmond 
 Tobacco, being first wetted, and afterwards dried in a hot pan. What 
 is termed Roll Tobacco is formed into a-cord, of a moderate thickness, 
 by depriving the leaf of its veins, moistening it, and after pressing it in 
 a powerful press, so as to extend the oil over the whole equally, twisting 
 it, or, as it is termed, spinning it. 
 
 Omagua, ■potcma; Tumanac, cavai ; Maypure, jcma ; and in the Cabre, unia ; the ancient 
 name in Virginia was wvptrwoc. The other synonymes are tabac in French ; tabak in German, 
 Dutch, and Polish ; tobah in Swedish and DaniBh ; tobaao, Spanish and Portuguese ; and tobacco 
 in the Italian. In the Oriental languages, it is >ambacu in Hindostanee; tamracutia, in Sam- 
 crit ; pogficiclly in Tamool ; tambracco in the Malay tongue; tambratco in Javanese; doarSooJt 
 iu Cingalese : and bujjer hcrny in Arabic. 
 * Warden's Statistical Account of the United States, vol. ii. p. 160. 
 Colombia, vol. ii. p. U7. 
 
APPENDIX. 275 
 
 2. Smomng Tobacco. — This mode of using Tobacco was known in Amer- 
 ica, at the period of its discovery by Columbus, and so highly prized that, 
 like the Olive, the Calumet was the symbol of peace and concord.* It has 
 been supposed that smoking was unknown in the Old World before the 
 discovery of America, but Mr. Brodigan f has advanced the following ev- 
 idence against this supposition :— " Herodotus, in lib. 1. s. 36, asserts that 
 the Massagetre, and all the Scythic nations, had among them certain 
 herbs which they threw into the fire, the ascending smoke of which, the 
 company seated round the fire collected, causing them to dance and 
 sing."| Strabo, in lib. vii. ]i)6, also says that " they had a religious order 
 amongst them, who frequently smoked for recreation, which, according 
 to Pomponius Mela,§ a geographical writer in the time of Claudius ; and 
 Solinus, c 15, they received through tubes." The ancient Scythse smok- 
 ed narcotic herbs through wooden and earthen tubes ; and Mr. Brodigan 
 states, that in the year 1784, some laborers digging at Brannockston, in 
 the county of Kildare, a spot where a battle was fought, in the tenth 
 century, between the Irish and Danes, discovered an ancient " tobacco- 
 pipe sticking between the teeth of a human skull." Manv similar pipes, 
 which were of course earthenware, lay scattered among the bones in the 
 stone coffins. But, although the word tobacco-pipe is employed by Mr 
 Brodigan, yet, there is no evidence to prove that the pipes found on this 
 occasion, which have also been dug up in England, and attributed to the 
 Danes, were used with Tobacco. These facts, however, are sufficient to 
 prove that smoking herbs with a pipe is a very ancient custom. The 
 Cigar or Ckeroot appears to have been first used in the East Indies, al- 
 though the best Cigars are now brought from the Havannah ; and, at 
 this time, are exactly worth their weight in silver in the London market. 
 There is every reason for believing that smoking Tobacco was intro- 
 duced into England on the return of Drake's fleet ; and, it is asserted, 
 that Sir Walter Ralegh was the pupil of Captain Lane, one of Drake's 
 officers, in the acquirement of this elegant accomplishment. He soon set 
 the fashion ; and, in communicating the art to his friends, gave smoking 
 parties at his house, where his guests where treated with nothing but a 
 pipe, a mug of ale, and a nutmeg. From the anecdote related in this 
 volume, respecting the weight of smoke, the vapor of the pipe certainly 
 did not throw a cloud over the brilliant wit of the unfortunate Ralegh 
 The soothing influence of a pipe has proved so agreeable to men of phi- 
 losophic and contemplative minds, that smoking mav almost be desig- 
 nated the pastime of the sage. Sir Isaac Newton, Hooker, and many 
 other scientific and literary men, might be named as proofs of the truth 
 of this assertion. But on those unaccustomed to it, smoking produces 
 very unpleasant effects, which have sometimes terminated fatally. The 
 first symptoms are elevation of spirits, with an accelerated and strength- 
 ened pulse ; but this excitement is transient, and is soon followed by ver- 
 tigo, sickness, fainting, and a weak tremulous pulse, indicating a pow- 
 erful degree of collapse. Sometimes these symptoms quickly subside, on 
 removing from the atmosphere of the smoking-room; at other times, 
 
 * The Calumet or pipe of peace, is a large Tobacco-pipe, with a bulb of polished marble, and 
 a stem two feet and a half long, made of a strong reed, adorned with feathers and locks of wo- 
 men's hair. When it is used in treaties and embassies, the Indians fill the calumet with the beit 
 Tobacco, and presenting it to those with whom they have concluded any great affair, smoke out 
 of it after them."— Harris's Voyages, fol. 1705, vol. ii. p. 908. 
 
 i Vide his Treatise on the Tobacco Plant, p. 19. 
 
 1 It is curious to trace the similarity of customs in different countries and eras of the world. In 
 a Report on V irginia, written by Thomas Heriot, servant to Sir Waller Ralegh, we find the fol- 
 lowing account of Tobacco.—" This uppownc is of so precious estimation amongst them, that 
 they think their gods are marvellously delighted therewith: whereupon they make hallowed 
 hres, and cast some of the powder therein for sacrifice. Being in a storme upon the waters, to 
 pacify their gods they cast some up into the air and into the water; so a weare for fish being 
 newly set up, they cast some therein and into the air; and also after an escape of danger, they 
 caste some into the air likewise : but all done with strange gestures, stamping, sometime 'dancing', 
 clapping of hands, holding up of hands, and staring up into the heavens, uttering therewithal! 
 tnd chattering strange words and noises."— See Hahluyt's Voyages, fol. Lond. 1S10. vol. iii. D. 324. 
 
 9 L. c. p. 20. 
 
276 APPENDIX. 
 
 they have been known to continue for forty-eight hours.* I have an in- 
 stance of the kind, at this time, under my eye : and Gmelin has related 
 two fatal cases of excessive smoking, in one of which seventeen, and in 
 the other eighteen, pipes were smoked at a sitting.f It is, nevertheless, 
 well known, that some German professors are in the habit of smoking, 
 daily, from fifteen to eighteen pipes, with impunity. 
 
 As smoking is a species of distillation, the Nicotina, or sedative prin- 
 ciple of the Tobacco, being more volatile and less condensable than the 
 essential oil, chiefly comes over with the smoke, and acts upon the nerv- 
 ous energy of the habit through the medium of the lungs. When the 
 quantity is excessive it paralyzes the heart, rendering it insensible to the 
 stimulus of the blood, and the circulation ceases. The experiments of 
 Mr. Btodief have demonstrated that the essential oil is more poisonous 
 than the infusion of Tobacco, which contains, like the smoke, the Nico- 
 tina; but it kills by exciting convulsions and coma, without affecting the 
 heart. This oil accumulates in old tobacco-pipes. The poisonous effects 
 of it are thus mentioned by Mr. Barrow : — " A Hottentot applied some 
 of it from the short end of his wooden tobacco-pipe to the mouth of a 
 snake, while darting out his tongue. The effect was instantaneous as 
 an electric shock — with a convulsive motion that was momentary, the 
 snake half untwisted itself, and never stirred more; and the muscles 
 were so contracted, that the whole animal felt hard and rigid, as if dried 
 in the sun."§ 
 
 The Tobacco most prized for smoking is that reared in Cuba and on 
 the Rio Negro; that of Cumana is the most aromatic. The Havannah 
 cigars are esteemed in every part of the world where smoking is indulged. 
 The coarse, acrid Tobacco chiefly employed by the lower classes of people 
 in the country, is the produce of Virginia; and on the Continent, that 
 of Brazil and of Santa Cruz. Tobacco grown in the East Indies is not 
 much esteemed in Europe. The produce of the Levant is mild and weak, 
 with a sweet or honey-like flavor. 
 
 3. Snuffing Tobacco. — If smoking have been carried to excess, snuff- 
 taking has been still more abused ; although it is questionable, whether 
 any cases of death ever occurred from taking too much snuff. 
 
 A collection of snuffs from various parts of the world, and the history 
 of them, would form a singular specimen of ingenuity idly exercised, in 
 varying the form and quality of a powder, merely intended for the titil- 
 lation of one set of nerves. In this country, the snuffs, like the varieties 
 of Sheep and Geraniums, may all be traced to one stock : the Rapee, 
 which derives its name from having been originally produced, by rasping 
 what is called a carrot of Tobacco. To form this, the leaves of Tobacco 
 freed from their stems and veins, are fermented and pressed closely to- 
 gether into the shape of a spindle, and retained in that shape by cords 
 wound round them. Scotch snuff, which is, also, the basis of many 
 snuffs, is made from Tobacco, with the midrib and veins left in the leaves, 
 which are first fermented, then dried before a strong fire, and afterwards 
 ground in mills, resembling a large mortar and pestle. 
 
 It would be useless to mention half the snuffs that are in fashion. The 
 Rapee and the Scotch snuff are the bases of the greatest number of them, 
 the variety of flavor being communicated by the admixture of different 
 proportions of the three following : — Seville snuff, the best Spanish, made 
 from the Cuba Tobacco; Macaba, made from Tobacco grown on the banks of 
 the Maracai by in Venezuela, and called Tobaco de Sacerdotes ; andMasulipa- 
 tarn, made from a very broad-leaved Tobacco ; but, of what species it is, 
 the writer of these notices is ignorant || It has been asserted, that com- 
 mon salt, sal ammoniac, and even ground glass, and other objectionable 
 articles, are added to the Tobacco in the manufacture of snuff: but these 
 admixtures are unknown in this country, if they be employed elsewhere , 
 
 * Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. xii. p. 11. 
 Phil. Trans. 1811. J Phil. Trans, vol. ci. § Travels in Africa, p. 268. 
 
 The Tobacco cultivated in the East Indies is, in general, not much prized in Europe. 
 
APPENDU 277 
 
 and the whole art of making snuff depends on the mode of drying the 
 leaves, the degree of fermentation that they have undergone, and the 
 proper admixture of the different varieties.* 
 
 Long before the introduction of Tohacco, sneezing-powders or ster- 
 nutatories were in vogue. These had been medicinally employed from the 
 time of Hippocrates; and the use of them had degenerated into a habit 
 with the Irish and some other nations. If the description of a fop by 
 Shakspeare, in his play of Henry the Fourth, refer to Cephalic powder, 
 the custom, probably, also prevailed in England : — 
 
 " He was perfumed like a milliner, 
 " And 'twixt his finger and his Ihumb he held 
 "A pouncet-box, which ever and anon 
 " He gave his nose.''t 
 
 Be this as it may, Boon after the introduction of Tobacco into England 
 it was very generally employed in the form of snuff by both sexes } ; and 
 was allowed even in the royal presence. The gallants of those days, .in- 
 deed, seem to have been as extravagant in their snuffboxes, as particu- 
 lar in the nature of their contents, and as affected in the use of them 
 as the silliest of our modern fops. "Before the meat came smoking to 
 the board," says Dekker, "our gallant must draw out his tobacco-box 
 and the ladle for the cold snuff into the nostril, all which artillery may 
 be of gold or silver, if he can reach to the rice of it; then let him show 
 his several tricks in taking it, as the whiff, the ring, &c. for these are 
 complements that gain gentlemen no mean respect. "§ The custom of rais- 
 ing the snuff with a spoon to the nostrils was not confined, however, to 
 the fop and the courtier; for, as appendages attached to the mull of iht 
 Scotch highlander, we find not only a spoon, but also a hare's foot, to 
 brush the snuff from the upper lip, indicating the excess to which this 
 indulgence was carried. The quantity of snuff' taken by many octoge- 
 narians of the present day is almost incredible, and only exceeded by the 
 excesses of some of their early contemporaries who have gone before 
 them. The late Arthur Murphy carried his snuff in his waistcoat pocket, 
 and used it wholesale ; and I have known many literary men, who emp- 
 tied three or four large boxes in a day. As in the abuse of opium and 
 wine, the indulgence in snuff increases the desire for it, until the habit 
 becomes too deeply fixed to be. eradicated ; indeed, the power which the 
 animal system possesses of accommodating itself to the excitation of ar- 
 tificial stimulants, is well illustrated by the effects of snuff on the sensi- 
 tive nerves of the olfactory organ. In the uninitiated a small pinch pro- 
 duces a stimulant effect, which is communicated by nervous sympathy 
 to the whole of the respiratory system of muscles, which are thrown into 
 convulsive action or sneezing, whereas no quantity is capable of caus- 
 ing this effect on the veteran snuffer, so much does the constant repeti- 
 tion of impression diminish the sensibility and irritability of the Schnei- 
 derean membrane. It would be curious to determine whether, in this ef 
 feet of snuff, the same principle that impresses the odorous sensation on 
 the nerves of smelling, affords the stimulus to those of sensation which 
 cause the sneezing, and the increased action of the pituitary glands to 
 augment the quantity of the lubricating mucus of the organ. 
 
 Snuffing, as it is the most frequent and inoffensive to others, is, also, 
 the least injurious manner of using Tobacco as a luxury ; although, in 
 those unaccustomed to it, like smoking, it not only causes sneezing, but 
 nausea and vertigo. In great snuffers, the stomach frequently suffers 
 and dyspeptic symptoms supervene, accompanied with pains and tormina, 
 or a twisting sensation of the bowels. This may arise, in «art, from the 
 snuff passing into the pharynx and being swallowed ; although it is also 
 
 * In a letter from a large manufacturer of Tobacco to the aulhor, is this sentence: " The best 
 method of manufacturing Tobacco or Snuff, is to use good Tobacco, and to clean it of all its inr 
 purities as much as possible." 
 
 t Henry IV., Act i. sc. 4. } StoweV Annals. 
 
 § Gull's Horn Book, pp. 119, 120. 
 
 Y 
 
978 APPENDIX. 
 
 possible that it may depend on sympathy. Snuffing is frequently injur! 
 ous to weak and nervous people ; and some physicians, among whom 
 was the celebrated .Lorry, have ascribed to its use the frequent occur- 
 rence of nervous diseases. It is, however, unfortunate for this opinion, 
 that in the royal snuffmanufactories of France, comprising a population 
 of above 400J persons, the workmen are not subject to any special dis- 
 eases and they live on an average as long as other people ;* in addition 
 to the fact, that the most inordinate use of it lias not often produced 
 nervous affections. 
 
 Snuff, we have said, has been recommended as an errhine or promoter 
 of the discharge of the nostrils in a tendency to apoplexy : but although 
 the quantity of the fluid discharged may cause the depletion of the ves- 
 sels of the head, yet, on account of its narcotic quality, snuff ought to 
 be employed with caution ; and as we occasionally see great snuff-taker 
 seized with apoplexy and palsy on suddenly leaving off its use, there 
 sufficient reason for regarding it as a less proper errhine than many othe 
 substances. 
 
 The hints that have been given of some of the medicinal properties 
 of Tobacco leave little. to be said on this head. Its medicinal qualities 
 were early known ; it was named Herba panacea, and admitted into the 
 Materia Medica of France in 15B2: and, probably, the abuse of it as a 
 medicine gave rise to many of the objections to its introduction into 
 general use, which were afterwards nurtured by prejudice and falsehood. 
 We observe the credulity of its evil effects carried to an absurd length 
 in the Counterblaste to which we have already referred: — " It makes," 
 says the royal author, " a kitchen, also, oftentimes in the inward parts 
 of men, soyling and infecting them with an unctuous and oily kind of 
 soote, as hath been found in some great tobacco takers, that after their 
 death were opened. "f And not less strong is the prejudice displayed in 
 the following opinion of a man of superior intellect, the celebrated au- 
 thor of the Anatomy of Melancholy. — " A good vomit I confesse ; a ver 
 tuous herbe, if it be well qualified, opportunely taken, and medicinally 
 used ; but as it is commonly used by most men, which take it as linkers 
 do ale, 'tis a plague, a mischiefe, a violent purger of goods, lands, health; 
 hellish, develish, damned tobacco; the ruin and overthrow of body and 
 soule."J The medicinal properties of Tobacco are, nevertheless, consid- 
 erable; it induces narcotic, sedative, emetic, cathartic, diuretic, and 
 errhine effects, according to the manner of administering it and the ex- 
 tent of the dose. Its active principles are, undoubtedly, the Nicotiiia, and 
 ihe essential Oil which it contains ; before, therefore, noticing its medicinal 
 and poisonous qualities, let us understand the nature of these principles 
 separated from the plant. 
 
 JVicotina, when pure, is a colorless substance, having an acrid taste, 
 and the odor that distinguishes Tobacco : it resembles, in some respects, 
 the volatile oils, is volatile, and soluble in water and alcohol, forming 
 solutions which have the taste and odor of Nicotina. When tincture of 
 Galls is adrled to these solutions, the Nicotina is precipitated. Applied 
 to the nostrils it causes the most violent sneezing, and is also extremely 
 poisonous when swallowed. It is procured from Tobacco by a very 
 oprrose process. J 
 
 The Essential Oil of Tobacco is of a green color, hot and pungent to 
 the taste, and a virulent poison. It is procured by the distillation of 
 the leaves. 
 
 To determine the mode in which Tobacco affects the living frame, Dr. 
 Wilson Philip made a number of experiments, with a strong aqueous in- 
 fusion of it, on frogs. He found that when it was introduced into the 
 heart, this organ immediately became paralytic, and that the same state 
 
 * Annates d'Hygiene Publique et de Med. Leg. i. 169. 1829. 
 
 t The Wnrkes of King James, folio, p. 221. 
 
 } Burton's Anatomv of Melancholy, p. 235. vol. i. 
 
 $ Vide Annales de Chimie, 1. 71. p. 139. 
 
APPENDIX. 279 
 
 wcuis when it is applied directly to the brain, or when thrown into the 
 stomach and intestines. He thence concluded, that in every instance it 
 acts only through the medium of the brain, to which it is conveyed by 
 the blood * Some subsequent experiments of Professor Macartney of 
 Dublin, have, however, demonstrated, that it is on the extremities of the 
 nerves that Tobacco acts with most energyf ; and the still more convinc- 
 ing investigations of Mr. Brodie.J afford every reason for thinking that 
 Tobacco operates in two distinct ways, according to the form in which 
 it is used. When a strong infusion was introduced into the intestines 
 of a dog, it killed the animal in ten minutes, by paralyzing the heart, 
 which was evident from arterial blood being found in the aortal cavities 
 after death ; but when the essential oil was employed, convulsions and 
 coma were excited, and death followed without the heart being affected. 
 The same »y;nptoms presented themselves when the oil was applied to 
 the tongue of a young cat ; and the powerful influence of it is well illus- 
 trated by the account of its effects on a snake, which we have quoted 
 from Barrow's Travels. Now, as the only active principles contained in 
 Tobacco are Nicotina and the Essential Oil, we are disposed to regard the 
 former as a direct sedative, which acts chiefly on the sentient extremities 
 of the motor nerves, and the latter as a powerful stimulant, operating 
 through the influence of the brain and spinal marrow. Is it the Essen- 
 tial Oil that causes the primary or stimulant effects of Tobacco, and the 
 Nicotina that induces the depression and collapse that follow? Experi- 
 ments are still required to determine this point. 
 
 . Notwithstanding these violent effects of Tobacco, it is a useful medi- 
 cine, under judicious management. Its fumes, when smoked, are narco- 
 tic, relieving the difficulty of breathing in spasmodic asthma, and allay- 
 ing the pain of toothache ; and Humboldt states, that it is employed in 
 South America, by the higher classes, to facilitate the sieste after dinner. 
 The very sickness and debility which it causes are taken advantage of, 
 to relieve incarcerated hernia, ileus, and obstinate constrictions, by in- 
 troducing either the smoke or the infusion into the intestines when other 
 remedies fail. The infusion has been employed as an emetic, but the 
 practice is very dangerous; and even its employment in small doses as 
 a diuretic, in dropsical affections,. advised by Dr. Fowler, cannot be much 
 commended. In one spasmodic affection, however, connected with the 
 secretion of the kidney, its influence is taken advantage of, when the 
 patient is not of a delicate habit of body. It is not unfrequently em- 
 ployed by the unprofessional, as an external application in cutaneous 
 eruptions, and especially in ringworm of the head (Porrigo Scutulata), 
 but we have witnessed the most violent sickness, giddiness, and alarm- 
 ing fainting, follow the use of a Tobacco lotion ; and there is much dan 
 ger if the skin be abraded. In the Oroonoko the natives apply chewed 
 tobacco to the bite of poisonous snakes§ 
 
 For the purposes of internal administration, the London College of 
 Physicians order a drachm of Tobacco to be "macerated for an hour, in a 
 pint of water; but, even in this degree of strength, the infusion some- 
 times produces violent effects. Instances are recorded of two drachms, 
 instead of one drachm, of the leaves being employed, and proving fatal. || 
 The Edinburgh College orders a wine of Tobacco, which may be given 
 in doses of from ten to thirty drops ; and a syrup of it is employed on 
 the Continent. Like every other powerful medicine, Tobacco maybe 
 rendered available of much good, when prescribed with judgment and 
 discrimination ; but it becomes a most frightful weapon in the hands of 
 the ignorant and indiscreet. 
 
 From the effects of the tincture of galls in producing an insoluble and 
 consequently inert compound with Nicotina, galls, either in infusion ol 
 
 * Treatise on Febrile Diseases, Winchester, 1804, vol. 4th. Appendix, pp. 708—716. 
 
 t Orfila, Traite des Poisons, vol. ii. partie 1. p. 251. 
 
 t Phil. Trans, loc. cit. § Humboldt's Personal Narrative. 
 
 Ij Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. iii. p. 129. 
 
:280 appendix. 
 
 tincture, should be administered in instances of poisoning by overdoses 
 of Tobacco, under any form in which it is taken into the stomach ; 
 whilst, at the same time, ammonia, brandy, and other stimulants, are 
 requisite to rouse the depressed energies of the nervous system. When 
 the danger is pressing, the respiration should be supported by artificial 
 means, and kept up until the narcotic influence of the poison is exhaust- 
 ed. 
 
 Such is the nature of this potent herb ; and such have been the origin 
 and dissemination of Tobacco : an object of secondary importance as 
 regards the life of Ralegh ; but yet so familiar, and productive of such 
 important results, as to awaken general curiosity regarding it. The arms 
 of the Romans spread the arts of civilized life among the untutored na- 
 tions over whom they triumphed : the enterprise of one of their conquer- 
 ed provinces, a thousand years after the overthrow of their empire, trans- 
 ported an insignificant herb, from the western hemisphere, whose influ- 
 ence has extended over nations the existence of which was unknown to 
 the masters of the world. Among the Indian tribes, the calumet is the 
 symbol of the peace and concord of nations ; in Christendom, the powder 
 of the herb that confers its charm, is that of amicable intercourse and 
 social amity between man and man : its smoke, rising in clouds from the 
 idolatrous altar of the native Mexican, opened the world of spirits to his 
 delirious imagination : to the inhabitants of the opposite hemisphere, 
 whilst it has furnished the means of encouraging folly, pampering luxu- 
 ry, and waging war, it has, at the same time, contributed to lessen the 
 sum of human misery, by allaying pain ; and even assisted in extending 
 the boundaries of intellect, by aiding the contemplations of the Christian 
 philosopher. 
 
 Note (C). 
 
 Letter from Sir Robert Cecil from the Tower at Dartmouth, 2ist September, 
 1592* 
 Good Mr. Vice Chamberlaine, 
 As soon as I came on boarde the Carick on Wednesday at one of clock, 
 with the rest of Her Majesty's commissioners, within one halfe houre Sir 
 Walter Ralegh arrived with hys keper Mr. Blunt ; I assure you, Sir, hys 
 poore servants, to the number of 140 goodly men, and all the mariners, 
 came to him with such shouts and joy as I never saw a man more 
 troubled to quiet them in my life. But his hart is broken, for he is very 
 extreamly pensive longer than he is busied, in wh he can toil terribly. 
 But if you dyd heare him rage at the spoiles, finding ail the short wares 
 utterly devoured, you would laugh, as I do w n I can not choose. The 
 meeting betweene him and Sir John Gilbert, was with teares on Sr John's 
 part ; and he, belike finding it is knowen he hath a keper, whensoever 
 he is saluted with congratulations for liberty, he doth answer no, I am 
 stylle ye Queen of England's poore captive. I wished him to conceale it, 
 because here it diminisheth his credite, wh I do vowe to you before God 
 is greater amongst the mariners than I thoght for: I do grace him as 
 much as I may, for I find him marvellously greedy to do any thing to re- 
 cover ye conceit of his brutish offence. I have examined Sir John Gil- 
 bert by oths, and all his, who I find cleare I protest to you in most men's 
 opinions. His heart was so great tyll his brother was at lyberty, as he 
 never came but once to the towre, and never was aboord her ; but now 
 he is sworne, he doth sett all whotly abroad to hunt out others, and in- 
 forms us dayly by his spies wherein he would not be so bold if he cold 
 
 * The Letters contained in the Appendix are copied from the State Paper Office, and now for 
 the first time printed. 
 
APPENDIX. SJ81 
 
 have a^-gs^w&^s zw^MKJi 
 
 amlL Your loveing poore frend, 
 
 " Ro. Cecyll. 
 
 Good Mr. Vice Chamberlaine, be good to my sorrowfull poore Bess y' 
 ro i shall bring, by informations, of great booties of Sir John Borough 
 and others. 
 
 Note (D). 
 
 Letter from Ralegh to Cobhavi. 
 
 T have sent your Lordship such news as cam to me from above and 
 
 by the post at midnight, and loaned it ma * ^ be here , . 
 
 and her partridge siaie. ±1 > uu J" d jf ou g0 t0 Lyme or 
 
 Mb o, no, .1... w. m., «jd U...M. >nd vvMy M comand 
 
 w. tc. 
 
 Bess remembers herself to your L.ship, and says your breach of promise 
 Bh TtThinsTthe re So a uth r Se n a"tLt are of Holland is passed by, and none 
 
282 APPENDIX. 
 
 Note (E). 
 
 Letter from Ralegh &, Cobham, written during the last progress made i} 
 Queen Elizabeth. 
 To the right honorabell the very good lord ye Lorde Cobhame. 
 I, that know your Lordship's resolution when wee parted, cannot 
 take on me to persuade you ; I wyll only say thys much, it is butt a day 
 and half jurney hither, the Queen will take it exceedyngly kyndly, and 
 take herself more beholding unto you than you think. The french tarry 
 but 2 or 3 dajs at most. 1 will presently returne to the bathe with your 
 L.shipe agayne ; the frenche were all blacke, and no hraverye at all, so 
 I have only made me a blacke taffeta sute, and leve all my other sutes ; 
 this is all I can say, saving I only wysh you a littell to beare and make 
 the Queene so much the more in your debt ; it will be friday er they 
 have adience ; it would be long to tell you of the Queen's discourse with 
 me of your Lordship, and finding it, I durst not say that I knew you 
 were resolved not to come, but left it to the estate of your boddy. I 
 need not doubt but that your L. will believe that I wish you to hold 
 such a course as may best fitt your honor and your humor together; if 
 you come she will take it most kyndly, if you come not it shall he 
 handled as you will have it, and herein and all else I will remayne yours 
 before all the world. 
 
 W. Ralegh. 
 
 Bassyng, this Saturday nigght : late. 
 
 I am even now going all night to London, to provide a plaine taffeta 
 sute, and a plaine blacke saddle, and will be here agayne Tuesday night ; 
 and if your Frenche jirney hold, it will much glad you for them to know 
 that you are here, for I am resolved that the Queen will most esteem you 
 here and use you. 
 
 Note (F). 
 
 Letter from Lord Grey to King James. 
 
 No date : probably 1603. 
 
 By every one that cometh from your Majesty, I gather thus much of 
 your deep displeasure, that I protest {I am) neer desperade of favor ; life 
 and liberty grow odious, and hope only remaineth by my blood to cleer 
 the obstruction my sighs could not breath out, and by death to rid my- 
 self of torment. Once only give me leave in theas bitter agonies to ex- 
 postulate with you, eaven my king : thinketh your majiy, that beecaus 
 I never yeeld, for my soul is deer to intend your royall hurt, that there- 
 fore I justify myself, extenuate your mercy, or riy not in contrition as 
 much as flesh and blood can suffer? Quid ergo? Ivdislincta hoec defensio 
 et '. promiscua elabriturl Immo Justis terminus dividalur : punishe my of- 
 fences, which I now feel, and confess of such nature, as to-morrow cut 
 of my head, I will say you are but just. But of necessity, becaus of my 
 .infinite folly, must I intend treason against your sacred person? What, 
 I beseech your Maty should bee my ends? Not religion, for they were 
 papists : not ambition, for thear was not one, one whome I might trust, 
 but rather that I knew would seeke my mine: Besides their own con- 
 fessions are that I renounced the action : Judg" then as you pleas : tibi 
 enimf unum rerum judicium dii dedere, nobis obsequii gloria rclicta est. 
 this only must I feal with my death however mine eye was in discern- 
 ing, mine heart was never false in assenting to your perils : An offence 
 
APPENDIX. 283 
 
 yet soe great, as I shun not to dy, only for the antiquity of sne noable a 
 race, for soe much unstained blood as have spilt in the heads of your aun- 
 cestor's armies, for 400 yeers loyalty, during which time the nous of 
 Wilton hath florished untoucht: for mine own zeal to your princely self, 
 which this deliverer knows, would have poured forth my life blood in de- 
 fence of your right to this royale seat, let not one wretched offence of 
 youth, though I dy, stain my heart, my hous, with treasonous intent. 
 Your mercy allready is admirable to the world; to your self (eaven in 
 offences neer this nature) and not repented; not unprospered with fu- 
 ture and most faithful loyalty, many have tasted it, all, with joy, ad- 
 mire it. Must I bee the only example of justice? If serviceable, if pleas- 
 ing to you, in whose displeasure I desire not to live, it is welcum; I 
 neither shun, nor protract it, but while I live will love, and honor you, 
 and, when I dy, will bless you with the faithfullest prayers, and most 
 contrite penitency of your Majestie's most devote, loving, and loyale 
 subject and servant, 
 
 Grey. 
 
 Note (G). 
 
 Postscript to a Letter from Ralegh to Cobham. 
 
 My Lord Viscount Cecyl so exalted Meer's suit agaynst mee in my 
 absence as not allowing Mr Serjint Henlie, nor any else could be heard for 
 mee, to stay trialls whilst I was out of the land in her Majestie's service — 
 a right in the curtesey afforded to every beggar. I never bussied myself 
 with the Viscount, neither of his extortions, or poysoning hys wife. As 
 it is here averred, I have forborne him in respect to my Lord Thomas; 
 and chiefly because of Mr. Secretary, who in his love to my Lord Thomas 
 nath wished me to it, but I will not endure wrong at so peevish a fool's 
 hand any longer, I will rather lose my life, and I think that my Lord 
 Puritan Perian doth think that the Queen shall have greater use of 
 rogges and villaines than of me, or else he would at Bindon's instance 
 have yielded to my actions, being out of the land. 
 
 Note (H). 
 
 Letter from the Lieutenant of the Tower to Cecyll. Signed John Peyton. 
 
 July 30. 1603. 
 
 Eight honorable my very good lord, Sr Walter Rawley his hurte wyll 
 oe whn* these two days pfectly hoole ; he doth styll contyneue pplexed 
 at you leffte him, he is desirous to have M heriot com to hym, wherin I 
 cannot conceave any inconveniencie if it shall so stand with the LLdf 
 their honorable pleasures. My Lord Cobham his spirites ar exceeding 
 muche declyned, hisgrowne passionate in lamentatyon and sorrowe, his 
 only hope is in his Majtie's mercye, and yr mediation. lam exceeding 
 gladde to heare that my good friend Sr George harvye shall succeed me 
 in this place whom I will assiste in all thingos that shall be whin my 
 power. Yr Lordships honorable favors I wyll ever acknowledge and 
 shal seeke to merit them wttie my best servynge, moste humbly taking 
 my leave. Towere, this 30 July 1603. 
 
 You L.sh'ps ever tound, 
 
 John Peyton. 
 
 Postscript. 
 
 * Within. t Lordi. 
 
284 APPENDIX. 
 
 Note (I). 
 
 Sir W. Wade to Cecil. " Endorsed to me" in Cecil's handwriting. 
 
 Aug. 27. 1603. 
 
 To the r. h. my especiall good L. &c. 
 
 It may please your good Lordship, Keymis, servant to Sr Walter Ra- 
 leygh, sent this declaration ready written of his own hand, to yr Lieu 
 tenant, my self being then w'b him at the Tower, after my Lord HenrJ 
 Howard was gon from thence, whereby your Lordship may perceave how 
 after so obstinate a resolution of sylenee he beginnethe at the lengthe to 
 speake, and I doubt not, havinge now opened the hatche of his closet, he 
 will be lesse reserved, and more willing to utter that is behind. 
 
 Note (K). 
 
 From Sir TV. Waad to Lord Cecyll. 
 
 Aug. 3. 1603. 
 yt it may please yor good L. I send yor L. ye declaracions of Sr Walter 
 Rawley and the L. Gray : By the L. Grays it doth plainly appeare he had 
 a plot, a parti, and confiderats ; for in the begenning he confisseth as 
 much, and after saith he used these speeches to Mr. Brooke, desiring that 
 hee to his would not discloss mee, neither would I once name him to 
 myne. Mr. Brooke is taking the like course, wherrin I wished him to be 
 before and not behind the rest, as well in ample declaracion as in time, 
 which I thinck he will performe. This may give further occasion of new 
 questions to be demanded of them, and so greatt knowledg and certainty 
 had of this plotte. My L. Gray is now confissed. Sr Walter Rawley was 
 ordinarily thriss a week with the L. Cobham, what their conferences 
 were none but themselves doe knowe. But Mr. Brooke confidently thinck- 
 eth what his brother knows was known to ye other. Mi L. Gray desireth 
 Mr. Lieutenant and me to send this Letter to yo. L. (He then proceeds 
 to say, that Pennicock's declaration toucheth chiefly Lord Cobham. The 
 rest of this letter refers to some suit on the part of Sir W. Waad to the 
 King for the fulfilment of some grant given by her late Majesty, but un- 
 perfected.) 
 
 Note (O). 
 
 Endorsed in Cecil's hand-writing, "My Letter to my Lord Grey." 
 
 Probably Aug. 1603. 
 Till my Lords (on whom I attend by his Majty order) have spoken w& 
 the King, I can say nor more then this, that I have neither power nor pur- 
 pose to proceede in this, but by their dyrection who have more judgment 
 and longer interest in matters of justice and honour than I have, with- 
 out whom, whylst I doe nothing, I assure myself you will neither doubt 
 nor myslisk the proceedings, for they doe both know what is iust, what 
 is honour, and wish ye innocency, howsoever envy or malice may have 
 distracted your conceipt of my disposition, 
 
 That am yoar Lord, friend. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 235 
 
 Note (P). 
 
 cLmbtSin!y lord Cisell, his Ma'tie's principal Seeretarte. 
 
 highest degre is ; moved oft Ou of : char ne tto- IB ^ /^J sth / reby 
 
 Lordships that I might ^pcaK wi in yu " »>* I u , dlsclos unl0 
 
 to send me in peace to y«. gidye , «" e b °"' ™ ™ ^ y , n , d God seml you 
 you which to no living crca lure but to yoursens l w. rotection 
 
 y Yor Lordships poore afflicted ftend. ^^ ^^ 
 Oct. 1603. 
 
 ZeMer /rom George Broofce to Cecyle. 
 
 Nov. 18. 1603. 
 
 <* n p that loved me and whose memovie you yeat love beholding from 
 
 11 »?m I am to expect after so many promises receaved, and so much 
 
 in law to command 
 
 G. Brooke. 
 
 Note (Q). 
 
 r .».!- t ottor in n lfiO is an extract, the rest referring to 
 that has been published. See p. 160. 
 
 Note (R). 
 
 Letter of Sir W. Ralegh to King James I. 
 
 1603, or 4. 
 
 This seaVe appertained not to me to dispose, but to your Majy only, ano 
 
286 APPENDIX 
 
 therefore I have entreated my L. Cecyll to present the same, for myself 
 I have interest in nothing but your Mai's mercy onely. God knowea 
 what faith I do, and have ever born your Majy, move your imperial! 
 heart to perfect your graces begun. If I be here restrained untill the 
 powers botli of my body and mind shall bee so infeebled, as I cannot hope 
 to do your Majy some acceptable and extraordinary service, whereby I 
 may truly approve my Faith and intentions to my Sovereign, Lord God 
 doth know that then it had bin happiest for me to have died long since. 
 For the everliving God doth bear ine record, that it is to no other chief end, 
 that I desire to live a day. I most humbly beseech your Majy, even for 
 the love of our lord Jesus, to think that I can never forget the Mercies 
 of the King, who hath vouchsafed to lift me out of the grave, being then 
 friendless, lost, and forsaken of all men. Pardon mee, most renowned 
 King. But to say this much, that if it please your Majy to have com- 
 passion of me, while I have yet limbs and eyes, that your Majy shall 
 never have cause to accuse, or repent your Majies mercy towards me, 
 beseeching the Lord of all Power and Justice to strike me with the great- 
 est misery of Body and Soul, when I shall not remain a most faithfull, 
 and humble, and gratefull Vassall. 
 
 Note (S). 
 
 To the Queen's most excellent Maiestie. 
 
 I did lately presume to send unto your Maiestie the coppie of a letter 
 written to my Lord Treasorer touching Guiana, that there is nothing 
 done therein I could not but wounder with the world, did not the mallice 
 of the world exceede the wisedome thereof. In mine owne respect, the 
 everliving God doth witness that I never sought such an employment, for 
 all the gold in the earth could not invite me to travell after miserie and 
 death, both which I had bine likeler to have overtaken in that voyage 
 than to have returned from it ; but the desire that led me, was the ap- 
 proving of my fayth to his Maiestie, and to have done him such a service 
 as hath seldome bine pformed for any king. But, most excellent Princes, 
 although his Maiestie do not so much love himself for the present ;is to 
 accept of that riches whirl God have offred him, therby to take all pre- 
 sumption from his enemies, arising from the want of treasor, by which 
 (after God) all States are defended : yet it may be that his Maiestie will 
 consider more deiply tiierof hereafter, if not too late, and that the disso- 
 lution of .'lis hurubio vassall do not preceede his Majesties resolution 
 therein ; for my evtrceme shortnes of breath doth grow so fast on me, 
 with the dispayre of obtayning so much grace to walke with my keepei 
 up the hill withine the tower, as it makes me resolve that God hath 
 otherwise disposed of that busenes and of me, who after eight yeers im- 
 prisonment am as strayghtly lokt up as I was the first day, and the pun- 
 ishment dew to other mens extreame negligence layd altogether upon my 
 patience and obedience. In which respect, most worthy Princes, it were 
 a sute farr more fitting the hardnes of my destinie (who every day suffer 
 and am subject every day to suffer for other mens offences) rather to de- 
 sire to dye once for all, and therby to give end to the miseries of this life, 
 than to strive against the ordinance of God, who is a trew judge of mj 
 innocence towards the king, and doth know me, 
 
 for your Maiestie's most 
 humble and most 
 
 bound vassall 
 
 W. Ralegh. 
 
287 
 
 Note (U). 
 
 Document signed. Addressed to Cecil. Endorsed, in Cecil's hand-writing 
 " The Judgment of Sir W. Ralegh's case." 
 
 Sir Walter Ralegh's complayning is in this manner : All his lefte 
 syde is extreme cold, out of senss, or motion, or num. His fingers on the 
 same syde beginning to he contracted, and his tong taken in sum parte in 
 so mych that he spheketh vvekely and it is toie feared he may utterly 
 lose the use of it. peter turner, Doctor of phisick, in respect of these 
 circumstances, to speke lyke a physitian, it were good for hym if it myght 
 stand with your Honore's lykyng that he were removed from the cold 
 lodgyng where he now lyeth unto a warmer, that is to say, a li tie roome, 
 which he hath bilt in the garden adjoynyng to his stilhouse. (No date.) 
 
 Note (Y). 
 
 Since the preceding letters were transcribed, this document was dis- 
 covered. It is curious, as showing the interest which Queen Elizabeth 
 look in Ralegh. 
 
 From Q. Elizth. to her Vice Roy in Ireland 1582. By the Quecne. 
 
 Right trusty and well beloved we greet you well. Wher we be given 
 to understand that Captain Appesley is not longe since deceased and the 
 band of footmen which he had committed now to James Fenton : for 
 that as we are informed said Fenton hath otherwise an entertainment 
 by a certain ward under his charge, hut chiefly for that our pleasure is to 
 have our servant Walter Rawley trained some longer time in that our 
 realm for his better experience in martiall affairs, and for the special! care 
 we have to do him good in respect of hys kyndred that have served us 
 some of them (as you know) neer about our parson ; theise are to requier 
 you that the leading of the said bande may be committed to the said 
 Rawley, and for that he is for somme considerations by us excused to 
 staye heere, oure pleasure is that the said bande shall be in the meane 
 tyme till he repair into that our realm delivered to somme sooche as he 
 shall depute to be his lieutenant there. Given at our Manor of Greene 
 wiche— the April 1582—24 year of our Reign. 
 
 THE END.